
Modernity and urbanity have long been considered mutually sustaining forces in early twentieth-century America. But has the dominance of the urban imaginary obscured the importance of the rural? How have women, in particular, appropriated discourses and images of rurality to interrogate the problems of modernity? And how have they imbued the rural-traditionally viewed as a locus for conservatism-with a progressive political valence?Touching on such diverse subjects as eugenics, reproductive rights, advertising, the economy of literary prizes, and the role of the camera, A New Heartland demonstrates the importance of rurality to the imaginative construction of modernism/modernity; it also asserts that women, as objects of scrutiny as well as agents of critique, had a special stake in that relation. Casey traces the ideals informing America's conception of the rural across a wide field of representational domains, including social theory, periodical literature, cultural criticism, photography, and, most especially, women's rural fiction ("low" as well as "high"). Her argument is informed by archival research, most crucially through a careful analysis of The Farmer's Wife, the single nationally distributed farm journal for women and a little known repository of rural American attitudes. Through this broad scope, A New Heartland articulates an alternative mode of modernism by challenging orthodox ideas about gender and geography in twentieth-century America.
This book investigates how women in early twentieth-century America utilized rural imagery and discourse to challenge and reshape the prevailing urban-centric definitions of modernity. Janet Galligani Casey, an expert in American literature and cultural studies, draws upon extensive archival research—most notably the periodical The Farmer's Wife—to argue that the rural landscape served as a critical site for progressive political and social engagement. By examining the intersection of gender, geography, and modernism, the author posits that rurality was not merely a conservative relic but a dynamic space for modern critique.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and historians recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of American modernism and gendered geography. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the depth of the archival research presented throughout the text.
Page Count:
262
Publication Date:
2009-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190623578
ISBN-13:
9780190623579
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