ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisIn this ingenious and diverse collection of 366 stories, events and facts about language, David Crystal presents a selection of insights from literary and linguistic writers, poets and global institutions, together with the weird and wonderful creations of language enthusiasts to enliven each day of the year. The day-by-day treatment illustrates the extraordinary breadth of the subject, from ‘Morse Code Day’ to ‘Talk Like William Shatner Day’, from forensic phonetics used to catch serial killers to heroines of speed reading, and covers writers from many different eras and cultures, including William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, R. K. Narayan, Wole Soyinka and many more. Some days focus on pronunciation, orthography, grammar or vocabulary. Others focus on the way language is used in science, religion, politics, broadcasting, publishing, the Internet and the arts. There are days that acknowledge the achievements of language study, such as in language teaching, speech therapy, deaf education and forensic science, as well as technological progress, from the humble pencil to digital software. Several days celebrate individual languages, such as those recognised as ‘official’ by the United Nations, but not forgetting those spoken by small communities, along with their associated cultural identities. A celebration of the remarkable creativity of all who have illuminated our understanding of language, this book is ideal for anyone wanting to add an extra point of interest to their language day.Table of ContentsPREFACE vi A DATE WITH LANGUAGE 1 APPENDIX 368 REFERENCES 369 INDEX 387

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Book Synopsis"I'm so glad that a new edition is coming! A wonderful, inspirational and essential book for Christie-lovers." Lucy Worsley, author of Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (Hodder & Stoughton, 2022) ‘My dear home, my nest, my house’: these words from a 1958 song by Jules Bruyère, with which Agatha Christie opened her autobiography, sum up the importance of home to her. She also wrote: ‘What I liked playing with as a child I have liked playing with later in life. Houses for instance.’ She also lovingly included descriptions of houses (especially ‘her’ houses) in her books. Hilary Macaskill examines the houses that meant most to Agatha Christie, including her childhood home, Ashfield, in Torquay; Winterbrook in Oxfordshire, and, above all, Greenway, soaring above the River Dart and Agatha’s favourite home from 1938 to the end of her life in 1976 (though requisitioned in the Second World War by the Admiralty, and from 1943 to 1945 home also to the United States Coast Guard). The author also explores more temporary abodes, not only a succession of flats and houses in London (mainly in Kensington and Chelsea) but also the homes she set up at the digs in the Middle East that she travelled to with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, and the hotels – notably the Moorland Hotel on Dartmoor, to which she adjourned in the grip of writer’s block to complete her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and the Burgh Island Hotel, a major inspiration for And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun.Trade Review‘A must for Christie fans but also a good read for those interested in the social history and interiors of a bygone age.’ Country Life 'The intimate glimpses into Dame Agatha's life and homes make this book a delightful must for all her many fans.' -- Liz Hodgkinson'An absolute must for the Christie aficionado.'

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Book SynopsisEd Simon is editor of Belt Magazine and emeritus staff writer at The Millions. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review Daily, The Public Domain Review, The Hedgehog Review, JSTOR Daily, McSweeney's, Jacobin, The New Republic, Religion Dispatches, Killing the Buddha, and The Washington Post, among dozens of others. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology.

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Book SynopsisToward an Anti-Racist Poetics seeks to dislodge the often unspoken white universalism that underpins literary production and reception today. In this personal and thoughtful book, award-winning author Wayde Compton explores how we might collectively develop a poetic approach that makes space for diversity by doing away with universalism in both lyric and avant-garde verse. Poignant and contemporary examples reveal how white authors often forget that their whiteness is a racial position. In the propulsive push to experiment with form, they essentially fail to see themselves as white artists. Noting that he has never felt that his subjectivity was universal, Compton advocates for the importance of understanding your own history and positionality, and for letting go of the idea of a common aesthetic. Toward an Anti-Racist Poetics offers validation for poets of colour who do not work in dominant western forms, and is for all writers seeking to engage in anti-racist work.

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Book SynopsisThe Short Story after Apartheid offers the first major study of the anglophone short story in South Africa since apartheid’s end. By focusing on the short story this book complicates models of South African literature dominated by the novel and contributes to a much-needed generic and formalist turn in postcolonial studies. Literary texts are sites of productive struggle between formal and extra-formal concerns, and these brief, fragmentary, elliptical, formally innovative stories offer perspectives that reframe or revise important concerns of post-apartheid literature: the aesthetics of engaged writing, the politics of the past, class and race, the legacies of violence, and the struggle over the land. Through an analysis of key texts from the period by Nadine Gordimer, Ivan Vladislavić, Zoë Wicomb, Phaswane Mpe, and Henrietta Rose-Innes, this book assesses the place of the short story in post-apartheid writing and develops a fuller model of how artworks allow and disallow forms of social thought.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Long Story Short Nadine Gordimer: Past, Present, and Future A Moment’s Monument: Counter-Monuments in Ivan Vladislavić Zoë Wicomb and the “Problem of Class” Phaswane Mpe’s Aesthetics of Brooding Spatial Form in Henrietta Rose-Innes Conclusion: Small Medium at Large

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Book SynopsisThe lives and achievements of eight women writers – a startling and unconventional history of literatureTrade Review‘A smart, funny and highly readable journey through the lives of women writers and the challenges they and their works face. It’s an informative, enthusiastic and rightly enraging tour de force.’ —A.L. Kennedy'Essential reading.' —Claire Tomalin'In this splendid alternative history of English literature, Anna Beer shows that "simply by putting words together on the page" women authors have for centuries fought back… [an] excellent study: "let’s scavenge and rebuild in the face of the destruction of women’s work…Let’s find the precious gems amidst the rubble."' —Guardian'Eve Bites Back isn’t pleading for justice for female writers, it’s indicting a system that has long ignored them and, to some extent, still does… Part polemic, part revisionist criticism, Eve Bites Back, as its title suggests, is sharp and aggressive, a book that will irritate, enlighten, persuade and provoke argument. It’s a work of correction, in every sense of the word.’ —Washington Post'A totally absorbing and enlightening tour through the work of eight significant women authors – with one of the funniest introductory chapters ever.' —Sarah Bakewell'Writing with energy, wit and at times barely suppressed fury, Anna Beer brings to life the struggle to be heard of eight women writers over 500 years. Her subtle literary excavations are both informative and a gripping read.' —David Goodhart, founder editor of Prospect'Startling stories and facts on every page. Written with a clear and authoritative voice, this is both a very entertaining and very important book about the many obstacles that women have overcome to be writers, and the long struggles even the most gifted and well-connected women authors have encountered in order to be taken seriously.' —Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history, University of Oxford'Anna Beer is one of those very rare writers who are able to combine rigorous research with a gripping and thoroughly accessible style. This is an ambitious, authoritative, feisty book and a worthy successor to her inspirational Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music.' —Kate Kennedy, author of Dweller in Shadows'Eve Bites Back … is shaped by the same principles [as Beer’s earlier work] – feminist indignation, certainly, but also a drive to share ideas and observations about a diverse body of achievement, emerging from historical periods radically different from our own … invigorating.' —Dinah Birch, TLS'A delightful, and challenging read.' —New York Journal of Books'A thorough, wide-reaching overview of women’s literary accomplishments viewed through a fresh, modern lens … Eve Bites Back is an exemplary work of literary criticism.' —Foreword Reviews'In her alternative history of English literature, Eve Bites Back, cultural historian and biographer Anna Beer takes up arms against the patriarchy… extensive and meticulous.' —Washington Independent Review of Books

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Book SynopsisAs this book intriguingly explores, for those who would make Rome great again and their victims, ideas of Roman decline and renewal have had a long and violent history.The decline of Rome has been a constant source of discussion for more than 2200 years. Everyone from American journalists in the twenty-first century AD to Roman politicians at the turn of the third century BC have used it as a tool to illustrate the negative consequences of changes in their world. Because Roman history is so long, it provides a buffet of ready-made stories of decline that can help develop the context around any snapshot. And Rome did, in fact, decline and, eventually, fall. An empire that once controlled all or part of more than 40 modern European, Asian, and African countries no longer exists. Roman prophets of decline were, ultimately, proven correct-a fact that makes their modern invocations all the more powerful. If it happened then, it could happen now.The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome tells the stories of the people who built their political and literary careers around promises of Roman renewal as well as those of the victims they blamed for causing Rome''s decline. Each chapter offers the historical context necessary to understand a moment or a series of moments in which Romans, aspiring Romans, and non--Romans used ideas of Roman decline and restoration to seize power and remake the world around them. The story begins during the Roman Republic just after 200 BC. It proceeds through the empire of Augustus and his successors, traces the Roman loss of much of western Europe in the fifth century AD, and then follows Roman history as it runs through the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) until its fall in 1453. The final two chapters look at ideas of Roman decline and renewal from the fifteenth century until today. If Rome illustrates the profound danger of the rhetoric of decline, it also demonstrates the rehabilitative potential of a rhetoric that focuses on collaborative restoration, a lesson of great relevance to our world today.

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Book SynopsisIn this experimental work of ecocriticism, Vincent Bruyere confronts the seeming pointlessness of the humanities amid spectacularly negative future projections of environmental collapse. The vanitas paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries dazzlingly depict heaps of riches alongside skulls, shells, and hourglasses. Sometimes even featuring the illusion that their canvases are peeling away, vanitas images openly declare their own pointlessness in relation to the future. This book takes inspiration from the vanitas tradition to fearlessly contemplate the stakes of the humanities in the Anthropocene present, when the accumulated human record could well outlast the climate conditions for our survival. Staging a series of unsettling encounters with early modern texts and images whose claims of relevance have long since expired, Bruyere experiments with the interpretive affordances of allegory and fairytale, still life and travelogues. Each chapter places a vanitas motif—canvas, debris, toxics, paper, ark, meat, and light—in conversation with stories and images of the Anthropocene, from the Pleistocene Park geoengineering project to toxic legacies to in-vitro meat. Considering questions of quiet erasure and environmental memory, this book argues we ought to keep reading, even by the flickering light of extinction.Trade Review"If all images are vanitas, how should we look, in the Anthropocene present, at works from the past? Bruyere reveals a profound disruption in our ability to represent 'the world without us' with familiar tools of mastery or closure."—Karen Pinkus, Cornell University"Concise in form, its arguments well crafted, this book reads with inspired conviction. By way of reading the future past, Bruyere delivers a saga and a symptom of the state of things in the fragile world in which we live."—Tom Conley, Harvard University"Timely and provocative, this book deftly and courageously broaches the topic of human extinction while developing truly original philosophical arguments. There is no work that is able to approach the end-of-the-world theme with the pitch-perfect tone Bruyere brings to his discussion."—Lynne Huffer, Emory UniversityTable of ContentsPrologue: Of Skulls and Shells 1. Canvas 2. Debris 3. Toxics 4. Paper 5. Ark 6. Meat Epilogue: Light

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Book SynopsisUntil well into the twentieth century, the claims to citizenship of women in the US and in Europe have come through men (father, husband); women had no citizenship of their own. The case studies of three expatriate women (Renée Vivien, Romaine Brooks, and Natalie Barney) illustrate some of the consequences for women who lived independent lives. To begin with, the books traces the way that ideas about national belonging shaped gay male identity in the nineteenth century, before showing that such a discourse was not available to women and lesbians, including the three women who form the core of the book. In addition to questions of sexually non-conforming identity, women's mediated claim to citizenship limited their autonomy in practical ways (for example, they could be unilaterally expatriated). Consequently, the situation of the denizen may have been preferable to that of the citizen for women who lived between the lines. Drawing on the discourse of jurisprudence, the history of the passport, and original archival research on all three women, the books tells the story of women's evolving claims to citizenship in their own right.Trade Review“This book explores the ways in which marginal sexual identities have been expressed through the trope of national identity. The study is as accessible as it is erudite, Melanie Hawthorne writes in a lively style that is all her own."Gretchen Schultz, Brown UniversityTable of ContentsWomen, Citizenship, and Sexuality: IntroductionChapter 1. "Comment Peut-on Etre Homosexuel?": Multinational (In)Corporations and the Frenchness of SaloméChapter 2. Renée Vivien: French Poet?!!Time Passes: An InterchapterChapter 3. "Partout Etrangère": Romaine BrooksChapter 4. Natalie Barney's Missed MarriagesAfterword: On Becoming a CitizenNotesBibliography

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Book Synopsis''It was at the time when I was wandering around hungry in Kristiania, that strange city no one leaves before it has set its mark on them...'' Hunger is the first-person story of a young man desperately trying to establish himself in the city as a writer, living in shabby lodgings where he can seldom afford to pay the rent, eating almost nothing, and engaging spasmodically and manically with landladies, eccentric elderly men, policemen, shopkeepers, pawnbrokers, and others on the way. He wanders around the streets, sits on benches trying to write, spends a night locked in a pitch-dark police cell, thinks, slides into remarkably inventive reveries, speculates on his mental health, his ethical comportment, his relation to the divinity, the topics he might write about. The traces of a consistent narrative logic are uncertain and blurred; the voice of the narrator keeps shifting between pragmatic appraisal of his situation, wild fantasies, manic outbursts, anger, and despair. This is a stoTable of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Translation Select Bibliography A Chronology of Knut Hamsun Hunger Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world. Long regarded by philosophers as an elusive and mysterious capacity of the human mind, imagination has been the subject of extraordinary ambivalence, described as both dangerous and divine, as merely peripheral to rationality and as essential to all thinking. Drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, literary and cognitive theory as well as the human sciences, this book engages the dramatic conceptual history of imagination together Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1: What is imagination? 2: Imagination in human evolution 3: From divine madness to cognitive power 4: The productive and aesthetic imagination 5: The augmentation of reality 6: Creativity from invention to wonder References and further reading

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Book SynopsisPlaced in the wider scope of post-war European decolonisation migrations, The Retornados from the Portuguese Colonies in Africa looks at the Return of the Portuguese nationals living in the African colonies when they became independent. Using an interdisciplinary research agenda, the book presents a collection of research essays written by experts in the fields of anthropology, history, literature and the arts, that look at a wide range of memory narratives through which the Returnâas well as the experiences of war, violence, loss and traumaâhave been expressed, contested and internalised in the social realm. These narratives include testimonial accounts from the so-called retornados from Africa and their descendants, as well as works of fiction and public memoryânovels, television series, artworks, films or social mediaâthat have come to mediate the public understanding of this past. Through the dialogue between these different narrative modes, this book intendTable of ContentsIntroduction; The history and memory of the Portuguese Return from Africa - Elsa Peralta; PART I. NARRATIVES OF HISTORY AND MEMORY; Chapter 1 Traumatic loss, successful integration. The agitated and the soothing memory of the Return from Portugal’s African empire - Christoph Kalter; Chapter 2 The Jornal O Retornado’s readers and the construction of a narrative of the Return from Africa (1975-1976) - Morgane Delaunay; Chapter 3 Remembering the Return: Personal narratives of paradox and bewilderment - Elsa Peralta; Chapter 4 The retornados and their "roots" in Angola. A generational perspective on the colonial past and the postcolonial present - Irène Dos Santos; PART II. LITERATURE AND THE WORKINGS OF IMAGINATION; Chapter 5 Acoustic remains: Listening for colonialism and decolonisation in Isabela Figueiredo’s life-writing - Isabel A. Ferreira Gould; Chapter 6 The frizzy hair of the retornados: "Race" and gender in literature on mixed-race identities in Portugal -Doris Wieser; Chapter 7 The (des)retorno of (bi)nationals: real and imagined experiences - Carolina Peixoto; Chapter 8 Retornadiana: The writing of the retornados and the memorialisation of the Return in postcolonial Portugal - João Pedro George; PART III. MEDIA AND CULTURAL MEMORY; Chapter 9 Historical reflexivity and artistic reflexivity. The colonial society in the film Tabu and the naturalisation of the settlers’ gaze - Nuno Domingos; Chapter 10 Negotiating the end of the Portuguese empire: The retornados’ perspective in the TV series Depois do Adeus - Teresa Pinheiro; Chapter 11 As Time Goes By. Portuguese retornados and postcolonial melancholia - Marcos Cardão; Chapter 12 Connected colonial nostalgia: content and interactions of the Retornados e Refugiados de Angola Facebook group - Bruno Góis; PART IV. REWRITINGS AND ARTISTIC APPROPRIATIONS; Chapter 13 Some of the children of it all. Reflections on Children of the Return [ Filhos do Retorno] , a performance by Teatro do Vestido: constructions, representations, memories and postmemories - Joana Craveiro; Chapter 14 Rewriting recent Portuguese colonial history through postcolonial documentary theatre - André Amálio; Chapter 15 My own recollection of their lives: Visual narratives of an archival reappropriation - Céline Gaille; Chapter 16 The retornado as archive of the sensible in contemporary Portuguese artistic practices: between transmemories, nostalgias and possible futures - Maria-Benedita Basto

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay""One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of the Year""One of VULTURE'S 49 Books We Can't Wait to Read""A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""Wonderful. . . . Through language, we come to know ourselves: Lahiri’s work shows how it is always possible to expand that knowledge."---Erica Wagner, Harper’s Bazaar UK"[Lahiri’s] observations are as plentiful as they are enlightening."---Juliana Ukiomogbe, Elle"[In this book] a vision emerges of translation as a site where the physical and the textual, the extraordinary and the ordinary, intersect."---Polly Barton, Times Literary Supplement"[Lahiri] is excellent. . . . Translating Myself and Others is a reminder, no matter your relationship to translation, of how alive language itself can be. In her essays as in her fiction, Lahiri is a writer of great, quiet elegance; her sentences seem simple even when they're complex. Their beauty and clarity alone would be enough to wake readers up."---Lily Meyer, NPR"[Translating Myself and Others] is about the consequences of the apparently simple act of choosing one’s own words. . . . [The] book also contains a hope for the liberating power of language."---Benjamin Moser, New York Times"[A] series of passionate [and] thoughtful essays."---Frank Wynne, The Spectator"[Translating Myself and Others] movingly describes [Lahiri’s] history with translation from her experiences as an immigrant child . . . to her early literary-translation efforts and her eventual decision to move to Rome and learn Italian." * Vulture *"Poetic." * New York Magazine *"A wry collection."---Adam Rathe, Town & Country"[Lahiri’s] voice is a strong one in the current campaign to give translators more recognition. Her candidness about the hardships of translation and her enthusiasm for its rewards make you want to hear more from these fascinating figures, who spend so much time in others’ voices but have not lost the use of their own."---Camilla Bell-Davies, Financial Times"Digestible and approachable. . . . The thought-provoking collection makes for a sharp and luminous exploration of Lahiri’s relationship to language, translation, and literature and made me want to finally tackle my goal of learning a second language."---Jordan Snowden, Apartment Therapy"[A] memoir of the experience [of learning Italian], recounted with passion and insight."---Gregory Cowles, New York Times"Lahiri explores her relationship with literature, translation, and the English and Italian languages in this exhilarating collection. . . . Lucid and provocative, this is full of rewarding surprises." * Publishers Weekly, starred review *"A scrupulously honest and consistently thoughtful love letter to ‘the most intense form of reading…there is.'" * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"The collection is singular for Lahiri’s ability to integrate the personal and the theoretical, drawing her examples from literature and from life. . . . Lahiri writes so beautifully that this collection will have broad appeal for anyone interested in literary essays."---David Azzolina, Library Journal"[An] absorbing new collection of essays. . . . Translating Myself and Others is a subtle yet ultimately engrossing work, somewhat academic at times, yet infused with the kind of understated, often startling capacity for observation that has always been Lahiri’s literary superpower." * Bookpage *"Translating Myself and Others is a thought-provoking collection of essays about the art of modern translation." * Foreword Reviews *"Anyone interested in the art of translation will be engrossed by Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri."---Martin Chilton, The Independent"Lahiri’s ruminations on translation are relatable and luminous. . . . This book embraces simplicity-in-complexity, making it appropriate for both the Lahiri devotee and the uninitiate."---Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Christian Century"[Lahiri] explores [translation] with her customary rigor and candidness in this new essay collection, featuring several pieces originally written in Italian and translated into English by Lahiri for the first time, an act of metamorphosis as dazzling to her as it is to the reader." * Chicago Review of Books *"Throughout these essays, it’s as if Lahiri, feeling misunderstood, were hoping to build a literary home for herself that is ample enough to accommodate her lives as author, translator, academic, and language learner. A home in which she can write, on her own terms, in whatever language she wants, and think, on her own terms, about whatever subject she wants."---Julia Sanches, Astra"The essays . . . are master classes in translation theory and in critical writing about translation. . . . Fascinating and insightful writing."---Lauren Elkin, American Scholar"These essays . . . demonstrate the depths of [Lahiri’s] love for her adopted language. . . . Readers will have a newfound appreciation of the translator's ability to illuminate."---Michael Margas, Shelf Awareness starred review"In this collection of essays, Lahiri gives insights into her processes, as well as penetrating and perceptive thoughts on the act of translating that will be especially illuminating for readers who enjoy translated works."---Joe Rubbo, Readings"This cool, detached book bristles with life and love."---John Self, Observer New Review"There is great joy and intrigue to be found in Lahiri’s ruminations on self-translation. . . . [Translating Myself and Others] is a love letter to not only translation, but to literary criticism as a whole.”—Malavika Praseed, Chicago Review of Books"---Malavika Praseed, Chicago Review of Books"[A] portrait of intelligent, sensitive and deeply humane curiosity . . . inspiring."---James Kidd, South China Morning Post"[T]his latest set of essays proves [Lahiri’s] skill lies in the craft of experimenting with what language can do, both in Italian and English, and both as a writer and as a translator."---Anandi Mishra, Frieze"Translating Myself and Others feels at once ambitious and safe, playful and formulaic, variegated and quasi-myopic."---Carolina Iribaren, Hopscotch Translation"[In Translating Myself and Others] Lahiri achieves the task of portraying her profound love for linguistics and the ways languages give new life to one another in translation. . . . Lahiri’s writing is impeccably strong."---Amanda Janks, Zyzzyva"Readers . . . will find themselves immersed in a voyage of discovery not just of what makes Lahiri the writer and the translator tick, but of how these two facets or ‘containers’ inform, extend, challenge and ultimately re-create her, while at the same time providing much food for thought for the reader."---Lilit Žekulin Thwaites, Sydney Morning Herald"These deeply thoughtful meditations . . . illuminate the art of literary alchemy." * Saga Magazine *"Eloquent. . . . [Lahiri] explores what it means to be a translator, how translating enhances her identity as a writer and vice versa, and how these multiple identities are mutually enriching"---Hayley Armstrong, In Touch"A lyrical meditation on translation and a manifesto establishing translation as an artistic pursuit as creative and authentic as writing in the original language."---Lopamudra Basu, World Literature Today"Anyone interested in the challenges of translating literary works from one language to another will find this book fascinating. . . . It’s certainly a richly rewarding [read]."---Terry Freedman, Teach Secondary"A deep meditation on the art of translation. . . . Lahiri offers a straightforward but profound and lyrical theory of translation."---Lucky Issar, Economic & Political Weekly"A lucid and engaging reflection not only on what it means to translate a text and to properly acknowledge that work, but also what translation signifies beyond the act of individual words being noted down in another language."---Franklin Nelson, Wasafiri Magazine"Rich, deep and, above all, beautifully written, Translating Myself and Others exemplifies the power of words, language, art, ‘‘to explore the phenomenon and the consequences of change itself’’."---Cushla McKinney, Otago Daily News

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Book SynopsisMarking the centenary of Yeats's Nobel Prize, a timely guide to the work of Ireland's national poet and the changing Ireland he lived through.

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Book Synopsis'Fascinating.... Wonderfully exhilarating.' Mail on SundayFinalist for The Tolkien Society Best Book AwardAn engaging, original and radical reassessment of J.R.R. Tolkien, revealing how his visionary creation of Middle-Earth is more relevant now than ever before.What is it about Middle-Earth and its inhabitants that has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world? And why does Tolkien's visionary creation continue to fascinate and inspire us eighty-five years on from its first appearance?Beginning with Tolkien's earliest influences and drawing on key moments from his life, Twenty-First-Century Tolkien is an engaging and radical reinterpretation of the beloved author's work. Not only does it trace the genesis of the original books, it also explores the later adaptations and reworkings that cemented his reputation as a cultural phenomenon, including Peter Jackson's blockbuster films of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and the highly anticipated TV series The Rings of Power.Delving deep into topics such as friendship, failure, the environment, diversity, and Tolkien's place in a post-Covid age, Nick Groom takes us on an unexpected journey through Tolkien's world, revealing how it is more relevant now than ever before.Trade ReviewFascinating... Wonderfully exhilarating... In a rousing finale, Groom suggests that Tolkien is exactly the writer we need at this particularly perilous moment, as we emerge, Hobbit-like, from our holes and try to imagine a new kind of life in this post-pandemic age. * Mail on Sunday *Each chapter displays a mastery of both the works in question - whether books or adaptations - and of the vast corpus of Tolkien scholarship. Narratives of literary production or of Hollywood bureaucratic processes rarely come as absorbing as Groom's... Illuminating... Groom's explorations of Tolkien's sources... are always provocative and often ingenious. * Literary Review *This fascinating book explores The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings from their genesis through all the different major adaptations of the Tolkien 'legendarium.' It starts off neatly summarizing Tolkien's life and influences - such as his friendship with W.H. Auden and C.S. Lewis. * Wall Street Journal *Provides a fresh study of the impact Tolkien has on contemporary readers' and viewers' understanding of good, evil, war, and conflict. * Library Journal *A loving ode to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. An adventure worth taking. * Publishers Weekly *A modern journey through Tolkien's work, which has engendered a rich field of cultural activity. A thought-provoking examination. With the authority of extensive research, Groom unpacks the reasons for the appeal of Tolkien to a new generation. * Kirkus Reviews *An excellent, perceptive and superbly crafted analysis of the way our ever-changing world has responded to Tolkien. A stunning achievement. -- Brian Sibley, award-winning author of The Fall of NúmenorTable of Contents1: Myriad Middle-Earths 2: Uncertainty 3: The Ambiguity of Evil 4: The Hesitancy of Good 5: Lucid Moments 6: Just War 7: Conclusion: Weird Things

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Book SynopsisOil, like other fossil fuels, permeates every aspect of human existence. Yet it has been largely ignored by cultural critics, especially in the context of the Global South. Seeking to make visible not only the pervasiveness of oil in society and culture but also its power, Oil Fictions stages a critical intervention that aligns with the broader goals of the energy humanities. Exploring literature and film about petroleum as a genre of world literature, Oil Fictions focuses on the ubiquity of oil as well as the cultural response to petroleum in postcolonial states. The chapters engage with African, South American, South Asian, Iranian, and transnational petrofictions and cover topics such as the relationship of colonialism to the fossil fuel economy, issues of gender in the Thermocene epoch, and discussions of migration, precarious labor, and the petro-diaspora. This unique exploration includes testimonies of the oil encounterthrough memoirs, journals, and interviewsfrom a diverse geoTrade Review“This excellent collection not only provides an authoritative introduction to petrofiction’s key texts, conceptual debates, and critical methodologies but also extends the range and scope of that work. In their impressive expansion of the geographical ambit and theoretical concerns of oil fiction, particularly into the Global South, these essays offer new and hitherto underrealized perspectives. They are what the field has been waiting for.”—Graeme Macdonald,coauthor of Combined and Uneven Development: Toward a New Theory of World-Literature“Oil Fictions covers considerable ground in analyzing oil fiction as well as identifying new sensibilities associated with oil’s fantasy of progress and well-being.”—Sofia Ahlberg ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and EnvironmentTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Reading Our Contemporary PetrosphereStacey Balkan and Swaralipi Nandi1. Petrofiction, RevisitedAmitav Ghosh2. Energy and Autonomy: Worker Struggles and the Evolution of Energy SystemsAshley Dawson3. Gendering Petrofiction: Energy, Imperialism, and Social ReproductionSharae Deckard4. Petrofeminism: Love in the Age of OilHelen Kapstein5. “We Are Pipeline People”: Nnedi Okorafor’s Ecocritical SpeculationsWendy W. Walters6. Petro-drama in the Niger Delta: Ben Binebai’s My Life in the Burning Creeks and Oil’s “Refuse of History”Henry Obi Ajumeze7. Documenting “Cheap Nature” in Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace: A Petro-aesthetic CritiqueStacey Balkan8. Aestheticizing Absurd Extraction: Petro-capitalism in Deepak Unnikrishnan’s “In Mussafah Grew People”Swaralipi Nandi9. Petro-cosmopolitics: Oil and the Indian Ocean in Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason Micheal Angelo Rumore10. Xerodrome Lube: Cyclonic Geopoetics and Petropolytical War MachinesSimon Ryle11. Oil Gets Everywhere: Critical Representations of the Petroleum Industry in Spanish American LiteratureScott DeVries12. Conjectures on World Energy LiteratureImre Szeman13. Petrofiction as Stasis in Abdelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt and Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland Corbin HidayMemoirs and Interviews14. Assessing the Veracity of the Gulf Dreams: An Interview with Author BenyaminMaya Vinai15. Testimonies from the Permian BasinKristen Figgins, Rebecca Babcock, and Sheena StiefAfterwordContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisLively, original and highly readable, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at The Beginning' and concluding with The End', chapters range from the familiar, such as Character', Narrative' and The Author', to the more unusual, such as Secrets', Pleasure' and Ghosts'. Now in its sixth edition, Bennett and Royle's classic textbook successfully illuminates complex ideas by engaging directly with literary works, so that a reading of Jane Eyre opens up ways of thinking about racial difference, for example, while Chaucer, Monty Python and Hilary Mantel are all invoked in a discussion of literature and laughter.The sixth edition has been revised and updated throughout. In addition, four new chapters Literature', Loss', Human' and Migrant' engage with exciting recent developments in literary studies. As well as fully up-to-date further reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book contains a coTrade ReviewPraise for previous editions:‘This is a book which students in every introductory course on criticism and theory would benefit from having.’ Derek Attridge, University of York‘[Bennett and Royle have] cracked the problem of how to be introductory and sophisticated, accessible but not patronising.’ Peter Buse, English Subject Centre Newsletter‘Sparkling, enthusiastic and admirably well-informed.’ Hélène Cixous‘The best introduction to literary studies on the market.’ Jonathan Culler, Cornell University‘This excellent book is very well written and an outstanding introduction to literary studies. An extremely stimulating introduction.’ Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway College, University of London‘Fresh, surprising, never boring, and engagingly humorous, while remaining intellectually serious and challenging . . . This is a terrific book, and I’m very glad that it exists.’ Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California‘An exceptional book. It is completely different from anything else currently available, refreshing, extremely well written and original in so many ways . . . It is quite the best introductory book that I have ever come across.’ Philip Martin, Sheffield Hallam University‘By far the best introduction we have, bar none. This unmatched book is for everyone: from those beginning literary study, through advanced students, and up to teachers; even those who, like me, have been pro- fessing literature for years and years.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California‘All the chapters in the volume are illuminating, informative and original.’ Robert Mills, King’s College London‘I don’t know of any book that could, or does, compete with this one. It is irreplaceable.’ Richard Rand, University of Alabama‘Bennett and Royle have written a pathbreaking work’ Alan Shima, University of Gävle‘It is by far the best and most readable of all such introductions that I know of’ Hayden White, University of California at Santa Cruz‘The most un-boring, unnerving, unpretentious textbook I’ve ever come across.’ Elizabeth Wright, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsAlternative Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsHow to Read This BookTrigger Warning and Spoiler Alert The Beginning Literature Readers and Reading The Author The Text and the World The Uncanny Monuments Narrative Character Voice Figures and Tropes Creative Writing Feelings Loss Laughter The Tragic Wounds History Me Eco Animals Human Ghosts Body Moving Pictures Sexual Difference God Ideology Love Desire Queer Suspense Racial Difference Migrant The Colony Mutant The Performative Secrets Pleasure War The End GlossaryA Note on Texts UsedLiterary Works DiscussedBibliography of Critical and Theoretical WorksIndex

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Book SynopsisThis compact edition, designed for use in undergraduate courses, combines a substantial selection of Dickinson’s poems (including one complete fascicle) with a selection of letters and a range of contextual materials. In a number of cases several different versions of a poem are presented side by side. The texts are based on the handwritten manuscripts themselves, in the facsimile form in which the Emily Dickinson Archive now makes the vast majority of Dickinson’s manuscript versions available to the general public. The three major editions that are based directly on the manuscripts—those of Thomas H. Johnson (1955), R.W. Franklin (1998) and Cristanne Miller (2016)—have also been consulted; in many cases where the transcriptions of these editors differ from one another, this edition provides information in the notes as to those differences. Extensive explanatory footnotes are also provided, as is a concise but wide-ranging introduction to Dickinson and her work.The appendices include excerpts from numerous nineteenth-century reviews of Dickinson’s first published volume (including by William Dean Howells and Andrew Lang). Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s influential Atlantic Monthly article, “Emily Dickinson’s Letters,” is also included in its entirety.This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts. This edition departs from other editions in the series in one important respect—its format. The large page size of the edition facilitates the reproduction of manuscript pages in readable facsimile form, and the two-column format of the text facilitates comparison between different versions.Trade ReviewComments on The Broadview Anthology of American Literature“The expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature.” — Hester Blum, Penn State University“The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike.” — Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University“So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come.” — Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College “The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display.” — Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University “Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways.” — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison“a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be.” — Michael C. Cohen, UCLA “The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is an instructor’s dream for introducing students to the diversity and complexity of American literature.” — Venetria K. Patton, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign“I am eager to teach with this anthology! It aligns with cutting-edge research through its selections, its introductions, and explanatory notes, and the texts are supplemented with primary documents that encourage teachers and students to think critically and dynamically.” — Koritha Mitchell, The Ohio State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionSelected Poems [It’s all I have to bring today –] [I never lost as much but twice –] [I robbed the woods –] [These are the days when Birds come back ˎ] [alternative versions] [Success is counted sweetest] [Safe in their Alabaster Chambers –] [alternative versions] [Besides the Autumn poets sing] [All overgrown by cunning moss,] [I’m “wife” – I’ve finished that –] [Title divine – is mine!] [Faith is a fine invention] [alternative version] [Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –] [The Lamp burns sure – within –] [I came to buy a smile – today –] [I’m Nobody! Who are you?] [alternative version] [Wild nights – Wild nights!] [alternative versions] [Over the fence –] [I taste a liquor never brewed –] [alternative version] [There’s a certain Slant of light,] [alternative versions] [“Hope” is the thing with feathers –] [Your Riches – taught me – Poverty.] [I found the words to every thought] [I like a look of Agony,] [I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,] [It was not Death, for I stood up,] [A Bird came down the Walk –] [I know that He exists.] [After great pain, a formal feeling comes –] [This World is not conclusion.] [I like to see it lap the Miles –] [The Soul selects her own Society –] [One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted –] [They shut me up in Prose –] [This was a Poet –] [I died for Beauty – but was scarce] [The Malay – took the Pearl –] [Our journey had advanced –] [Because I could not stop for Death –] [alternative version] [I dwell in Possibility –] [He fumbles at your Soul] [It feels a shame to be Alive –] [This is my letter to the World] [I’m sorry for the Dead – Today –] [I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –] [The Brain – is wider than the Sky –] [There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,] [I measure every Grief I meet] [Much Madness is divinest Sense –] [I started Early – Took my Dog –] [That I did always love] [What Soft – Cherubic Creatures –] [My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –] [“Nature” is what We see –] [I could bring You Jewels – had I a mind to –] [Publication – is the Auction] [Truth – is as old as God –] [I never saw a Moor –] [Color – Caste – Denomination –] [She rose to His Requirement – dropt] [The Poets light but Lamps –] [A Man may make a Remark –] [Banish Air from Air –] [As imperceptibly as Grief] [The Heart has narrow Banks] [Could I but ride indefinite] [As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies] [A narrow Fellow in the Grass] [alternative versions] [The Bustle in a House] [A Spider sewed at Night] [Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –] [alternative version] [To pile like Thunder to its close] [Apparently with no surprise] [A Word made Flesh is seldom] [My life closed twice before its close;] [To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,] Fascicle 13 [I know some lonely Houses off the Road] [I can wade Grief] [You see I cannot see – your lifetime –] [“Hope” is the thing with feathers –] [To die – takes just a little while –] [If I’m lost – now –] [Delight is as the flight –] [She sweeps with many-colored Brooms –] [Of Bronze – and Blaze –] [There’s a certain Slant of light,] [Blazing in Gold – and] [Good Night! Which put the Candle out?] [Read – Sweet – how others – strove – a] [Put up my lute!] [There came a day – at Summer’s full –] [The lonesome for they know not What –] [How the old Mountains drip with sunset] [Of Tribulation, these are They,] [If your nerve, deny you –] Dickinson’s Personal Correspondence To Abiah Root (29 January 1850) To Jane Humphrey (3 April 1850) To Abiah Root (7 and 17 May 1850) To Susan Gilbert Dickinson (April 1852) To Susan Gilbert Dickinson (27 June 1852) To Samuel Bowles (February 1861) To Unknown Recipient (circa 1861) Susan Dickinson to Emily Dickinson (1861) To Susan Gilbert Dickinson (1861) To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (15 April 1862) To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (25 April 1862) To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (7 June 1862) To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (July 1862) To Susan Gilbert Dickinson (October 1883) In Context The Reception of Emily Dickinson in the Nineteenth Century from Alexander Young, “Boston Letter,” Critic (11 October 1890) from Anonymous, “From the Book Store,” St. Joseph Daily News (22 November 1890) from Anonymous, “New Books,” Boston Post (27 November 1890) from Kinsley Twining and William Hayes Ward, “Poems by Emily Dickinson,” Independent (11 December 1890) from William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (January 1891) from Anonymous, Springfield Daily Republican (23 January 1891) from Andrew Lang, “A Literary Causerie,” Speaker (31 January 1891) Laura Coombs Hills, Retouched image of Emily Dickinson (late nineteenth century) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Emily Dickinson’s Letters” (The Atlantic Monthly, October 1891)

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Book SynopsisThe Renaissance, scholars have long argued, was a period beset by the loss of philosophical certainty. In Possible Knowledge, Debapriya Sarkar argues for the pivotal role of literature—what early moderns termed poesie—in the dynamic intellectual culture of this era of profound incertitude. Revealing how problems of epistemology are inextricable from questions of literary form, Sarkar offers a defense of poiesis, or literary making, as a vital philosophical endeavor. Working across a range of genres, Sarkar theorizes “possible knowledge” as an intellectual paradigm crafted in and through literary form. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers such as Spenser, Bacon, Shakespeare, Cavendish, and Milton marshalled the capacious concept of the “possible,” defined by Philip Sidney as what “may be and should be,” to construct new theories of physical and metaphysical reality. These early modern thinkers mobilized the imaginative habits of thought constitutive to major genres of literary writing—including epic, tragedy, romance, lyric, and utopia—in order to produce knowledge divorced from historical truth and empirical fact by envisioning states of being untethered from “nature” or reality. Approaching imaginative modes such as hypothesis, conjecture, prediction, and counterfactuals as instruments of possible knowledge, Sarkar exposes how the speculative allure of the “possible” lurks within scientific experiment, induction, and theories of probability. In showing how early modern literary writing sought to grapple with the challenge of forging knowledge in an uncertain, perhaps even incomprehensible world, Possible Knowledge also highlights its most audacious intellectual ambition: its claim that while natural philosophy, or what we today term science, might explain the physical world, literature could remake reality. Enacting a history of ideas that centers literary studies, Possible Knowledge suggests that what we have termed a history of science might ultimately be a history of the imagination.Trade Review"This pathbreaking book will be at the vanguard of a new movement in literature and science studies." * Jenny C. Mann, New York University *"An ambitious, brilliant, and genuinely original account of the constitutive relationship between poesy and science in early modernity." * Vin Nardizzi, University of British Columbia *"This important book provides compelling evidence that early modern literature in the age of the new science helped readers develop sophisticated forms of knowing about what existed in the world, and, more crucially, what might possibly come to be." * Mary Thomas Crane, Boston College *

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Book SynopsisIntroducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Like his Austrian contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and writer Arthur Schnitzlerwas a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human consciousness. His novella Dream Story tells the tale of a young married man who, after a discussion with his wife about their fantasises, experiences an eery reverie through Vienna''s underbelly.Trade ReviewThe amoral voice of fin-de-siècle Vienna—New Yorker

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Book SynopsisShakespeare: increasingly irrelevant or lone literary genius of the Western canon?Trade Review'Vivid… a thorough analysis but also a kind of love letter… Karim-Cooper sees Shakespeare as holding a mirror to this society, with his plays interrogating live issues around race, identity and the colonial enterprise. Her critique is at its most absorbing and original when she shows how complicated his approach was… Her arguments come to feel essential and should be absorbed by every theatre director, writer, critic, interested in finding new ways into the work.’ —Guardian'Anyone reading the contents page alone of Dr Farah Karim-Cooper's The Great White Bard will have their minds blown. Dive in and your whole cultural landscape will be refreshed and reframed. A book of great scholastic yet accessible detail, demanding that we pay attention with new understanding to the work of our greatest playwright, to the staging of that work and its unacknowledged impact on the 21st-century lives of all of us who unwittingly absorb its cultural norms – for good and ill. A challenging, riveting read, The Great White Bard reminds us how powerful the stories we tell can be on our lives.' —Adjoa Andoh'This glorious book… is insightful, passionate, piled with facts and has a warm, infectious love for theatre and Shakespeare running through every chapter. Thank you to Farah Karim-Cooper for underlining the fact that we all have a right to claim Shakespeare’s work.' —Adrian Lester CBE'Farah Karim-Cooper has long been at the center of conversations about race in Shakespeare’s plays, drawing on her experiences as a woman of color, director of research and education at the Globe Theatre, and Shakespeare professor. The Great White Bard is a powerful and illuminating result of this sustained engagement, grappling with how Shakespeare can be reimagined as a playwright who speaks to (and is spoken by) those excluded from the dominant culture. Historically grounded, engagingly written, richly informed by stage history, and always attuned to the "form and pressure" of our time, The Great White Bard could not be more timely.' —James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare'There are plenty of books on Shakespeare: but this one is different. This is Shakespeare as we’ve (most of us) never been willing to see him – and the works emerge from the analysis as newly complicit, powerful and yet recuperative.' —Emma Smith, author of Portable Magic'The Great White Bard is conscientiously constructed and vitally important. The book is pitched perfectly for the general reader, and it provides clear and compelling models for how to read Shakespeare with race in mind.' —Ayanna Thompson, author of Blackface'The Great White Bard contributes to an essential discussion on Shakespeare and race, one that must include literary scholars, historians, etymologists, audiences and, yes, even actors. Let us all debate and think critically about the issues Karim-Cooper raises. At the end of the day, such tough love can guide us to truly love Shakespeare.' —New York Times'Suffused with genuine passion.' —The Times‘She concludes… “We all have the right to claim the Bard.” Amen to that.’ —Daily Telegraph'Insightful… Karim-Cooper’s chapter on Antony and Cleopatra tackles with clarity and energy the question of why the Queen of Egypt's racial difference, though flagged in the text, has been consistently ignored in the play’s production history until quite recently… Karim-Cooper provides a good discussion of Othello and a helpfully provocative reading of The Tempest.' —New Statesman‘[The book] opens up territory that [Karim-Cooper] explores with unfailing dexterity. Karim-Cooper thus puts herself in dialogue with much of the excellent work on Shakespeare and race published over the past 30 years. Still, the examination of Shakespearean drama through the lens of race has seldom been achieved with the verve, clarity and attention to textual detail that she displays here. Her love for the plays is everywhere apparent.’ —Prospect'Farah Karim-Cooper's analysis comes from a wide and fascinating perspective. This is an accessible yet scholarly book guiding the reader through essential questions about race, gender and so much more in Shakespeare’s plays. It is personal, refreshing and necessary. She has helped me reframe and understand Shakespeare in a different way. Read it and learn!' —Lolita Chakrabarti OBE'The Great White Bard is essential reading for teachers, students, practitioners and artists. It makes clear why the exploration of Shakespeare’s plays must expose the 400-year-old cultural attitudes contained in them if we are to discover their real relevance and resonance. Farah Karim-Cooper has written an important, illuminating and accessible work that invites our active participation in debate about the plays; to interpret and interrogate them, not to venerate. It belongs in every Shakespeare classroom.' —Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director of Learning, Royal Shakespeare Company‘A bracing and illuminating read.’ —The Bookseller'The rigorous and nuanced analysis stimulates, and Karim-Cooper’s evenhanded approach refuses to excuse Shakespeare’s racism while insisting that his plays still have much to offer modern audiences. This is a vital contribution to the shelf on Shakespeare.' —Publishers Weekly, starred review'Illuminating both words and performance – [The Great White Bard is] an essential addition to Shakespeare studies.' —Kirkus, starred review

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Book SynopsisExamines the role of the pig in medieval society in material and textual sources.

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Book SynopsisHighlights the importance of considering contemporary public culture through the lens of fan studiesThe Gamergate harassment campaign of women in video games, the Unite the Right rally where hundreds of Confederate monument supporters cried out racist and antisemitic slurs in Charlottesville, and the targeted racist and sexist harassment of Star Wars' Asian American actress Kelly Marie Tran all have one thing in common: they demonstrate the collective power and underlying ugliness of fandoms. These fans might feel victimized or betrayed by the content they've intertwined with their own identities, or they may simply feel that they're speaking truth to power. Regardless, by connecting via social media, they can unleash enormous amounts of hate, which often results in severe real-world consequences.Fandom Is Ugly argues that reactionary politics and media fandoms go hand in hand, and to understand one, we need to understand the other. Mel Stanfill push

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Book SynopsisOrdering Customs explores how Renaissance Venetians sought to make sense of human difference in a period characterized by increasing global contact and a rapid acceleration of the circulation of information. Venice was at the center of both these developments. The book traces the emergence of a distinctive tradition of ethnographic writing that served as the basis for defining religious and cultural difference in new ways. Taylor draws on a trove of unpublished sources—diplomatic correspondence, court records, diaries, and inventories—to show that the study of customs, rituals, and ways of life not only became central in how Venetians sought to apprehend other peoples, but also had a very real impact at the level of policy, shaping how the Venetian state governed minority populations in the city and its empire. In contrast with the familiar image of ethnography as the product of overseas imperial and missionary encounters, the book points to a more complicated set of origins. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 The Study of Customs 2 Ambassadors as Ethnographers 3 Ethnography and the Venetian State 4 Reading Ethnography in Early Modern Venice 5 Ethnography, the City, and the Place of Religious Minorities Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisShows how L. Frank Baum exploited the freedoms of children's literature, in its carnivalesque celebration of a world turned upside-down, to reimagine the meanings of gender and sexuality in early twentieth-century America and to re-envision them for the future.

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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 SynopsisEnlightening, moving' SIR IAN MCKELLEN From the acclaimed and bestselling biographer Jonathan Bate, a luminous new exploration of Shakespeare and how his themes can untangle comedy and tragedy, learning and loving in our modern lives.Trade Review‘Many of us are mad about Shakespeare, whether as audience, actor or scholar. Jonathan Bate represents us all in his enlightening, moving report of his own personal “madness”. Reading it is an education’Sir Ian McKellen ‘A startlingly original journey into the soul of Shakespeare by one of his greatest living interpreters’Sir Anthony Seldon ‘Jonathan Bate’s Mad About Shakespeare offers a series of moving lessons in the complex grammar of life. Speaking as student and teacher, son, husband, father and dramaturge, Bate produces a work of significant cultural and familial history that runs through the language and scenery of Shakespeare. Tying and untying knots, Bate asks how we might live alongside literature as a source of knowledge, comfort and hope.Shakespeare’s expansive plots and wise conceits offer extra space and time in which to live and breathe in the face of emergency; a literary bloodline offering wisdom, insight and consolation’Sally Bayley ‘An encouraging and welcome reminder of the importance of reading and talking about reading with young people … I hope lots of English teachers will read it and take heart’Dr Katy Ricks, Chief Master of King Edwards School ‘Ranges elegantly over a range of literary figures … A very readable account of the thrill of discovering literature … It is a touchingly reticent and romantic book’Literary Review

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Book SynopsisFrom the bustling bazaars of Tabriz to the mysterious island of Caldihe, Anthony Bale brings history alive, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world.A joyful, erudite book . . . A global Middle Ages for our times' Jerry Brotton_____________________A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is no ordinary travel guide.Journey alongside scholars, spies and saints. From western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world. This is a living atlas that blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses.Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, it offers the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world - a world of stories, desire and fantasies, of cherished pasts and longed-for futures._____________________Rich and wonderful . . . This is the world as you've never seen it before' Ian Mortimer''Wisdom fills the pages of this immensely entertaining history'' The New Yorker''Serious scholarship and a sightseer's unbridled enthusiasm make for fascinating armchair time travel'' ObserverMasterful, panoramic, beautifully written and vividly imagined . . . a book to be savoured' Dr Helen Castor, author of Blood and RosesAn enthralling journey into the past and across the world . . . this book takes us to barely imaginable places' Seb Falk, author of The Light Ages

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Book SynopsisPhilosophically analyzing the work of one of the twentieth century’s most popular, and peculiar, science fiction authors Despite his enduring popularity, Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)—whose short stories and novels were adapted into or influenced many major films and television shows, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Truman Show, and The Man in the High Castle—has long been a marginal figure in American literature, even in the science fiction genre he helped revolutionize. Here, an influential French philosopher offers a major new perspective on an author who was known as much for his eccentricities and excesses as for his writing. For David Lapoujade, it is precisely the many ways in which Dick’s works seem to hover on the brink of losing all touch with reality that make him such a singular figure, both as a sci-fi author and as a thinker of contemporary life. In Worlds Built to Fall Apart, Lapo

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Book Synopsis1000-PIECE PUZZLE featuring the women of Greek mythology as you've never seen them before. Finished puzzle measures 680 x 485mmSPOT FAMOUS FIGURES AND MYTHICAL MOMENTS, as you build the puzzle – can you find Pandora and her jar, or Medusa with snakes for hair?INCLUDES A FOLD-OUT POSTER featuring the stories of the real women of Greek myth from best-selling author and classicist Natalie HaynesSTURDY & ATTRACTIVE BOX perfect for gifting and storage! Completed puzzle is 680x485mm (26.75x19 in.) when complete Think you know the women of Greek Mythology? Put the pieces together and you will start to think again!  In this beautifully illustrated 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, rediscover the lives and stories of the women of Greek myth, portrayed by author, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes with illustrator Natalie Foss. A large fold-out poster of the artwork accompanies

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Book SynopsisFormed in a time of great unrest in ancient China, The Analects is vital to an understanding of Chinese history and thought, and, 2,500 years on, it remains startlingly relevant to contemporary life.Complete and unabridged. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, cloth-bound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Highly regarded for the poetic fluency he brings to his award–winning work, David Hinton's translation is inviting and immensely readable.Confucius, the ‘great sage’ of China, believed that an ideal society is based on humanity, benevolence and goodness. His profoundly influential philosophy is encapsulated in The Analects, a collection of sayings which were written down by his followers. Confucius advocates an ethical social order, woven together by selfless and supportive relationships between friends, families and communities. He taught that living by a moral code based on education, ritual, respect and integrity will bring peace to human society.

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Book SynopsisADAPTED INTO A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING JIM BROADBENT "A painful, funny, frightening, moving, marvellous book ... everybody should read it" - Nick Hornby And when did you last see your father? Was it when they burnt the coffin? Put the lid on it? When he exhaled his last breath? When he last sat up and said something? When he last recognized me? When he last smiled? Blake Morrison's memoir is a candid, profoundly moving reflection on his relationship with his father, Arthur. Following Arthur's cancer diagnosis, Blake witnesses the slow erosion of the man he once knew. As his father's battle with the disease unfurls, Blake reflects on growing up with Arthur in Yorkshire and their relationship in the years since he left home. From Arthur's penchant for saving money - and the lengths he'd go to do so - to his wayward behavior on family holidays, Blake's fearless account resists an unwavering celebration of his father, showing him to be outlandish and recalcitrant, as well as capturing his humorous and caring qualities. The result is a rich, nuanced portrait of their relationship, capturing the accommodations and resentments that lie cloistered within familial love. And When Did You Last See Your Father? is a classic of the confessional memoir genre; a raw and shimmering interrogation of father-son relationships, masculinity, selfhood and pride. "This luminous tribute to a beloved dad made me laugh until I cried and cry till my nostrils were raw. A masterpiece - one of those books that you treasure forever" - Val HennessyTrade ReviewA painful, funny, frightening, moving, marvellous book ... everybody should read it -- Nick HornbyTender, honest, angry, loyal, this extraordinary book balances the life, illness and death of a forceful father with the feelings of his independent son * The Times *This luminous tribute to a beloved dad made me laugh until I cried and cry till my nostrils were raw. A masterpiece - one of those books that you treasure forever -- Val HennessyA marvellous piece of family literature. He says much about death and dying and more about life and living. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes funny, above all, unforgettably humane * Sydney Morning Herald *A splendid book ... it leaps with life * Irish Times *More than any novel could be, And when did you last see your father? is the once-only, all-or-nothing book of a poet: the life held up so close to one's face that one can smell it, touch it, marvel at the power of words to unlock and unravel, then pour helter-skelter over our heads this magical brainstorm of memories * Spectator *Joy and pain are both imminent and distant as the book rocks back and forth between life and death and, while it lasts, it is visceral and real * Observer *Wonderful, eternally moving... I don't think anyone has ever written better about the relationship between fathers and sons -- Tony Parsons * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisOnce again, we encounter Notley as one the great interlocutors of the world, a dedicated advocate for what is between and beyond definition. Tess Michaelson, Full StopAlice Notley, the author of more than 40 books of poetry, has delivered an expert array of discussions over the last three decades. Telling the Truth as It Comes Up: Selected Talks & Essays 1991-2018 offers a significant contribution to literature, reimagining the possibilities of writing in our time and the complicated business of how and why writers devote their lives to their craft. Whether she is writing about other poetsEd Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Homer, bpNichol, Douglas Oliver or William Carlos Williamsnoir fiction, the First Gulf War, dreams or giving us insight into her own work, Notley''s observations are original, sobering and always memorable. This collection often eschews the typical style of essay or lecture, resisting any categorization, and is consciously disobedient to academic structures in form. The results are thrilling new modes of thinking that may change the ways we read and write.Alice Notley was born in Bisbee, Arizona, in 1945, and grew up in Needles, California. During the late 60s and early 70s she lived a traveling poet's life before settling on New York's Lower East Side. For 16 years there, she was an important force in the eclectic second generation of the so-called New York School. Notley is the author of more than 40 books of poetry, including At Night the States, the double volume Close to Me and Closer . . . (The Language of Heaven) and Désamère and How Spring Comes, which was a co-winner of the San Francisco Poetry Award. In 1998, Penguin published Mysteries of Small Houses, which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry. In 2015 she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize for lifetime achievement in poetry.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers the first in-depth account of the relationship between English and Scottish poets and the international concrete poetry movement of the 1950s to the 1970s. Concrete poetry was a literary and artistic style which reactivated early twentieth-century modernist impulses towards the merging of artistic media, while simultaneously speaking to a gamut of contemporary contexts, from post-1945 reconstruction to cybernetics, mass media and the sixties counter-culture. The terms of its development in England and Scotland suggest new ways of mapping ongoing complexities in the relationship between the two national cultures, and of tracing broader sociological and cultural trends in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. Focusing especially on the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Bob Cobbing, Border Blurs is based on new and extensive archival and primary research, and will fill a vital gap in contemporary understandings of an important but much misunderstood genre: concrete poetry. It will also serve as a vital document for scholars and students of twentieth-century British literature, modern intermedia art and modernism, especially those interested in understanding modernism’s wide geographical spread and late twentieth-century legacies.Trade Review‘This is an excellent, well-researched and up-to-date account of the development of concrete poetry in England and Scotland from the 1950s onwards. It will make an outstanding contribution to knowledge in the related fields of concrete poetry, late modernism, the history of the 1960s counter-culture and the British Poetry Revival.’ Dr Steve Willey, Birkbeck, University of LondonReviews 'Greg Thomas here gives us the first full treatment of English and Scottish concrete poetry. His survey is detailed and comprehensive, and he is especially acute in his treatment of both the interaction of two distinct literary cultures – nationalism and internationalism – and the reciprocity of literature and other media. He thus argues that “classical concrete” was followed by another concrete “more concerned with complicating or undermining linguistic sense, and with instating in language’s place various forms of multi-media communication and expression ...”. A genuinely inventive and valuable book for students and scholars of modernism, intermedia art, and British literature.'Dr Nancy Perloff, Curator, Modern & Contemporary Collections, Getty Research Institute‘Border Blurs is a welcome and long overdue study of what is a key component of the general turn of British poetry towards what we might loosely describe as modernism and experiment that began in the 1960s and continues to this day. Thomas writes well and clearly… and has done anyone interested in poetry in all its variety an enormous favour. I highly recommend this book.’ Billy Mills, Elliptical MovementsTable of Contents1. Introduction2. Concrete Poetry/ Konkrete Poesie/ Poesia Concreta: The International Scene3. Order and Doubt: Ian Hamilton Finlay4. Off-Concrete: Edwin Morgan5. Apophasis: Dom Sylvester Houédard6. Abstract Concrete: Bob Cobbing7. Concrete Poetry and After: Conclusion

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Book SynopsisArt for art''s sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me''Gentleman by day and thief by night, A. J. Raffles lives a double life. Taking ''Art for art''s sake'' as his motto, Raffles supports his debonair lifestyle by performing lucrative, artistic, and ingenious burglaries of the wealthy elite of Victorian London. Dedicated to his brother-in-law Arthur Conan Doyle, Hornung''s first collection of Raffles stories, The Amateur Cracksman (1899), can be seen as an inverted spin-off of the former''s celebrated detective stories. But it is Raffles'' outlaw status that has drawn generations of readers to these swift-paced tales of a charismatic and cool-headed thief and his less worldly partner, Bunny. Hornung had Oscar Wilde in mind as much as Sherlock Holmes when he created Raffles, and the account of their double life offers one of the turn of the century''s most touching accounts of a same-sex couple. Frequently adapted for stage and screen, Hornung''s original stories have never lost their power to captivate readers. Admired by writers like George Orwell, Graham Greene, and Anthony Powell, Hornung''s crisp prose evokes a late Victorian London of clubland bachelors, hansom cabs, champagne suppers, Australian heiresses, and South African diamond moguls. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Book SynopsisIn this electrifying and raw debut anthology, Maggie Nelson unpicks the everyday with the quick alchemy and precision of her later modern classics The Argonauts and Bluets. The poems of Shiner experiment with a variety of stylessyllabic verse, sonnets, macaronic translation, Zen poems, walking poemsto express love, bewilderment, grief, and beauty. This book, Nelson's first, heralded the arrival of a fully formed, virtuoso voice.

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Book SynopsisAncient Greek literature begins with the epic verses of Homer. Epic then continued as a fundamental literary form throughout antiquity and the influence of the poems produced extends beyond antiquity and down to the present. This Companion presents a fresh and boundary-breaking account of the ancient Greek epic tradition. It includes wide-ranging close readings of epics from Homer to Nonnus, traces their dialogues with other modes such as ancient Mesopotamian poetry, Greek lyric and didactic writing, and explores their afterlives in Byzantium, early Christianity, modern fiction and cinema, and the identity politics of Greece and Turkey. Plot summaries are provided for those unfamiliar with individual poems. Drawing on cutting-edge new research in a number of fields, such as racecraft, geopolitics and the theory of emotions, the volume demonstrates the sustained and often surprising power of this renowned ancient genre, and sheds new light on its continued impact and relevance today.

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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 SynopsisUnderstands Nietzsche in the light of his activity as a creative writer from his juvenilia through the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, providing the first extensive study in English of his early literary works. The name Friedrich Nietzsche resonates around the world. Although known primarily as a philosopher, Nietzsche began his writing career while still a boy with literary texts: poetry, prose, and dramas. The present book is the first extensive study in English of these early literary works. It understands Nietzsche in the light of his activity as a creative writer from his juvenilia through his first two years as professor of classical philology at the University of Basel, that is, through the 1872 publication of his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. Knowledge of Nietzsche's early literary writings further underscores the value of The Birth of Tragedy as a work of world literature. The present study makes available almost all of Nietzsche's early poetry and extensive excerpts from his early prose works and dramas - much of it in English for the first time - along with commentary. A final, extensive chapter on The Birth of Tragedy treats it as the culmination of the early literary works. The book contains many new insights into Nietzsche and his work and essential source material for future research. All quotations from Nietzsche are given in both the original German and in English.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Early Nietzsche 1: The Early Poetry 2: The Early Prose Works 3: The Dramas and Drama Fragments 4: The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music 5: Conclusion Bibliography Index

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