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Showing 13161 - 13180 of 34945 items
By Ranjan Ghosh, Antonia Navarro-Tejero. 2009
Arundhati Roy is not only an accomplished novelist, but equally gifted in unraveling the politics of globalization, the power and ideology of…
corporate culture, fundamentalism, terrorism, and other issues gripping today’s world. This volume – featuring prominent scholars from throughout the world – examines Roy beyond the aesthetic parameters of her fiction, focusing also on her creative activism and struggles in global politics. The chapters travel to and fro between her non-fictional works – engaging activism on the streets and global forums – and its underlying roots in her novel. Roy is examined as a novelist, non-fiction writer, journalist, activist, feminist, screenwriter, ideologist, and architect. This volume presents Roy's interlocking network of the ideas, attitudes and ideologies that emerge from the contemporary social and the political world.By Jennifer Lee Heinert. 2009
This study analyzes the relationship between race and genre in four of Toni Morrison’s novels: The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby,…
Jazz, and Beloved. Heinert argues how Morrison’s novels revise conventional generic forms such as bildungsroman, folktales, slave narratives, and the formal realism of the novel itself. This study goes beyond formalist analyses to show how these revisions expose the relationship between race, conventional generic forms, and the dominant culture. Morrison’s revisions critique the conventional roles of African Americans as subjects of and in the genre of the novel, and (re)write roles which instead privilege their subjectivity. This study provides readers with new ways of understanding Morrison’s novels. Whereas critics often fault Morrison for breaking with traditional forms and resisting resolution in her novels, this analysis show how Morrison’s revisions shift the narrative truth of the novel from its representation in conventional forms to its interpretation by the readers, who are responsible for constructing their own resolution or version of narrative truth. These revisions expose how the dominant culture has privileged specific forms of narration; in turn, these forms privilege the values of the dominant culture. Morrison’s novels attempt to undermine this privilege and rewrite the canon of American literature.This study considers the work of two experimental British women modernists writing in the tumultuous interwar period--Virginia Woolf and Olive Moore--by…
examining four crucial incarnations of female embodiment and subjectivity: female bodies, geographical imagery, national ideology and textual experimentation. Dickinson proposes that the ways Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves by Virginia Woolf and Spleen and Fugue by Olive Moore reflect, expose and criticize physical, geographical and national bodies in the narrative and form of their texts reveal the authors’ attempts to try on new forms and experiment with new possibilities of female embodiment and subjectivity.This book reconsiders the notion of liminality in postcolonial critical discourse today. By visiting Mashriqi writers of memoir, Bugeja offers…
a unique intervention in the understanding of 'in-between' and ‘threshold’ states in present-day postcolonialist thought. His analysis situates liminal space as a fraught form of consciousness that mediates between conditions of historical contingency and the memorializing present. Within the present Mashriqi memoir form, liminal spaces may be read as articulations of 'representational spaces' — narrative spaces that, based as they are within the histories of local communities, are nonetheless redolent with memorial and imaginary elements. Liminal consciousness today, Bugeja argues, is a direct consequence of the impact of volatile present-day memories on the re-conception of the open wounds of history. Incisive readings of life-writings by Mourid Barghouti, Amin Maalouf, Orhan Pamuk, Amos Oz, and Wadad Makdisi Cortas demonstrate the double-edged representational chasm that opens up when present acts of memorializing are brought to bear upon the elusive histories of the early-twentieth-century Mashriq. Sifting through the wide-ranging theoretical literature on liminality and challenging received views of the concept, this book proposes a nuanced, materialist, and original rethinking of the liminal as a more vigilant outlook onto the political, literary and historical predicaments of the contemporary Middle East.Al-Tha’labi was a renowned Qur’anic scholar of the fifth/eleventh century, and his ‘Ara’is al-majalis is arguably the finest and most…
widely consulted example of the Islamic qisas al-anbiya’ genre. Drawing on primary Arabic sources, Klar applies modern critical methods in order to explore the nature of al-Tha’labi’s ‘Ara'is al-majalis within its historical and literary context, and thereby produces a compelling examination of the stories of Noah, Job, Saul and David as portrayed in the key historiographical and folkloric texts of the medieval Islamic period. Via a close analysis of the relevant narratives, the book considers a number of universal aspects of the human condition as they are displayed in these tales, from first a religious, then a familial, and finally a social perspective. Touching upon the benefits and limitations of the application of biblical studies and literary motifs to Islamic materials, the book investigates the possibilities of interpretation raised by a primarily psychoanalytical reading of the tales of the four individuals in question. As such, this text will be of great interest to scholars of the biblical prophets, Qur’anic studies, Islamic historiography, folklore and literary criticism.By Adam Roberts, Mark Bould, Sherryl Vint, Andrew M. Butler. 2009
Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction is a collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures who…
have shaped and defined the genre. Diverse groups within the science fiction community are represented, from novelists and film makers to comic book and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include: Octavia Butler George Lucas Robert Heinlein Gene Roddenberry Stan Lee Ursula K. Le Guin H.G. Wells This outstanding reference guide charts the rich and varied landscape of science fiction and includes helpful and up-to-date lists of further reading at the end of each entry. Available in an easy to use A-Z format, Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction will be of interest to students of Literature, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies.By engaging closely with the work of Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), the iconic nineteenth-century imperial spy, explorer, anthropologist and translator, Postcolonialism,…
Psychoanalysis and Burton explores the White Man’s ‘imperial fantasies’, and the ways in which the many metropolitan discourses to which Burton contributed drew upon and reinforced an intimate connection between fantasy and power in the space of Empire. This original study sheds new light on the mechanisms of imperial appropriation and pays particular attention to Burton’s relationship with his alter ego, Abdullah, the name by which he famously travelled to Mecca and Medina disguised as a Muslim pilgrim. In this context, Grant also provides insightful readings of a number of Burton’s contemporaries, such as Müller, du Chaillu, Darwin and Huxley, and engages with postcolonial and psychoanalytic theory in order to highlight the problematic relationship between the individual and imperialism, and to encourage readers to think about what it means to read colonial history and imperial narrative today.By Stephen Ross. 2009
Modernism and Theory boldly asks what – if any – role theory has to play in the new modernist studies.…
Separated into three sections, each with a clear introduction, this collection of new essays from leading critics outlines ongoing debates on the nature of modernist culture. This collection examines aesthetic and methodological links between modernist literature and theory. addresses questions of the importance of theory to our understanding of ‘modernism’ and modernism as a literary category. considers intersections of modernism and theory within ethics, ecocriticism and the avant-garde. Concluding with an afterword from Fredric Jameson, the book makes use of an innovative dialogic format, offering a direct and engaging experience of the current debate in modernist studies. Contributors include: Charles F. Altieri, C.D. Blanton, Ian Buchanan, Pamela Caughie, Melba Cuddy-Keane, Thomas S. Davis, Oleg Gelikman, Jane Goldman, Ben Highmore, Fredric Jameson, Martin Jay, Bonnie Kime Scott, Neil Levi, Anneleen Masschelein, Scott McCracken, Andrew John Miller, Stephen Ross, Roger Rothman, Morag Shiach, Susan Stanford Friedman, Allan Stoekl, Hilary Thompson and Glenn Willmott.By Marianne Liljeström. 2009
Affect has become something of a buzzword in cultural and feminist theory during the past decade. References to affect, emotions…
and intensities abound, their implications in terms of research practices have often remained less manifest. Working with Affect in Feminist Readings: Disturbing Differences explores the place and function of affect in feminist knowledge production in general and in textual methodology in particular. With an international group of contributors from studies of history, media, philosophy, culture, ethnology, art, literature and religion, the volume investigates affect as the dynamics of reading, as carnal encounters and as possibilities for the production of knowledge. Working with Affect in Feminist Readings asks what exactly are we doing when working with affect, and what kinds of ethical, epistemological and ontological issues this involves. Not limiting itself to descriptive accounts, the volume takes part in establishing new ways of understanding feminist methodology.By Michael Stoneham. 2009
Radical abolitionist and freedom-fighter John Brown inspired literary America to confrontation during his short but dramatic career as a public…
figure in antebellum America. Emerging from obscurity during the violent struggle to determine how Kansas would enter the Union in 1856, John Brown captured the imagination of the most prominent Eastern literary figures following his dramatic, though failed raid on Harper’s Ferry. Impressed by Brown’s forthright defense of his attempt to initiate the end of slavery, Whittier, Whitman, Melville, Longfellow, and Howells responded to the abolitionist with poetic tributes suggesting that Brown was a liberating hero, while Emerson and Thoreau celebrated his effort to inspire the nation to a new moral awareness of the common humanity of all men. Responses, however, were not uniform, as these and other figures debated the merits and meanings of Brown’s actions. This exceptional book sheds new light on how John Brown inspired America’s most significant intellects to take a public stand against the inertia of moral compromise and social degeneracy, bringing the nation to the brink of civil war.By Richard J. Lane. 2009
Jean Baudrillard is one of the most controversial theorists of our time, famous for his claim that the Gulf War…
never happened and for his provocative writing on terrorism, specifically 9/11. This new and fully updated second edition includes: an introduction to Baudrillard’s key works and theories such as simulation and hyperreality coverage of Baudrillard’s later work on the question of postmodernism a new chapter on Baudrillard and terrorism engagement with architecture and urbanism through the Utopie group a look at the most recent applications of Baudrillard’s ideas. Richard J. Lane offers a comprehensive introduction to this complex and fascinating theorist, also examining the impact that Baudrillard has had on literary studies, media and cultural studies, sociology, philosophy and postmodernism.The conflict between assimilationism and radicalism that has riven gay culture since Stonewall became highly visible in the 1990s with…
the emergence and challenge of queer theory and politics. The conflict predates Stonewall, however—indeed, Jonathan Dollimore describes it as "one of the most fundamental antagonisms within sexual dissidence over the past century." By focusing on fiction by Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, David Leavitt, Michael Cunningham, Alan Hollinghurst, Dennis Cooper, Adam Mars-Jones and others, Brookes argues that gay fiction is torn between assimilative and radical impulses. He posits the existence of two distinct strands of gay fiction, but also aims to show the conflict as an internal one, a struggle in which opposing impulses are at work within individual texts. This book places post-Stonewall gay fiction in context by linking it to theoretical and historical developments since the late nineteenth century, and tracing the conflict back to the fiction of Wilde, Forster, Genet, Vidal, Burroughs and Isherwood. Other relevant topics discussed include gay fiction of the 1970s; gays and the family; sexual transgression; gay fiction and the AIDS epidemic.By Lawrence C.H Yim. 2009
This book is the first English language study of Qian Qianyi (1582-1664) - a poet and literary critic during the…
Ming-Qing dynastic transition. Although Qian’s works constitute some of the greatest achievements in pre-modern Chinese lyric poetry, they have been largely understudied and are poorly understood. Qian was reputed for his own aesthetic that changed the character of late Ming and early Qing poetry. His name, however, was branded with infamy for his disloyalty to the Ming dynasty when it dissolved. Consequently, his works were censored by the Qing court and have been forgotten by most critics until recently. Lawrence C.H Yim focuses on Qian’s poetic theory and practice, providing a critical study of Qian’s theory of poetic-history (shishi) and a group of poems from the Toubi ji. He also examines the role played by history in early Qing verse, rethinking the nature of loyalism and historical memory in seventeenth-century China. Poetry of the Ming-Qing transition is distinguished by its manifest historical consciousness and the effort and give meaning to current historical events, an effort characterized by the pathos of introspection and mourning for the past..This pathos translates into what can be called a poetics of Ming loyalism, exemplified and championed by, intriguingly, the later works of Qian Qianyi himself.By Yasuko Claremont. 2009
Ôe Kenzaburô was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. This critical study examines Ôe’s entire career from 1957…
– 2006 and includes chapters on Ôe’s later novels not published in English. Through close readings at different points in Ôe’s career Yasuko Claremont establishes the spiritual path that he has taken in its three major phrases of nihilism, atonement, and salvation, all highlighted against a background of violence and suicidal despair that saturate his pages. Ôe uses myth in two distinct ways: to link mankind to the archetypal past, and as a critique of contemporary society. Equally, he depicts the great themes of redemption and salvation on two levels: that of the individual atoning for a particular act, and on a universal level of self-abnegation, dying for others. In the end it is Ôe’s ethical concerns that win out, as he turns to the children, the inheritors of the future, ‘new men in a new age’ who will have the power and desire to redress the ills besetting the world today. Essentially, Ôe is a moralist, a novelist of ideas whose fiction is densely packed with references from Western thought and poetry. This book is an important read for scholars of Ôe Kenzaburô’s work and those studying Japanese Literature and culture more generally.By Anna M Fitzer. 2009
A novel, which addresses central themes of adultery, obsession and inheritance. It follows the fortunes of Matilda Melbourne who displays…
virtue, delicacy and an unwavering commitment to the sometimes ruthless demands of parental authority.By Roslyn Jolly. 2009
Robert Louis Stevenson's departure from Europe in 1887 coincided with a vocational crisis prompted by his father's death. Impatient with…
his established identity as a writer, Stevenson was eager to explore different ways of writing, at the same time that living in the Pacific stimulated a range of latent intellectual and political interests. Roslyn Jolly examines the crucial period from 1887 to 1894, focusing on the self-transformation wrought in Stevenson's Pacific travel-writing and political texts. Jolly shows how Stevenson's desire to understand unfamiliar Polynesian and Micronesian cultures, and to record and intervene in the politics of Samoa, gave him opportunities to use his legal education, pursue his interest in historiography, and experiment with anthropology and journalism. Thus as his geographical and cultural horizons expanded, Stevenson's professional sphere enlarged as well, stretching the category of authorship in which his successes as a novelist had placed him. Rather than enhancing his stature as a popular writer, however, Stevenson's experiments with new styles and genres, and the Pacific subject matter of his later works, were resisted by his readers. Jolly's analysis of contemporary responses to Stevenson's writing, gleaned from an extensive collection of reviews, many of which are not readily available, provides fascinating insights into the interests, obsessions, and resistances of Victorian readers. As Stevenson sought to escape the vocational straightjacket that confined him, his readers just as strenuously expressed their loyalty to outmoded images of Stevenson the author, and their distrust of the new guises in which he presented himself.By Massimiliano Morini. 2009
Combining linguistic theory with analytical concepts and literary interpretation and appreciation, Jane Austen's Narrative Techniques traces the creation and development…
of Austen's narrative techniques. Massimiliano Morini employs the tools developed by post-war linguistics and above all pragmatics, the study of the ways in which speakers communicate meaning, since Austen's 'wordings' can only be interpreted within the fictional context of character-character, narrator-character, narrator-reader interaction. Examining a wide range of Austen texts, from her unpublished works through masterpieces like Mansfield Park and Emma, Morini discusses familiar Austen themes, using linguistic means to shed fresh light on the question of point of view in Austen and on Austen's much-admired brilliance in creating lively and plausible dialogue. Accessibly written and informed by the latest work in linguistic and literary studies, Jane Austen's Narrative Techniques offers Austen specialists a new avenue for understanding her narrative techniques and serves as a case study for scholars and students of pragmatics and applied linguistics.By Pallavi Dhawan. 2019
To create this inaugural anthology from artist collective POC United, the editors of Graffiti gave the contributors a special challenge:…
to write in a way that centers neither "whiteness" nor "anti-whiteness” and that is not limited by their struggle, their oppression, or how their characters will be received by the white imagination. The results are joyous and mind-expanding. Through poetry, short stories, and essays, the works in Graffiti expose lives that move in unexpected ways, rendering characters who don’t fit the cultural tropes we cling to. Graffiti shows what writers of color do when they are invited to scribble, scrawl, romanticize, and speculate without being politicized or exoticized.By Mandy Green. 2009
Milton's Ovidian Eve presents a fresh and thorough exploration of the classical allusions central to understanding Paradise Lost and to…
understanding Eve, one of Milton's most complex characters. Mandy Green demonstrates how Milton appropriates narrative structures, verbal echoes, and literary strategies from the Metamorphoses to create a subtle and evolving portrait of Eve. Each chapter examines a different aspect of Eve's mythological figurations. Green traces Eve's development through multiple critical lenses, influenced by theological, ecocritical, and feminist readings. Her analysis is gracefully situated between existing Milton scholarship and close textual readings, and is supported by learned references to seventeenth-century writing about women, the allegorical tradition of Ovidian commentary, hexameral literature, theological contexts and biblical iconography. This detailed scholarly treatment of Eve simultaneously illuminates our understanding of the character, establishes Milton's reading of Ovid as central to his poetic success, and provides a candid synthesis and reconciliation of earlier interpretations.By Holly Faith Nelson. 2009
Responding to the resurgence of interest in the Scottish working-class writer James Hogg, Sharon Alker and Holly Faith Nelson offer…
the first edited collection devoted to an examination of the critical implications of his writings and their position in the Edinburgh and London literary marketplaces. Writing during a particularly complex time in Scottish literary history, Hogg, a working shepherd for much of his life, is seen to challenge many of the aesthetic conventions adopted by his contemporaries and to anticipate many of the concerns voiced in discussions of literature in recent years. While the essays privilege Hogg's primary texts and read them closely in their immediate cultural context, the volume's contributors also introduce relevant research on oral culture, nationalism, transnationalism, intertextuality, class, colonialism, empire, psychology, and aesthetics where they serve to illuminate Hogg's literary ingenuity as a working-class writer in Romantic Scotland.