MACMILLAN Sensationalism and the Genealogy of Modernity: A Global Nineteenth-Century Perspective

This book maps out the temporal and geographic coordinates of the trope of sensationalism in the long nineteenth century through a comparative approach. Not only juxtaposing different geographical areas (Europe, Asia and Oceania), this volume also disperses its history over a longue durée, allowing readers to perceive the hidden and often unacknowledged continuities throughout a period that is often reduced to the confines of the national disciplines of literature, art, and cultural studies. Providing a wide range of methodological approaches from the fields of literary studies, art history, sociology of literature, and visual culture, this collection offers indispensable examples of the relation between literature and several other media. Topics include the rhetorical tropes of popular culture, the material culture of clothing, the lived experience of performance as a sub-text of literature and painting, and the redefinition of spatiality and temporality in theory, art, and literature. Review “This fresh and exciting collection brings a properly global perspective to bear on sensationalism as one of the key tropes of modernity, with essays that range across four continents.  Assembled and introduced here by Alberto Gabriele, these interdisciplinary essays cut across media, genres and cultural hierarchies to show us how and why shock, spectacle and suspense have always been the flip side of industrialism.  This volume will be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the historical roots of contemporary culture.” (Nicholas Daly, Professor of English, University College Dublin) “A remarkable collection of essays that frame sensationalism in a new global perspective, significantly broadening and enriching how we think about modernity and popular culture. Nineteenth Century Studies returns to the cutting edge of interdisciplinary academic debate.” (Victoria Duckett author of “Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: Performance and Silent Film”) “This book represents an extremely timely and original contribution to cultural and historical scholarship. Hitherto, studies of the phenomenon of sensationalism have focused predominantly on British popular fiction of the mid-Victorian period, while this collection expands the scope to cover a range of communications media with a global reach throughout the long nineteenth century. Each of the articles reflects an important and different field of interest, extending from Chicago to Adelaide via Vienna and Shanghai, from cinema and spectacle through to journalism and politics, and from the French Revolution to the First World War.” (Graham Law, Professor of Media History, Waseda University, Japan) “Alberto Gabriele’s ground-breaking collection makes a bold intervention to histories of modernity and nineteenth-century culture. Gabriele and his contributors argue for sensationalism as a transnational and transhistorical move which attempted to unite multiple fragmentations of industrial modernity. The collection features an impressive collaboration between scholars from Europe, Australia, China, and the USA, on topics ranging from urban cycling through early Australian journalism, magic performance, and early film to the short story in Shanghai. Studies in this collection contest the dominance of literary studies, challenging cultural historians to look across media and genres to recover the sensory elements of lived experience in early industrial modernity.” (Katherine Newey, Professor of Theatre History, University of Exeter, UK) From the Back Cover This book maps out the temporal and geographic coordinates of the trope of sensationalism in the long nineteenth century through a comparative approach. Not only juxtaposing different geographical areas (Europe, Asia and Oceania), this volume also disperses its history over a longue durée, allowing readers to perceive the hidden and often unacknowledged continuities throughout a period that is often reduce