Reading Christine Stansell's American Moderns reminds me why I wanted to study early 20th century American things in the first place. Or, to echo Jessa Crispin's recent comment about reading the book, it makes me "a little nostalgic for the era...despite not being alive for it." I'm imagining ways to pirate Stansell's material into my own creative work, especially her ideas about an "optics of pleasure" and the emergence of the "New Woman/New Man." Optics of pleasure. What a juicy phrase.
The part of me training to write a dissertation, however, notices (and protests slightly at) other things. "Hey! Why isn't she drawing more on Ann Douglas? Or Michael Denning? They wrote two of the most important cultural studies books to come out on early 20C New York, artists, and radical politics in the last ten years. But they only get brief mentions. Must. Investigate..."
Old habits die hard.
Instead of thinking about any of this, I'm going to go make stew. Because I'm on break. And I can. Yum.
For something else delicious, you should read Crispin's great review essay on American Moderns and Sharon Zukin's Naked City over at The Smart Set.
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