Salamensky investigates Oscar Wilde, his contemporaries, and the public frenzy over his work and life as illustrating?the crucial importance of performance in the construction of the 'modern' and our own, postmodern, lives.Wilde Worlds: Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and the Queer Modernity of Performance?? Wilde Women: Staging Home, Homeland, and the Social Actress?? Wilde Words: Mod Money, Transylvanian Transmissions, and the Magicking of the Material Body?? Wilde Ways:?Salom? and the Performance of the Transgendered Jewess Hysteric?? What Do We Want from Wilde?: Culture, Memory, and the Trials of Time
[Salamensky's] insights, couched in stylish prose and backed up by deep scholarship, merit a place in Wilde studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. - CHOICE
Truly groundbreaking This is not only an extremely incisive example of historical/cultural scholarship - impacting performance studies, literary criticism, popular culture studies, and literary/cultural history - it also gives us the first extended work on Oscar Wilde through the lens of Jewish Studies. Salamensky opens many doors here - and proceeds to go through them with depth, insight, and synthesis. - Frederick S. Roden, associate professor of English, University of Connecticut
S. I. SALAMENSKY Associate Professor of Performance Studies at UCLA, USA.