ELT & Literary Studies Books

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Book SynopsisPart of the Norton Library series

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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 SynopsisOPEN ACCESSTo read the PDF of Globalising Welsh Studies: Decolonising history, heritage, society and culture for free, follow the link belowGlobalising Welsh Studies:Decolonising history, heritage, society and cultureThis book is freely available on a Creative Commons licence thanks to the kind sponsorship of the libraries participating in the Jisc Open Access Community Framework OpenUP initiative. Interest in race and ethnicity research in Wales has grown apace in the last decade, opening up wider debates about the nature, focus and content of what collectively is called Welsh Studies. Across a range of disciplines, we are witnessing not only a global turn' placing Wales more substantively within a plethora of global interconnections, but also a decolonial turn' that involves the questioning of disciplinary traditions and knowledge production, and highlighting the colonial legacy that shapes academic pursuits. In the present text, we explore the development of Welsh Studies through the lens of race/ethnicity. Contributors from history, heritage studies, literature, film, policy, social and cultural studies offer case analyses adopting new perspectives, theoretical routes and methodological innovations, with the aim of illustrating aspects of the decolonising of knowledge production.

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Book SynopsisThis first book in a three-volume collection of Georges Bataille’s essays introduces English readers to his philosophical and critical writings. In the aftermath of the Second World War, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by “a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way,” and to reject any compartmentalization of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal Critique. Adopting the format of the review essay, he surveyed the post-war cultural landscape while advancing his reflections on excess, non-knowledge, and the general economy. Focusing on literature as a mode of sovereign uselessness, he tackled prominent and divisive figures such as Henry Miller and Albert Camus. In keeping with Critique’s mission to explore the totality of human knowledge, Bataille’s articles did not just focus on the literary but featured important reflections on the science of sexuality, the Chinese Revolution, and historical accounts of drunkenness, among other matters. Throughout, he was attuned to how humanity would deal with the excessive forces of production and destruction it had unleashed, his aim being a way of thinking and living that would inhabit that excess. This is the first of three volumes collecting Bataille’s post-war essays. Beginning with an article on Nietzsche and fascism written shortly after the liberation of Paris and running to the end of 1948, these texts make available for the first time in English the systematic diversity of Bataille’s post-war thought. Trade Review"In this erudite volume, scholars Toscano and Noys collect the critical works of French thinker and novelist Georges Bataille (1897–1962), touching on topics including philosophy, literature, religion, geopolitics, art, and psychoanalysis." * Publishers Weekly *"Sixty years after his death, Georges Bataille remains a vexing figure in French literature and philosophy. A creator or member of endless literary and philosophical movements, from the short-lived Acéphale to surrealism, he belonged fully to none of them, not even his own, and his apparent will to destruction often risks carrying over to those who enter into dialogue with him, even today. . . . These essays invite the reader in, in a way that many of Bataille’s works do not; they also give us a glimpse of a thinker working out his position. . ." * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1.Is Nietzsche Fascist?2.Is Literature Useful?3.The Will to the Impossible4.Picasso’s Political Paintings5.Miller’s Morality6.Dionysos Redivivus7.Mystical Experience and Literature8.The Indictment of Henry Miller9.Notes: Gide – Baranger – Gillet10.The Last Moment11.Gide—Nietzsche—Claudel12.Take It or Leave It13.The War in China14.Cossery – Robert Aron15.Marcel Proust and the Profaned Mother16.Adamov17.The Friendship between Man and Beast18.Giraud – Pastoureau – Benda – Du Moulin de Laplante – Govy19.On the Relationship between the Divine and Evil20.Pierre Gordon21.What Is Sex?22.A New American Novelist23.Sartre24.A Morality based on Misfortune [Malheur]: The Plague25.Letter to Merleau-Ponty26.Is Lasting Peace Inevitable?27.Joseph Conrad28.Preface to the Gaston-Louis Roux Exhibition29.Goya30.Psychoanalysis31.Tavern Drunkenness and Religion32.Political Lying33.The Sexual Revolution and the Kinsey Report 34.Jean Paulhan – Marc Bloch35.On the Meaning of Moral Neutrality in the Russo-American War36.The Divinity of Isou37.The Mischievousness of Language38.Marcel Proust

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Book SynopsisRanging from early medieval times to the present, this diverse collection explores the myriad ways in which literary texts are informed by their historical contexts. The thirty-one chapters draw on varied themes and perspectives to present stimulating new readings of both canonical and non-canonical texts and authors. Written in a lively and engaging style, by an international team of experts, these specially commissioned essays collectively represent an incisive contribution to literary studies; they will appeal to scholars, teachers and graduate and undergraduate students. The book is designed to complement Paul Poplawski's previous volume, English Literature in Context, and incorporates additional study elements designed specifically with undergraduates in mind. With an extensive chronology, a glossary of critical terms, and a study guide suggesting how students might learn from the essays in their own writing practices, this volume provides a rich and flexible resource for teachingTrade Review'An impeccable selection of wide-ranging but sharply focused texts in their historical and cultural contexts by seasoned scholars with a keen sense of the past as well as a sharp eye for essential contemporary issues such as feminism, environmentalism, immigration, and politics. The crisp and succinct essays are packed with engaging questions that suggest lively classroom discussion as well as thoughtful critical examination.' Stephen Kern, Ohio State University'Studying English Literature in Context helps ease students' transition from second- to third-level study by offering scholarly essays that are written specifically for students. This makes academic writing and argument more accessible to students coming to such material for the first time, with the further resources offering the additional benefit of helping students think more critically about what they are reading. This book offers new university students much needed support as they work towards the broader and deeper critical inquiry in which they will engage at later stages of their programme. It is likely to be widely assigned in undergraduate survey courses and much used.' Naomi McAreavey, University College Dublin'Driven by the conviction that texts are fruitfully understood within the context of their time, this enormously hospitable and adaptable book manages, without strain, to appeal both to scholars and students, to bookworms and neophytes. It covers the entire history of English literature and drama with a ease and dexterity matched only by ambition and range. The collection deploys an innovative hinged structure in which each of the thirty-one essays is supplemented by a critical reflection that allows the author to reflect upon the preceding essay he or she has just written, while also mapping the scholarly field. Pedagogically, that will afford students a critical example of how to position their own work while also informing them, without dryness, of the scholarly tradition to which they contribute. This collection is suffused with the balm of utility, clear-sightedness and practical good sense and deserves a place on reading lists wherever English literature is nurtured and cherished.' Ronan McDonald, The University of Melbourne, Australia'Studying English Literature in Context will undoubtedly advance the theory and practice of cultural materialist pedagogy in higher education. I recommend this lively and enjoyable volume as a valuable resource for teachers and students of English Literature and as an excellent anthology of scholarly essays in its own right.' Caroline Franklin, Swansea University'Studying English Literature in Context is a superb collection of essays by leading scholars that will foster stimulating response, reignite debate, and demand intellectual engagement by readers of representative texts from the long history of English. The authors recognise that from The Dream of the Rood's multivalence to Aphra Behn's colonial novel Oroonoko and Grace Nichols' feminist poetry, literature both contributes to, as well as reflects socio-cultural critique, linking past modes of creative expression with current conversations about form, textual ambiguity, literary resistance, and periodisation. In addition to this impressive set of critical interpretations, generous resources are provided to situate the student in the long chronology and complex range of generic, stylistic, material, and performative possibilities offered by literature. The whole volume works to ensure enhanced understanding of the significance of poetry, prose, and drama both to authors and creators and to audiences globally; as Poplawski anticipates, this book offers contextured readings, encouraging connections between eras, affect, and modalities to amplify the power of the written and spoken word.' Elaine Treharne, Stanford UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Paul Poplawski; Section I. Medieval English, 500–1500: 1. Finding the dream of the rood in old English literature Emily V. Thornbury; 2. The translator as author: The case of Geoffrey Chaucer's the Parliament of Fowls Filip Krajnik; 3. Arthurian romance as a window onto medieval life: The Case of Ywayne and Gawayne and The Awntyrs off Arthure K. S. Whetter; Section II: The renaissance, 1485–1660: 4. The renaissance in England: A meeting point Alessandra Petrina; 5. 'Mr Spencer's moral invention': The global horizons of early modern epic Jane Grogan; 6. Arden of Faversham Christa Jansohn; 7. 'A little touch of Harry in the night' – mysteries of kingship and the stage in Shakespeare's the life of king Henry the fifth Ina Habermann; 8. Poems and contexts: The case of Henry Vaughan Robert Wilcher; Section III: The restoration and eighteenth century, 1660–1780: 9. Periodising in context: The case of the restoration and eighteenth Century Lee Morrissey; 10. Truth-telling and the representation of the Surinam 'Indians' in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko Oddvar Holmesland; 11. 'The pamphlet on the table': The life and adventures of sir Launcelot Greaves Richard J. Jones; Section IV: The romantic period, 1780–1832: 12. 'Transported into asiatic scenes': Romanticism and the orient Daniel Sanjiv Roberts; 13. Historical fiction in the romantic period: Jane Porter, Walter Scott and the sublime hero Fiona Price; 14. Jane Austen and her publishers: Northanger Abbey and the publishing context of the early nineteenth century Katie Halsey; 15. 'O for a life of sensations' or 'the internal and external parts': Keats and medical materialism Paul Wright; Section V: The victorian age, 1832–1901: 16. Poetry and science in the victorian period Jordan Kistler; 17. 'In characters of tint indelible': Life writing and legacy in Charlotte Brontë's Villette Maria Frawley; 18. Money, narrative and representation from Dickens to Gissing Ben Moore; 19. Reading and remediating nineteenth-century serial fiction: Closing down and opening up Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla Fionnuala Dillane; 20. Public places, private spaces in Fin de Siècle British women's writing Sue Asbee; Section VI: The Twentieth Century, 1901–1939: 21. D. H. Lawrence's women in Love: An anthropological reading Stefania Michelucci; 22. The epigraph for T. S. Eliot's Marina: Classical tradition and the modern era Anna Budziak; 23. Passing as a male critic: Mary Beton's coming of age in Virginia Woolf's a room of one's own Judith Paltin; Section VII: The twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 1939–2020: 24. An ecocritical reading of the poetry of Ted Hughes Terry Gifford; 25. Women publishers in the twenty-first century: Assessing their impact on new writing – and writers Catherine Riley; 26. Crisis and community in contemporary British theatre Clare Wallace; Section VIII: Postcolonial literature in english: 27. Complexities and concealments of eros in the African novel: Chinua Achebe's things fall apart F. Fiona Moolla; 28. Bessie Head's feminism of everyday life Loretta Stec; 29. The gender politics of Grace Nichols: Joy and resistance Izabel F. O. Brandao; 30. 'The all-purpose quote': Salman Rushdie's meta-contextuality Joel Kuortti; 31. Postcolonial literature and the world, 2017–2019: Contemporary complexities Ulla Rahbek; Appendices; Appendix A: Glossary of critical terms; Appendix B: Study guide: Learning from the essays; Appendix C: Essays listed by genre and theme; Index.

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Book SynopsisA provocative, highly accessible journey to the heart of Sophocles’ Antigone elucidating why it keeps resurfacing as a central text of Western thought and Western culture. There is probably no classical text that has inspired more interpretation, critical attention, and creative response than Sophocles’ Antigone. The general perspective from which the book is written could be summarized with this simple question: What is it about the figure of Antigone that keeps haunting us? Why do all these readings and rewritings keep emerging? To what kind of always contemporary contradiction does the need, the urge to reread and reimagine Antigone—in all kinds of contexts and languages—correspond? As key anchor points of this general interrogation, three particular “obsessions” have driven the author’s thinking and writing about Antigone. First is the issue of violence. The violence in Antigone is the opposite of “graphic” as we have come to know it in movies and in the media; rather, it is sharp and piercing, it goes straight to the bone. It is the violence of language, the violence of principles, the violence of desire, the violence of subjectivity. Then there is the issue of funerary rites and their role in appeasing the specific “undeadness” that seems to be the other side of human life, its irreducible undercurrent that death alone cannot end and put to rest. This issue prompted the author to look at the relationship between language, sexuality, death, and “second death.” The third issue, which constitutes the focal point of the book, is Antigone’s statement that if it were her children or husband lying unburied out there, she would let them rot and not take it upon herself to defy the decree of the state. The author asks, how does this exclusivist, singularizing claim (she would do it only for Polyneices), which she uses to describe the “unwritten law” she follows, tally with Antigone’s universal appeal and compelling power? Attempting to answer this leads to the question of what this particular (Oedipal) family’s misfortune, of which Antigone chooses to be the guardian, shares with the general condition of humanity. Which in turn forces us to confront the seemingly self-evident question: “What is incest?” Let Them Rot is Alenka Zupančič’s absorbing and succinct guided tour of the philosophical and psychoanalytic issues arising from the Theban trilogy. Her original and surprising intervention into the broad and prominent field of study related to Sophocles’ Antigone illuminates the classical text’s ongoing relevance and invites a wide readership to become captivated by its themes.Table of ContentsPreface | vii Prologue | 1 1. Violence, Terror, and Unwritten Laws | 9 2. Death, Undeadness, and Funeral Rites | 21 3. “I’d Let Them Rot” | 50 Works Cited | 83 Index | 85

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed critic Sianne Ngai theorizes the gimmick as an aesthetic category reflecting the fundamental laws of capitalism. Gimmicks make promises of saving labor and increasing value that we distrust but also find attractive. Exploring the use of this form, Ngai shows how its aesthetic dissatisfactions reflect deeper anxieties about capitalism.Trade ReviewA culmination of Ngai’s work as a critic…Ngai makes the case that the gimmick, whose value we regularly disparage, is of tremendous critical value. The gimmick, she contends, is the capitalist form par excellence…Ngai’s study lies somewhere between critical theory and Sontag’s best work. -- Andrew Koenig * Los Angeles Review of Books *One of the most creative humanities scholars working today…Ngai sets off on another mind-blowing exploration, this time drawing a line between our own judgements of productivity, as well as considering what entertainment is worth to us. My god, it’s so good. -- Olivia Rutigliano * Literary Hub *Theory of the Gimmick is a masterpiece—a culmination of the dazzling project begun in Sianne Ngai’s Ugly Feelings and elaborated in Our Aesthetic Categories, both celebrated books that have anchored affect theory to a strong account of tone and form. It is a major advance in aesthetic theory, and Marxist theory in particular, one that could help us all get over our Frankfurt melancholy and down to the garrulous work of actually naming the dynamics that produce art and artistic judgment under capitalism. -- Christopher Nealon, author of The Matter of CapitalThe gimmick draws out our unease about capitalism’s seductions, deflating their lofty appeals with the suddenness of a punch line. It is an aesthetic category that dunks on capitalism’s too-good-to-be-true promises by dunking on itself…It is undeniable that part of what makes Ngai’s analyses of aesthetic categories so appealing—so appealing as to even appear to raise the esteem of the object under analysis—is simply her capacity to speak about them brilliantly. -- Jane Hu * Bookforum *In its extraordinary analysis of the gimmick as a compromised expression of what Walter Benjamin or Fredric Jameson have labeled the age of “late capitalism,” Ngai’s book—much like her previous book publications—is a stellar critique and rethinking of Continental aesthetic theory. …Ngai’s work will not and must not be bypassed by future theories of aesthetics and consumer capitalism, not least in American studies. -- Dustin Breitenwischer * Amerikastudien *Ngai exposes capitalism’s tricks in her mind-blowing study of the time- and labor-saving devices we call gimmicks. -- Katrina Forrester * New Statesman *Ngai tracks the gimmick through a number of guises: stage props, wigs, stainless-steel banana slicers, temp agencies, fraudulent photographs, subprime loans, technological doodads, the novel of ideas…[She] has slowly been building a reputation as one of America’s most original and penetrating cultural theorists. -- Charlie Tyson * Chronicle of Higher Education *Ngai is a keen analyst of overlooked or denigrated categories in art and life…Moves quickly from the fantastical contraptions of Rube Goldberg to the philosophical machinery in Kant or Marx that might explain their appeal…Highly original in theme and suggestive in approach. -- Brian Dillon * 4Columns *Ngai has done so much to illuminate. -- David Trotter * London Review of Books *Ngai’s penetrating and at times humorous work feels uncommonly generous at a deeply polarized moment when emotions run high and much theory and criticism has taken on an increasingly grave, moralizing tone…Explores across a remarkably broad range of works of art, film, and literature the ‘gimmick,’ a simultaneously attractive and repulsive form that links the aesthetic to the economic. -- Matthew Rana * Kunstkritikk *It is the simplicity and vernacular quality of Sianne Ngai’s central concept that elevates this book to a classic in the making. Ngai’s most important contribution to Marxist cultural and economic theory comes from her insight that—like the judgment of the beautiful for Kant—the gimmick is a subjective category, neither cognitive nor ethical, but historical through and through. The gimmick is a way to bring together the theory of the commodity with Kant’s category of judgment. Through Ngai, we are able to vernacularize Marx and to understand the most basic but enigmatic proposition: that truth and appearance are identical in the commodity. -- Timothy Bewes, author of Reification: Or, The Anxiety of Late CapitalismBooks of this ambition and accomplishment are rare! Theory of the Gimmick continues the work of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and others in seriously putting together aesthetic theory and Marxist theories of capital. In an impossibly erudite, wide-ranging, and theoretically sophisticated argument, Ngai gives us a unique insight into the relationship between labor, time, and value in a capitalist economy. This book is a major event in American intellectual life. -- Jonathan Flatley, author of Affective Mapping: Melancholia and the Politics of ModernismThe whole book suggests that critique is an occasion for delight, as the explication of how the gimmicks Ngai finds everywhere from Henry James to a toy box reveal the inner workings of capital is accomplished with a joyful relentlessness. The book is a page turner. -- Theo Davis * American Literary History *[A] groundbreaking argument. * Choice *[Theory of the Gimmick] firstly offers an eminently usable theory of the gimmick, and secondly offers a series of masterful extensions of that theory in practically unrepeatable analyses of texts…where we witness, in addition to Ngai the theorist, Ngai the virtually peerless reader. -- Astrid Lorange * Sydney Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisUsman Khan was convicted of terrorism-related offences at age 20, and sent to high-security prison. He was released eight years later, and allowed to travel to London for one day, to attend an event marking the fifth anniversary of a prison education programme he participated in. On 29 November, 2019, he sat with others at Fishmongers' Hall, some of whom he knew. Then he went to the bathroom to retrieve the things he had hidden there: a fake bomb vest and two knives, which he taped to his wrists. That day, he killed two people: Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt. Preti Taneja taught fiction writing in prison for three years. Merritt oversaw her program; Khan was one of her students. 'It is the immediate aftermath,' Taneja writes. '"I am living at the centre of a wound still fresh." The I is not only mine. It belongs to many.' In this searching lament by the award-winning author of We That Are Young, Taneja interrogates the language of terror, trauma and grief; the fictions we believe and the voices we exclude. Contending with the pain of unspeakable loss set against public tragedy, she draws on history, memory, and powerful poetic predecessors to reckon with the systemic nature of atrocity. Blurring genre and form, Aftermath is a profound attempt to regain trust after violence and to recapture a politics of hope through a determined dream of abolition.Trade Review'Aftermath is a major landmark in British narrative non-fiction. It's a beautiful and profoundly important account of creative writing teaching as a radical act of trust and interrogation of power; its anti-racist and abolitionist stance makes it a vitally important as well as deeply moving book to read now in these dismal days for the British political project. It is fearless in the way it shows its agonised workings as it unfolds into a complex map of grief.' Max Porter ---- 'Astonishing. Radical, beautiful, broken, intimate. A surge. A yearning. A tribute. An indictment. You won't read another book like this ever. Taneja's attempt to wrestle with so much, with radical empathy, survivor's guilt, politics - is a masterclass work of literary brilliance.' Nikesh Shukla ---- 'It takes a rare talent to respond to a shattering act of violence by reassembling the pieces in a way that refuses easy explanations or platitudes, but is illuminating, daring, world-expanding. Essential, in the truest sense of the word.' Daniel Trilling ---- 'This is a remarkable book: generous, searching, insightful and searingly intelligent as it draws out the complex relationship between writing and terror, language and the unspeakable, trauma and event.' Olivia Sudjic ---- 'Aftermath is written from the heart. I am both impressed by it and so grateful that someone has tried to make some sense of the many issues surrounding what happened at Fishmongers' Hall. There is so much truth in this slim volume.' David Merritt, father of Jack Merritt ---- 'Aftermath is a book that's almost impossible to categorise: it sits in a tradition of bereavement literature; it sits with poetry. There is no fake moralising in its pages, just Taneja patiently walking us through the wreckage of unimaginable grief, noticing everything, lifting up the rubble, she makes us question everything we know and hold fast - a courageous and brilliant book.' Mona Arshi ---- 'A study, a song, a calling - Taneja's work offers a crucial and radical account of control, conviction, complicity and trauma.' Eley Williams ---- 'Aftermath is not just a personal reckoning with tragedy, it's a piercing inquiry into the ways criminality is perceived, and yet what Taneja does so skilfully is carefully unpack the complex systems violence emerges from. This is an inspired book fortified with acute contemplation and courage, a book born out of a love for the world and the people in it.' Anthony Anaxagorou ---- 'Aftermath is one of the most profound, urgent and thought-provoking books I've read in years. Taneja makes of the already capacious creative non-fiction form one that is all her own, and which enquires, with devastating and poetic precision, into the connections between language, violence, structural racism, the purposes of reading and writing fiction, and so much more. She invites the reader to share in her enquiry to narrate the unnarratable, and, through doing so, to locate a genuinely radical form of hope.' Clare Fisher ---- 'In this stunning book, light bleeds into darkness. An astute indictment of our carceral system and the violence it perpetuates, it is also a compassionate meditation on our interconnected lives. Taneja blurs the lines between literary genres so that the divisions between 'us' and 'them' also blur. She invites us to grieve and yet still be angry enough to demand change - to ask deep structural questions and to imagine new possibilities for justice. I was challenged, inspired and grateful for every word.' Tessa McWatt ---- 'This searing abolitionist work sees, and refuses, other prisons too - of narrative-for-hire, racial shame, the trauma industrial complex, cause and effect. It tries to convince no one of nothing, to confess nothing to no one. Instead it breaks sentences and pages open, makes language rush into you (you are an estuary, the dam is gone). Its shape is unmappable. It lives on as a drumming in your head.' Maria Tumarkin ---- 'A tremendous feat of scholarship, of historical interlacing, of contemporary criticism, of literary examination, of ethical clarity and personal interrogation and, most indelibly, of grieving.' Gina Apostol ---- 'With We That Are Young, Preti Taneja established herself as one of the most courageous and lyrically gifted writers of her generation. Here again she offers living proof that great literature does not rise fully formed from the canon. It begins, rather, with the anguished sifting of its fragments in the aftermath of tragedy, and a grasping in the dark for voices worthy of trust, until its urgent call for equality and dignity comes true - first on the page, and then in the hearts and minds of all who read it.' Maureen Freely

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Book SynopsisNahum Dimitri Chandler examines W. E. B. Du Bois's early thought and its continued relevance, demonstrating that Dub Bois must be re-read, appreciated, and studied anew as a philosophical writer and thinker contemporary to our time.Trade Review“Nahum Dimitri Chandler's "Beyond This Narrow Now" gives the reader the marvelous benefit of Chandler's exquisite knowledge of the DuBoisian oeuvre and his singular unrelenting commitment to tarrying with it. As one of our master teachers, Chandler is at his best here in leading us systematically, virtually line by line, through early Du Bois in his critical conceptual formation.” -- Hortense J. Spillers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor, Vanderbilt University“‘Beyond This Narrow Now’ is a seminal contribution to foregrounding Du Bois’ epistemological roots and its implication for the future.” -- Mosa M. Phadi * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"Chandler is a meticulous scholar and a brilliant thinker with much to say about Du Bois as an intellectual problem. Parts of the book will be accessible to many readers, and Chandler’s approach to analysis serves as a master class in close reading. However, because of the occasionally esoteric nature of Chandler's approach, readers with a background in critical theory or philosophy have the most to gain. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, professionals/practitioners." -- J. W. Miller * Choice *“Chandler’s work is a definitive contribution towards a re-assessment of contemporary orientations of Du Boisian scholarship. His original thoughts and perspectives on Du Bois . . . provide new, innovative approaches to the work of such an iconic thinker and writer.” -- Lena Dallywater * Connections *"Insofar as he remains a critical resource in the present, perhaps one of the things that is most useful about Du Bois today is his ability to interpret historical possibility as the other side of historical limit, and to convince us that the future can still be altogether otherwise than the past that has been given to us, even now. There is no better guide to these aspects of Du Bois’s thought than Nahum Chandler’s 'Beyond This Narrow Now.'. . . Chandler is a poetic and evocative stylist, as well as a profound thinker, who offers the reader aesthetic and intellectual pleasures that help compensate for whatever syntactic or semantic hurdles pop up along the way." -- Ian Litwin * Georgia Review *"Chandler provides a patiently elaborated study of Du Bois’s early thought—a 'delimitation' of this thought that argues for the openness of its investigations and thus our perennial return to its hermeneutics." -- Rebecka Rutledge Fisher * American Literary History *"The merit of Chandler's work is that he stretches Du Bois's reflections along the arc drawn by contemporaneity and brings them into conversation with a constellation of critical theories from post-structuralism to post-colonialism, highlighting the specificity and contemporary importance of Du Bois's thought." -- Vincenzo Di Mino * Journal of Critical Race Inquiry *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Note on Citations xiii An Opening—At the Limit of Thought, a Preface xvii A Notation: The Practice of W.E.B. Du Bois as a Problem for Thought—Amidst the Turn of the Centuries 1 Part I. "Beyond This Narrow Now": Elaborations of the Example in the Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois—At the Limit of the World 25 Part II. The Problem of the Centuries: A Contemporary Elaboration of "The Present Outlook for the Dark Races of Mankind," circa the 27th of December, 1899—Or, At the Turn of the Twentieth Century 145 Another Coda, the Explicit—Revisited 221 Notes 231 References 269 Index 291

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Book SynopsisThe Major Declamations, attributed to Quintilian in antiquity, exemplify the final stage of Greco-Roman rhetorical training, in which students delivered speeches for the prosecution and defense at imaginary trials. A wide variety of fascinating ethical, social, and legal details animate the fictional world conjured up by these oratorical exercises.

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Book SynopsisThe Major Declamations, attributed to Quintilian in antiquity, exemplify the final stage of Greco-Roman rhetorical training, in which students delivered speeches for the prosecution and defense at imaginary trials. A wide variety of fascinating ethical, social, and legal details animate the fictional world conjured up by these oratorical exercises.

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy.   A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition   Collects Fantastic Four #52-53 (1966); Jungle Action #6-21 (1973-1976). It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.   The Black Panther is not just a super hero; as King T’Challa, he is also the monarch of the hidden African nation of Wakanda. Combining the strength and stealth of his namesake with a creative scientific Trade Review“A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.”—Publishers Weekly“Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans—initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too—found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That’s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why—or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby—or his successor on “Captain America,” Jim Steranko—barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper—unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.”—Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

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Book SynopsisThis refresher reference volume features concise character and plot summaries for 12 of Shakespeare's best-known plays, drawn from the SparkNotes website and illustrated with colourful infographics. Each of the 12 chapters in this volume runs 6 to 8 pages of text taken from the SparkNotes website, and is illustrated with colourful infographics for easy consumption. The 12 plays featured six comedies and six tragedies are among the most famous and most taught of Shakespeare's dramas, including Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Julius Caesar.

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Book SynopsisThe first book to publish the entirety of Franz Kafka’s graphic output, including more than 100 newly discovered drawingsTrade Review“Franz Kafka’s drawings are neither ‘scribblings’ (as he called them) nor illustrations meant as mere accompaniments to text. . . . Kafka saw pictures and words as not complementary but independent, even irresolvable. The figures he drew stand alone as stories in themselves.”—Lauren Christensen, New York Times Book Review“[Kafka] was serious about the visual as well as the verbal. . . . His figures are grotesques, sometimes comical, sometimes cruel, their bodies, often drawn in dark black ink, like Rorschach blots come to life.”—Max Norman, Wall Street Journal“The more you move through this book, the more drawing and writing seem to exist for Kafka on a single and intricate plane, and it begins to change all the usual perspectives.”—Adam Thirlwell, Times Literary Supplement“Exquisitely produced. . . . In these drawings we see Kafka, unshackled from the cognitive cage of verbal meaning, remembering how to play. . . . Kilcher’s discussion of the influence on Kafka of Asian art . . . is especially interesting.”—George Prochnik, Literary Review“Until the legal resolution of their ownership in 2019, very few [of Kafka’s drawings] were seen by the public. Now Yale has revealed them all, publishing the complete catalogue raisonné.”—David Hayden, RA“A sumptuous volume. . . . As windows into Kafka’s elusive, elliptical imagination [his drawings] are fascinating.”—Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Apollo“Fascinating and question-begging. These are wild and impromptu drawings, off the cuff, many of them in pencil. . . . What we had not expected were such bolts of fiery humour. Kafka was not always in the grip of pained self-haunting, it seems. And especially not when very young, as we see him here.”—Michael Glover, The Tablet, “Best New Art Books”“The uncanny animatedness, that which strikes us in Kafka’s prose even before we are enraptured by its depths, lives everywhere in the evidence of his hand. It lives in his cursive script, in these faces and bodies and windswept horses, in these self-portraits we encounter having somehow always known he was there, staring into us, waiting to be seen.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude“An important and original book. Informative and perceptive, it illuminates a side of Kafka that has hitherto scarcely been known.”—Ritchie Robertson, author of Kafka: A Very Short Introduction“Kafka, this absorbing book shows, was both artist and art-lover: inspired by Asian art, he explored line in defiance of gravity, drawing as a counterpoint to script. An intriguing volume, with Butler’s essay as the highlight.”—Katie Trumpener, Yale University

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Book SynopsisAnimal Fables of the Courtly Mediterranean is a treasure trove of widely translated stories on how to conduct oneself and succeed in life. The new Byzantine Greek text and English translation presented here is based on a twelfth-century work that contains unique prefaces and reinstates stories omitted from the earliest Greek version.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive guide to Elizabethan ideas about the mindTrade Review“An outstanding achievement: broad-ranging, intelligently synthetic and written in unflaggingly lucid prose. . . . Helen Hackett shows us over and again that the inability of the Elizabethans to know themselves as fully as they wanted to mattered to them a great deal. Discomfited though this state of affairs could leave them feeling, it explains why their literature still matters to us today.”—Rhodri Lewis, Times Literary Supplement“Hackett reads a breathtaking diversity of literature with great sensitivity. . . . The Elizabethan Mind . . . is an impressive achievement.”—P. Kishore Saval, Australian Book Review“This enthralling study captures the changing ways in which the mind was understood, and the thought processes of a society that continues to captivate today.”—BBC History Revealed“Hackett callipers her subject with shrewd delicacy, arranging interventions and insights along a line of recognisable topoi—the role of women, attitudes towards race, Shakespeare, demonic possession.”—Madoc Cairns, The Tablet“Hackett’s extraordinary achievement in The Elizabethan Mind combines learning and empathy as she ranges across cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and physiological approaches. Come for Hamlet, stay for female complaint, Catholic poetics, sonnets, psychomachia, and much more.”—Emma Smith, author of This is Shakespeare“Hackett has synthesized an extraordinary range of books to illuminate aspects of the Elizabethan mind. She offers excellent readings of familiar works such as Shakespeare’s tragedies as well as little-known gems such as women’s translations of the Psalms. Readers will come away equipped to read Shakespeare and his contemporaries with renewed understanding.”—Jonathan Bate, author of Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare“Wonderfully perceptive and illuminating. If you want to understand how the Elizabethans viewed themselves, each other, and the world, read this book.”—Elizabeth Goldring, author of Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist

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Book SynopsisA TLS Book of the Year. 'Erudite and urgent, Ian Thomson's Dante's Divine Comedy is another book that everyone ought to read' Spectator. 'Succinct but wide-ranging, Ian Thomson's richly illustrated exploration of Dante's masterpiece is... fun... ingenious... fascinating' Observer. 'A book worth savouring as a chunky, chatty, richly illustrated guide that brings Dante and his world within our reach' Evening Standard. A lively and wide-ranging exploration of a literary masterwork and its influence on writers, poets, artists and film-makers up to our own time. Dante has no equal as he sings of other-worldly horror and celestial beatitude alike. Yet for all our distance from medieval theology, the Florentine poet's allegorical journey through hell, purgatory and paradise remains one of the essential works of world literature. At least fifty English language versions of the Inferno – the first part of Dante's poem – appeared in the twentieth century alone. If Dante's Divine Comedy speaks to our present condition, it is because it tells the story of Everyman who sets out in search of salvation in this world. Dante composed his great poem in the spoken Italian of his time. He wrote about suffering bodies and human weakness, and about divine ecstasy, in words that have resonated with readers and writers for the last seven hundred years.Trade ReviewErudite and urgent, Ian Thomson's Dante's Divine Comedy is another book that everyone ought to read * Spectator *[A] book worth savouring as a chunky, chatty, richly illustrated guide that brings Dante and his world within our reach * Evening Standard *Succinct but wide-ranging, Ian Thomson's richly illustrated exploration of Dante's masterpiece [is] fun... ingenious... Fascinating' * Observer *This book is an object of great beauty... Thomson's aim, triumphantly realised, is to remind us why Dante's great poem is a 'landmark' * Tablet *[A] lively new book... It has become a cliché to refer to critics as Virgil, but it would be hard to think of any more appropriate way to describe what Ian Thomson offers here' * Catholic Herald *Thomson teases readers into wanting to find out their own answers. He'll lead you back to that neglected copy on your book shelf. And this time you'll pick it up * Financial Times *Encapsulates everything we need for the ultimate poetic voyage from Hell to Paradise by way of Purgatory * TLS, Books of the Year *Thomson's elegant, intelligent guide views the epic poem as a kind of recovery programme for those who have lost their way, and in turn leads you back to that neglected original on your bookshelf * Financial Times, Books of the Year *Ian Thomson is a travel writer, and here he attempts the most ambitious journey of all in the company of Dante – "to hell and back", as he puts it * Church Times. *

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Book SynopsisThe last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetryTrade Review“A magnificent meander through the flames and the breezes, by the waters and over the earth of those creations, intimations and thoughts that most matter. There will be few grand streams-of consciousness like this in the future.”—Stoddard Martin, Jewish Chronicle “An extraordinary testimony to a long life spent in the company of poetry and an affecting last declaration of his passionate and deeply unfashionable faith in the capacity of the imagination to make the world feel habitable”—Seamus Perry, Literary Review “Profound…Draws more deeply on [Bloom’s] scholarly expertise….Shows his readers how even literary criticism must be decoded like a dramatic poem or a novel before we can consume it.”—Eileen M. Hunt, Times Literary Supplement “In the end, only words have a chance of outliving us, and Bloom records his best guesses at the words that might endure. Until the end, Bloom was a man of incessant curiosity, with more questions than answers about an essential poetic imagination.”—Thylias Moss, Professor Emerita, University of Michigan “This book is superb, utterly convincing, and absolutely invigorating. Bloom’s final argument with mortality ultimately has a rejuvenating effect upon the reader, and is nothing short of a revelation.”—David Mikics, author of Slow Reading in a Hurried Age "I felt reading this book the way Virginia Woolf in her diary describes her feeling about reading Shakespeare: 'I never yet knew how amazing his stretch and speed . . . is, until I felt it utterly outpace and outrace my own.'"—Laura Quinney, author of William Blake on Self and Soul “Bloom helps us grasp what Dickinson calls ‘vaster attitudes,’ allowing us to take a proud flight and to disdain, for a time, our own mortality.”—William Flesch, Brandeis University "Bloom! The life, the voice, the sorrowful countenance, the Emersonian swoon, the feasting intellect, the daemonic rapture. His I is an Eye, all-seeing, a container of multitudes, a volcanic primer on the crisis of enchantment in what he dares to name ‘a universe of Death.’ And here, in this last masterwork—an impassioned meditation on the poets who made him—his living breath is indomitably felt.”—Cynthia Ozick

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Book SynopsisFrom his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left, to founding the field of cultural studies and examining race and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stuart Hall has been central to shaping many of the cultural and political debates of our time. Essential Essays—a landmark two-volume set—brings together Stuart Hall''s most influential and foundational works. Spanning the whole of his career, these volumes reflect the breadth and depth of his intellectual and political projects while demonstrating their continued vitality and importance.Volume 1: Foundations of Cultural Studies focuses on the first half of Hall''s career, when he wrestled with questions of culture, class, representation, and politics. This volume''s stand-out essays include his field-defining “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies';the prescient “The Great Moving Right Show,” which first identified the emergent mode of authoTrade Review"Anyone whose work is informed, 'in the last instance,' by Cultural Studies will find much that is helpfully familiar in it as well as new connections, new applications, new ways of '[penetrating] the disorderly surface of things to another level of understanding,' as Hall says, invoking Marx, in the epilogue. This seems especially urgent as the ascendancy of the far Right coincides with the wholesale neoliberalization of the humanities, as Hall predicted in his 'Theoretical Legacies' lecture. It is obviously not a question of 'going back' to Hall for a truer or more 'authentic' form of Cultural Studies than that in practice today. But there is much in his legacy that illuminates the dynamics of the present, and much to put into dialogue with contemporary scholarship and practice. Morley's collection reminds us how important it is for genuine intellectual work to articulate competing and contradictory paradigms together, to work, as Hall did, from the points of contestation and conflict rather than seek solace in abstractions. This, finally, is the 'essential' in the essays assembled here." -- Liane Tanguay * American Book Review *“Along with the other volumes that Duke University Press has published, these two books of collected essays are to be welcomed. They allow us to see a fertile mind in action, engaged in and with the real world. It is a model well worth emulating.” -- Michael W. Apple * Educational Policy *“As one of the foremost intellectuals of his generation, [Hall] has made an enormous contribution to cultural and political thought, and his work has had a lasting impact in both social sciences and the humanities…. This collection is a treasure trove of Hall’s intellectual and political offerings; I recommend it highly.” -- Avtar Brah * New West Indian Guide *"I have also narrated the effort it took for me to access his work to illustrate the importance of the Selected Writings now being released by Duke University Press. It is an event of profound historical significance that a new generation will be able to begin its political and theoretical education with systematic access to Hall’s writing. . . . The two-volume Essential Essays shows the broad scope of his work." -- Asad Haider * The Point *"It was one of Hall’s unique gifts to offer analysis of the moment as it unfolded before our eyes. I am sure I am not alone in having found his talks exhilarating in ways I could never quite understand, given that the news he relayed with such energy was almost unremittingly dire. Hall offered his readings as interpretation and self-commentary, tracing his own intellectual path." -- Jacqueline Hall * New York Review of Books *Table of ContentsA Note on the Text vii Acknowledgments ix General Introduction: A Life in Essays 1 Part I. Cultural Studies: Culture, Class, and Theory Introduction 27 1. Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, and the Cultural Turn [2007] 35 2. Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms [1980] 47 3. Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies [1992] 71 Part II. Theoretical and Methodological Principles: Class, Race and Articulation 4. The Hinterland of Science: Ideology and the Sociology of Knowledge [1977] 111 5. Rethinking the "Base and Superstructure" Metaphor [1977] 143 6. Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance [1980] 172 7. On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall by Larry Grossberg and Others [1986] 222 Part III. Media, Communications, Ideology, and Representation 8. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse [originally 1973; republished 2007] 257 9. External Influences on Broadcasting: The External/Internal Dialectic in Broadcasting—Television's Double-Blind [1972] 277 10. Culture, the Media, and the "Ideological Effect" [1977] 298 Part IV. Political Formations: Power as Process 11. Notes on Deconstructing "the Popular" [1981] 347 12. Policing the Crisis: Preface to the 35th Anniversary Edition [2013] (with Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke, and Brian Roberts) 362 13. The Great Moving Right Show [1979] 374 Index 393 Place of First Publication 411

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Book SynopsisWas the experience of poetry--or a cultural practice we now call poetry--continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson''s Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, the place of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII''s court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era. Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.Trade ReviewIt is bracing to follow a prominent senior scholar in his exploration of so many centuries—millennia encountered not with any ex cathedra jadedness but with open enthusiasm that should immediately engage readers at every academic level. * Stephen Hinds, University of Washington, Modern Language Quarterly *There are many ways to write a history (or a "pre-history") of poetry; despite the gravitational pull of the English Renaissance, this one turns into an inventory of impressive and meticulously curated literary-historical epiphanies, each encountered in its own present ... It is bracing to follow a prominent senior scholar in his exploration of somany centuries—millennia—encountered not with any ex cathedra jadedness but with open enthusiasm that should immediately engage readers at every academic level. * Stephen Hinds, University of Washington, Modern Language Quarterly *Attridge's exploration is detailed and extensive as he considers how the demands of social norms and the changes in production technologies influenced the ways in which poetry might be experienced by readers and listeners. In turn, the volume will be of interest to those studying any of the time frames that it discusses as well as those interested in questions regarding the reception and transmission of literature. * John S. Garrison, Renaissance Studies *...[the volume] is of significant value to classical scholarship, encouraging as it does a contextualising of ancient engagements with this literary form, and our own study of such engagements, within a much broader cultural history of poetry...this book offers an invaluable opportunity to consider the material with which we are most familiar as set within the wider evolution of poetry as a cultural phenomenon. But perhaps more significantly, we can become aware of how our perceptions of poetry by the ancient Greeks and Romans have likely been shaped by the different forms that poetry took in subsequent centuries... it should also encourage us to approach any poetry belonging to antiquity as part of a broader cultural activity than is often acknowledged. * Emily Patterson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *A spectacularly rich and vast storehouse of poetic history, both convincingly homogeneous as a longue durée and absorbing in its smaller diverse details. * Esther Osorio Whewell, Cambridge Quarterly 49.2 (June, 2020) *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction PART ONE: Ancient Greece 1: Homeric Greece: Courts and Singers 2: Archaic to Classical Greece: Festivals and Rhapsodes 3: Classical Greece to Ptolemaic Alexandria: Writers and Readers PART TWO: Ancient Rome and Late Antiquity 4: Ancient Rome: The Republic and the Augustan Age 5: Ancient Rome: The Empire after Augustus 6: Late Antiquity: Latin and Greek, Private, Public, Popular PART THREE: The Middle Ages 7: Early Medieval Poetry: Vernacular Versifying 8: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Performing Genres 9: Lyric, Romance, and Alliterative Verse in Fourteenth-Century England 10: Chaucer, Gower, and Fifteenth-Century Poetry in English PART FOUR: The English Renaissance 11: Early Tudor Poetry: Courtliness and Print 12: Late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Poetry: The Circulation of Verse 13: Late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Poetry: The Idea of the Poet Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThere have been many great and enduring works of literature by Caribbean authors over the last century. The Caribbean Contemporary Classics collection celebrates these deep and vibrant stories, overflowing with life and acute observations about society.Set in Belize City in the early 1950s, Beka Lamb is the record of a few months in the life of Beka and her family. Beka and her friend Toycie Qualo are on the threshold of change from childhood to adulthood. Their personal struggles and tragedies play out against a backdrop of political upheaval and regeneration as the British colony of Belize gears up for universal suffrage, and progression towards independence. The politics of the colony, the influence of the mixing of races in society, and the dominating presence of the Catholic Church are woven into the fabric of the story to provide a compelling portrait, ''a loving evocation of Belizean life and landscape''. Beka''s vibrant character guides us through a tumultuou

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Book SynopsisRomeo and Juliet is routinely called “the world’s greatest love story”, as though it is all about romance. The play features some of the most lyrical passages in all of drama, and the lovers are young, beautiful, and ardent. But when we look at the play, the lyricism and the romance are not really what drive things along. It is true that Romeo, especially early on in the play, acts like a young man determined to take his place in an immortal tale of love. Everything he says is romantic – but rather like an anniversary card is romantic. His words propel nothing, or nothing but sarcastic admonitions from his friends to forget about love and to treat women as they should be treated, with careless physical appetite. The world we have entered is rapacious more than romantic. Everyone knows something of this, from the film versions of the story if nothing else. Romeo and Juliet must fight for their love inside a culture of stupid hatreds. But it is not a simple case of love versus war, or the city against the couple. If it were, it would nicely reinforce clichés about true love, fighting against the odds. In this book Simon Palfrey suggests that the play Shakespeare actually wrote is more troubling than this. Juliet’s passion – for all her youth, for all its truth – is at the very cusp of murderousness. Juliet is the world’s scourge, in the sense that she will whip and punish and haunt it; she is also its triumph, in the sense of its best and truest thing. The deaths her love leads to are in no way avoidable, and in no way accidental. They are her inheritance, the thing she was born to. Of course she takes Romeo with her. But it is at heart her play.

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Book Synopsis"Herzen's novel played a significant part in the intellectual ferment of the 1840s. It is an important book in social and moral terms, and wonderfully expressive of Herzen's personality."—Isaiah Berlin Alexander Herzen was one of the major figures in...Trade Review"Herzen's only novel is as much a social document as a fiction, since the many characters personify the major issues and types of the time. . . . Herzen's humorous and ironic development of plot and character suggests an answer to the title question: all are to blame for the injustice and aimlessness of Russian life."—Library Journal"This edition of Who Is to Blame? demonstrates genuine involvement in the translator's craft by duplicating Herzen's barbed style and preserving the natural strengths of his prose."—Slavic Review"The translation is excellent. . . . Katz catches the epigrammatic wit of the original—quite an accomplishment."—The New Republic"Herzen was one of the most lucid, realistic, and gifted thinkers of his age and a founder of Russian socialism. . . . Who Is to Blame? remains of value for its acute social insights and Michael Katz has rendered it fluently into English."—Times Higher Education Supplement

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Book SynopsisA fresh translation--and new envisioning--of the most accessible and beloved of all classic Chinese poetry.Welcome to the magical, windswept world of Cold Mountain. These poems from the literary riches of China have long been celebrated by cultures of both East and West—and continue to be revered as among the most inspiring and enduring works of poetry worldwide. This groundbreaking new translation presents the full corpus of poetry traditionally associated with Hanshan (“Cold Mountain”) and sheds light on its origins and authorship like never before. Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt honor the contemplative Buddhist elements of this classic collection of poems while revealing Hanshan’s famously jubilant humor, deep love of solitude in nature, and overwhelming warmth of heart. In addition, this translation features the full Chinese text of the original poems and a wealth of fascinating supplements, including traditional historical records, an in-depth study of the Cold Mountain poets (here presented as three distinct authors), and more.

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Book SynopsisExam Board: AQALevel: GCSE Grade 9-1Subject: English LiteratureSuitable for the 2024 examsEverything you need to revise for your GCSE 9-1 set text in a snap guideEverything you need to score top marks on your GCSE Grade 9-1 English Literature exam is right at your fingertips! Revise Lord of the Flies by William Golding in a snap with this new GCSE Grade 9-1 Snap Revision Text Guide from Collins. Refresh your knowledge of the plot, context, characters and themes and pick up top tips along the way to ace your AQA exam. Each topic is explained in an easy-to-read format so you can get straight to the point. Then, put your skills to the test with plenty of practice questions included in every section. The Snap Text Guides are packed with every quote and extract you need. We've even included examples of how to plan and write your essay responses! This Collins English Literature revision guide contains all the key information you need to practise and pass.

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Book SynopsisFor almost two centuries, Shakespeare had no biography. Neither did his life have a timeline, and historians and archivists did not have the materials to make one. Does this mean that Shakespeare was not valued or understood until after 1800? This book focuses on a critical absence in the unfolding of Shakespeare's story.Trade Review[A] significant new contribution ...that push[es] the parameters of how we engage with the most revered writer in the English language...timely and erudite. * Lubaaba Al-Azami, History Today *As de Grazia's study demonstrates so compellingly, when life writing shifted from the anecdotal to the documentary, we lost something of our appreciation of Shakespeare as critics tried to force square pegs into round holes. * David McInnis, Australian Book Review *De Grazia's Shakespeare without a Life is unafraid of taking a bold stance .... Her subtle analyses highlight the differences between modern readers' obsession with biography and the lenses through which Shakespeare's contemporaries and immediate successors viewed him. * Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal *Elegant ... what de Grazia does with familiar material is striking. * Emma Smith, Times Literary Supplement *This beautifully written book weaves together a set of absorbing stories which together produce a sharp-edged argument ... The final chapter on the Sonnets ...urges new ways of thinking about Shakespeare and his work... A pleasure to read and a book to rethink often. * Raphael Lyne, Review in English Studies *Table of Contents1: Shakespeare Without a Life 2: Shakespeare's Timeline 3: The Archive and its Discontents 4: Shakespeare's Dateless Sonnets

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Book SynopsisThis brilliant, incisive volume captures the high points of Myles' work in New York City during the 1980s.Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know What the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone. This breakthrough volume, published in 1991 by the author of Cool For You and Chelsea Girls captures the high points of Myles' work in New York City during the 1980s. Poet, novelist, lesbian culture hero and one-time presidential candidate, Myles has influenced a whole generation of young queer girl writers and activists. She is one of the most brilliant, incisive, immediate writers living today.

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Book SynopsisTales of the werewolf are well established as a sub-strand of the popular horror genre; less widely known is how far back in time their provenance lies. This is the first book in any language devoted to the werewolf tales that survive from antiquity, exploring their place alongside witches, ghosts, demons, and soul-flyers in a shared story-world.Trade ReviewOgden sets out to prove that, in the ancient world, werewolves "inhabited the same conceptual space...as sorcerers, witches, and ghosts," and succeeds admirably. * Debbie Felton, Religious Studies Review *Ogden characteristically writes with verve, clarity, independent-mindedness and wit, and always displays an impressive breadth and depth of learning - grounded in a genuinely, not just superficially, multilingual study of previous scholarship-any reader who opens the present work can expect a treat. * Richard Buxton, GNOMON *Summing up, the importance of this work is undeniable: The Werewolf in the Ancient World is destined to become the reference treatise on lycanthropy in antiquity, and it certainly has what it takes to be so - not least, the author's familiarity with scholarly literature in languages other than English. * Tommaso Braccini, Universita di Siena, ARYS: Antiquity, Religions and Societies *This book is packed full of source material for those who are keen to research more deeply into the phenomenon * J M Lashley, Cambridge Core *Readers will most certainly find lasting value in the many long translations of primary source materials marshalled in The Werewolf in the Ancient World, which will provide a useful refernce for all future discussions of the ancient and mysterious versipellis. * Scott Bruce, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *The broad breadth of the book provides Ogden with a plethora of sources to consider, creating a thoroughly researched discussion and a meticulous sourcebook ... The Werewolf in the Ancient World is a rich scholarly resource ... Ogden's writing style is lively and engaging, creating an overall enjoyable and accessible read for scholars, students, and casual readers. * Julianne Rach, Ancient History Bulletin *Daniel Ogden's fascinating and wide-ranging study of the werewolf from ancient Greece to the Middle Ages also adopts the folklorist approach ... This fast-paced and well-researched book certainly has a broad appeal and will be both a classic study on the topic and a useful collection of ancient sources on werewolves. * Ivana Petrovic, Greece & Rome *The Greeks had a word for writer-collectors of mirabilia, or wonderful, incredible things; they were known as "paradoxographers." In The Werewolf in the Ancient World Ogden shows himself to be a keen contemporary paradoxographer. Combining detailed analysis of the sources with digressive reveries, he's aiming at "a comprehensive sourcebook" and has hunted across the centuries for buried items of lore, ranging from ancient Greek texts to Christian commentaries on pagan thinkers, then on to the medieval period, with busy digressions on Icelandic sagas, Grimm fairy tales, and Victorian ghost stories. In pursuit of his quarry, Ogden investigates sorcery, shapeshifting, initiation rites, mental derangement, spirit projection, and shamanic night flying, expounding with irrepressible enthusiasm on such things as werewolves' relations with ghosts, vampires, sorcerers, and witches. * Marina Warner, New York Review of Books *Quite probably the best book that will ever be written on the topic. * Gail Nina Anderson, The Fortean Times *The Werewolf in the Ancient World represents an immense work of scholarship. It should be praised for not succumbing to the unusually common problem of hyper-fixation on a particular time period, so as to make it appear like the werewolf is not a myth that's existed since antiquity. Raher than focusing only on ancient Greece and Rome, Ogden works to point out how the tropes established by Petronius in the Satyricon repeatedly pop up in medieval and Renaissance era folklore, and even early 20th century works of fiction like Bram Stoker's "Dracula's Guest" (1914) and Guy Endore's "Werewolf of Paris" (1933). * Justin Mullis, AIPT *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Petronius, Werewolves, and Folklore 1: The Curse of the Werewolf: Witches and Sorcerers 2: Werewolves, Ghosts, and the Dead 3: The Werewolf Inside, and Out 4: Werewolves and Projected Souls 5: The Demon in a Wolfskin: A Werewolf at Temesa? 6: The Werewolves of Arcadia Conclusion: The World of Ancient Werewolves and their Stories Appendix A. Homer's Circe as a Witch Appendix B. Cynocephali Appendix C. False Werewolves: Dolon and the Luperci References Index

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Book SynopsisAhuvia Kahane is Regius Chair of Greek and A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is the author of several books, including A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius' Metamorphoses (2000).

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Book SynopsisA Book of the Year for The Times and the Sunday Times ‘The writer is the engineer of the human soul,’ claimed Stalin. Although one wonders how many found nourishment in Turkmenbashi’s Book of the Soul (once required reading for driving tests in Turkmenistan), not to mention Stalin’s own poetry. Certainly, to be considered great, a dictator must write, and write a lot. Mao had his Little Red Book, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein their romance novels, Kim Jong-il his treatise on the art of film, Hitler his hate-filled tracts. What do these texts reveal about their authors, the worst people imaginable? And how did they shape twentieth-century history? To find out, Daniel Kalder read them all – the badly written and the astonishingly badly written – so that you don’t have to. This is the untold history of books so terrible they should have been crimes.Trade Review‘Daniel Kalder has slogged his way through the 20th century’s “Krakatoa-like eruption of despotic verbiage” so you don’t have to… Kalder’s dispatches from “the transnational empire of ultra-boredom” are not only very funny, they also form a quirky, pacey guide to recent world history.’ * Sunday Times, Books of the Year *‘Full of…wonders, and startling individual facts… An overwhelmingly powerful reminder of 20th-century misrule, and of just how delusional human beings can be – especially if they’re literate.’ * Telegraph *‘This wonderfully entertaining book is a cautionary tale about how societies are easily wooed by foolish demagogues spouting gibberish.’ * The Times, Books of the Year *‘I enjoyed this book a great deal…it’s actually a rather snappy read.’ * Will Self, Guardian *‘Hugely compelling…Like coming across a planet-sized car crash, with hundreds of millions snarled up in the wreckage: you can’t look away. Kalder has really dug deep into the minds of these infernal texts’ creators, and thus delivers some truly enlightening insights.’ * Irish Independent *‘Daniel Kalder…deserves a medal…Dictator Literature is a great book... An insightful book, but also a funny one.' * The Times *‘Very funny… After reading Dictator Literature you will never look at books with such a benevolent eye again.’ * Spectator *‘A engaging, brisk, and morbidly humorous haul of the lives and literary pretensions of the murderous wingnuts who defined a century.’ * Irish Times *‘Kalder's book is an informative, lively and often hilarious account of some of the worst authors who ever lived, doubling as a history of the terrible ideologies that marred the last century. Some execrable books have come out of communism and fascism, but Dictator Literature is certainly not one of them.’ * Catholic Herald *‘A fascinating study…partly an enjoyable romp but mostly a sombre sidelong-glance history of 20th-century totalitarianism.’ * Sunday Telegraph *‘Brisk, and full of antic fun.’ * New Statesman *‘Highly readable.’ * Herald *‘A mesmerizing study of books by despots great and small, from the familiar to the largely unknown.’ * Washington Post *‘Kalder is our cheeky and irreverent guide to the (generally aggressively tedious) prose by history’s despots.’ * Tatler *‘This is about the most discomforting book I’ve read in the past year. Never mind Trump and never mind Twitter: Kalder demonstrates that words themselves, and the escapist spells we weave with them, are our riskiest civic gift.’ -- Simon Ings, author of Stalin and the Scientists‘A compelling examination of why bad minds create bad writing, and therefore a valuable read for anyone interested in literature – or the world, in fact. Kalder’s dry humour makes Dictator Literature a fun tour de force through the mad history of the 20th century and the present.’ -- Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed

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Book SynopsisAn Introduction to Quantitative Text Analysis for Linguistics: Reproducible Research Using R is a pragmatic textbook that equips students and researchers with the essential concepts and practical programming skills needed to conduct quantitative text analysis in a reproducible manner. Designed for undergraduate students and those new to the field, this book assumes no prior experience with statistics or programming, making it an accessible resource for anyone embarking on their journey into quantitative text analysis.Through a pedagogical approach which emphasizes intuitive understanding over technical details, readers will gain data literacy by learning to identify, interpret, and evaluate data analysis procedures and results. They will also develop research skills, enabling them to design, implement, and communicate quantitative text analysis projects effectively. The book places a strong emphasis on programming skills, guiding readers through interactive lessons,

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Book SynopsisFrantz Fanon's political impact is difficult to overestimate. His anti-colonialist, philosophical and revolutionary writings were among the most influential of the 20th century. The essays, articles and notes published in this volume cover the most politically active period of his life and encapsulate the breadth, depth and urgency of his writings. In particular, they clarify and amplify his much-debated views on violent resistance. These works provide new complexity to our understanding of Fanon and reveal just how relevant his thinking is to the contemporary world and how important his ideas are to changing it.Trade ReviewFanon’s writings, some of the most intense political writing of the century, reflect the turmoil of his moment and seek a way out through a series of provisional and historically specific solutions … What The Political Writings shows is the range of problems and solutions faced by one of the great leftists of the 20th century. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of ContentsPlates Frantz Fanon: Works Cited General Introduction, by Jean Khalfa and Robert J.C. Young Introduction 1. The demoralized Foreign Legion 2. Algeria’s independence: An everyday reality 3. National independence: The only possible outcome 4. Algeria and the French crisis 5. The Algerian conflict and African anticolonialism 6. A democratic revolution 7. Once again: The reason for the precondition 8. Algerian revolutionary consciousness 9. In the Caribbean, birth of a nation? 10. The strategy of an army with its back to the wall 11. The survivors of no man’s land 12. Testament of a ‘man of the left’ 13. Ultracolonialism’s rationale 14. The western world and the fascist experience in France 15. Gaulist illusions 16. The calvary of a people 17. The rising anti-imperialist movement and the slow-wits of pacification 18. African countries and their solidary combat 19. Richard Wright’s White Man, Listen! 20. At Conakry, he declares: ‘Global peace goes via national independence’ 21. Africa accuses the west 22. Why we use violence 23. The stooges of imperialism 24. Letter to Ali Shariati Publishing Fanon (France and Italy, 1959-1971) Frantz Fanon’s Library and Life Franz Fanon’s Library Key dates of Fanon’s chronology Index

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays by the influential founder of the black radical traditionTrade Review'Before the movement for black lives made black radicalism cool for millennials, Cedric Robinson did the work of excavating an intellectual history we rely upon today' -- The Root'Like W. E. B. Du Bois, Michel Foucault, Sylvia Wynter, and Edward Said, Robinson was that rare polymath capable of seeing the whole - its genesis as well as its possible future. No discipline could contain him. No geography or era was beyond his reach.... He left behind a body of work to which we must return constantly and urgently' -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of 'Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination'‘Through these essays, we see further evidence of Robinson’s profound faith in the ability of ordinary people to fight against the corruptions of a world that routinely mocks the logic and practice of democracy. In them, we get a clear sense of what Robinson insisted in his work from the outset: that Black freedom struggles are a central part of resisting today’s violent racial and capitalist order’ -- The NationTable of ContentsForeword by Ruth Wilson Gilmore Preface by Elizabeth Peters Robinson Introduction: Looking for Grace in Redemption - H. L. T. Quan Part I - On Africa and Black Internationalism 1. Notes Toward a “Native” Theory of History 2. In Search of a Pan-African Commonwealth 3. The Black Detective and American Memory Part II - On Bourgeois Historiography 4. “The First Attack is an Attack on Culture” 5. Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Historiography of the West 6. Fascism and the Intersections of Capitalism, Racialism, and Historical Consciousness 7. Ota Benga’s Flight Through Geronimo’s Eyes: Tales of Science and Multiculturalism 8. Slavery and the Platonic Origins of Anti-democracy Part III - On World Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy 9. Fascism and the Response of Black Radical Theorists 10. Africa: In Hock to History and the Banks 11. The Comedy of Terror 12. Ralph Bunche and An American Dilemma Part IV - On Reality and Its (Mis)Representations 13. White Signs in Black Times: The Politics of Representation in Dominant Texts 14. The American Press and the Repairing of the Philippines 15. On the Los Angeles Times, Crack Cocaine, and the Rampart Division Scandal 16. Micheaux Lynches the Mammy 17. Blaxploitation and the Misrepresentation of Liberation 18. The Mulatta on Film: From Hollywood to the Mexican Revolution 19. Ventriloquizing Blackness: Eugene O’Neill and Irish-American Racial Performance Part V - On Resistance and Redemption 20. Malcolm Little as a Charismatic Leader 21. The Appropriation of Frantz Fanon 22. Amilcar Cabral and the Dialectic of Portuguese Colonialism 23. Race, Capitalism, and the Anti-democracy 24. David Walker and the Precepts of Black Studies 25. The Killing in Ferguson 26. On the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Index

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Book SynopsisThe new edition of the Great Writing series provides clear explanations, extensive models of academic writing and practice to help learners write great sentences, paragraphs, and essays. With expanded vocabulary instruction, sentence-level practice, and National Geographic content to spark ideas, students have the tools they need to become confident writers. Updated in this Edition:Clearly organized units offer the practice students need to become effective independent writers. Each unit includes: Part 1: Elements of Great Writing teaches the fundamentals of organized writing, accurate grammar, and precise mechanics.Part 2: Building Better Vocabulary provides practice with carefully-selected, level-appropriate academic words. Part 3: Building Better Sentences helps writers develop longer and more complex sentences. Part 4: Writing activities allow students to apply what they have learned by guiding them through writing, editing, and revising. Part 5: New Test Prep section gives a test-taking tip and timed task to prepare for high-stakes standardized tests, including IELTs and TOEFL. The new guided online writing activity takes students through the entire writing process with clear models for reference each step of the way.

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Book Synopsis* Both a history of theories of myth and a practical 'how--to' guide to interpreting myth. * Introduces the major theories of myth from the nineteenth century to the present day. * Covers comparative approaches, psychoanalysis, ritual theories of myth, structuralism, and ideological analysis.Trade Review"I have rarely been in a position to recommend a book with more enthusiasm. It is an extremely lucid introduction to theories of myth and is accessible to those with no prior knowledge. The book is the most comprehensive of its kind - and the most useful." Robert L. Fowler, University of Bristol "An integrated, historical, broad-based, wide-ranging general study of the interpretation of myth that covers all the major schools and shows how they relate to one another, grow out of one another and are still interesting today. He enlightens his deep understanding with wit and delight and a clear, lucent style. A superb achievement." Barry Powell, University of Wisconsin-Madison "What Csapo has done is lucid, illuminating, refreshing and extremely informative. I recommend it to anyone looking for an intellectually engaging overview of theories of interpretation of myth." University of Toronto Quarterly "It should certainly be in all academic libraries." Journal of Classics Teaching "It is a pity that J.G. Frazer appropriated the title "The Golden Bough". This image is far better suited to Csapo's luminous guide through a forest difficult to see for the trees." PhoenixTable of ContentsList of Figures. Preface. 1. Introducing “Myth”. 2. Comparative Approaches:. The Rise of the Comparative Method. Max Müller and Solar Mythology. James Frazer. The World According to Frazer: Problems and Presuppositions. The Urmyth: A Study in and of Comparison. Comparison of the Greek and Hittite Myths of the Divine Succession. 3. Psychology:. Freud and the Discovery of the Unconscious. Psychoanalysis to Myth Analysis. Freud and Anthropology. Freud in his Social and Theoretical Context. 4. Ritual Theories:. Social Anthropology. Jane Harrison and Ritualism. Walter Burkert and Biosociology. Burkert’s Homo Necans. 5. Structuralism:. Saussure and Structural Linguistics. Syntagmatic Structuralism. A Critique of Syntagmatic Structuralism. Paradigmatic Structuralism. Mediation. Total Structure. Totalizing Structure. 6. Social Ideologies:. Structure and Ideology. Poststructualisms, Postmodernism, and Ideology. Decrypting Ideology. An Ideological Analysis of the Myth of Heracles. Epilogue. A Little Further Reading. Bibliography. Index

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Book SynopsisOmar Khayyam (1048 - 1131) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician born in Nishapur in northeastern Iran who lived and worked at the courts of the Seljuk dynasty. Modern scholars agree that there is very little (if any) of the collected work of poetry know as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that can be certainly attributed to the historical figure. A tradition of attribution grew up in the centuries after Khayyam's death which culminated in Edward Fitzgerald's translation in the 19th Century.Juan Cole is a public intellectual, prominent blogger and essayist, and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, USA. He is the translator of Broken Wings and The Vision by Khalil Gibran.Trade ReviewWith this new translation of Khayyam and his insightful essays on the historical context, Cole offers a splendid piece of work which offers an alternative to FitzGerald’s epochmaking adaptation of the Rubáiyát, to be placed in the canon of nineteenth-century English poetry, finding imitations in a large number of languages. Perhaps even more important than the poetic nature and message of these quatrains is how Cole successfully brings to the fore the secular faction of Persian culture, of which quatrains attributed to Khayyam are living evidence. * Bibliotheca Orientalis *‘To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely given, from one of our most astonishing and generous intellects.’ * Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Moonglow (2017) *‘Omar Khayyam is a Persian treasure and Juan Cole’s new translation brings him anew to Western audiences who for centuries have been both delighted and educated by this medieval sage! Reading The Rubáiyát is a thrill – you feel the echoes of the 12th century seamlessly into our 21st, as this is a holy book of wisdom and magic. In another perilous era for Iranians, it’s wonderful to see this enchanting volume make its way through the world yet again!’ * Porochista Khakpour, novelist, essayist and author of Brown Album (2020) *Table of ContentsPreface Note on the Translation Introduction The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Epilogue Notes

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Book Synopsis''Clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the prison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.''Introspective and dreamy, Arthur Clennam returns to England from many years abroad to find a people gripped in their self-made social and mental prisons. Against a background of government incompetence and financial scandal, he searches for the key to the affairs of the Dorrit family, prisoners for debt in the Marshalsea. He discovers through the seamstress Amy Dorrit the fulfilment of which he dreams, but only after he learns to understand his own heart. Revelation and redemption haunt Dickens''s portrayal of human relations as fundamentally distorted by class and money. The swindling financier Merdle, the bureaucratic nightmare of the Circumlocution Office, and a teeming cast of characters display the inadequacy of secular morality in the face of contemporary social and political confusion. Mixing humour and pathos, irony and satire, Dickens''s eleventh novel reveals a master of fiction in top form.This new edition, based on the definitive Clarendon text, includes all of Phiz''s original illustrations and a wide-ranging introduction highlighting Dickens''s move to more personal and spiritual concerns. 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 Synopsis''In ancient tales many marvels are told us ... now you may hear such marvels told!''The greatest of the heroic epics to emerge from medieval Germany, the Nibelungenlied is a revenge saga of sweeping dimensions. It tells of the dragon-slayer Sivrit, and the mysterious kingdom of the Nibelungs with its priceless treasure-hoard guarded by dwarves and giants, of Prünhilt the Amazonian queen, fortune-telling water-sprites and a cloak of invisibility. Driven by the conflict between Kriemhilt, the innocent maiden turned she-devil, and her antagonist, the stoic, indomitable Hagen, the story is one of human tragedy, of love, jealousy, murder, and revenge, ending in slaughter on a horrific scale. The work of an anonymous poet of c.1200, since its rediscovery in the eighteenth century the Nibelungenlied has come to be regarded as the national epic of the Germans. It has inspired countless reworkings and adaptations, including two masterpieces: Fritz Lang''s two-part film, and Richard Wagner''s Ring cycle.This is the first prose translation for over forty years: accurate and compelling, it is accompanied by a wealth of useful background information. 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.Trade ReviewIt makes for glorious reading. * Yann Martell, 'What is Stephen Harper Reading?' *A new translation by Cyril Edwards, the most faithful to date to the Nibelungenlied. * Bettina Bildhauer, TLS *For a taste of the original style in English, Edwards's is now the best translation. * Bettina Bildhauer, TLS *This magnificent story...now brought to an English speaking audience in a new translation by Cyril Edwards, (is) the most faithful one to date... the Nibelung legend is still li ttle known in the anglophone world (except to Wagnerians). But a narrative of such splendour and importance deserves a wide audience outside the walls of the academy. * Bettina Bildhauer, Times Literary Supplement *The power and immediacy of this translation offers unparalleled insight into a forgotten world. * Editor's Choice, Good Book Guide *A gripping tale, packed with violent incident...the poem's history is fascinating. * Editor's Choice, The Good Book Guide *

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Book SynopsisAuden, George Barker, William Empson, Geoffrey Faber, John Hayward, James Laughlin, Hope Mirrlees, Mervyn Peake, Ezra Pound, Michael Roberts, Stephen Spender, Tambimuttu, Allen Tate, Michael Tippett, Charles Williams and Virginia Woolf.

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Book SynopsisJ. G. Ballard was, for over fifty years, one of this country''s most significant writers. Beginning with the events that inspired his classic novel, Empire of the Sun', this revelatory autobiography charts the course of his astonishing life.Miracles of Life' takes us from the vibrant surroundings of pre-war Shanghai, to the deprivations and unexpected freedoms of Lunghua Camp, to Ballard's arrival in a devastated Britain. Ballard recounts his first attempts at fiction and his part in the social and artistic revolutions of the 60s. He describes his friendships with figures as diverse as Kingsley Amis, Michael Moorcock and Eduardo Paolozzi alongside recollections of his domestic life in Shepperton raising three children as a single father following the unexpected and premature death of his wife.Miracles of Life' is both a captivating narrative of the experiences that have shaped this extraordinary writer's works, his distinctive outlook and his original visions of the future, and is alsTrade Review‘Superb. Mr Ballard, you are wonderful’ Sunday Times ‘Exquisitely written … ‘Miracles of Life’, a subtle, restlessly enquiring work of touching humanity, is Ballard’s crowning achievement’ Financial Times ‘Brief, modest and occasionally shattering, in a way that elevates it to a level of greatness’ Observer ‘A jewel. As a writer, he can simply take the breath away’ Independent

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Book SynopsisCelebrated novelist Daphne Du Maurier and her sisters, eclipsed by her fame, are revealed in all their surprising complexity in this riveting new biography.The middle sister in a famous artistic dynasty, Daphne du Maurier is one of the master storytellers of our time, author of Rebecca', Jamaica Inn' and My Cousin Rachel', and short stories, Don't Look Now' and the terrifying The Birds' among many. Her stories were made memorable by the iconic films they inspired, three of them classic Hitchcock chillers. But it was her sisters, writer Angela and artist Jeanne,who found the courage to defy the conventions that hampered Daphne's emotional life.In this group biography they are considered side by side, as they were in life, three sisters who grew up during the 20th century in the glamorous hothouse of a theatrical family dominated by a charismatic and powerful father. This family dynamic reveals the hidden world of the three sisters Piffy, Bird & Bing, as they were known to each other fTrade Review‘Perceptive and exuberant … a saga that is sparklingly re-told’ The Times ‘The fascination for readers is the different character and destiny of each sister, plus their relationships with one another and with the dynamics of the family romance – and few family romances have been more potent than that of the du Mauriers’ Spectator ‘Daphne is a compelling subject – passionate and cold, attractive and repellent … Angela suffers, as she did in life …from … Daphne’s infinitely more intriguing saga’ Evening Standard ‘Meticulous, perceptive … it is a sign of Jane Dunn’s generous professionalism that she accords the du Maurier girls the same respect that she gave Bloomsbury’s high priestesses in her acclaimed study of Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell’ Financial Times ‘Engaging … this book’s strength lies in its account of a trio of lives developing during a period of class and gender upheaval, and the sisters’ response to social change’ Independent ‘Compelling … sensitive and sympathetic … loneliness is the thudding heart of Dunn’s book, about three pampered sisters who never quite overcame the handicap of not being boys’ Daily Telegraph ‘Intriguing and revelatory biography … [of] complex and contradictory lives’ Scotsman ‘Jane Dunn specialises in female relationships, and she has found three splendid women for her new book … Dunn writes with haunting delicacy … and she evokes a long-lost England in which women felt deep passions and survived emotional hurricanes with amazing outward restraint’ Mail on Sunday ‘Dunn is excellent on the lesbian 1920s and 30s in London, with delicious detail’ Guardian ‘An original, well-researched and very readable book full of well-chosen details and perceptive observations. In the subject of rivalry between literary sisters Jane Dunn has found a little goldmine’ Literary Review

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Book SynopsisDo you want to communicate confidently in English at work?Learn English with Tom Field, a project manager at Lowis Engineering. He attends meetings, gives short presentations, participates in video and phone conferences and writes emails for different business situations.In the Workplace English 2 self-study pack you can follow Tom's daily life at his office and learn the English you need for your everyday work.Watch or listen to Tom to learn the language of businessHave fun with practice activitiesUse the key phrases in your own work lifeUnits cover: Giving presentations, Assigning tasks, Teleconferencing, Video conferencing, Emailing, Conducting small talkTwelve videos featuring different business situationsAudio includes conversations and exercisesFull colour book with 24 units and reference section including: key words phrases for speaking and writing answer key audioscript grammar referenceCEF level: A2 (Pre-intermediate)

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Book SynopsisBuild your child's reading confidence at home with books at the right levelInspiration for poetry can come from anywhere a memory, an insight and even broccoli! Former Children's Laureate Michael Rosen explains the inspiration behind a selection of his own quirky poems, highlighting that ideas can come from many different places.White/Band 10 books have more complex sentences and figurative language.Text type: A poetry bookPages 22 and 23 summarise some of the inspirations and resulting poems, allowing children to discuss and explore the ideas from the book.Curriculum links: Literacy: Really Looking; Language play.This book has been quizzed for Accelerated Reader.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted at HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOK AWARDS 2013Be the best you can be in presentations, meetings, negotiations and networking.Collins Key Business Skills gives you the tools you need to succeed in business if English is not your first language.Written by an expert in business and international communication, Key Business Skills offers professional advice and practice in the following areas:presentationsmeetingsnegotiationsnetworkingNon-native English speaker executives working in international environments need more than Business English. They need the business skills to present, run meetings, negotiate and network in international environments and then master the language needed to use those skills successfully.Key Business Skills follows a unique Business Plus' approach, with a focus on business skills and advice plus English language support. It provides activities to develop key skills needed by executives, such as dealing with difficult questions in presTrade ReviewCollins Key Business Skills is a worthwhile addition to the market and innovative in the possibilities it provides for self-study. The clear presentation aids the logical progression of the content and the tasks provide realistic challenges. –English-Speaking Union judging panel at HRH The Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Awards, 2013

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