Improper Modernism

'Improper Modernism, especially in its close examination of the intertextuality of Barnes's corpus, its serious archival research, and its close attention to previously under-examined texts, is a groundbreaking contribution to Barnes scholarship.' The European Legacy '... a book of meticulous research and argument that draws deeply on archival sources, other Barnes and modernist scholarship, and feminist, queer, and psychoanalytic theory to make its case.' Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 'Caselli's reading of the first encounter with Robin Vote in Nightwood [...] is the most thorough, sophisticated, insightful, and ultimately convincing in all Barnes scholarship to date. I would direct any reader to this section (163-166) as exemplary of what is achieved in this study and, in a very real sense, to take this as the last word on this crucial scene in Nightwood. [...] For the scholar looking to understand why Barnes is an exceptional modernist writer, why she does not conform to the patterns of modernism but is simultaneously an exemplary modernist, Improper Modernism is the book to turn to. [...] Caselli's volume makes a crucial contribution to current scholarship, challenging the way marginal or anomalous writers are normalised in critical practice. Ultimately, as Caselli herself states, the account she presents in Improper Modernism "does not let us wallow in our complacent and appropriately transgressive reading practices" (259).' Modernism/Modernity 'Of the three [recent studies of Barnes and modernism reviewed here] Caselli's is by far the most ambitious and thorough in its treatment of Barnes. Each chapter draws extensively not only on the primary texts but on letters and notes pulled from the archive, and even the underscored passages and marginalia in Barnes's personal copies of Proust, Pascal, and many others. It also provides an impressive consideration of her visual arts. All of this makes Improper Modernism an exciting resource that will have a lasting and propulsive influence on Barnes scholarship.' The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945