Rules of Engagement: Modernism's Impersonal Interior

"This study begins by elaborating what I understand to be the ethical paradox impersonality poses, particularly in the dissolution of individuality it supports. As shown in Wyndham Lewis' command that we impersonally ""substitute ourselves everywhere for the animal world,"" the potential collectivity established by an impersonal engagement may in fact end up subsuming the object of that connection into the subject who initiates it, thereby reaffirming personality in its most authoritative dimension. Yet variants of modernist impersonality found in work by writers such as H.D., Elizabeth Bowen and Mary Butts discern the ethical dangers of this impersonal collapse of subject and object by engaging the question of how to preserve meaningful aesthetic space. The answers often lie in the realm of affective attachments to aesthetic objects. By examining these variants of impersonality, ""Rules of Engagement"" identifies the junctures where the politically progressive, empathic logic of impersonality slips into authoritarian fantasies of invasion and control."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Date dc:date

10000-01-01

Author dc:creator

• Rives, Rochelle Lea

Contributors dc:contributor

• Janet Lyon

• Women's Studies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3153414

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81409