The kinship between modernism and close reading has long between taken for granted. But for that reason, it has also gone unexamined. As the archives, timeframes, and cultural contexts of global modernist studies proliferate, the field's rapport with close reading no longer appears self-evident or guaranteed—even though for countless students studying literary modernism still invariably means studying close reading. This authoritative collection of essays illuminates close reading's conceptual, institutional, and pedagogical genealogies as a means of examining its enduring potential. David James brings together a cast of world-renowned scholars to offer an account of some of the things we might otherwise know, and need to know, about the history of modernist theories of reading, before then providing a sense of how the futures for critical reading look different in light of the multiple ways in which modernism has been close read. Modernism and Close Reading responds to a contemporary climate of unprecedented reconstitution for the field: it takes stock of close reading's methodological possibilities in the wake of modernist studies' geographical, literary-historical, and interdisciplinary expansions; and it shows how the political, ethical, and aesthetic consequences of attending to matters of form complicate ideological preconceptions about the practice of formalism itself. By reassessing the intellectual commitments and institutional conditions that have shaped modernism in criticism as well as in the classroom, we are able to ask new questions about close reading that resonate across literary and cultural studies. Invigorating that critical venture, this volume enriches our vocabulary for addressing close reading's perpetual development and diversification.

This book uses the discipline-specific, computational methods of the digital humanities to explore a constellation of rigorous case studies of modernist literature. From data mining and visualization to mapping and tool building and beyond, the digital humanities offer new ways for scholars to questions of literature and culture. With the publication of a variety of volumes that define and debate the digital humanities, we now have the opportunity to focus attention on specific periods and movements in literary history. Each of the case studies in this book emphasizes literary interpretation and engages with histories of textuality and new media, rather than dwelling on technical minutiae. Reading Modernism with Machines thereby intervenes critically in ongoing debates within modernist studies, while also exploring exciting new directions for the digital humanities—ultimately reflecting on the conjunctions and disjunctions between the technological cultures of the modernist era and our own digital present.

Electronic literature is still in its nascent stages, and so too is the field of literary criticism engaging it. While most critical studies of born-digital literature celebrate it as a postmodern art form with roots in contemporary technologies and social interactions, this book provides an alternative genealogy. Digital Modernism examines exemplary cases of electronic literature that renovate modernist texts and poetics as a means of critiquing contemporary culture. This study suggests that by referencing modernism, "digital modernism" reframes that earlier literary tradition around questions of media and technology. Grounding her argument in literary history, media studies, and the practice of close-reading, Jessica Pressman pairs modernist works by Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Bob Brown, with major digital works like William Poundstone's Project for the Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit}, Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries's Dakota, and Judd Morrissey's The Jew's Daughter. She demonstrates how the modernist movement of the 1920s and 1930s laid the groundwork for the innovations of electronic literature. Accordingly, Digital Modernism makes the case for considering these digital creations as "literature" and argues for the value of reading them carefully, closely, and within literary history. Moreover, this remarkable study details how and why one of the most maligned of literary spaces, the web -- one accused of fostering reading habits that destroy deep attention and devalue hermeneutic analysis -- is actually the place where serious literature stages its rebellion and renaissance. Even more importantly, perhaps, this book argues for the importance of literature, literary study, and close reading in our digital age.

Introducing readers to a new theory of 'responsible reading', this book presents a range of perspectives on the contemporary relationship between modernism and theory. Emerging from a collaborative process of comment and response, it promotes conversation among disparate views under a shared commitment to responsible reading practices. An international range of contributors question the interplay between modernism and theory today and provide new ways of understanding the relationship between the two, and the links to emerging concerns such as the Anthropocene, decolonization, the post-human, and eco-theory. Promoting responsible reading as a practice that reads generously and engages constructively, even where disagreement is inevitable, this book articulates a mode of ethical reading that is fundamental to ongoing debates about strength and weakness, paranoia and reparation, and critique and affect.

The novel is modernism's most vital and experimental genre. With a chronology and guide to further reading, this 2007 Companion is an accessible and informative overview of the genre.

Modernism is a key era in literary studies in which the reading and writing of literature was transformed. The Modernist movement smashed the boundaries of what was perceived as ' literary', with writers abandoning traditional conventions and drawing on a variety of very different influences from art to politics. Modernism is difficult to understand without an awareness of contemporary concerns, and Alan Friedman and Mia Carter offer a comprehensive guide to Modernism:An extensive introduction outlining the history and debates ...

Modernism was the artistic and intellectual revolution of the early twentieth century. Yet despite its now-secure location in history, the radical experimental practices of modernism continue to bewilder as much as they excite. Beginning Modernism offers a clear and reader-friendly introduction to this complex and invigorating subject. With an emphasis on the close reading of modernist artefacts, from literary texts to buildings, paintings to musical compositions, the book aims to demystify the notorious difficulties of 'high' modernism, showing them to be an incentive rather than an obstacle to understanding and exploration. At the same time, it highlights the emergence of a new modernist studies, emphasizing the eclectic, the popular, and the global or transnational. Readers are encouraged to situate their reading of modernist literature within a wider set of cultural contexts, which include: visual art; ideas of time and space; sculpture; photography; film; politics; technology; sexuality; primitivism; architecture; dance; drama, and music. Beginning Modernism will be of interest both to the general reader, and to undergraduates and postgraduates in the fields of literary studies, art history and cultural studies.