The book's worth lies in its ambition, even its overreach. This is no cultural-studies grab-bag: Ms. Ngai really is breaking new ground.
Benjamin Lytal New York Sun 20050217 One of the most intellectually dazzling and wide-ranging critical studies to appear in years. This is, in fact, far more than a book about emotions. Taken chapter by chapter, it is ... Read morea series of commanding readings of notoriously unfriendly texts...At its broadest, [it] entails a rejection of Jameson's influential notion of the 'waning' of negative affect in late modernity or postmodernity, replaced by a glossily untroubled surface. Instead, Ngai asserts, we should recognize the consistent pockmarking of that surface by ugly feelings...Where other readings tend to see the ugly feelings in books...as a problem to get past
an indication, say, of repression
Ngai, characteristically, treats them in productive terms, as generative of the text's overall tone ...To the extent there is a critical capacity to the ugly feelings she describes, then, it would seem to lie in their ability to make emotional quagmires from which we might rather turn away matter deeply to us. On an intellectual level, then, this is precisely the feat performed by Ngai's wonderful book.
Jennifer L. Fleissner Modernism/modernity Ugly Feelings is a thought provoking book in the aesthetics of negative feelings with insightful reflections upon the social and experiential impact of artistic creations.
Dina Mendonca Metapsychology 20051027 The book is rewarding for the originality of its perspective.
G. D. MacDonald Choice 20050701 Ugly Feelings [is] one of the most intellectually dazzling and wide-ranging critical studies to appear in years. This is, in fact, far more than a book about emotions...Taken as a whole, it is no less than: a broad new interpretation of cultural modernity/postmodernity; a concerted attempt to reinvigorate race/gender analysis by pushing beyond some of its most familiar impasses; and, most impressively
at a moment when the return to aesthetics has become a vague rallying cry in much contemporary criticism
a rigorous argument for, and consistent demonstration of, a distinct mode of reading that gives equal weight to formal and cultural/political concerns. What may be most remarkable, however, is the way these features come together, such that each close reading is presented inseparably from a sustained theoretical argument that both stands strongly alone and contributes to the larger project of the book.
Jennifer L. Fleissner Modernism / Modernity Wow! That is almost all that I have to say about Sianne Ngai's Ugly Feelings. This is an amazing book, stunning in its depth and range, exemplary in its learning, and almost continually surprising in its inventiveness. Ngai seems to have read and seen almost every text and movie, and not just read and seen but imagined or reimagined them with dazzling intensity. And she writes a clear, precise prose replete with striking antitheses and inventive analogies. Most important for me, Ngai is the best-read theorist I have ever encountered
for her scope and even more for her ability to find the perfectly opposite argument to engage or to extend as she develops her own case.
Charles Altieri Contemporary Literature Show Less