Sean Latham – författare

The Art of Scandal advances a relatively simple claim with far-reaching consequences for modernist studies: writers and readers throughout the early twentieth century revived the long-despised codes and habits of the roman á clef as a key part of that larger assault on Victorian realism we now call modernism. In the process, this resurgent genre took on a life of its own, reconfiguring the intricate relationship between literature, celebrity, and the law. Sean Latham summons cases of the novel's social notoriety--and the numerous legal scandals the form provoked--to articulate the material networks of reception and circulation through which modernism took shape, revealing a little explored popular history within its development. Producers as well as consumers used elements of the controversial roman á clef, a genre that challenges the idea of fiction as autonomous from the social and political world. In turn, this widespread practice provoked not only a generative aesthetic crisis, but also a gradually unfolding legal quandary that led Britain's highest courts to worry that fiction itself might be illegal. Modernism sat squarely, for a time, between literature and the law.With skillful close readings aided by extensive archival research, Latham illuminates the world of backbiting, gossip, litigation, and sensationalism through chapters on Oscar Wilde's trial, Joyce's Ulysses, celebrity salons, and Parisian bohemia. Original, colorful, and perceptive, The Art of Scandal both salvages the reputation of the roman á clef form and traces its curious itinerary through the early twentieth century. Seeking out the best new interdisciplinary work, this series explores the cultural bearings of literary modernism across multiple fields, geographies, symbolic forms, and media.

Is there a "great divide" between highbrow and mass cultures? Are modernist novels for, by, and about snobs? What might Lord Peter Wimsey, Mrs. Dalloway, and Stephen Dedalus have to say to one another?Sean Latham's appealingly written book "Am I a Snob?" traces the evolution of the figure of the snob through the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Dorothy Sayers. Each of these writers played a distinctive role in the transformation of the literary snob from a vulgar social climber into a master of taste. In the process, some novelists and their works became emblems of sophistication, treated as if they were somehow apart from or above the fiction of the popular marketplace, while others found a popular audience. Latham argues that both coterie writers like Joyce and popular novelists like Sayers struggled desperately to combat their own pretensions. By portraying snobs in their novels, they attempted to critique and even transform the cultural and economic institutions that they felt isolated them from the broad readership they desired.Latham regards the snobbery that emerged from and still clings to modernism not as an unfortunate by-product of aesthetic innovation, but as an ongoing problem of cultural production. Drawing on the tools and insights of literary sociology and cultural studies, he traces the nineteenth-century origins of the "snob," then explores the ways in which modernist authors developed their own snobbery as a means of coming to critical consciousness regarding the connections among social, economic, and cultural capital. The result, Latham asserts, is a modernism directly engaged with the cultural marketplace yet deeply conflicted about the terms of its success.

Is there a "great divide" between highbrow and mass cultures? Are modernist novels for, by, and about snobs? What might Lord Peter Wimsey, Mrs. Dalloway, and Stephen Dedalus have to say to one another?Sean Latham's appealingly written book "Am I a Snob?" traces the evolution of the figure of the snob through the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Dorothy Sayers. Each of these writers played a distinctive role in the transformation of the literary snob from a vulgar social climber into a master of taste. In the process, some novelists and their works became emblems of sophistication, treated as if they were somehow apart from or above the fiction of the popular marketplace, while others found a popular audience. Latham argues that both coterie writers like Joyce and popular novelists like Sayers struggled desperately to combat their own pretensions. By portraying snobs in their novels, they attempted to critique and even transform the cultural and economic institutions that they felt isolated them from the broad readership they desired.Latham regards the snobbery that emerged from and still clings to modernism not as an unfortunate by-product of aesthetic innovation, but as an ongoing problem of cultural production. Drawing on the tools and insights of literary sociology and cultural studies, he traces the nineteenth-century origins of the "snob," then explores the ways in which modernist authors developed their own snobbery as a means of coming to critical consciousness regarding the connections among social, economic, and cultural capital. The result, Latham asserts, is a modernism directly engaged with the cultural marketplace yet deeply conflicted about the terms of its success.

Few books in the English language seem to demand a companion more insistently than James Joyce's Ulysses, a work that at once entices and terrifies readers with its interwoven promises of pleasure, scandal, difficulty and mastery. This volume offers fourteen concise and accessible essays by accomplished scholars that explore this masterpiece of world literature. Several essays examine specific aspects of Ulysses, ranging from its plot and characters to the questions it raises about the strangeness of the world and the density of human cultures. Others address how Joyce created this novel, why it became famous and how it continues to shape both popular and literary culture. Like any good companion, this volume invites the reader to engage in an ongoing conversation about the novel and its lasting ability to entice, rankle, absorb, and enthrall.

Few books in the English language seem to demand a companion more insistently than James Joyce's Ulysses, a work that at once entices and terrifies readers with its interwoven promises of pleasure, scandal, difficulty and mastery. This volume offers fourteen concise and accessible essays by accomplished scholars that explore this masterpiece of world literature. Several essays examine specific aspects of Ulysses, ranging from its plot and characters to the questions it raises about the strangeness of the world and the density of human cultures. Others address how Joyce created this novel, why it became famous and how it continues to shape both popular and literary culture. Like any good companion, this volume invites the reader to engage in an ongoing conversation about the novel and its lasting ability to entice, rankle, absorb, and enthrall.

Bob Dylan has helped transform music, literature, pop culture, and even politics. The World of Bob Dylan chronicles a lifetime of creative invention that has made a global impact. Leading rock and pop critics and music scholars address themes and topics central to Dylan's life and work: the Blues, his religious faith, Civil Rights, Gender, Race, and American and World literature. Incorporating a rich array of new archival material from never before accessed archives, The World of Bob Dylan offers a comprehensive, uniquely informed and wholly fresh account of the songwriter, artist, filmmaker, and Nobel Laureate whose unique voice has permanently reshaped our cultural landscape.

PROSE Award for Excellence in Literature Finalist 2020From the Harlem and Southern Renaissances to postcolonial writing in the Caribbean, Race and New Modernisms introduces and critically explores key issues and debates on race and ethnicity in the study of transnational modernism today. Topics covered include:· Key terms and concepts in scholarly discussions of race and ethnicity· European modernism and cultural appropriation· Modernism, colonialism, and empire· Southern and Harlem Renaissances· Social movements and popular cultures in the modernist periodCovering writers and artists such as Josephine Baker, W.E.B. Du Bois, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Marcus Garvey, Édouard Glissant, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Paul Robeson, the book considers the legacy of modernist discussions of race in twenty-first century movements such as Black Lives Matter.

PROSE Award for Excellence in Literature Finalist 2020From the Harlem and Southern Renaissances to postcolonial writing in the Caribbean, Race and New Modernisms introduces and critically explores key issues and debates on race and ethnicity in the study of transnational modernism today. Topics covered include:· Key terms and concepts in scholarly discussions of race and ethnicity· European modernism and cultural appropriation· Modernism, colonialism, and empire· Southern and Harlem Renaissances· Social movements and popular cultures in the modernist periodCovering writers and artists such as Josephine Baker, W.E.B. Du Bois, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Marcus Garvey, Édouard Glissant, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Paul Robeson, the book considers the legacy of modernist discussions of race in twenty-first century movements such as Black Lives Matter.

From cinema and radio broadcasting to the growth of new communication technologies, Modernism and Its Media is the first critical guide to key issues and debates on the changing media contexts of modernist writing. Topics covered include:· Key thinkers, including Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Marshall McLuhan· Modernist film – from Eisenstein to the French New Wave cinema· Modernism and mass culture· The history of modernist media and communication technologies· Modernism’s legacies for contemporary new media artWith case studies covering such topics as the film writings of Joyce, Woolf and Eliot, popular art and kitsch, the Frankfurt School and the rise of the gramophone, this is an essential guide for students and scholars researching the relationship between modernism and mass media.

Bringing together 17 foundational texts in contemporary modernist criticism in one accessible volume, this book explores the debates that have transformed the field of modernist studies at the turn of the millennium and into the 21st century.The New Modernist Studies Reader features chapters covering the major topics central to the study of modernism today, including:· Feminism, gender, and sexuality· Empire and race· Print and media cultures· Theories and history of modernism Each text includes an introductory summary of its historical and intellectual contexts, with guides to further reading to help students and teachers explore the ideas further. Includes essential texts by leading critics such as: Anne Anlin Cheng, Brent Hayes Edwards, Rita Felski, Susan Stanford Friedman, Mark Goble, Miriam Bratu Hansen, Andreas Huyssen, David James, Heather K. Love, Douglas Mao, Mark S. Morrisson, Michael North, Jessica Pressman, Lawrence Rainey, Paul K. Saint-Amour, Bonnie Kime Scott, Urmila Seshagiri, Robert Spoo, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz.

Bringing together 17 foundational texts in contemporary modernist criticism in one accessible volume, this book explores the debates that have transformed the field of modernist studies at the turn of the millennium and into the 21st century.The New Modernist Studies Reader features chapters covering the major topics central to the study of modernism today, including:· Feminism, gender, and sexuality· Empire and race· Print and media cultures· Theories and history of modernism Each text includes an introductory summary of its historical and intellectual contexts, with guides to further reading to help students and teachers explore the ideas further. Includes essential texts by leading critics such as: Anne Anlin Cheng, Brent Hayes Edwards, Rita Felski, Susan Stanford Friedman, Mark Goble, Miriam Bratu Hansen, Andreas Huyssen, David James, Heather K. Love, Douglas Mao, Mark S. Morrisson, Michael North, Jessica Pressman, Lawrence Rainey, Paul K. Saint-Amour, Bonnie Kime Scott, Urmila Seshagiri, Robert Spoo, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz.

What exactly is “modernism”? And how and why has its definition changed over time?Modernism: Evolution of an Idea is the first book to trace the development of the term “modernism” from cultural debates in the early twentieth century to the dynamic contemporary field of modernist studies. Rather than assuming and recounting the contributions of modernism’s chief literary and artistic figures, this book focuses on critical formulations and reception through topics such as:- The evolution of “modernism” from a pejorative term in intellectual arguments, through its condemnation by Pope Pius X in 1907, and on to its subsequent centrality to definitions of new art by T. S. Eliot, Laura Riding and Robert Graves, F. R. Leavis, Edmund Wilson, and Clement Greenberg- New Criticism and its legacies in the formation of the modernist canon in anthologies, classrooms, and literary histories - The shifting conceptions of modernism during the rise of gender and race studies, French theory, Marxist criticism, postmodernism, and more- The New Modernist Studies and its contemporary engagements with the politics, institutions, and many cultures of modernism internationallyWith a glossary of key terms and movements and a capacious critical bibliography, this is an essential survey for students and scholars working in modernist studies at all levels.

What exactly is 'modernism'? And how has the critical definition of the word changed?Exploring shifting understandings of modernism from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, this is a concise critical history of modernist criticism. Taking an accessible chronological approach, Modernism: Evolution of An Idea covers such topics as:•Early debates, from Calinescu's Five Faces of Modernity to The New Age magazine and writer-critics such as T.S. Eliot and Cyril Connolly•New Criticism and the forming of the modernist canon•The rise of Theory - from Derrida and Houston Baker to the Frankfurt School•New modernist studies and contemporary approaches: from international modernisms to engagements with race, sexuality and genderWith annotated guides to further reading throughout and a companion website with additional resources, this is an essential survey for students and scholars working in modernist studies at all levels.

Exploring the transnational dimension of literary modernism and its increasing centrality to our understanding of 20th-century literary culture, Modernism in a Global Context surveys the key issues and debates central to the 'global turn' in contemporary Modernist Studies. Topics covered include: - Transnational exchanges between Western and non-Western literary cultures - Imperialism and the Modernism- Cosmopolitanism and postcolonial literatures - Global literary institutions - from the Little Magazine to the Nobel Prize - Mass media - photography, cinema, and radio broadcasting in the modernist age Exploring the work of writers such as T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie and critics such as Edward Said, Pascale Casanova, Paul Gilroy, and Gayatri Spivak amongst many others, the book also includes a comprehensive annotated guide to further reading and online resources.

Exploring the transnational dimension of literary modernism and its increasing centrality to our understanding of 20th-century literary culture, Modernism in a Global Context surveys the key issues and debates central to the 'global turn' in contemporary Modernist Studies. Topics covered include: - Transnational exchanges between Western and non-Western literary cultures - Imperialism and the Modernism- Cosmopolitanism and postcolonial literatures - Global literary institutions - from the Little Magazine to the Nobel Prize - Mass media - photography, cinema, and radio broadcasting in the modernist age Exploring the work of writers such as T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie and critics such as Edward Said, Pascale Casanova, Paul Gilroy, and Gayatri Spivak amongst many others, the book also includes a comprehensive annotated guide to further reading and online resources.

The modernist period was an era of world war and violent revolution. Covering a wide range of authors from Joseph Conrad and Thomas Hardy at the beginning of the period to Elizabeth Bowen and Samuel Beckett at the end, this book situates modernism’s extraordinary literary achievements in their contexts of historical violence, while surveying the ways in which the relationships between modernism and conflict have been understood by readers and critics over the past fifty years. Ranging from the colonial conflicts of the late 19th century to the world wars and the civil wars in between, and concluding with the institutionalization of modernism in the Cold War, Modernism, War, and Violence provides a starting point for readers who are new to these topics and offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the field for a more advanced audience.

A 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleExploring critical legal issues and cases of the period—from Oscar Wilde’s prosecution for gross indecency to legal bans on such publications as D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, and James Joyce’s Ulysses—Modernism and the Law is the first book to survey the legal contexts of transatlantic Anglo-American modernist culture. Written by one of the leading authorities on the subject, the book covers such topics as:· Obscenity laws and censorship· Copyrights, moral rights, and the public domain· Patronage and literary piracy· Privacy, defamation, publicity, and blackmailIncluding an annotated list of relevant statutes, treaties, and cases, this is an essential read for scholars and students coming to the subject for the first time as well as for experienced scholars.