The Vacuum Cleaner

A Cultural Investigation
2024
ISBN: 978-3-031-76388-5
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buch, Englisch, 120 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 296 g

Reihe: Material Modernisms

This book offers an entertaining study of the facts and fantasies associated with the vacuum cleaner as it evolved from a luxury gimmick to a household necessity. The iconic appliance of twentieth-century domestic revolution, the vacuum cleaner stands at the forefront of radical changes in technology, automation, finance, marketing, hygiene, infrastructure, time-management, domestic labour, and the history of dirt. This appliance also insinuates itself into the dominant phobias of the period, including totalitarianism and nuclear war. Maud Ellmann shows how modern literature, art, and other media have transformed this humble domestic mod con into a curmudgeon, windbag, cannibal, vampire, dictator, infanticidal mother, freedom fighter, mantrap, and lothario.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ellmann, Maud

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1. Suck, Don’t Blow!.- Chapter 2. The Salesman Only Rings Once.- Chapter 3. The Mechanical Maid.- Chapter 4. The Never-Never Plan.- Chapter 5. Tales of Lust and Dust.- Chapter 6. Vampires and Curmudgeons.

Über Autor(innen)

Maud Ellmann is the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Distinguished Service Professor of English at the University of Chicago, USA.  She has published widely on modernism, literary theory, and psychoanalysis.  Her books include ; ; ; and .  She has also edited the Longman anthology  and co-edited .