Spectacular realities : early mass culture in fin-de-siècle Paris / Vanessa R. Schwartz.

Main entry:

Schwartz, Vanessa R., author.

Title & Author:

Spectacular realities : early mass culture in fin-de-siècle Paris / Vanessa R. Schwartz.

Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1998]
©1998

Description:

xiii, 230 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-221) and index.
Introduction --- 1. Setting the stage: the boulevard, the press and the framing of everyday life --- 2. Public visits to the morgue: Flânerie in the service of the state --- 3. The Musée Grévin: museum and newspaper in one --- 4. Representing reality and the o-rama craze --- 5. From Journal Plastique to Journal Lumineux: early cinema and spectacular reality ---- Conclusion.

Summary:

"During the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris emerged as the entertainment capital of the world. The sparkling redesigned city fostered a culture of energetic crowd-pleasing and multi-sensory amusements that would apprehend and represent real life as spectacle. Vanessa R. Schwartz examines the explosive popularity of such phenomena as the boulevards, the mass press, public displays of corpses at the morgue, wax museums, panoramas, and early film. Drawing on a wide range of written and visual materials, including private and business archives, and working at the intersections of art history, literature, and cinema studies, Schwartz argues that "spectacular realities" are part of the foundation of modern mass society. She refutes the notion that modern life produced an unending parade of distractions leading to alienation, and instead suggests that crowds gathered not as dislocated spectators but as members of a new kind of crowd, one united in pleasure rather than protest."--Publisher description.

Resources:
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0520209591 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780520209596 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780520221680 (pbk.)
0520221680 (pbk.)

Subject:

Paris, Giovanni 1747-
Musée Grévin (Paris)
Popular culture France Paris History 19th century.
Leisure industry France Paris.
Spectacular, The Government policy France Paris.
Culture populaire France Paris Histoire 19e siècle.
Loisirs Industrie France Paris.
Spectaculaire Politique gouvernementale France Paris.
Civilization
Leisure industry
Popular culture
Spectacular, The Government policy
Massenkultur
Populaire cultuur.
Stadscultuur.
Fin de siècle.
Leisure industry France Paris History.
Spectacular, The France Paris.
Culture populaire France Paris (France) 19e siècle.
Loisirs Industrie France Paris (France)
Spectaculaire.
Culture de masse France Paris (France)
Cinéma 1895-1929 France Paris (France)
Faits divers Sociologie.
France Civilization 19th century.
France Civilisation 19e siècle.
France
France Paris
Paris

Form/genre:

History

Holdings:

Location: Library main 216177
Call No.: DC715 .S3 1998
Status: Available

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