Modernism has long been understood as a radical repudiation of the
past. Reading against the narrative of modernism-as-break,
Pragmatic Modernism traces an alternative strain of modernist
thought that grows out of pragmatist philosophy and is
characterized by its commitment to gradualism, continuity, and
recontextualization. It rediscovers a distinctive response to the
social, intellectual, and artistic transformations of modernity in
the work of Henry James, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, John Dewey, and William James. These thinkers share
an institutionally-grounded approach to change which emphasizes
habits, continuities, and daily life over spectacular events,
heroic opposition, and radical rupture. They developed an active,
dialectical attitude that was critical of complacency while
refusing to romanticize moments of shock or conflict. Through its
analysis of pragmatist keywords, including "habit," "institution,"
"prediction," and "bigness," Pragmatic Modernism offers new
readings of works by James, Proust, Stein, and Andre Breton, among
others. It shows, for instance, how Stein's characteristic literary
innovation-her repetitions-aesthetically materialize the problem of
habit; and how institutions-businesses, museums, newspapers, the
law, and even the state itself-help to construct the subtlest of
personal observations and private gestures in James's novels. This
study reconstructs an overlooked strain of modernism. In so doing,
it helps to re-imagine the stark choice between political quietism
and total revolution that has been handed down as modernism's
legacy.
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