Lecia Rosenthal’s intricate argument traces the engagement with catastrophe in the work of three exemplary figures, Woolf, Benjamin, and Sebald. She also offers a compelling diagnosis of modernism’s stubborn insistence that catastrophe must offer some form of gain. Rosenthal’s brilliance lies in her refusal to console us. This is a demanding, provocative, and deeply rewarding book.
-—Martin Harries, ... Read moreNew York University Boldly written and well researched. Rosenthal brings together unexpected materials, drawing convincing lines of connection between seemingly disparate authors and texts. In style, argument, and method, Rosenthal produces knowledge unavailable within convential scholarship. Juxtaposing Benjamin and Sebald with Virginia Woolf produces explosive results.
-—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University “One cannot read Mourning Modernism without concluding that Rosenthal is on to something, specifically at those moments when she makes catastrophe the object not only of aversion, but of desire.... Mourning Modernism does a good job of demonstrating how a certain apocalyptic imaginary in twentieth-century thought dovetails with more familiarly modernist concerns. In this way, it presents a vision of twentieth-century culture at its absolute limits. The challenge to think beyond these limits is still with us.”
—Modern Cultures
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