On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the CollectionMiniature books, eighteenth-century novels, Tom Thumb weddings, tall tales, and objects of tourism and nostalgia: this diverse group of cultural forms is the subject of On Longing, a fascinating analysis of the ways in which everyday objects are narrated to animate or realize certain versions of the world. Originally published in 1984 (Johns Hopkins University Press), and now available in paperback for the first time, this highly original book draws on insights from semiotics and from psychoanalytic, feminist, and Marxist criticism. Addressing the relations of language to experience, the body to scale, and narratives to objects, Susan Stewart looks at the "miniature" as a metaphor for interiority and at the "gigantic" as an exaggeration of aspects of the exterior. In the final part of her essay Stewart examines the ways in which the "souvenir" and the "collection" are objects mediating experience in time and space. |
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Review: On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection
User Review - Holly - GoodreadsThe writing is a bit odd but this was a cornerstone book for me. Read full review
Review: On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection
User Review - Leah - Goodreadslovely and insightful. i like any book that devotes a section to the parenthesis. Read full review
Contents
ON DESCRIPTION AND THE BOOK | 3 |
THE MINIATURE | 37 |
THE GIGANTIC | 70 |
THE IMAGINARY BODY | 104 |
OBJECTS OF DESIRE | 132 |
The Collection Paradise of Consumption | 151 |
The Female Impersonator | 166 |
Notes | 174 |
| 193 | |
| 205 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract aesthetic animal appears articulation authenticity authority becomes beginning body called capacity century closure collection commodity complete consider consumer context conventions create culture depiction described desire detail difference discourse display distance exaggeration example exchange existence experience face fact fairies figures function genres giants grotesque hand Hence human individual interior labor landscape language literary Literature lived marks material means mechanical microcosm miniature mode movement moves narrative nature object offers once organization origin particular past performer physical picture play position possible present Press printed problem production reader reading referent relation representation represents scale scene seen sense serve signified simultaneous social souvenir space speaks spectacle structure symbolic temporality things tion tradition transcendence transformation University wedding whole writing York
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Bibliographic information
| Title | On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection Cultural studies/literary criticism |
| Author | Susan Stewart |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Duke University Press, 1993 |
| ISBN | 0822313669, 9780822313663 |
| Length | 213 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |