Prehistories of the Future: The Primitivist Project and the Culture of Modernism (Cultural Sitings) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804724865 ISBN 13: 9780804724869

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Examining the emergence of modernism from the fin-de-siecle primitivist project this volume shows how ethnographic materials shaped a variety of high and low discourses (ethnology, social theory, gender construction, classical scholarship, as well as travel photography) at the turn of the century. Illustrated with 98 photographs and drawings.

About this title

Review

"This is an unusually rich, subtle, and rewarding collection that brings varied approaches to a crucial topic in modern cultural history. . . . The essays recognize the multi-faceted and complicated nature of the fin-de-siècle conundrum of modernism and primitivism."--Michael P. Steinberg, Cornell University

Synopsis

A multi-disciplinary collection which reconsiders primitivism and modernism, emphasising an earlier chronology than has been conventionally accepted and showing how ethnographic materials shaped a variety of high and low cultural discourses (ethnology, social theory, gender construction, classical scholarship, as well as travel photography) at the turn of the century. Among the topics considered are: the primitivism of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land; the discourse of Victorian sexuality; Emile Durkheim and primitive ritual observance; the manipulation of colonial photographs; the tradition of 'the barbarous' and 'the noble savage' in Western art, literature, and philosophy; Gaugin's images of the South Pacific; the appropriation by Europeans of non-Western bodies, images, and histories; and the relationship between modernist literary techniques and primitivism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0804724865
• ISBN 13: 9780804724869
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464
• Editor: Barkan Elazar, Bush Ronald