Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

The Avant Garde And American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Was there a sudden break in the world of art, literature, and music when modernism gave way to postmodernism?

Philip Nel attacks the notion of tremendous and sudden change in artistic understanding and literary practice. Instead, in The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks he proposes that a series of small but far-reaching changes drew understanding from modernism to postmodernism.

What bonds these two periods together? The constant agent of change, Nel argues, was the avant-garde. Tracking its influence on novelists, popular culture figures, and children's authors, this book re-evaluates how twentieth-century culture has been traditionally divided into "modern" and "postmodern."

Suggesting that a modernism and postmodernism division prevents accurate evaluation of a work, Nel realigns our conceptions of twentieth-century literature, art, and music. Focusing on eight figures--Nathanael West, Djuna Barnes, Dr. Seuss, Donald Barthelme, Don DeLillo, Chris Van Allsburg, Laurie Anderson, and Leonard Cohen--as representative, The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity examines works along a spectrum of political involvement.

This first book to analyze postmodern children's literature revives the radical Dr. Seuss by reading him alongside avant-garde artists. Nel argues that Chris Van Allsburg speaks the internet generation's vernacular, using a surrealist idiom to pose questions that linger beyond his picture books' final pages.

The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity is a nuanced and wide-ranging re-reading of how postmodernism displays art's ability to imagine a better world.

Language: English

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

Release: October 14, 2002

ISBN: 1578064902

ISBN 13: 9781578064908

The Avant Garde And American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Was there a sudden break in the world of art, literature, and music when modernism gave way to postmodernism?

Philip Nel attacks the notion of tremendous and sudden change in artistic understanding and literary practice. Instead, in The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks he proposes that a series of small but far-reaching changes drew understanding from modernism to postmodernism.

What bonds these two periods together? The constant agent of change, Nel argues, was the avant-garde. Tracking its influence on novelists, popular culture figures, and children's authors, this book re-evaluates how twentieth-century culture has been traditionally divided into "modern" and "postmodern."

Suggesting that a modernism and postmodernism division prevents accurate evaluation of a work, Nel realigns our conceptions of twentieth-century literature, art, and music. Focusing on eight figures--Nathanael West, Djuna Barnes, Dr. Seuss, Donald Barthelme, Don DeLillo, Chris Van Allsburg, Laurie Anderson, and Leonard Cohen--as representative, The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity examines works along a spectrum of political involvement.

This first book to analyze postmodern children's literature revives the radical Dr. Seuss by reading him alongside avant-garde artists. Nel argues that Chris Van Allsburg speaks the internet generation's vernacular, using a surrealist idiom to pose questions that linger beyond his picture books' final pages.

The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity is a nuanced and wide-ranging re-reading of how postmodernism displays art's ability to imagine a better world.

Language: English

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

Release: October 14, 2002

ISBN: 1578064902

ISBN 13: 9781578064908

More books from Philip Nel

Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children's Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats

Barnaby, Vol. 1: 1942-1943

4.2/5 ( ratings)

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Dr. Seuss: American Icon

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Keywords for Children's Literature

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature

Magic Beach

Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature

The ANC and its leaders

Barnaby, Vol. 2: 1944-1945 (Barnaby, #2)

Rate this book!

Write a review?