The New Woman and Technologies of Speed in Fin-de- Siècle Literature

The New Woman and Technologies of Speed in Fin-de- Siècle Literature

by Eva Chen
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 06/11/2024

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This is the first literary study on the New Woman's interaction with modern speed culture through use of the typewriter and the bicycle. These technologies of speed are among the earliest to be associated with middle-class women, exposing them to the discipline of mechanized speed while allowing for the construction of a new machine-savvy, sped-up, and energized female subjectivity. Used for women's office work and daily movement, they demand from their women operators a response and adaptation to speed right from the beginning. The ability to catch up with, imitate, adjust to, and finally master this mechanized speed, is the key to the New Woman's enlarged freedom in the modern city. By examining New Woman literature penned by George Gissing, H. G. Wells, Grant Allen, Geraldine Edith Mitton, and Mrs. Edward Kennard, and stories and comments published in popular magazines, this book examines how mechanized speed works on the New Woman typist and cyclist, first as discipline and control (in typewriting), then as commodity and conspicuous display (in cycling), and finally as rejuvenation, stimulation, and active thrill. Being fast, having speed, and adjusting to the shocks, as well as excitement of techno-aided speed, is a crucial part of what makes the New Woman new, as she stakes a claim to modern speed culture.

ISBN:
9780198922278
9780198922278
Category:
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
06-11-2024
Language:
English
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
Eva Chen

Eva Chen, the author of Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes, is a first-generation Chinese-American who grew up in New York City. She blames her deviation from pre-med at Johns Hopkins University on a love of fashion and beauty instilled in her by her mother, whose perfect bob and lipstick made a permanent imprint on her impressionable young mind.

Previously the editor in chief of Lucky, Eva has also written for ELLE, Vogue, Teen Vogue,Vogue China, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She is currently the head of fashion partnerships at Instagram, where she is guilty of the occasional duck-face selfie. Eva lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

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