ELT & Literary Studies

Based on the acclaimed RTE documentary, 'Shooting the Darkness', this landmark book presents the stories of leading photographers - Alan Lewis, Paul Faith, Martin Nangle, Stanley Matchett, Trevor Dickson, Hugh Russell and Crispin Rodwell - whose images captured some of the most important events of the Troubles. They talk, many of them for the first time, about the photographs they took - how they got the shot; what it cost them to take the photograph; and reflect on whether it was worth it. More broadly, they talk about what it was like to be a photographer during the Troubles: how the paramilitary groups dealt with them, the ethical dilemmas they faced, and the emotional fallout they experienced. The book includes the stories behind iconic images such as Bishop Edward Daly waving a blood-stained handkerchief on Bloody Sunday, Sean Downes being shot and killed by an RUC plastic bullet in Andersonstown in 1984, and the brutal attack of corporals Derek Wood and David Howes in March 1988.

Read more less

''No matter which way you look at us, you''ll find that we''re in all respects; Remarkably wasp-like in our habits, in every aspect of our lives.''Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, an exuberant form of festival drama which flourished in Athens during the fifth century BCE. One of the most original playwrights in the entire Western tradition, his comedies are remarkable for their brilliant combination of fantasy and satire, their constantly inventive manipulation of language, and their use of absurd characters and plots to expose his society''s institutions and values to the bracing challenge of laughter.This is the third and final volume of a new verse translation of the complete plays of Aristophanes. It contains four of his most overtly political plays: Acharnians, in which an Athenian farmer rebels against the city''s war policies; Knights, a biting satire of populist demagogues; Wasps, whose main theme is the Athenian system of lawcourts; and Pe

Read more less

A captivating picture book retelling by Shakespeare's Globe for very young readers.William Shakespeare's comedy about mistaken identities and unrequited love in the far-off kingdom of Illyria is unforgettably re-imagined by Shakespeare's Globe as a picture book for very young readers. With exquisite and detailed illustrations from the acclaimed artist Jane Ray, who has previously been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal, this captivating retelling is a magical way to introduce children to one of the best-loved works of the world's greatest playwright.

Read more less

The aim of this book is to explore the characteristics of the medieval dragon and discuss the different and sometimes differing views found in the relevant medieval text types. This study is based on an intimate knowledge of the primary texts and presents new interpretations of well-known literary works and also takes into consideration paintings and other depictions of these beasts. Dragons were designed not only to frighten, but also to fire the imagination, and provide a suitably huge and evil creature for the hero to overcome - yet there is far more to them than reptilian adversaries. This book introduces the medieval dragon via brief, accurate and clear chapters on its natural history, religion, literature and folklore, and concludes with how the dragon is constantly revived - from Beowulf to Tolkien, Disney and Potter.

Read more less

Curl up with the wonderfully cosy SUNDAY TIMES bestselling tale of the exciting adventures of Felix and Bolt!'FULL OF FUNNY AND HEART-WARMING STORIES' Sunday Express _________ Felix, Senior Pest Controller at Huddersfield station, has been at the heart of a close-knit community since the day she arrived as a kitten. But now, having risen to fame, everyday life at the station has become rather hectic; while reporters and fans clamour for a glimpse of her, Felix and her human co-workers find themselves, and the station, in quite a whirlwind. With the job seemingly too big for one fluffy feline to handle, it seems only sensible to recruit a young apprentice to the team: enter, Bolt. Full of funny and heart-warming stories, with personal tales from Felix's biggest fans, this is the remarkable tale of Felix and Bolt, the ultimate pest-controlling duo.AS SEEN ON THE ONE SHOW & GOOD MORNING BRITAIN Praise for Felix the Railway Cat: 'The global sensation' Daily Telegraph 'A phenomenon' Big Issue 'The purrfect railway cat' Daily Express Royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Huddersfield Samaritans and Action for Children

Read more less

J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy is not only a seemingly inexhaustible source of wonder and excitement, it is also a profound tale, relevant to our times and to the vital question: what is it to be a human being? Why have these books proved so captivating since their publication, discovered anew by each generation? Is there a deeper aspect to the stories that speaks directly to something within us?Many scholars and commentators have asked these or similar questions, delving into his unique use of language, his deep knowledge of the aesthetics of story within the heritage of mythic storytelling, and his ability to weave together myriad themes. However, few if any have approached the deeper aspects of Tolkien's work with the spiritual esoteric insights of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy as their basis. Mark McGivern adopts this approach while also building upon the work of Tolkien scholars such as Verlyn Flieger.This is an illuminating guidebook to the forms and depths of Tolkien's master work.

Read more less

The words of its writers are part of the texture of Dublin, an invisible counterpart to the bricks and pavement we see around us. Beyond the ever-present footsteps of James Joyce's characters, Leopold Bloom or Stephen Dedalus, around the city centre, an ordinary-looking residential street overlooking Dublin Bay, for instance, presents the house where Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney lived for many years; a few blocks away is the house where another Nobel Laureate, W. B. Yeats, was born. Just down the coast is the pier linked to yet another, Samuel Beckett, from which we can see the Martello Tower that is the setting for the opening chapter of Ulysses. But these are only a few. Step-by-step, Dublin: A Writer's City unfolds a book-lover's map of this unique city, inviting us to experience what it means to live in a great city of literature. The book is heavily illustrated, and features custom maps.

Read more less

The maverick cultural entrepreneur Li Yu survived the tumultuous Ming-Qing dynastic transition of the mid-seventeenth century through a commercially successful practice founded on intermedial experimentation. He engaged an astonishingly broad variety of cultural forms: from theatrical performance and literary production to fashion and wellness; from garden and interior design to the composition of letters and administrative documents. Drawing on his nonliterary work to reshape his writing, he translated this wide-ranging expertise into easily transmittable woodblock-printed form. Towers in the Void is a groundbreaking analysis of Li Yu’s work across these varied fields. It uses the concept of media to traverse them, revealing Li Yu’s creative enterprise as a remaking of early modern media forms.S. E. Kile argues that Li Yu’s cultural experimentation exploits the seams between language and the tangible world. He draws attention to the materiality of particular media forms, expanding the scope of early modern media by interweaving books, buildings, and bodies. Within and across these media, Li Yu’s cultural entrepreneurship with the technology of the printed book embraced its reproducibility while retaining a personal touch. His literary practice informed his garden design and, conversely, he drew on garden design to transform the vernacular short story. Ideas for extreme body modification in Li Yu’s fiction remade the possibilities of real human bodies in his nonfiction writing. Towers in the Void calls for seeing books, bodies, and buildings as interlinked media forms, both in early modern China and in today’s media-saturated world, positioning the Ming and Qing as a crucial site of global early modern cultural change.

Read more less

A literary master’s entertaining guide to reading with deeper insight, better understanding, and greater pleasure​ What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Could a nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep be full of concealed loathing, resentment, and aggression? In this accessible, delightfully entertaining book, Terry Eagleton addresses these intriguing questions and a host of others. How to Read Literature is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature and for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding and enriching their reading experience.In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, and other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, and the tension between what works of literature say and what they show. Unfailingly authoritative and cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism, and postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare and J. K. Rowling to Jane Austen and Samuel Beckett.

Read more less

An irresistible collection of favorite writings from an author celebrated for his bravura style and sheer unpredictability Francis Spufford’s welcome first volume of collected essays gathers an array of his compelling writings from the 1990s to the present. He makes use of a variety of encounters with particular places, writers, or books to address deeper questions relating to the complicated relationship between story-telling and truth-telling. How must a nonfiction writer imagine facts, vivifying them to bring them to life? How must a novelist create a dependable world of story, within which facts are, in fact, imaginary? And how does a religious faith felt strongly to be true, but not provably so, draw on both kinds of writerly imagination? Ranging freely across topics as diverse as the medieval legends of Cockaigne, the Christian apologetics of C. S. Lewis, and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, Spufford provides both fresh observations and thought-provoking insights. No less does he inspire an irresistible urge to turn the page and read on.

Read more less

Stories are everywhere, from fiction across media to politics and personal identity. Handbook of Narrative Analysis sorts out both traditional and recent narrative theories, providing the necessary skills to interpret any story. In addition to discussing classical theorists, such as Gérard Genette, Mieke Bal, and Seymour Chatman, Handbook of Narrative Analysis presents precursors (such as E. M. Forster), related theorists (Franz Stanzel, Dorrit Cohn), and a large variety of postclassical critics. Among the latter particular attention is paid to rhetorical, cognitive, and cultural approaches; intermediality; storyworlds; gender theory; and natural and unnatural narratology. Not content to consider theory as an end in itself, Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck use two short stories and a graphic narrative by contemporary authors as touchstones to illustrate each approach to narrative. In doing so they illuminate the practical implications of theoretical preferences and the ideological leanings underlying them. Marginal glosses guide the reader through discussions of theoretical issues, and an extensive bibliography points readers to the most current publications in the field. Written in an accessible style, this handbook combines a comprehensive treatment of its subject with a user-friendly format appropriate for specialists and nonspecialists alike.Handbook of Narrative Analysis is the go-to book for understanding and interpreting narrative. This new edition revises and extends the first edition to describe and apply the last fifteen years of cutting-edge scholarship in the field of narrative theory.

Read more less

‘A spicy work of biographical conjecture ... It's also a rousing reminder of the countless creative women who have been written out of history or have had to fight relentlessly to make themselves heard.’ EVENING STANDARD ‘The great virtue of Lloyd Malcolm’s speculative history lies in its passion and anger: it ends with a blazing address to the audience that is virtually a call to arms. It is throughout, however, a highly theatrical piece ... In rescuing Emilia from the shades, [the play] gives her dramatic life and polemical potency.’ GUARDIAN The little we know of Emilia Bassano Lanier (1569 - 1645) is that she may have been the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets, mistress of Lord Chamberlain, one of the first English female poets to be published, a mother, teacher who founded a school for women, and radical feminist with North African ancestry. Living at a time when women had such limited opportunities, Emilia Lanier is therefore a fascinating subject for this speculative history. In telling her story, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm represents the stories of women everywhere whose narratives have been written out of history. Originally commissioned for Shakespeare's Globe with an all-female cast, Emilia is published here as a Methuen Drama Student Edition with commentary and notes by Elizabeth Schafer, Professor of Drama at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Read more less

In the 1940s, Picasso wrote two plays in French: the first, Desire Caught by the Tail, was conceived during the German occupation of Paris and features a cast of grotesque allegorical characters such as the Onion, Silence or Fat Anxiety discussing the crucial wartime themes of hunger, cold and love; the second, The Four Little Girls, came about a few years after the end of the war on the French Riviera, and presents the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of four unnamed girls in a vegetable garden, revealing an unexpectedly evil aspect of childhood. These surreal compositions, which were meant to be read aloud rather than formally staged, are a testament to the great artist’s imaginative powers, and have been considered as forerunners to the theatre of the absurd of the 1950s, as exemplified by Beckett, Ionesco and Adamov.

Read more less

The mayor and local officials of a small provincial town in Russia have got it made: corruption is rife and they have all the power. Yet, when they learn that an undercover government inspector is about to make a visit, they face a mad dash to cover their tracks. Soon, the news that a suspicious person has recently arrived from St Petersburg and is staying in a local inn produces a series of events and misunderstandings that lead to a hilarious dénouement. Often quoted as Russian literature’s greatest comedy, The Government Inspector is a trenchant satire of the corruption, greed and stupidity of petty officialdom, and the crowning achievement of Gogol’s skills as a playwright.

Read more less

Exam board: AQA A, Cambridge Assessment International EducationLevel & Subject: AS and A Level English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2024 This edition of Persuasion provides depth and context for A Level students, with the complete novel in an easy to read format, and a detailed introduction and bespoke glossary written by an experienced A Level teacher with academic expertise in the area. · Affordable high quality complete text of Persuasion, ideal for AS and A Level Literature· Perfectly pitched introductions provide the depth and demand required by AS and A Level· Explore the contemporary context, Jane Austen’s writing, the novel’s critical reception and subsequent interpretations for a deeper reading of the text· Expand your further reading with a list of key articles and critical and theoretical texts· Improve your understanding of the novel with unfamiliar concepts and culturally-specific terms defined in the glossary

Read more less

‘Tennessee Williams's mordantly funny and deeply troubled meditation on the desperate dismay of ageing and the iniquities of racial bigotry.’ INDEPENDENT ‘It’s a wonderfully weird play, starting claustrophobic, losing intensity as it introduces the locals… then regrouping for a devastating second half… This unruly, unforgettable play takes its unpredictable course to something that makes you feel afresh our powerlessness against time.’ THE TIMES When Chance Wayne left the small town of St. Cloud, he did so with the ambition of being an actor: now, many years later, he returns as a gigolo and the companion of faded movie star Alexandra del Lago. But can Chance convince the town he did actually make it big and win over his childhood sweetheart? Or will the mistakes of his past punish him still? Sweet Bird of Youth is Tennessee Williams's 1959 Broadway hit that explores the social and political climate of 1950s America, at a time when sexual freedom was a critical issue. This edition includes an introduction by Alison Walls that explores the play's production history as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

Read more less

WINNER - Best American Play, Obie Awards 2018 In 1920, the Russian writer Isaac Babel wanders the countryside with the Red Cavalry. In 1990, a mysterious KGB agent spies on a woman in Dresden and falls in love. In 2010, an aircraft carrying most of the Polish government crashes in the Russian city of Smolensk. Set in Russia over the course of ninety years, this thrilling and epic new play by Rajiv Joseph traces the stories of seven men and women connected by history, myth and conspiracy theories.

Read more less

This is not a story about the Yorkshire Ripper. It's 1975 and Sharon just wants to marry Donny Osmond. Her mum, June, is working to keep girls like Helen off the street, and Fiona is desperate to get inside the Milgarth Police Station incident room. Between the years of 1975 and 1980, the women of Leeds lived in fear. With no clue as to who was responsible for the sustained attacks and murders across the city, the authorities urged women to stay at home. From the fear and fury, a steadfast solidarity arose, birthing the Reclaim the Night movement and echoing down the generations to this day. Charley Miles's play There Are No Beginnings was premiered at Leeds Playhouse in October 2019, in a production featuring Julie Hesmondhalgh.

Read more less

‘He is the sickness and you maintain that sickness.’ Idi Amin is the self-declared President of Uganda. When Scottish medic Nicholas Garrigan becomes his personal physician, he is catapulted into Amin's inner circle. A useful asset for the British Secret Service, is Garrigan the man on the inside, or does he have blood on his hands too? Giles Foden's multi-award-winning novel The Last King of Scotland is an electrifying thriller about corruption and complicity. This stage adaptation by Steve Waters premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in September 2019, directed by Gbolahan Obisesan.

Read more less

A WIRED 2020 Book of the Year Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. "Nothing's bulletproof," the salesman said. "The thing's only bullet resistant." The New York Times journalist Kenneth R. Rosen had just purchased his first bulletproof vest and was headed off on assignment. He was travelling into Mosul, Iraq, when he realized that the idea of a bulletproof vest is more effective than the vest itself. From its very inception, poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide, or Kevlar, was meant for tires. Its humble roots and mundane applications are often lost, as it is now synonymous with body armor, war zones, and domestic terrorism. What Rosen learned through intimate use of his vest was that it acts as a metaphor for all the precautions we take toward digital, physical, and social security. Bulletproof Vest is at once an introspective journey into the properties and precisions of a bulletproof vest on a molecular level and on the world stage. It's also an ode to living precariously, an open letter that defends the notion that life is worth the risk. A portion of the author’s proceeds will be donated to RISC, a nonprofit that provides emergency medical training to freelance conflict journalists. For more information, go to www.risctraining.org. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Read more less

Life Lessons from Literature is a must for all bibliophiles, providing a concise and highly accessible bucket list of must-read books that teaches us so many fundamental truths and broadens our minds.‘I read a book one day and my whole life was changed’ ... So confesses the narrator of Orhan Pamuk’s novel The New Life. But what can we learn from reading books? Life Lessons from Literature poses this broad question by examining the works of some of the greatest writers in history.In it, we can draw wisdom from Charles Dickens’ views on poverty and wealth; seek comfort from ideas about love from Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. Yet books are about much more than just romance and money. Through careful examination of over one hundred classic works of world literature, life lessons are also drawn from themes such as conflict and oppression, identity and psychology, showing how literature enriches and informs our understanding of ourselves and the wider world around us.From Brazil to Japan, the Americas to Africa; from Victor Hugo to Mark Twain and Chinua Achebe to Haruki Murakami, you will find literature from around the world in this gem of a book, in which the plots may differ but the themes and the lessons they have to teach us are entirely universal.

Read more less

Beckett's first 'literary landmark' (St Petersburg Times) is a wonderfully savoury introduction to the Nobel Prize-winning author. Written in 1932, when the twenty-six-year-old Beckett was struggling to make ends meet, the novel offers a rare and revealing portrait of the artist as a young man. When submitted to several publishers, all of them found it too literary, too scandalous or too risky; it was only published posthumously in 1992. As the story begins, Belacqua - a young version of Molloy, whose love is divided between two women, Smeraldina-Rima and the little Alba - 'wrestles with his lusts and learning across vocabularies and continents, before a final "relapse into Dublin"' (New Yorker). Youthfully exuberant and Joycean in tone, Dream is a work of extraordinary virtuosity.

Read more less

Nobel Peace Prize–winner Elie Wiesel brings ancient religious leaders to literary life, framing his commentary with pressing and enduring questions as a survivor and witness to the Holocaust. Five Biblical Portraits represents an old-new approach to Jewish textual commentary. This sequel to Elie Wiesel’s Messengers of God continues the work done in that volume of bringing religious figures to life and studying their place both in the text and in our lives. Wiesel reflects on his own life as well as the tragedy of the Holocaust as he discusses each figure and adds personal framing and insight into the religious study. Through sensitive readings of the scriptures as well as the Talmudic and Hasidic sources, Wiesel illuminates Joshua, Elijah, Saul, Jeremiah, and Jonah. He seeks not simple answers but fully complex responses to the crucial questions of human suffering as he examines each religious figure in turn. Originally published in 1981, this new edition of Five Biblical Portraits includes a new text design, cover, and an introduction by Ariel Burger, which examines how Wiesel’s post-Holocaust Midrash teaches us not only how to read the Bible but also how to read the world.

Read more less

Translated in full for the first time, this second volume immerses readers in the power and drama of the electrifying classic Chinese novel. Lord Wen of Jin brings some temporary stability to the political scene when he returns after many years in exile. However, the grants of land and office to his longstanding supporters make them too powerful for his successors to control. Just as the Zhou aristocrats seize power from their king, a bitter struggle begins as ministers seek to impose their authority on their lords. One of the great works of Chinese literature, Kingdoms in Peril is an epic historical novel charting the five hundred years leading to the unification of the country in 221 B.C.E. under the rule of the legendary First Emperor. Writing some fourteen hundred years later, the Ming-era author Feng Menglong drew on a vast trove of literary and historical documents to compose a gripping narrative account of how China was forged. Detailing the stories of unforgettable characters who defined and shaped the times in which they lived, the complete edition of Kingdoms in Peril is a vital resource for those seeking a comprehensive overview of China’s ancient past and the political machinations that led to its unification. There are many historical works that provide an account of some of these events, but none are as thrilling and breathtakingly memorable as Kingdoms in Peril.

Read more less

Translated in full for the first time, this third volume immerses readers in the power and drama of the electrifying classic Chinese novel. The three great southern states of Chu, Wu, and Yue are locked in conflict, and their kings feel a hatred for each other that transcends all bounds. Cruel humiliations are imposed on the vanquished each time a battle is lost, while vicious scheming and internecine manipulation destroy many lives. The balance of power is threatened—but there can only be one victor. One of the great works of Chinese literature, Kingdoms in Peril is an epic historical novel charting the five hundred years leading to the unification of the country in 221 B.C.E. under the rule of the legendary First Emperor. Writing some fourteen hundred years later, the Ming-era author Feng Menglong drew on a vast trove of literary and historical documents to compose a gripping narrative account of how China was forged. Detailing the stories of unforgettable characters who defined and shaped the times in which they lived, the complete edition of Kingdoms in Peril is a vital resource for those seeking a comprehensive overview of China’s ancient past and the political machinations that led to its unification. There are many historical works that provide an account of some of these events, but none are as thrilling and breathtakingly memorable as Kingdoms in Peril.

Read more less

Kristin M. Girten tells a new story of feminist knowledge-making in the Enlightenment era by exploring the British female philosophers who asserted their authority through the celebration of profoundly embodied observations, experiences, and experiments. This book explores the feminist materialist practice of sensitive witnessing, establishing an alternate history of the emergence of the scientific method in the eighteenth century. Francis Bacon and other male natural philosophers regularly downplayed the embodied nature of their observations. They presented themselves as modest witnesses, detached from their environment and entitled to the domination and exploitation of it. In contrast, the author-philosophers that Girten takes up asserted themselves as intimately entangled with matter—boldly embracing their perceived close association with the material world as women. Girten shows how Lucy Hutchinson, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Charlotte Smith took inspiration from materialist principles to challenge widely accepted "modest" conventions for practicing and communicating philosophy. Forerunners of the feminist materialism of today, these thinkers recognized the kinship of human and nonhuman nature and suggested a more accessible, inclusive version of science. Girten persuasively argues that our understanding of Enlightenment thought must take into account these sensitive witnesses' visions of an alternative scientific method informed by profound closeness with the natural world.

Read more less

A passionate exhortation to expand the ways we talk about human sex, sexuality, and gender. Twenty-five years ago, Mark D. Jordan published his landmark book on the invention and early history of the category “sodomy,” one that helped to decriminalize certain sexual acts in the United States and to remove the word sodomy from the updated version of a standard English translation of the Christian Bible. In Queer Callings, Jordan extends the same kind of illuminating critical analysis to present uses of “identity” with regard to sexual difference. While the stakes might not seem as high, he acknowledges, his newest history of sexuality is just as vital to a better present and future. Shaking up current conversations that focus on “identity language,” this essential new book seeks to restore queer languages of desire by inviting readers to consider how understandings of “sexual identity” have shifted—and continue to shift—over time. Queer Callings re-reads texts in various genres—literary and political, religious and autobiographical—that have been preoccupied with naming sex/gender diversity beyond a scheme of LGBTQ+ identities. Engaging a wide range of literary and critical works concerned with sex/gender self-understanding in relation to “spirituality,” Jordan takes up the writings of Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Djuna Barnes, Samuel R. Delany, Audre Lorde, Geoff Mains, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Gloria Anzaldúa, Maggie Nelson, and others. Before it’s possible to perceive sexual identities differently, Jordan argues, current habits for classifying them have to be disrupted. In this way, Queer Callings asks us to reach beyond identity language and invites us to re-perform a selection of alternate languages—some from before the invention of phrases like “sexual identity,” others more recent. Tracing a partial genealogy for “sexual identity” and allied phrases, Jordan reveals that the terms are newer than we might imagine. Many queer folk now counted as literary or political ancestors didn’t claim a sexual or gender identity: They didn’t know they were supposed to have one. Finally, Queer Callings joins the writers it has evoked to resist any remaining confidence that it’s possible to give neatly contained accounts of human desire. Reaching into the past to open our eyes to extraordinary opportunities in our present and future, Queer Callings is a generatively destabilizing and essential read.

Read more less

A lively exploration into America’s preoccupation with childhood innocence and its corruption In The Drinking Curriculum, Elizabeth Marshall brings the taboo topic of alcohol and childhood into the limelight. Marshall coins the term “the drinking curriculum” to describe how a paradoxical set of cultural lessons about childhood are fueled by adult anxieties and preoccupations. By analyzing popular and widely accessible texts in visual culture—temperance tracts, cartoons, film, advertisements, and public-service announcements—Marshall demonstrates how youth are targets of mixed messages about intoxication. Those messages range from the overtly violent to the humorous, the moralistic to the profane. Offering a critical and, at times, irreverent analysis of dominant protectionist paradigms that sanctify childhood as implicitly innocent, The Drinking Curriculum centers the graphic narratives our culture uses to teach about alcohol, the roots of these pictorial tales in the nineteenth century, and the discursive hangover we nurse into the twenty-first.

Read more less

In May 1926, Britain grinds to a halt, as workers down tools for the General Strike. With the printing presses shut down, the only sources of news are the government's British Gazette, edited by Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill, and the independent, fledgling British Broadcasting Company, led by John Reith. The stage is set for a fierce battle over control of the news and who gets to define the truth. Jack Thorne's When Winston Went To War With The Wireless is a gripping play about the birth of a great British institution and its efforts to stay impartial. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in June 2023, directed by Katy Rudd, with Stephen Campbell Moore as Reith, Adrian Scarborough as Churchill, and Haydn Gwynne as Stanley Baldwin. 'Jack Thorne never ceases to stimulate and entertain' Evening Standard

Read more less

The Politics of Emotion explores the intersection of powerful emotional states—love, melancholy, grief, and madness—with gender and political power on the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Using an array of sources—literary texts, medical treatises, and archival documents—Nuria Silleras-Fernandez focuses on three royal women: Isabel of Portugal (1428–1496), queen-consort of Castile; Isabel of Aragon (1470–1498), queen-consort of Portugal; and Juana of Castile (1479–1555), queen of Castile and its empire. Each of these women was perceived by their contemporaries as having gone "mad" as a result of excessive grief, and all three were related to Isabel the Catholic (1451–1504), queen of Castile and a woman lauded in her time as a paragon of reason. Through the lives and experiences of these royal women and the observations, judgments, and machinations of their families, entourages, and circles of writers, chronicles, courtiers, moralists, and physicians in their orbits, Silleras-Fernandez addresses critical questions about how royal women in Iberia were expected to behave, the affective standards to which they were held, and how perceptions about their emotional states influenced the way they were able to exercise power. More broadly, The Politics of Emotion details how the court cultures in medieval and early modern Castile and Portugal contributed to the development of new notions of emotional excess and mental illness.

Read more less

'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.

Read more less

The essential companion for lovers of the contemporary novel Over the past fifty years, fiction in English has never looked more various. Books bulkier than Victorian three-deckers appear alongside works of minimalist brevity, and experiments with form have produced everything from verse novels to Twitter-thread narratives. This is truly a golden age. But what unites this kaleidoscopic array of genres and styles? Celebrated writer and critic Peter Kemp shows how modern writers are obsessed with the past. In a series of engaging and illuminating chapters, Retroland traces this novelistic preoccupation with history, from the imperial and the political to the personal and the literary. Featuring famous names from across the United Kingdom, United States, and the wider Anglophone world, ranging from Salman Rushdie to Sarah Waters, Toni Morrison to Hilary Mantel, this is a work of remarkable synthesis and clarity—a wonderfully readable and enjoyably opinionated guide to our current literary landscape.

Read more less

An argument that humanists have the tools—and the responsibility—to mobilize political power to tackle climate changeAs climate catastrophes intensify, why do literary and cultural studies scholars so often remain committed to the separation of aesthetic study from the nitty-gritty of political change? In this thought-provoking book, Caroline Levine makes the case for an alternative view, arguing that humanists have the tools to mobilize political power—and the responsibility to use those tools to avert the worst impacts of global warming. Building on the theory developed in her award-winning book, Forms, Levine shows how formalist methods can be used in the fight for climate justice.Countering scholars in the environmental humanities who embrace only “modest gestures of care”—and who seem to have moved directly to “mourning” our inevitable environmental losses—Levine argues that large-scale, practical environmental activism should be integral to humanists’ work. She identifies three major infrastructural forms crucial to sustaining collective life: routines, pathways, and enclosures. Crisscrossing between art works and public works—from urban transportation to television series and from food security programs to rhyming couplets—she considers which forms might support stability and predictability in the face of growing precarity. Finally, bridging the gap between academic and practical work, Levine offers a series of questions and exercises intended to guide readers into political action. The Activist Humanist provides an essential handbook for prospective activist-scholars.

Read more less

A compelling personal introduction to the life and work of Nobel Prize–winning writer Czesław Miłosz from his fellow Polish exile and acclaimed writer Eva HoffmanCzesław Miłosz (1911–2004) was a giant of twentieth-century literature, not least because he lived through and wrote about many of the most extreme events of that extreme century, from the world wars and the Holocaust to the Cold War. Over a seven-decade career, he produced an important body of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including classics such as The Captive Mind, a reflection on the hypnotic power of ideology, and Native Realm, a memoir. In this book, Eva Hoffman, like Miłosz a Polish-born writer who immigrated to the West, presents an eloquent personal portrait of the life and work of her illustrious fellow exile.Miłosz experienced the horrors of World War II in Warsaw—the very epicenter of the inferno—and witnessed the unfolding of the Holocaust from up close. After the war, he lived as a permanent exile—from Poland, communism, and mainstream American culture. Hoffman explores how exile, historical disasters, and Miłosz’s origins in Eastern Europe shaped his vision, and she occasionally compares her own postwar trajectory with Miłosz’s to show how the question of “the Other Europe” is still with us today. She also examines his later turn to the poetry of memory and loss, driven by the need to remember and honor his many friends and others killed in the Holocaust.Combining incisive personal and critical insights, On Czesław Miłosz captures the essence of the life and work of a great poet and writer.

Read more less

Science and religion go head to head in David Baddiel's debut play: a ferociously funny battle for power, fame and followers. When physics student Edie seems to prove, scientifically, the existence of God, it has far-reaching effects. Not least for her lecturer, Henry Brook, his marriage to celebrity atheist author Virginia – and his entire universe. God's Dice is an electric tragicomedy about the power of belief and our quest for truth in a fractured world. It premiered at Soho Theatre, London, in October 2019, starring Alan Davies as Henry, and directed by James Grieve.

Read more less

In the Middle Ages, religious crusaders took up arms, prayed, bade farewell to their families, and marched off to fight in holy wars. These Christian soldiers also created accounts of their lives in lyric poetry, putting words to the experience of personal sacrifice and the pious struggle associated with holy war. The crusaders affirmed their commitment to fighting to claim a distant land while revealing their feelings as they left behind their loved ones, homes, and earthly duties. Their poems and related visual works offer us insight into the crusaders’ lives and values at the boundaries of earthly and spiritual duties, body and soul, holy devotion and courtly love. In The Subject of Crusade, Marisa Galvez offers a nuanced view of holy war and crusade poetry, reading these lyric works within a wider conversation with religion and culture. Arguing for an interdisciplinary treatment of crusade lyric, she shows how such poems are crucial for understanding the crusades as a complex cultural and historical phenomenon. Placing them in conversation with chronicles, knightly handbooks, artworks, and confessional and pastoral texts, she identifies a particular “crusade idiom” that emerged out of the conflict between pious and earthly duties. Galvez fashions an expanded understanding of the creative works made by crusaders to reveal their experiences, desires, ideologies, and reasons for taking up the cross.

Read more less

Nell and Oscar meet on a beach in Dorset. It's 1595… or maybe 1610. Oscar has returned from university and Nell is doing fuck-all. They will meet here, again and again, on this beach for the next four hundred years. Stuff will change. As it does with time. They will try to keep up. A kaleidoscopic exploration of cultural progress, Marek Horn's play Wild Swimming is an interrogation of gender and privilege, and a wilfully ignorant history of English Literature. The play premiered at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, produced by FullRogue in association with Pleasance Futures and Bristol Old Vic Ferment, and directed by Julia Head. It subsequently transferred to the Bristol Old Vic, and toured the UK in 2020.

Read more less

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the ‘Birthplace’ – remains the chief shrine. It’s not as romantic as Anne Hathaway’s thatched cottage, it’s not where he wrote any of his plays, and there’s nothing inside the house that once belonged to Shakespeare himself. So why, for centuries, have people kept turning up on the doorstep? Richard Schoch answers that question by examining the history of the Birthplace and by exploring how its changing fortunes over four centuries perfectly mirror the changing attitudes toward Shakespeare himself. Based on original research in the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and featuring two black and white illustrated plate sections which draw on the wide array of material available at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the history of Shakespeare’s birthplace over four centuries. Beginning in the 1560s, when Shakespeare was born there, it ends in the 1890s, when the house was rescued from private purchase and turned into the Shakespeare monument that it remains today.

Read more less

Examining the personal library and the making of self When writer Edith Wharton died in 1937, without any children, her library of more than five thousand volumes was divided and subsequently sold. Decades later, it was reassembled and returned to The Mount, her historic Massachusetts estate. What a Library Means to a Woman examines personal libraries as technologies of self-creation in modern America, focusing on Wharton and her remarkable collection of books.Sheila Liming explores the connection between libraries and self-making in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American culture, from the 1860s to the 1930s. She tells the story of Wharton’s library in concert with Wharton scholarship and treatises from this era concerning the wider fields of book history, material and print culture, and the histories (and pathologies) of collecting. Liming’s study blends literary and historical analysis while engaging with modern discussions about gender, inheritance, and hoarding. It offers a review of the many meanings of a library collection, while reading one specific collection in light of its owner’s literary celebrity.What a Library Means to a Woman was born from Liming’s ongoing work digitizing the Wharton library collection. It ultimately argues for a multifaceted understanding of authorship by linking Wharton’s literary persona to her library, which was, as she saw it, the site of her self-making.

Read more less

Palestinian theater today is drawing increasing interest throughout the Arab world and beyond, as theaters and universities in the English-speaking world are becoming familiar with companies like the Freedom Theatre, Al-Kasaba Theatre, Ashtar, Al-Rowwad, Yes Theatre, Al-Harah, and the Palestinian National Theatre. This volume for the first time presents contemporary plays from a number of Palestinian theatres in English. The collection offers a rare look into the dynamic life of contemporary Palestinian theater. The works gathered here arise directly from the physical and psychological realities of the occupation, combining activism and critical self-inquiry. The anthology represents both the micro-political geography and theatrical institutions of Palestine, covering the West Bank from the farthest north to the farthest south, the Galilee, Gaza, and Jerusalem. What emerges is the range of contemporary Palestinian national identity as expressed in the content, styles and institutions of its theater. As part of the In Performance series, the plays in this anthology will be of interest to those who want to produce new work, read diverse dramatic and performance literature, and understand the ways in which theater contributes to international discussions of culture, rights, history, and more.

Read more less

'I am strength I am power I am courage I am revolution I am Amber Rai' Amber is trapped – by her family's rules and expectations, and by her own fears. But on the running track she feels free. As her body speeds up, the world slows down. And the tangled, mixed-up words in her head start to make sense... It's time to start a revolution: for her mother, for her sister, for herself. Run, Amber. Run. Manjeet Mann's multi-award-winning verse novel, Run, Rebel, about a young woman beginning to take control of her life, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2021 and won the CILIP Carnegie Shadowers Choice Award, a UKLA Book Award, a Diverse Book Award and the Sheffield Children's Book Award. This fast-paced, mesmerising stage version, adapted by the author, was first produced in 2023 by Pilot Theatre, with Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Derby Theatre and York Theatre Royal. This edition also contains a range of teaching materials and resources designed to help educators bring the play to life for their students. 'Mann's brilliant, coruscating verse novel lays out the anatomy of Amber's revolution, and the tentative first flowerings of hope and change' Guardian

Read more less

Given the increasing number of old people, the proliferation of books about old age is hardly surprising. Most of these come from cultural historians or social scientists and, when those with a literary background have tackled the subject, they have largely done so through what are known as period studies. In Blasted with Antiquity, David Ellis provides an alternative. Skipping nimbly from Cicero to Shakespeare, and from Wordsworth to Dickens and beyond, he discusses various aspects of old age with the help of writers across European history who have usually been regarded as worth listening to. Eschewing extended literary analyses, Ellis addresses retirement, physical decay, sex in old age, the importance of family, legacy, wills and nostalgia, as well of course as dying itself. While remaining alert to current trends, his approach is consciously that of the old way of teaching English rather than the new. Whether 'blasted with antiquity' like Falstaff in Henry IV Part Two, or with the 'shining morning face' of an unwilling student, his accessible and witty style will appeal to young and old alike.

Read more less