Make it Work: 20th Century American Fiction and Fashion

by Jan Ellyn Goggans

Overview

Imagine a new critical theory that bases its literary value on fashion. In this theory exists a community that explores and interrogates conventionality, and in American literature of the 20th century, it includes fashion and home decoration, two paths to achieving white femininity, a prized component of many novels written by and for women. Drawing on cultural materialism and its connection to the cultural forms of objects, including apparel, Making it Work: 20^th Century American Fiction and Fashion provides readers a new understanding of the aims of American writers, and the desires of their readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032093024
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2021
Series:	Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Jan Ellyn Goggans is an Associate Professor of Literature & Language, Humanities & World Cultures at the University of California, Merced.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part One: Fashion in Fiction; Fiction as Fashion 1. Edith Wharton: Fashioning White Privilege as Commodification, Consumption, and Corruption. 2. Margaret Mitchell: Fashioning A-Historical and Anti-Canonical White Modernism. 3. Toni Morrison: Re fashioning white privilege Part Two: Scripting Style and Signifyng Scripts 4. "Fashioning Color: Skin-tone Discrimination and Anglo Normative Passing" 5. "Fashioning Class: Creating Canonical Costume" 6. "Fashioning the Home: Deploying Domesticity and The Saturated Home" 7. "Fashioning the Self: Sewing, Designing, and Dressed in Dreams" 8. "Re-fashioning Age" Conclusion