Automatic: Literary Modernism and the Politics of Reflex

In Automatic, Timothy Wientzen explores how behavioral science shaped twentieth-century politics and the modernist literary period. He argues that modernists were anxious about the role of reflexive behaviors in the new political structures of the twentieth century and that a politics of reflex came to shape the intellectual and cultural life of the modernist era. He documents how modernist writers mapped, harnessed, and intervened in a political sphere dominated by conditioned reflexes, and emphasizes the role of politics and science in the aesthetic projects of modernist writers.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2021
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

The twentieth century was a time of great change, with new personal and political freedoms emerging, including radical changes in voting rights and expressions of gender and sexuality. However, writers and cultural critics also expressed a sense that modern life had reduced citizens to automatons capable of interacting with the world in only the most reflexive ways. In his book "Automatic," Timothy Wientzen explores why modernists were so concerned about the role of reflexive behaviors and the susceptibility of bodies to physical stimuli in the new political structures of the twentieth century.

Wientzen engages with historical thinking about human behaviors that fundamentally changed the nature of political and literary practice. He demonstrates how a politics of reflex came to shape the intellectual and cultural life of the modernist era. By documenting some of the ways that modernist writers and their contemporaries mapped, harnessed, and intervened in a political sphere dominated by conditioned reflexes, Wientzen reads writers like D.H. Lawrence, Rebecca West, Wyndham Lewis, and Samuel Beckett in conversation with fields that include public relations, physiology, sociology, and vitalism.

Ultimately, Wientzen justifies a reckoning with some of the most enduring preoccupations of modernist studies. Automatic also emphasizes the role of politics and science in the aesthetic projects of modernist writers. At a time when political enfranchisement and the mass media promised new modes of freedom, agency, and choice, Wientzen argues that the modernist era was beset by apprehension about the conscription of liberty through the conditioning force of everyday life.

In conclusion, "Automatic" is a fascinating study of how behavioral science shaped twentieth-century politics and the modernist literary period. By exploring the concerns of modernists about the role of reflexive behaviors and the susceptibility of bodies to physical stimuli, Wientzen provides a new perspective on the intellectual and cultural life of the modernist era. His book demonstrates the ways in which a politics of reflex came to shape the intellectual and cultural life of the modernist era, and why it remains an important subject for study today.

Weight: 430g
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781421440880