Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism

Ann Cvetkovich

Published by Rutgers University Press 1992

Mixed Feelings

Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism

Ann Cvetkovich

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813582924

Overview
Contents

About this book

Arguing that affect has a history, Ann Cvetkovich challenges both nineteenth- and twentieth-century claims that the expression of feeling is naturally or intrinsically liberating or reactionary. The central focus of Mixed Feelings is the Victorian sensation novel, the fad genre of the 1860s, whose controversial popularity marks an important moment in the history of mass culture. Drawing on Marxist, feminist, and Foucauldian cultural theory, Cvetkovich investigates the sensation novel's power to produce emotional responses, its representation of social problems as affective ones, and the difficulties involved in assessing the genre as either reactionary or subversive. She is particularly concerned with the relation of gender and affect since many of the sensation novels were written by and for women, and women. By examining the powerful conjunction of ideologies of affect, gender, and mass culture, Cvetkovich reveals the powerful political effects of affective expression and sensational representations.

Author / Editor information

Ann Cvetkovich is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Introduction: The Politics of Affect Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
One. Marketing Affect: The Nineteenth-Century Sensation Novel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
Two. Theorizing Affect: Twentieth-Century Mass Culture Criticism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
Three. Detective in the House: Subversion and Containment in 45 Lady Audley's Secret Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Four. Ghostlier Determinations: The Economy of Sensation and The Woman in White Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
Five. Crying for Power: East Lynne and Maternal Melodrama Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Six. The Inside Story: On Sympathy in Daniel Deronda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	128
Seven. Marx's Capital and the Mystery of the Commodity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Pages
- Main content: 250

eBook

Published: November 1, 1992
ISBN: 9780813582924