Exoteric Modernisms: Progressive Era Realism and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life

This book explores how American realism in the Progressive Era contributed to debates about modernity. It uses the anthropological theories of Franz Boas and Jacques Ranciere to develop a mode of reading class and culture that challenges conventional interpretations. It portrays the late-nineteenth century as an aesthetically exciting, original, and politically radical stage in American life, with implications for understanding American literature both in the past and into the future.

Format: Hardback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 30 September 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

This book offers a fresh perspective on realism as a political aesthetic by applying new understandings to Progressive Era Literature. It argues for the radicalism of realism both politically and culturally, highlighting its contribution to the development of literature and culture in the 20th century. The book explores new readings of canonical and non-canonical texts from the period 1880 to 1930, placing Edith Wharton, W.D. Howells, Stephen Crane, and Jose Mart alongside works by other working-class reformers, journalists, political radicals, and anthropologists working in the Progressive Era U.S.A.

The book develops a novel approach to realism that sees it as a form of modernism in the arts. It also develops a theory of the intersections of class and culture in U.S. literature, contributing to ongoing discussions in the method wars. By employing the anthropological theories of Franz Boas and Jacques Ranciere's work on aesthetics and politics, the book offers a mode of reading class and culture that challenges conventional interpretations that pit the two modes of representation in opposition.

The book paints a vivid picture of the late-nineteenth century as an aesthetically exciting, original, and politically radical stage in American life, aiming to reinvigorate realism as a radical aesthetic practice with implications for understanding American literature both in the past and into the future.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 222 x 142 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474456722