Corridor: Media Architectures in American Fiction Contributor(s): Marshall, Kate (Author) |
|
ISBN: 0816679282 ISBN-13: 9780816679287 Publisher: University of Minnesota Press OUR PRICE: $27.72 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2013 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | American - General - Architecture | Criticism |
Dewey: 813.009 |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (0.70 lbs) 256 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description:
The corridor is the dominant organizational structure in modern architecture, yet its various functions are taken for granted, and it tends to disappear from view. But, as Marshall shows, even the most banal structures become strangely visible in the noisy communication systems of American fiction. By examining the link between modernist novels and corridors, Marshall demonstrates the ways architectural elements act as media. In a fresh look at the late naturalist fiction of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, she leads the reader through the fetus-clogged sewers of Manhattan Transfer to the corpse-choked furnaces of Native Son and reveals how these invisible spaces have a fascinating history in organizing the structure of modern persons. Portraying media as not only objects but processes, Marshall develops a new idiom for Americanist literary criticism, one that explains how media studies can inform our understanding of modernist literature. |