Comparative literature Books

Book Synopsis'A writer of genius' - William Dalrymple'Remarkable' - Kwame Anthony Appiah'Utterly captivating' - Anthony DoerrCan anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing.It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect.Travelling through Classical Greece, Ashoka's India, Tang dynasty China, and many other epochs, this triumphal new history reveals the crossing points which have not only inspired the humanities, but which have made us human.Trade Review'Eminently readable ... The book's great strength lies in its ability to swoop deftly and lightly between things that may be familiar to us in themselves, but which we might be tempted to separate out in our attempts to form a picture of the world.' -- Edward Wilson-Lee * The Times Literary Supplement *'A breakneck, utterly captivating survey of threads of cultural transmission-how ideas, stories, and songs-survive, change, vanish, get borrowed, refined, coopted, and grafted through time ... I underlined sentences on every page.' -- Anthony Doerr'Compellingly written' * Financial Times *'A remarkable book.' -- Kwame Anthony Appiah'Martin Puchner has exceptional and invaluable gifts: intellectual fearlessness, dazzling erudition, trenchancy tempered by breadth of mind, and a humanist's eye for minute evidence that illumines huge problems.' -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto'Well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way' -- Marguerite Johnson * The Conversation *'Fearless and exhilaratingly erudite, Martin Puchner's panoramic tour of human culture across the millennia is a riveting page-turner.' -- Amy Chua'A writer of genius' -- William Dalrymple'Elegantly written and full of erudite lore, this vibrant history illuminates the inveterate human yearning for expression.' * Publishers Weekly *'A thoughtful, generous vision of human creativity across centuries of culture.' * Kirkus *'Fluent and engaging.' -- Boyd Tonkin * Wall Street Journal *'A mighty, polymathic work . . . [by] a master storyteller -- Chris Vognar * Boston Globe *'A forceful rebuke to those who argue that culture can be owned by groups, nations, religions or races. . . . [by] an adept storyteller.' -- Ismail Muhammad * New York Times *'Jaunty and readable but never lacking in depth, Culture hops through countries and eras to deliver a resonant argument.' -- Lauren Puckett-Pope * Elle *'Cultures develop by sharing, borrowing, and collaborating--but also by conquest, appropriation, and theft. Martin Puchner's timely book takes us on a breathtaking tour of world history, reminding us that as we judge the past, one day we, too, will be judged, and that when we ignore or try to erase our cultural heritage, we are only impoverishing ourselves' -- Louis Menand * Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club *'Puchner creates a perfectly balanced and incisively abridged version of the story of human culture. Ultimately, this is an examination of the making and transport of ideas, which is always an interaction between old and new. Each chapter builds a new layer, adding to the depth and complexity, while Puchner also provides a global who's who of cultural diffusion' * Booklist *'So many books these days are described as being 'sweeping histories'; Culture, which promises in its subtitle to take us from our most primitive artistic impulses all the way to the machinery of modern-day fandom. But what intrigues me most about Puchner's latest isn't its scope - it's its driving question: 'What good are the arts?' In my more hopeless moments, this question bubbles up inside me, and I'm chomping at the bit to hear Puchner's answer, grounded in history and informed by cultures around the world' -- Sophia Stewart

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Book SynopsisTerry Eagleton looks back across sixty years to an extraordinary critical milieu that transformed the study of literature

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Book Synopsis'A writer of genius' - William DalrympleCan anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing.It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect.Travelling through Classical Greece, Ashoka's India, Tang dynasty China, and many other epochs, this triumphal new history reveals the crossing points which have not only inspired the humanities, but which have made us human.Trade Review'A writer of genius' -- William Dalrymple'Compellingly written' * Financial Times *'A breakneck, utterly captivating survey of threads of cultural transmission-how ideas, stories, and songs-survive, change, vanish, get borrowed, refined, coopted, and grafted through time ... I underlined sentences on every page.' -- Anthony Doerr'A remarkable book.' -- Kwame Anthony Appiah'Eminently readable ... The book's great strength lies in its ability to swoop deftly and lightly between things that may be familiar to us in themselves, but which we might be tempted to separate out in our attempts to form a picture of the world.' -- Edward Wilson-Lee * The Times Literary Supplement *'Martin Puchner has exceptional and invaluable gifts: intellectual fearlessness, dazzling erudition, trenchancy tempered by breadth of mind, and a humanist's eye for minute evidence that illumines huge problems.' -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto'Fearless and exhilaratingly erudite, Martin Puchner's panoramic tour of human culture across the millennia is a riveting page-turner.' -- Amy Chua'A forceful rebuke to those who argue that culture can be owned by groups, nations, religions or races. . . . [by] an adept storyteller.' -- Ismail Muhammad * New York Times *'A Harvard professor goes wide in this study of the humanities and human creativity, looking at standout moments and what they can tell us about our past and future. As [Martin Puchner] guides readers along a Nefertiti to TikTok continuum, he shows how cultural exchange and innovation help societies address some of life's most existential questions' -- Joumana Khatib * New York Times *'Elegantly written and full of erudite lore, this vibrant history illuminates the inveterate human yearning for expression.' * Publishers Weekly *'A thoughtful, generous vision of human creativity across centuries of culture.' * Kirkus *'Fluent and engaging.' -- Boyd Tonkin * Wall Street Journal *'A mighty, polymathic work . . . [by] a master storyteller -- Chris Vognar * Boston Globe *'Jaunty and readable but never lacking in depth, Culture hops through countries and eras to deliver a resonant argument.' -- Lauren Puckett-Pope * Elle *'Cultures develop by sharing, borrowing, and collaborating--but also by conquest, appropriation, and theft. Martin Puchner's timely book takes us on a breathtaking tour of world history, reminding us that as we judge the past, one day we, too, will be judged, and that when we ignore or try to erase our cultural heritage, we are only impoverishing ourselves' -- Louis Menand * Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club *'Puchner creates a perfectly balanced and incisively abridged version of the story of human culture. Ultimately, this is an examination of the making and transport of ideas, which is always an interaction between old and new. Each chapter builds a new layer, adding to the depth and complexity, while Puchner also provides a global who's who of cultural diffusion' * Booklist *'So many books these days are described as being 'sweeping histories'; Culture, which promises in its subtitle to take us from our most primitive artistic impulses all the way to the machinery of modern-day fandom. But what intrigues me most about Puchner's latest isn't its scope - it's its driving question: 'What good are the arts?' In my more hopeless moments, this question bubbles up inside me, and I'm chomping at the bit to hear Puchner's answer, grounded in history and informed by cultures around the world' -- Sophia Stewart'Well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way' -- Marguerite Johnson * The Conversation *

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Book SynopsisGayatri Chakravorty Spivak declares the death of comparative literature as we know it and sounds an urgent call for a new comparative literature, in which the discipline is reborn.Table of ContentsPreface to the Twentieth Anniversary EditionAcknowledgments1. Crossing Borders2. Collectivities3. PlanetarityNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Preface to Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis presents an illuminating reflection on John Milton''s Paradise Lost, the seminal classic that profoundly influenced Christian thought as well as Lewis''s own work.Lewis a revered scholar and professor of literature closely examines the style, content, structure, and themes of Milton''s masterpiece, a retelling of the biblical story from the Fall of Humankind, Satan''s temptation, and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Considering this story within the context of the Western literary tradition, Lewis offers invaluable insights into Paradise Lost and the nature of literature itself, unveiling the poem''s beauty and its wisdom.With a clarity of thought and a style that are the trademarks of Lewis's writing, he provides answers with a lucidity and lightness that deepens our understanding of Milton's immortal work. Also inspiring new readers to revisit Paradise Lost, Lewis reminds us of why elements including ritual, splendour andTrade Review‘Lewis, more than any other critic now writing, adds wit, learning and enthusiasm to that ability to discuss rather than destroy, which is the prerequisite of the critic's true function.’ The Dublin Review

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Book SynopsisIdentifying a crucial link between poetic form and the forming of attention, Lucy Alford offers a new terminology for how poetic attention works and how attention becomes a subject and object of poetry. She combines close readings of a wide variety of poems with research in the philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology of attention.Trade ReviewToday, as our attention is nearly suffocated by the forces of commodification, Lucy Alford awakens us to the subtle powers and true breathing room that poems extend to us. Her focus ranges from Sappho to pre-Islamic poetry through the Renaissance to French and German modernism and the living poets of North America as she attends to the emergent forms of individual works and the manifold experiences of their reception. Close or far, immediate or withdrawn, vivid or abstract, with or without present subjects and objects, poets and their readers begin in perception and arrive at an ethics of care and even love. -- Susan Stewart, Avalon Foundation University Professor of the Humanities, Princeton UniversityWidely read in modern poetry and in philosophical, psychological, and sociological studies of attention, Lucy Alford has produced a boldly ambitious book with a new take on poetry in general and the sorts of things it can do. She explores how poems shape and are shaped by different kinds of attention with authority, eloquence, and sureness of touch. -- Jonathan Culler, author of Theory of the LyricLucy Alford’s elegant and original book incisively distinguishes among the various forms of poetic attention. Fusing lyrical responsiveness with sharp-eyed analysis, it offers supple and intricate readings of attention in a stunningly transnational and transhistorical array of poems, from ancient Egypt and Greece to contemporary America. -- Jahan Ramazani, author of Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of GenresAlford proposes a truly new taxonomy of interest to any student of poetry and poetics: how do poems hold our attention? What are the separable ways in which they do so? How does a poem send us back out into the rest of the world, and when does it encourage us to go, and to stay, nowhere? These questions apply not just to particular poets, but to the whole of a literary enterprise: Alford gives us an acoustically and aesthetically sensitive way to talk about poems from varying language and periods and about the diversity within their unity. -- Stephanie Burt, author of Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read PoemsHer readings are sensitive and nuanced. * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: What Is Poetic Attention?Part I. Attending to Objects1. Modes of Transitive Attention2. Contemplation: Attention’s Reach3. Desire: Attention’s Hunger4. Recollection: Attending to the Departed Object5. Imagination: Attention’s PoiesisPart II. Objectless Awareness6. Modes of Intransitive Attention7. Vigilance: States of Suspension8. Resignation: Relinquishing the Object9. Idleness: Doldrums and Gardens of Time10. Boredom: End-Stopped AttentionCoda: Toward a Practice of Poetic AttentionNotesBibliographyPermission CreditsIndex

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Book SynopsisExtraterritorial spaces fall outside of national borders but enhance state power. Matthew Hart reveals extraterritoriality’s centrality to twenty-first-century art and fiction and presents a new theory of literature that explains what happens when dreams of an open, connected world confront the reality of mobile, elastic, and tenacious borders.Trade ReviewExtraterritorial is a brilliantly original study of the global culture of our times and the extraterritorial space that it occupies, a space at the same time outside nations and states and within them. Hart offers a powerful argument for taking seriously how political geography is not just a topic for literature but also a force that shapes it from within. A provocative and convincing work both of theory and criticism. -- Adam Tooze, author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the WorldA fascinating book about why the idea of being extraterritorial has come to preoccupy writers and artists and a rejoinder to celebrations of the cosmopolitan intellect or the ostensible age of postnational globalization. Hart highlights the aesthetic appeal and confusion arising from extraterritoriality’s mixture of loosening and constraint, of being outside but also within, in spaces where political determination is at once constant and violable. -- Sarah Brouillette, author of UNESCO and the Fate of the LiteraryMatthew Hart remarks that the concept of the extraterritorial has been ‘a minor ghost’ in the history of literary criticism. Not any more. This is an important study of the contemporary condition where people find themselves in weird enclaves of territory, strange folds of legality, or passing through those transitional pockets of airports, detention camps, freeports, or gated communities that increasingly define existence. Hart makes a compelling argument that this condition is tied to the shifting forms and genres of the contemporary novel. With exhilarating readings of J. G. Ballard, China Miéville, Hilary Mantel, Amitav Ghosh, and others, each chapter opens up hugely productive insights. An essential read. -- Roger Luckhurst, University of LondonHart’s timely book zeros in on fundamental tensions between sovereignty and territoriality that have only become more urgent in the current moment of crisis. Mining contemporary novels and works of art for insights into political geography, Hart expertly reveals the overlapping jurisdictions and mixed regimes of power that define our world of ‘gated communities, mobile border regimes, and insular solidarities.’ Extraterritorial offers a lively and engaging mix of theoretical speculation, historical thinking, and sophisticated cultural analysis. -- Michael Rothberg, author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators[B]rilliantly original . . . this book asks urgent questions about what it means to belong to a territory. * Times Higher Education *A very different ethical commitment emerges in Hart’s Extraterritorial to the revolutionary attitude of modernism, not one of escape, but a movement inwards, into the cracks. This is not a hopeless outlook; in fact, Hart’s prose is at times surprisingly joyful; his readings retain a kind of enchantment with the aesthetics of the zone. * ASAP/Journal *Recommended. * Choice *Hart reminds us, with a timeliness surely only intensified by a global pandemic, that the power of the state to draw borders, far from waning along with all the other signatures of high modernity, paradoxically intensifies under globalization. * NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Four Types of Extraterritoriality1. Zone2. City-State3. String Theory4. A Border That Is Not a Border5. SettlementConclusion: The Extraterritorial NovelNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisExtraterritorial spaces fall outside of national borders but enhance state power. Matthew Hart reveals extraterritoriality’s centrality to twenty-first-century art and fiction and presents a new theory of literature that explains what happens when dreams of an open, connected world confront the reality of mobile, elastic, and tenacious borders.Trade ReviewExtraterritorial is a brilliantly original study of the global culture of our times and the extraterritorial space that it occupies, a space at the same time outside nations and states and within them. Hart offers a powerful argument for taking seriously how political geography is not just a topic for literature but also a force that shapes it from within. A provocative and convincing work both of theory and criticism. -- Adam Tooze, author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the WorldA fascinating book about why the idea of being extraterritorial has come to preoccupy writers and artists and a rejoinder to celebrations of the cosmopolitan intellect or the ostensible age of postnational globalization. Hart highlights the aesthetic appeal and confusion arising from extraterritoriality’s mixture of loosening and constraint, of being outside but also within, in spaces where political determination is at once constant and violable. -- Sarah Brouillette, author of UNESCO and the Fate of the LiteraryMatthew Hart remarks that the concept of the extraterritorial has been ‘a minor ghost’ in the history of literary criticism. Not any more. This is an important study of the contemporary condition where people find themselves in weird enclaves of territory, strange folds of legality, or passing through those transitional pockets of airports, detention camps, freeports, or gated communities that increasingly define existence. Hart makes a compelling argument that this condition is tied to the shifting forms and genres of the contemporary novel. With exhilarating readings of J. G. Ballard, China Miéville, Hilary Mantel, Amitav Ghosh, and others, each chapter opens up hugely productive insights. An essential read. -- Roger Luckhurst, University of LondonHart’s timely book zeros in on fundamental tensions between sovereignty and territoriality that have only become more urgent in the current moment of crisis. Mining contemporary novels and works of art for insights into political geography, Hart expertly reveals the overlapping jurisdictions and mixed regimes of power that define our world of ‘gated communities, mobile border regimes, and insular solidarities.’ Extraterritorial offers a lively and engaging mix of theoretical speculation, historical thinking, and sophisticated cultural analysis. -- Michael Rothberg, author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators[B]rilliantly original . . . this book asks urgent questions about what it means to belong to a territory. * Times Higher Education *A very different ethical commitment emerges in Hart’s Extraterritorial to the revolutionary attitude of modernism, not one of escape, but a movement inwards, into the cracks. This is not a hopeless outlook; in fact, Hart’s prose is at times surprisingly joyful; his readings retain a kind of enchantment with the aesthetics of the zone. * ASAP/Journal *Recommended. * Choice *Hart reminds us, with a timeliness surely only intensified by a global pandemic, that the power of the state to draw borders, far from waning along with all the other signatures of high modernity, paradoxically intensifies under globalization. * NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Four Types of Extraterritoriality1. Zone2. City-State3. String Theory4. A Border That Is Not a Border5. SettlementConclusion: The Extraterritorial NovelNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisGayatri Chakravorty Spivak declares the death of comparative literature as we know it and sounds an urgent call for a âœnew comparative literature,â in which the discipline is reborn.Table of ContentsPreface to the Twentieth Anniversary EditionAcknowledgments1. Crossing Borders2. Collectivities3. PlanetarityNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA ground-breaking anthology that places dispositifs (“apparatuses”) at the center of contemporary thought.Dispositif is one of the most prevalent yet elusive terms in contemporary thought. This comprehensive anthology brings together formative, seminal, and contemporary texts and visual applications to illuminate how central dispositifs are to contemporary theory. Greg Bird and Giovanbattista Tusa’s selection and placement of critical texts invite readers to explore common themes and genealogies, different interpretations and readings, and their diverse deployments across multiple disciplines and genres by such figures as Karl Marx, Franz Kafka, Judith Butler, Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Jasbir Puar, Donna Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Tiqqun, Claire Fontaine, and many others.Dispositif: A Cartography is a true toolbox for the development of technological ecology thinking that accoun

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Book SynopsisWhen in 1492 Christopher Columbus set out for Asia but instead happened upon the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola, his error inaugurated a specifically colonial modernity. This is,Security and Terrorcontends, the colonial modernity within which we still live. And its enduring features are especially vivid in the current American century, a moment marked by a permanent War on Terror and pervasive capitalist dispossession.Resisting the assumption that September 11, 2001, constituted a historical rupture, Eli Jelly-Schapiro traces the political and philosophic genealogies of security and terrorfrom the settler-colonization of the New World to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond.A history of the present crisis,Security and Terroralso examines how that history has been registered and reckoned with in significant works of contemporary fiction and theoryin novels byTeju Cole, Mohsin Hamid, Junot Díaz, and Roberto Bolaño,and in the critical interventions of Jean Baudrillard, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and others. In this richly interdisciplinary inquiry, Jelly-Schapiro reveals how the erasure of colonial pasts enables the perpetual reproduction of colonial culture.Trade Review"With a lucid and accessible tour of political theory . . . [Jelly-Schapiro] prepares his readers for astute interpretations of several recent fictional texts and films . . . The book is cultural studies at its best." * Times Higher Education *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: History, Narrative, and the War on Terror 1 1 • “All the World Was America”: The Long History of Homeland Security 20 2 • “A General Principle of Democracy”: Terror and Colonial Modernity 44 3 • “Choc en Retour”: Security, Terror, Theory 74 4 • “Vanishing Points”: Postcolonial America 105 5 • “This Is Our Threnody”: Writing History as Catastrophe 140 Epilogue: Rupture and Colonial Modernity 163 Notes 179 Bibliography 203

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"With a lucid and accessible tour of political theory . . . [Jelly-Schapiro] prepares his readers for astute interpretations of several recent fictional texts and films . . . The book is cultural studies at its best." * Times Higher Education *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: History, Narrative, and the War on Terror 1 1 • “All the World Was America”: The Long History of Homeland Security 20 2 • “A General Principle of Democracy”: Terror and Colonial Modernity 44 3 • “Choc en Retour”: Security, Terror, Theory 74 4 • “Vanishing Points”: Postcolonial America 105 5 • “This Is Our Threnody”: Writing History as Catastrophe 140 Epilogue: Rupture and Colonial Modernity 163 Notes 179 Bibliography 203

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book to approach the visuality of ancient Greek drama through the lens of theater phenomenology. Gathering evidence from tragedy, comedy, satyr play, and vase painting, Naomi Weiss argues that, from its very beginnings, Greek theater in the fifth century BCE was understood as a complex interplay of actuality and virtuality. Classical drama frequently exposes and interrogates potential viewing experiences within the theatronliterally, the place for seeing. Weiss shows how, in so doing, it demands distinctive modes of engagement from its audiences. Examining plays and pottery with attention to the instability and ambiguity inherent in visual perception, Seeing Theater provides an entirely new model for understanding this ancient art form.Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Texts, Translations, and Abbreviations Introduction Phenomenology, Aristotle, and Classical Greek Drama Theōrein and Seeing Theater The “Play of Actuality” beyond Fifth-Century Theater Engaged Spectatorship Genre and Scope 1. Opening Spaces Tragic and Comic Space Seeing the Setting Staged Spectatorship Seeing Theater, Seeing Assembly Atopic Beginnings The Phenomenology of Space in the Classical Greek Theater 2. Seeing What? Is This That? Aeschylus’s Theoroi Visual Indeterminacy in Aeschylus’s Suppliants Winging with Words in Aristophanes’s Birds 3. Pain Between Bodies Dustheatos Blinded Bodies I: Euripides’s Cyclops and Hecuba Blinded Bodies II: Sophocles’s Oedipus the King Sympathetic Bodies: [Aeschylus’s] Prometheus Bound Pleasure in Pain 4. Pots and Plays Actor, Mask, Costume The Basel Chorus Krater The London Pandora Krater The Naples Birds Krater Epilogue Works Cited General Index Index Locorum

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Book SynopsisSuitable for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas, this title covers close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms that defy easy translation between languages and cultures. It includes terms from more than a dozen languages.Trade ReviewWinner of a 2015 Outstanding Reference Sources Award, Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Hari Kunzru One of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2014, chosen by David Wootton One of The Times Higher Education Supplement's Books of the Year 2014, chosen by Robert S. C. Gordon One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 "[W]hat may be the weirdest book the twenty-first century has so far produced... [T]his is a considerable and entertaining book, full of odd words beautifully, at times owlishly, annotated."--Adam Gopnik, New Yorker "[An] extraordinary book... Many of the entries are illuminating, but what is most fascinating about the book is its partial vision of a fragment of European culture, through the dissection of its philosophical vocabulary."--Tim Crane, Times Literary Supplement "[A] cornucopia of lexical trajectories and semantic adventures across a wide variety of languages and histories... As for the achievement of Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra and Michael Wood in orchestrating the English edition, that qualifies as heroic ... this book is another valuable reminder that a philosophy that ignores its own history, that pretends to operate as if it had no history, is self-impoverishing."--Christopher Prendergast, London Review of Books Praise for the French edition: "This dictionary's great idea is to address European philosophy from the point of view of translation... [It] attains its goal by putting this principle to work: one cannot always translate a foreign concept in one word, but one can always explain it. And when one has grasped the explanation, one has acquired the concept."--Le Figaro Litteraire Praise from the French edition: "A dictionary cannot be summarized. One great lesson, nevertheless, which can be distilled from this one (it can be gathered in the masterworks of the entries 'Traduire' ['Translate'] and 'Langues et traditions' ['Languages and traditions']), is that no language is born a philosophical one. It becomes philosophical, as it engages in exchanges with other languages. Philosophical language is impure language, and a national philosophy cannot, therefore, exist. This conviction can perhaps be one of the meanings of the unity of Europe, to which the Vocabulaire renders homage, and service."--Vincent Aubin, Le Figaro (review translated by Mark Jensen) "[I]nteresting reading. The Dictionary of Untranslatables is a wonderful addition to my language library... [A] book to savor and think about and to learn in the broader sense of learning. For anyone interested in language, in words, and the scope of meaning that a word can encompass, I recommend the Dictionary of Untranslatables."--Rich Adin, American Editor "[G]reat success... By preserving the specificity of words in their source languages, but then proceeding though so many near-synonyms in other tongues, the Dictionary bridges this ideological divide, providing a different way of understanding what it is to be in, and between, languages."--Tom Bunstead, Independent on Sunday "[Y]ou should equip yourself with this extraordinary book... You could probably, and profitably, spend your life reading this book... The volume offers a detailed and up-to-date map of abstract thinking, from the classical age to now."--Douglas Kerr, South China Morning Post "The Dictionary of Untranslatables, newly translated from the French original, wears its modest megalomania well. An 11-year project involving some 150 contributors and comprising more than 400 entries, the Dictionary suggests comparison with Volume XI of the First Encyclopedia of Tlon, described by Borges as 'a vast and systemic fragment of the entire history of an unknown planet.' The planet in question here is what we usually call 'continental philosophy.'... [A] heady universe of speculative thinking about the meaning of life, the history of ideas, the fate of mankind, and so on... [T]he Dictionary is revealing for the way it sketches, lexically, a set of parallel but alternate intellectual traditions. What language teachers call 'false friends' are everywhere, inspiring a constant alertness to nuance... Scrupulous and difficult, it's everything that the Internet, which wants everything to talk 'frictionlessly' with everything else, is not. No dreams of universal translation here--enjoy the friction. Use it for bibliomancy, the lost art of divination by book (with scripture or Virgil or Homer or Hafiz)."--Ross Perlin, New Inquiry "A vast, lovingly detailed translator's note to western philosophy... This fascinating book belongs to the interesting-in-itself side."--George Miller, Le Monde Diplomatique "[This] is an invaluable reference for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas... It has already provided me with several pleasurable evenings of educational reading adventures, and promises many more for the future. A superb gift for English-speaking writers, linguists, verbivores and linguaphiles."--GrrrlScientist "The Dictionary demonstrates how much vitality and endurance these languages gain from the dialogue they engage in with other world languages--a dialogue structured and catalyzed by relations of power... As the Dictionary of Untranslatables amply documents, the academy's effects on language are every bit as far-reaching as those of colonialism, trade, and pop culture. The etymologies here are at once precise and profligate, proliferating across terms like Abstraction and Acedia, Drive and Disegno, Erscheinung and Essence, Melancholy and Mimesis, Praxis and Pravda... The struggle for clarity appears nowhere in ideal form but is always a thing unfolding in the world, a compound of ideology, politics, oppression, fear, desire--of all that is lost, and found, in translation."--Matthew Battles, Barnes and Noble Review "[A]stonishingly successful ... entertaining and revealing ... strikingly complete and correct... [A] fascinating book... The translation of European 'philosophy' into American 'theory' has probably been the most consequential event in American intellectual life in the last fifty years, but it has entailed a great deal of 'mistranslation.'... The Dictionary of Untranslatables, in addition to its other pleasures, has a great deal to teach American scholars of the humanities about the depth and complexity of the languages and discourses we've picked up only recently--and a few powerful suggestions about what we may find waiting when we choose to turn back to our own."--Michael Kinnucan, Asymptote "Dictionary of Untranslatables is a treasury of linguistic and philosophical paradoxes, both absorbing and diverting."--Alexander Adams, Spiked Review of Books "[T]his erudite volume is indispensable for advanced European philosophy, literature, and translation studies."--Choice "Dictionary of Untranslatables is one of the most solid, wide-ranging, and remarkable books of our time. Very few will ever read it cover to cover, but anyone who dips into it with a little background in the philosophical tradition, and a desire to learn more about what life is actually about, will be rewarded many times over for the effort."--John Toren, Rain Taxi Review of Books "All dictionaries are encyclopedias in disguise. But the Dictionary of Untranslatables is one of the most remarkably discursive works of reference I have encountered... [T]his giant tome, edited by Barbara Cassin, is ... a bonanza for anyone interested in the history of ideas--a kind of miniature Enlightenment."--Henry Hitchings, Wall Street Journal "This astoundingly erudite work instantly asserts itself as one of the high points in European scholarship."--James W. Underhill, Translation Studies "This is an essential volume for every university library."--Michel Petheram, Reference Reviews "A remarkable achievement--truly a cause for wonder."--Matthew Walker, Slavic and East European JournalTable of ContentsPreface vii Introduction xvii How to Use This Work xxi Principal Collaborators xxiii Contributors xxv Translators xxxiii Entries A to Z 1 Reference Tools 1269 Index 1275

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Book SynopsisIn Ladies' Greek, Yopie Prins illuminates a culture of female classical literacy that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, during the formation of women's colleges on both sides of the Atlantic. Why did Victorian women of letters desire to learn ancient Greek, a "dead" language written in a strange alphabet and no longer spoken? InTrade Review"Shortlisted for the 2017 London Hellenic Prize, London Hellenic Society""Winner of the 2018 NAVSA Book Prize, North American Victorian Studies Association""Winner of the 2018 Robert Lowry Patten Award, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900""The story of 'ladies' Greek', writes Yopie Prins in this fascinating academic study, goes hand in hand with that of the progress made in women’s education during the second half of the 19th century."---Francesca Wade, Daily Telegraph"[A] splendid new study of late 19th- and early 20th-century female translators of ancient Greek tragedy. . . . Prins gives a fascinating account of the importance of Greek tragedy in translation and theatrical production in the colleges of higher education for women that emerged in this period."---Emily Wilson, Guardian"[An] excellent new book. . . . [Prins] brings a perspective combination of biographical insight and historical overview."---John Kerrigan, London Review of Books"In Yopie Prins' remarkably wide-ranging, even scandalously scholarly work, she has collected a series of vivid tableaux vivant featuring translations and performances of Greek tragedies by 19th- and early 20th-century women, both in Britain and America."---Mary Townsend, Education & Culture Review"Ladies' Greek has been nearly twenty years in preparation. . . . It's been worth the wait. This is a wonderful demonstration of archival research, literary history and close reading which takes the discipline of classical reception to a new level. Like the subjects she describes, Prins breathes new life into dead papers, her own dazzling writing dancing across the page. . . . An exhilarating intellectual ride."---Jennifer Wallace, Modern Language Quarterly"Prins has a gift for wordplay and turns of phrase . . . that can open up new speculative possibilities as we ask why women were so attracted to learning Greek. . . . [An] important study."---Elizabeth Helsinger, Modern Philology"Ladies’ Greek is an exceptional piece of work. Deftly written, insightful and expansive, the book demonstrates Prins’ excellence as a scholar. Prins has produced more than outstanding scholarship, though: her series of encounters with archival materials and the lives and works of past women they represent is both compelling and moving. I will confess that the book took some time to get through, but that is chiefly because I found myself re-reading some of the passages again and again as one might do a great piece of literature. . . . A triumph."---David Bullen, Classical Review"A wonderful demonstration of archival research, literary history, and close reading, Ladies’ Greek takes the discipline of classical reception to a new level. Like the subjects she describes, Prins breathes new life into dead papers, her own dazzling writing dancing across the page."---Jennifer Wallace, Modern Language Quarterly"Prins’ archival analysis unpicks such conflicting perceptions of increased access to women’s education. Engrossing and accessible, Ladies’ Greek reveals very different (self-)portraits of female classicists and paves the way for further studies of women’s encounters with classical antiquity."---Rachel Bryant Davies, Journal of Hellenic Studies ​​​​​​​Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Preface xi Between Alpha and Omega xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction: Women and the Greek Alphabet 1 An Ode in Greek 1 "Some Greek upon the Margin" 5 "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?" 12 Translating Greek Tragedy 26 Chapter One: The Spell of Greek 35 Virginia Woolf 's Agamemnon Notebook 35 Cassandra between the Stage and the Page 45 OTOTOTOI 52 Chapter Two: IOTAOMEGA in Prometheus Bound 57 "So Harsh a Chain of Suffering" 57 Greek Verbs in Me 62 "A Goodly Company of Lady-Translators" 83 The Flight of Io, to America and Back to Greece 95 Chapter Three: The Education of Electra 116 Behold and See 116 Electra at Girton College 124 Electra at Smith College 137 Chapter Four: Hippolytus in Ladies' Greek (with the Accents) 152 New Measures for New Women 152 "A Brisk Interchange of Letters" 155 Euripidean (De)Cadence 163 H.D.'s Euripides: Feet, Feet, Feet, Feet 180 Chapter Five: Dancing Greek Letters 202 Modern Maenads 202 Jane Harrison's Thrill 209 Bryn Mawr College Rituals 218 Postface 233 Reading the Surface 233 Refractions of Antigone 236 How to Read Ladies' Greek 242 Notes 247 Bibliography 265 Index 289

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Book SynopsisBoethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy as a prisoner condemned to death for treason, circumstances that are reflected in the themes and concerns of its evocative poetry and dialogue between the prisoner and his mentor, Lady Philosophy. This classic philosophical statement of late antiquity has had an enduring influence on Western thought. ItTrade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 2015 Rene Wellek Prize, American Comparative Literature Association "[A] revelatory study... Zim's close readings of these in-tandem texts bear haunting witness to enduring conditions in the world that ought not to be but unfathomably are, despite all the vociferous protestations that decry inhumane treatment of the other."--Choice "This book clearly demonstrates the profundity of much writing from prison and is packed full of fascinating and, in my experience, accurate observations. Every prison chaplain ought to have this book on his or her shelf."--Terry Waite, Church TimesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I. In Defense of Civilization 19 1. The Disciplines of Reason and Lyric Poetry 21 Anicius Boethius, Of the Consolation of Philosophy (ca. 524-25): The Foundations of Resistance in Dialogue and Lyric 21 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (1943-45): Christian Ethics and Lyric 47 2. Creative Dialogues with Textual Partners, Past and Present 79 Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation: A Political Guide to the Dilemmas of Religious Conscience (1534-35) 80 Antonio Gramsci, Prison Letters (1926-37): Dialogue in Dialectic 104 Part II. Preservation of Self 119 3. Memory and Self-Justification: Images of Grace and Disgrace Abounding 121 John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666): Writing the Eternally Present Self 124 Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1897): A Pastoral Letter of Disgrace Abounding 142 4. Memorial Narratives as Salvation for the Feminine Self 166 Marie-Jeanne Roland, Memoirs (1793): Writing History Herself 169 Anne Frank, The Diary and Tales from the Secret Annexe (1942-44): Life Writing 191 5. The Consolations of Imagination and Lyric Poetry 213 Jean Cassou, Trente-trois sonnets composes au secret / 33 Sonnets of the Resistance (1943): Preserving the Liberty of a Poet 214 Irina Ratushinskaya, Pencil Letter and No, I'm Not Afraid (1982-86): Preserving the Life of a Poet 241 Part III. Testimony for Mankind 265 6. With Hindsight and Beyond Resistance 267 Primo Levi, If This Is a Man (1947) and Ad ora incerta (1947-86): Resisting the Demolition of a Man 267 Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve (1981): In Defense of Civilization 291 Conclusion: Beyond Testimony 302 Select Bibliography 311 Index 319

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Book SynopsisSite Reading offers a new method of literary and cultural interpretation and a new theory of narrative setting by examining five sites--supermarkets, dumps, roads, ruins, and asylums--that have been crucial to American literature and visual art since the mid-twentieth century. Against the traditional understanding of setting as a static backgroundTrade ReviewWinner of the 2016 Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction, Media Ecology AssociationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations xi INTRODUCTION: THE SITE OF THE SOCIAL 1 1 SUPERMARKET SOCIOLOGY (Don DeLillo, Andy Warhol) 25 TEST SITES 49 2 DUMPS (William S. Burroughs, Mierle Laderman Ukeles) 51 3 ROADS (Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, John Chamberlain) 73 4 RUINS (Thomas Pynchon, Robert Smithson) 96 5 ASYLUMS (Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks, Jeff Wall) 121 AFTERWORD: SITE UNSEEN 149 Acknowledgments 157 Notes 161 Bibliography 187 Index 201

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Book SynopsisIt's a familiar story: a beautiful woman is abducted and her husband journeys to recover her. This story's best-known incarnation is also a central Greek myth--the abduction of Helen that led to the Trojan War. Stealing Helen surveys a vast range of folktales and texts exhibiting the story pattern of the abducted beautiful wife and makes a detailedTrade Review"Ultimately, the book's greatest merit may lie ... in his [Edmunds'] broad horizons--in his delight at discovering similarities between classical literature and the tales and experiences of people across the globe."--Barbara Graziosi, Times Higher Education "Edmunds brings to this rich, sophisticated book an innovative approach to the Helen story: he looks at it with a comparative eye."--ChoiceTable of Contents*Frontmatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. v*List of Figures, pg. ix*Preface, pg. xi*Abbreviations, pg. xv*Introduction, pg. 1*1. "The Abduction of the Beautiful Wife" as International Tale, pg. 20*2. Dioscuri, pg. 66*3. Helen Myth, pg. 103*4. Hypostases of Helen, pg. 162*5. Helen in the Fifth Century and After, pg. 197*Conclusion, pg. 236*Appendix 1. Examples of "The Abduction of the Beautiful Wife", pg. 247*Appendix 2. Inventory of Art Objects, pg. 303*Notes, pg. 313*References, pg. 369*Index Locorum, pg. 407*General Index, pg. 420

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Book SynopsisThe Russian writer Lydia Ginzburg (1902-90) is best known for her Notes from the Leningrad Blockade and for influential critical studies, such as On Psychological Prose, investigating the problem of literary character in French and Russian novels and memoirs. Yet she viewed her most vital work to be the extensive prose fragments, composed for the dTrade Review"Particularly welcome is the queer studies dimension of the volume... Those coming to Ginzburg's work for the first time will particularly appreciate the informative biography of the author at the beginning of the book"--Choice "Any student of the twentieth century and its traumas, let alone Soviet literary history, should find Van Buskirk's book of extreme interest and value."--Marat Grinberg, Russian ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii A Note about Spelling, Transliteration, and Archival References ix Introduction 1 1 Writing the Self after the Crisis of Individualism: Distancing and Moral Evaluation 26 2 The Poetics of Desk-Drawer Notebooks 69 3 Marginality in the Mainstream, Lesbian Love in the Third Person 109 4 Passing Characters 161 5 Transformations of Experience: Around and Behind Notes of a Blockade Person 196 Conclusion: Sustaining a Human Image 222 Notes 231 Bibliography 323 Index 343

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Book Synopsis"Why are you learning Zulu?" When Mark Sanders began studying the language, he was often asked this question. In Learning Zulu, Sanders places his own endeavors within a wider context to uncover how, in the past 150 years of South African history, Zulu became a battleground for issues of property, possession, and deprivation. Sanders combines elemeTrade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016 Longlisted for the 2017 Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction, Sunday Times "In this deeply introspective memoir, Sanders focuses on his quest to learn the Zulu language... A valuable resource for history and political science as well as language."--ChoiceTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Chapter 1 Learn More Zulu 14 Chapter 2 A Teacher's Novels 49 Chapter 3 Ipi Tombi 74 Chapter 4 100% Zulu Boy 96 Chapter 5 2008 115 Acknowledgments 145 Notes 147 Select Bibliography 183 Index 193

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Book Synopsis"The articles in this reference book, all fully updated and from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Fourth Edition, provide a complete survey of the poetic history and practice in over 100 major national, regional, and diasporic literatures and language traditions throughout the world"--Trade Review"Helpful spin-offs from an acclaimed 'mother volume.'"--Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface vii Acknowledgments ix Alphabetical List of Entries xi Bibliographical Abbreviations xiii General Abbreviations xvii Contributors xix Entries A to Z 1 Index 613

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Book Synopsis"The articles in this reference book, all fully updated and from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Fourth Edition, provide a complete survey of the poetic history and practice in over 100 major national, regional, and diasporic literatures and language traditions throughout the world"--Trade Review"Helpful spin-offs from an acclaimed 'mother volume.'"--Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface vii Acknowledgments ix Alphabetical List of Entries xi Bibliographical Abbreviations xiii General Abbreviations xvii Contributors xix Entries A to Z 1 Index 613

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWinner of a 2015 Charles Goodwin Award of Merit, Society for Classical Studies "[Billings'] Genealogy is an impressive study that pinpoints distinctions, elucidates complexities and helps to show how they arose and why they matter. His readings are adroit and scrupulously contextualized... Here is a book whose subtlety and scope prompt further reflection on profoundly important matters."--Michael Silk, Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsPreface xi Note on Translations, Citations, and Abbreviations xv INTRODUCTION: Tragedy and Philosophy around 1800 1 TRAGIC MODERNITIES Chapter 1: Quarreling over Tragedy 19 Ancients and Moderns on Tragedy 21 Nach Athen: Literary Models in Germany 32 Chapter 2: The Antiquity of Tragedy 45 Guillaume Dubois de Rochefort: Tragedy and Cultural Difference 46 Johann Gottfried Herder: Tragedy for the Volk 53 Returns to the Greek: Translation, Philology, Performance 59 TRAGIC THEMES Chapter 3: Revolutionary Freedom 75 The Tragic Sublime: Schiller and Schelling 80 Schiller's System of Tragic Freedom 88 Criticism and Scholarship: A. W. Schlegel and Gottfried Hermann 97 Chapter 4: Greek and Modern Tragedy 105 Friedrich Schlegel: Nature, Art, Revolution 107 Schiller: "The Limits of Ancient and Modern Tragedy" 113 Schelling: Identity and History in the Philosophy of Art 123 Chapter 5: Tragic Theologies 133 A Poetic Religion 135 "Problems of Fate": "The Spirit of Christianity" and Empedocles 139 The Power of the Sacrifice: The Natural Law Essay 150 TRAGIC TEXTS Chapter 6: Hegel's Phenomenology: The Fate of Tragedy 161 The Ethical World of Tragedy 163 Error and Recognition 171 Tragic Knowing and Forgetting 177 The End of Tragedy 184 Chapter 7: Holderlin's Sophocles: Tragedy and Paradox 189 Tragedy and Vaterland 191 Sophocles, Ancient and Modern 196 "The Lawful Calculus" 200 "The Boldest Moment" 205 Vaterlandische Umkehr 212 Exodos: Births of the Tragic 222 Bibliography 235 Index 251

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016""Longlisted for the 2017 Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction, Sunday Times""In this deeply introspective memoir, Sanders focuses on his quest to learn the Zulu language. . . . A valuable resource for history and political science as well as language." * Choice *"Well written and well researched. . . . The book is a good testimony of resistance and survival of the Zulu people, culture, and isiZulu the language."---Shirley Mthethwa-Sommers, African Studies Quarterly

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""A comprehensive, historical examination of underwater films and television shows that reflected the public’s interest in sea fantasies during three periods. . . . Insightful." * Choice Reviews *"Margaret Cohen’s comprehensive research and skilful writing makes this book a fascinating read. . . . The Underwater Eye is a very well written and researched book that takes us comprehensively through this remarkable journey."---Jeff Goodman, Scubaverse

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ultimately, the book's greatest merit may lie . . . in his [Edmunds'] broad horizons--in his delight at discovering similarities between classical literature and the tales and experiences of people across the globe."---Barbara Graziosi, Times Higher Education"Edmunds brings to this rich, sophisticated book an innovative approach to the Helen story: he looks at it with a comparative eye." * Choice *"An excellent, important book in both its methodology and data. . . . Edmunds has brought about a leap of quality in understanding the myth of Helen."---Ephraim Nissan, Fabula"A weighty contribution to the study of Helen as well as the study of folklore in ancient Greece."---Ryan Platte, Journal of Hellenic Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography""A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""Excellent. . . . A braided account of Melville and Mumford, aimed at exploring the strange resonance between their times and ours."---Daniel Immerwahr, Slate"[A] unique investigation of parallel lives. . . . Sachs’s chapters interweave periods of the two men’s lives, creating a dappled effect of shared shadows and light. Certain biographical overlaps are particularly striking."---Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal"A rich double portrait of Herman Melville and Lewis Mumford. . . . [Sachs’s] voice is exact, good-humored and passionate—all the qualities we need in our own dark times."---James Marcus, Times Literary Supplement ​​​​​​​"Sachs has written a sort of palimpsest of biography itself, showing how, generation by generation, we begin to see through the traffic between past and present that leads to the rediscovery of figures like Melville and Mumford, who wanted for themselves and their progeny (which includes us) a recognition that going backward can also be a way of going forward."---Carl Rollyson, New York Sun"Sachs manages a set of impressive balancing acts: matching scholarly diligence with fluent, stylish prose; admiration for his subjects with an alertness to their flaws. Up from the Depths packs multiple books into one: an introduction to Mumford’s thought, an innovative study of Melville, and a history of the modern age through the eyes of two uniquely perceptive writers."---Madoc Cairns, The Observer"Rare and remarkable."---Jennie Hann, National Book Critics Circle"An inspired study of [Melville and Mumford], juxtaposing their lives and works in alternating chapters. . . . What draws Sachs to [these writers] is the dialectic in each between continuity and disruption, confidence and despair."---Steven G. Kellman, American Scholar"Illuminating."---Allison Gilbert, BUST"An incisive homage to the continuing relevance of two towering writers. . . . A well-informed, thoughtful dual biography." * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"Fascinating. . . . In shining a light on Mumford’s efforts during the ‘Melville Revival’ of the mid-1900s, Sachs makes a strong case for the rediscovery of Mumford’s own writing. . . . A well-executed literary history." * Publishers Weekly *"This fascinating book explores the connection between two American writers, novelist Herman Melville (1819–91) and Lewis Mumford (1895–1990), the novelist’s biographer. In brief, lively, and engaging chapters, Sachs . . . alternates back and forth between the two men, detailing many correspondences in their lives and work despite the years that separated them. . . . Sachs provides sensitive analysis of text and context, offers a wealth of resources in his bibliography, and models how historians and critics can pose questions that continue to matter." * Choice *"[Sachs] weaves the two writers’ contrapuntal historical dialog into a single narrative, a reading experience enhanced by Sachs’ fluent, often-lyrical writing skills."---Kevin Lynch, Culture Currents"Sachs’s ‘willingness to flash back and forth in time’ leaves readers with a subtle, poignant, understanding of the relationship between the past, present, and future. Sachs also offers his readers a tether for those who feel unmoored and alone as a result of modernity. By telling ‘the story of [these] two modern wanderers’ Sachs shows us the possibility of connection despite the years and the changing circumstances that separate [Melville and Mumford]."---Natalie Fuehrer Taylor, Law & Liberty"Sachs deftly draws our attention mutually to these two great writers, and the resonances between their work, one in literature and the other in urban planning and a hope for civilized progress."---Donald Brackett, Critics at Large

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"By affording us a glimpse of Singer’s worldview in all its beguiling ambiguities, Old Truths and New Clichés helps us see his noble achievement more clearly: to combine what he called a 'spiritual stenography' of higher powers with a record of our wrestling with lower passions."---Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal"[A] touching collection. . . . The author’s fans will be delighted by this intimate anthology." * Publishers Weekly *"Old Truths and New Clichés, a new collection of Singer’s essays compiled by the writer, scholar, and translator David Stromberg . . . lays bare Singer’s motivating ideas for all to see. Stromberg’s work here really is heroic. . . . The great accomplishment of this collection is to . . . reveal [Singer] as a true intellectual with a coherent artistic vision."---Dara Horn, Jewish Review of Books"[Singer] is revealed in these writings . . . as an author of consummate curiosity, humanity and erudition."---Matt d’Ancona, Tortoise"[Singer’s] unique perspective spans an impressive range of issues. . . . Singer’s writing is enjoyable."---Terry Freedman, TeachWire

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Before Modernism is] full of fascinating detail and Jackson’s research is impeccable."---Alan Dent, Penniless Press

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Book SynopsisTable of Contents*Frontmatter, pg. i*PREFACE, pg. vii*CONTENTS, pg. x*INTRODUCTION, pg. 1*CHAPTER I: THE NINETEEN TWENTIES, pg. 17*CHAPTER II: THE NINETEEN THIRTIES, pg. 38*CHAPTER III: PROLETARIAN LITERATURE, pg. 56*CHAPTER IV: JOHN DOS PASSOS, pg. 83*CHAPTER V: OTHER OPINIONS OF THE NINETEEN THIRTIES, pg. 109*CHAPTER VI: FROM WORLD WAR II TO 1955, pg. 137*CHAPTER VII: FROM 1955 TO 1960, pg. 170*CHAPTER VIII: UPTON SINCLAIR, pg. 202*CHAPTER IX: JACK LONDON AND O. HENRY, pg. 219*CHAPTER X: SINCLAIR LEWIS AND THEODORE DREISER, pg. 239*CHAPTER XI: HOWARD FAST, pg. 272*CHAPTER XII: ERNEST HEMINGWAY, pg. 297*CHAPTER XIII: CONCLUSION, pg. 316*INDEX, pg. 329

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Book SynopsisThis important compilation represents and promotes the conceptualization of American culture within the broader context of transatlantic activity.

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Book SynopsisThis important compilation represents and promotes the conceptualization of American culture within the broader context of transatlantic activity.

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Book SynopsisThe essays included in this collection seek to take the pulse of recent developments in narratological research in the French-speaking countries. Theorists in these countries heavily participated in and shaped narratology, an outgrowth of the structuralist movement during the 1960s and 1970s. While US, German, and Scandinavian theorists took the forefront in the 1990s, narratology in France faded into the background. It was not until the turn of the century that a new interest in narratological issues among French researchers emerged. Activity in the field has since intensified, spurred on, in part, by the realization that narratology cannot be summed up by its formalist and structuralist origins.

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