Modernism and the Architecture of Private Life - (Gender and Culture) by Victoria Rosner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Modernism and the Architecture of Private Life offers a bold new assessment of the role of the domestic sphere in modernist literature, architecture, and design. Elegantly synthesizing modernist literature with architectural plans, room designs, and decorative art, Victoria Rosner's work explores the collaborations among modern British writers, interior designers, and architects in redefining the form, function, and meaning of middle-class private life. Drawing on a host of previously unexamined archival sources and works by figures such as E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, Oscar Wilde, James McNeill Whistler, and Virginia Woolf, Rosner highlights the participation of modernist literature in the creation of an experimental, embodied, and unstructured private life, which we continue to characterize as "modern."

Review Quotes

An exemplary study of the relationship between artistic and literary experimentation-brilliantly original.--Kathleen James-Chakraborty "Sehepunkte"

Rosner's fruitful examination of individual authors, as well as artists, architects, and designers, provides exciting and fertile ground for future studies.--Jane Garrity "Modernism/Modernity"

Rosner's impressive reinterpretations of lives and texts honor her feminist mentor... and constitute a valuable addition to the literature...Highly recommended.Choice-- "Choice"

This engrossing book... provides exciting and fertile ground for future studies.-- "Modernism / Modernity"

About the Author

Victoria Rosner is an associate professor of English at Texas A & M University.
Victoria Rosner is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M. She has received the Feminist Studies writing prize and a Mellon fellowship. She was a contributor to Doan and Prosser's Palatable Poison (CUP, 2001).