Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity

Acknowledgments

[ ix Acknowledgments Primary acknowledgment is due to Rita Barnard and Tamar Katz, and especially Nancy Armstrong, all of whom encouraged and shaped this book from its beginning. Digging deeper, John Bishop and Robert Scholes fostered my interest in modernist literature and culture. More recent but no less emphatic gratitude goes to the University of Texas Press, where Jim Burr found merit in the project, enthusiastically pushed it onward, and patiently answered naïve queries; where Faye Hammill (reviewing anonymously) and Thomas Staley supported its publication and provided insightful advice; and where Sebastian Langdell skillfully edited for precision . The staff at the Press has demonstrated its expertise and consideration every step of the way. Over the years numerous colleagues and friends have read and shredded to pieces sections of this project. They include: Jeffrey Dillon Brown, Amy Feinstein, Alisa Hartz, Aaron Jaffe, Pearl James, Sean Latham, and Jacob Leland. Other instances of intense and productive critique occurred at conferences of the Modernist Studies Association, the International James Joyce Symposium, and the Modern Language Association, and at a 2005 meeting of the modernism group at the University of Pennsylvania. Support in the form of time, grant money, and research assistance was provided by the English departments, administrations, and libraries of Brown University, Florida Atlantic University, and the New York Institute of Technology, where grants and course releases hastened this book’s completion. David Smith, Jay Barksdale, and the Wertheim Study at the New York Public Library offered me a classy and quiet work oasis within New York City. Carrie Johnson and Jane Mikkelson contributed editorial help at crucial moments. Remaining unnamed here but always in my thoughts are many other friends, students, faculty, and family members who have been along for the ride and helped with every kind of encouragement imaginable. I can never show Carolyn, Kathi, and Larry Goldman the gratitude they deserve. Versions of sections of this book appear elsewhere in print and are printed here with permission. An earlier version of Chapter 2 was published as “Joyce, the Propheteer” in Novel: A Forum on Fiction 38 (1) 84–102. Parallel to this volume, I am publishing an essay titled “Modernism is the Age of Chaplin” in Modernist Star Maps: Celebrity, Modernity, x ] Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity Culture, edited by Jonathan Goldman and Aaron Jaffe, forthcoming in 2010 from Ashgate Publications. It enlists some of the ideas and language of this book’s Chapter 4. A much briefer and more tentative version of that chapter’s argument appears in my essay “Double Exposure: Charlie Chaplin as Author and Celebrity” in the online journal M/C Journal 7 (5). Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...