Hannah Freed-Thall, Spoiled Distinctions: Aesthetics and the Ordinary in French Modernism [2015], Oxford University Press, édition de poche 2018

• Engages French modernism’s fascination with the quotidian through close readings of works by Proust and his literary heirs, Francis Ponge and Nathalie Sarraute
• Argues that modernism’s staged encounters with the ordinary can present “alternatives to the beautiful”
• Identifies five experimental paradigms that spoil distinctions of taste: prestige, the quelconque (“whatever”), nuance, the awkward, and the douceâtre (“sickly sweet”)

Spoiled Distinctions was awarded the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies and the Modernist Studies Association Prize for a First Book, and designated a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spoiled-distinctions-9780190887391?lang=en&cc=us

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