Rita Felski, University of Virginia and author of The Limits of Critique:
Modernism à la Mode is a wonderfully rich analysis of the relations between text and textile, fiction and fashion. Historically anchored and theoretically astute, it connects readings of modernist works to current debates about enchantment and disenchantment, attachment and critique, showing brilliantly how modernism continues to shape the way we think, read—and dress—now.
Rishona Zimring, Professor of English, Lewis & Clark College, and author of Social Dance and the Modernist Imagination in Interwar Britain:
Modernism à la Mode is elegant, incisive, concise, and lucid. Elizabeth Sheehan’s command of the fields of modernist studies and contemporary theory is nothing less than stunning, as are her original interpretations of literary works and her knowledge of fashion history.
Barbara Green, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame, and editor of the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies:
Modernism à la Mode is a highly original study of fashionability as a modern cultural phenomenon and mode of perception. Elizabeth Sheehan’s broader thinking through of fashion and the project of being 'in the mode' makes this book a sparkling read.
Modernism à la Mode will be useful not only to specialists in the novel, fashion history, and critical theory, but also to readers interested in new methodologies for literary criticism. It is an instructive and insightful read, and will undoubtedly have an enduring relevance and legacy for future generations of scholars.
In this cultural study, Elizabeth M. Sheehan presents a nuanced critique of modernism's relations with fashion, which variously involve convention, tradition, novelty, consumerism, individualism, and desire to shock or transform culture.
Extremely erudite and groundbreaking, this study promises to become one of the standards in fashion, culture,
At a time when many of us worry about institutions we have long taken for granted—the college/university, the Supreme Court—it is heartening to read this important book, which reminds us that the texture of fashion can be a way of knowing the world we live in and, equally important, of imagining what might be.
