The Fetish

Literature, Cinema, Visual Art

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Theory
Cover of the book The Fetish by Professor Massimo Fusillo, Bloomsbury Publishing
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Professor Massimo Fusillo ISBN: 9781501312373
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Publication: September 21, 2017
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic Language: English
Author: Professor Massimo Fusillo
ISBN: 9781501312373
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication: September 21, 2017
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Language: English

Object fetishism is becoming a more and more pervasive phenomenon. Focusing on literature and the visual arts, including cinema, this book suggests a parallelism between fetishism and artistic creativity, based on a poetics of detail, which has been brilliantly exemplified by Flaubert's style. After exploring canonical accounts of fetishism (Marx, Freud, Benjamin), by combining a historicist approach with theoretical speculation, Massimo Fusillo identifies a few interpretive patterns of object fetishism, such as seduction (from Apollonius of Rhodes to Max Ophüls), memory activation (from Goethe to Louise Bourgeois and Pamuk), and the topos of the animation of the inanimate.

Whereas all these patterns are characterized by a projection of emotional values onto objects, modernism highlights a more latent component of object fetishism: the fascination with the alterity of matter, variously inflected by Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Barnes, and Mann. The last turning point in Fusillo's analysis is postmodernism and its obsession with mass media icons-from DeLillo's maximalist frescos and Zadie Smith's reflections on autographs to Palahniuk's porn objects; from pop art to commodity sculpture.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Object fetishism is becoming a more and more pervasive phenomenon. Focusing on literature and the visual arts, including cinema, this book suggests a parallelism between fetishism and artistic creativity, based on a poetics of detail, which has been brilliantly exemplified by Flaubert's style. After exploring canonical accounts of fetishism (Marx, Freud, Benjamin), by combining a historicist approach with theoretical speculation, Massimo Fusillo identifies a few interpretive patterns of object fetishism, such as seduction (from Apollonius of Rhodes to Max Ophüls), memory activation (from Goethe to Louise Bourgeois and Pamuk), and the topos of the animation of the inanimate.

Whereas all these patterns are characterized by a projection of emotional values onto objects, modernism highlights a more latent component of object fetishism: the fascination with the alterity of matter, variously inflected by Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Barnes, and Mann. The last turning point in Fusillo's analysis is postmodernism and its obsession with mass media icons-from DeLillo's maximalist frescos and Zadie Smith's reflections on autographs to Palahniuk's porn objects; from pop art to commodity sculpture.

More books from Bloomsbury Publishing

Cover of the book Aquinas: A Guide for the Perplexed by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book The Road Taken by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Darjeeling by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book An Introduction to the Study of Paul by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Dracula's Guest by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Lusitania by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Children in Early Christian Narratives by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Beauty and the End of Art by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Resonances of El Chavo del Ocho in Latin American Childhood, Schooling, and Societies by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book A Century of Hairstyles by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Apportionment in Private Law by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Stephens Plays: 4 by Professor Massimo Fusillo
Cover of the book Christmas Tales of Terror by Professor Massimo Fusillo
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy