Nancy Wu
Author
Language
English
Description
A provocative theory of the gimmick as an aesthetic category steeped in the anxieties of capitalism.
Repulsive and yet strangely attractive, the gimmick is a form that can be found virtually everywhere in capitalism. It comes in many guises: a musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas. Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and as working...