Lehrman American Studies Center

Critics have praised the films of writer/director Whit Stillman for their exceptionally intelligent portrayal of the lives and loves of the "urban haute bourgeoisie." His three comedies of manners—"Metropolitan," "Barcelona," and "The Last Days of Disco"—sparkle with urbane and ironic wit. In Doomed Bourgeois in Love, the traditionalist social critic Mark C. Henrie brings together a collection of political theorists, literary critics, and classicists to explore the meaning of Stillman's films. These essays contend that Stillman's art is an effort to "ironize" our ironic age; as such, they constitute a major achievement of Christian humanism in our time.