Literary companions, book reviews and guides Books
John Wiley & Sons Technologies of the Self
Book SynopsisContains essays by Foucault-scholars and Foucault himself. It concentrates on Foucault's later works, where there is a shift of focus from the power/knowledge axis to the axis of ethics. This collection of should be of interest to anyone who are interested in Foucault's work on ethics and subjectivity.
£21.80
Kent State University Press The Company They Keep C. S. Lewis and J. R. R.
Book SynopsisOffers a glimpse into the creative workings of the Inklings. This book challenges the standard interpretation that Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and the other Inklings had little influence on one another's work, drawing on research in composition studies and the sociology of the creative process.Trade Review"The Company They Keep is a must for university libraries with strong Inklings collections or that serve institutions with creative writing programs." —Tolkien Studies"I hardly know where to begin when listing the possibilities for Glyer's book for the researcher. Starting with the obvious, anyone researching Lewis, Tolkien, or any of the other Inklings (either the men or their works), will find plenty of useful information both in the text and in the copious and often entertaining footnotes. Glyer's practical illustration of LeFevre's analysis of critique groups (almost a case study) is also valuable when researching such groups and the effect they have on writers in general. The book is relatively free from jargon and accessible to the educated layman. Anyone with a love of literature or writing will gain immense pleasure and knowledge from this thoroughly researched, very well-written book." — Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
£24.71
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Teaching Oral Traditions
Book SynopsisResearch is beginning to unearth the astounding wealth of oral traditions that have served as a vital cultural activity and verbal art for peoples throughout the world, from antiquity to the present. In this thirteenth volume of the MLA series Options for Teaching, forty-two scholar-teachers bring these discoveries and rediscoveries from the scholarly forum to the classroom.
£31.30
John Wiley & Sons Approaches to Teaching Whitmans Leaves of Grass
Book Synopsis
£29.40
John Wiley & Sons Approaches to Teaching Collodis Pinocchio and Its Adaptations
£29.40
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Approaches to Teaching English Renaissance Drama
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£29.40
John Wiley & Sons Opgang
Book SynopsisBergelson’s 1920 novella describes the complex Jewish life of Russia and Ukraine through the turbulent period leading up to the October Revolution of 1917.
£25.60
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Teaching North American Environmental Literature
Book Synopsis
£31.30
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Approaches to Teaching the Works of Louise
Book Synopsis
£29.40
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Approaches to Teaching Delillos White Noise
Book Synopsis
£29.40
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Monsieur Venus
Book SynopsisIn this key text from the French decadent movement, an aristocratic young woman becomes enamoured of a young man who makes artificial flowers for a living.
£16.10
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Husn u Ask
Book SynopsisThis Turkish verse romance written in 1783 is a religious interpretation of the Islamic love tale. It is widely recognised as the greatest work of Ottoman literature.
£20.85
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Beauty and Love
Book SynopsisThis Turkish verse romance written in 1783 is a religious interpretation of the Islamic love tale. It is widely recognised as the greatest work of Ottoman literature.
£22.91
MP-MLA Modern Lanuage Assoc Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolome
Book Synopsis
£33.11
University of Utah Press,U.S. Ecopoetry Critical Introduction
Book SynopsisAssembles previously unpublished contributions from many of the most important scholars in the field as they discuss the historical and crosscultural roots of ecopoetry, while expanding the boundaries to include such themes as genocide and extinction, the lesbian body, and post colonialism.Trade ReviewThe essays are uniformly thoughtful, perceptive, and readable...[and] engage the current scholarship gracefully, without pretense or pedantry. Each chapter is stuffed with insights." —John Tallmadge, The Union Institute
£17.56
MP-MTB University of Manitoba Press We Share Our Matters Two Centuries of Writing and Resistance at Six Nations of the Grand River
£25.56
LUP - University of Michigan Press They Came to Japan An Anthology of European
Book Synopsis
£19.90
MP-NCA Uni of North Carolina Archives of Dispossession Recovering the Testimonios of Mexican American Herederas 18481960
£25.46
MP-NCA Uni of North Carolina Picturing Identity Contemporary American Autobiography in Image and Text
£29.71
The University of North Carolina Press Lessings Aesthetica in Nuce
Book SynopsisContains Lessing's most explicit observations on the distinction between poetry and prose as well as a unique proposal for emending Aristotle's interpretation of the dramatic method. Lessing significantly modifies Abbe Dubos' doctrine by ideas derived from Alexander Baumgarten, Moses Mendelssohn, and Edmund Burke.
£20.36
The University of North Carolina Press The AfroLatino Memoir
Book SynopsisDespite their literary and cultural significance, Afro-Latino memoirs have been marginalized in both Latino and African American studies. Trent Masiki remedies this problem by bringing critical attention to the understudied African American influences in Afro-Latino memoirs published after the advent of the Black Arts movement.
£69.70
The University of North Carolina Press The AfroLatino Memoir
Book SynopsisDespite their literary and cultural significance, Afro-Latino memoirs have been marginalized in both Latino and African American studies. Trent Masiki remedies this problem by bringing critical attention to the understudied African American influences in Afro-Latino memoirs published after the advent of the Black Arts movement.
£25.16
Duke University Press Book Reports
Book SynopsisIn this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, Robert Christgau shows readers a different side to his esteemed career with reviews of books ranging from musical autobiographies, criticism, and histories to novels, literary memoirs, and cultural theory.Trade Review"[A] substantial collection of nearly 100 eclectic, thought-provoking, and idea-laden book reviews. . . . [Christgau's] range of topics is impressive, and his references are prolific. These sprightly, highly opinionated 'adventures of an autodidact' reveal Christgau to be a highly literate, astute, and discerning book critic." * Kirkus Reviews *"Christgau mostly writes on books by or about notable musicians, though he hits other cultural touchstones too, such as George Orwell’s 1984. It’s in these nonmusic pieces that Christgau is most successful, shifting focus from his encyclopedic music-industry knowledge to the nuances of language. His essay on books about the 2008 financial crisis is a highlight." * Publishers Weekly *"There are few critics working today with the life-long commitment, focus, and curiosity of Robert Christgau. Book Reports doesn't scan the over half-century of the man's work, and that's what makes it all the more impressive. He's still searching, still pulling volumes from the shelves, looking at new or old ideas, cracking open the spines of preconceived notions all in the service of taking just one more look before walking away with the promise of yet another return." -- Christopher John Stephens * Popmatters *"For Christgau fans and anyone seeking thought-provoking musings on books and music." -- Melissa Engleman * Library Journal *"One reads Christgau for Christgau as much as for the subject of his work." -- Jeff Tamarkin * Mojo *"Though Christgau partisans have the most to gain from this collection, it’s also good for anyone looking for an accessible way into his extensive oeuvre." -- Chad Comello * Booklist *"Christgau is . . . one of America’s sharper public intellectuals of the past half century, and certainly one of its most influential—not to mention one of the better stylists in that cohort. Fun is a big part of why." -- David Cantwell * The New Yorker *"Though not everyone will agree with Christgau’s views (this reader certainly did not), all readers will likely appreciate his style and approach and the depth of his knowledge about a broad range of popular music. Those curious about popular music may find Christgau's style aggressive at times, but that is exactly the point; Christgau pushes the reader to think. Seasoned readers will discover that Christgau questions authors in a way that encourages one to evaluate a book at a deeper level. In short, this is a great read for fans, critics, and scholars alike." -- T. R. Harrison * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. Collectibles The Informer: John Leonard's When the Kissing Had to Stop 11 Advertisements for Everybody Else: Jonathan Lethem's The Ecstasy of Influence 14 Democratic Vistas: Dave Hickey's Air Guitar 17 II. From Blackface Minstrelsy to Track-and-Hook In Search of Jim Crow: Why Postmodern Minstrelsy Studies Matter 23 The Old Ethiopians at Home: Ken Emerson's Doo-Dah! 40 Before the Blues: David Wondrich's Stomp and Swerve 43 Rhythms of the Universe: Ned Sublette's Cuba and Its Music 46 Black Melting Pot: David B. Coplan's In Township Tonight! 49 Bwana-Acolyte in the Favor Bank: Banning Eyre's In Griot Time 56 In the Crucible of the Party: Charles and Angelilki Keil's Bright Balkan Morning 59 Defining the Folk: Benjamin Filene's Romancing the Folk 64 Folking Around: David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street 67 Punk Lives: Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me 70 Biography of a Corporation: Nelson George's Where Did Our Love Go? 72 Hip-Hop Faces the World: Steven Hager's Hip Hop; David Toop's The Rap Attack; and Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker, and Patty Romanowski's Fresh 75 Making Out Like Gangsters: Preston Lauterbach's The Chitlin' Circuit, Dan Charnas's The Big Payback, Ice-T's Ice, and Tommy James's Me, the Mob, and Music 80 Money Isn't Everything: Fred Goodman's The Mansion on the Hill 86 Mapping the Earworm's Genome: John Seabrook's The Song Machine 89 III. Critical Practice Beyond the Symphonic Quest: Susan McClary's Feminine Endings 97 All the Tune Family: Peter van der Merwe's Origins of the Popular Style 100 Bel Cantos: Henry Pleasant's The Great American Popular Singers 102 The Country and the City: Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City 109 Reflections of an Aging Rock Critic: Jon Landau's It's Too Late to Stop Now 115 Pioneer Days: Kevin Avery's Everything Is an Afterthought and Nona Willis Aronowitz's (ed.) Out of the Vinyl Deeps 117 Impolite Discourse: Jim Derogatis's Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer's A Whore Jus Like the Rest, and Nick Tosches's The Nick Torches Reader 123 Journalism and/or Criticism and/or Musicology and/or Sociology (and/or Writing): Simon Firth 129 Serious Music: Robert Walser's Running With the Devil 137 Fifteen Minutes of . . . : William York's Who's Who in Rock Music 139 The Fanzine Worldview, Alphabetized: Ira A. Robbins's (ed.) Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records 140 Awesome: Simon Reynolds's Blissed Out 143 Ingenuousness Lost: James Miller's Flowers in the Dustbin 147 Rock Criticism Lives: Jessica Hopper's The Fist Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic 151 Emo Meets Trayvon Martin: Hanif Abdurraquib's They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us 156 IV. Lives in Music Inside and Out Great Book of Fire: Nick Tosches's Hellfire and Robert Palmer's Jerry Lee Lewis Rocks! 163 That Bad Man, Tough Old Huddie Ledbetter: Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell's The Life and Legend of Leadbelly 169 The Impenetrable Heroism of Sam Cooke: Peter Guralnick's Dream Boogie 171 Bobby and Dave: Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One and Dave Van Ronk's The Mayor of MacDougal Street 178 Tell All: Ed Sanders's Fug You and Samuel R. Delany's The Motion of Light in Water 180 King of the Thrillseekers: Richard Hell's I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp 185 Lives Saved, Lives Lost: Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl and Patti Smith's M Train 189 The Cynic and the Bloke: Rod Stewart's Rod: The Autobiography and Donald Fagen's Eminent Hipsters 194 His Own Shaman: RJ Smith's The One 199 Spotlight on the Queen: David Ritz's Respect 201 The Realist Thing You've Ever Seen: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run 205 V. Fictions Writing for the People: George Orwell's 1984 213 A Classic Illustrated: R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis 217 The Hippie Grows Older: Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout 222 Comic Gurdjieffianism You Can Masturbate To: Marco Vassis' Mind Blower 224 Porn Yesterday: Walter Kendrick's The Secret Museum 225 What Pretentious White Men Are Good For: Robert Coover's Gerald's Party 230 Impoverished How, Exactly? Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doors 236 Sustainable Romance: Norman Rush's Mortals 237 Derrnig-Do Scrapping By: Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue 240 Futures by the Dozen: Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire 245 YA Poet of the Massa Woods: Sandra Newman's The Country of Ice Cream Star 248 A Darker Shade of Noir: The Indefatigable Walter Mosley 252 VI. Bohemia Meets Hegemony Épatant le Bourgeoisie: Jerrold Seigel's Bohemian Paris and T. J. Clark's The Painting of Modern Life 263 The Village People: Christine Stansell's American Moderns 278 A Slender Hope for Salvation: Charles Reich's The Greening of America 280 The Lumpenhippie Guru: Ed Sanders's The Family 285 Strait Are the Gates: Morris Dickstein's Gates of Eden 289 The Little Counterculture That Could: Carol Brightman's Sweet Chaos 293 The Pop-Boho Connection, Narrativized: Bernard F. Gendron's Between Montmarte and the Mudd Club 297 Cursed and Sainted Seekers of the Sexual Century: John Heidenry's What Wild Ecstasy 301 Bohemias Lost and Found: Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams, Richard Kostelanetz's SoHo, and Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia 304 Autobiography of a Pain in the Neck: Meredith Maran's What It's Like to Live Now 309 VII. Culture Meets Capital Twentieth Century Limited: Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air 315 Dialectical Cricket: C. L. R. James's Beyond a Boundary 320 Radical Pluralist: Andrew Ross's No Respect 323 Inside the Prosex Wars: Nadine Strossen's Defending Pornography, Joanna Frueh's Eroctic Faculties, and Lara Kipnis's Bound and Gagged 327 Growing Up Kept Down: William Finnegan's Cold New World 331 Jesus Plus the Capitalist Order: Jeff Sharlet's The Family 334 Dark Night of the Quants: Ten Books About the Financial Crisis 338 They Bet Your Life: Four Books About Hedge Funds 345 Living in a Material World: Raymond Williams's Long Revolution 350 With a God on His Side: Terry Eagleton's Culture and the Death of God, Culture, and Materialism 369 My Friend Marshall: Marshall Berman's Modernism in the Streets 374 Index 381
£112.20
Duke University Press Book Reports
Book SynopsisIn this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, Robert Christgau shows readers a different side to his esteemed career with reviews of books ranging from musical autobiographies, criticism, and histories to novels, literary memoirs, and cultural theory.Trade Review"[A] substantial collection of nearly 100 eclectic, thought-provoking, and idea-laden book reviews. . . . [Christgau's] range of topics is impressive, and his references are prolific. These sprightly, highly opinionated 'adventures of an autodidact' reveal Christgau to be a highly literate, astute, and discerning book critic." * Kirkus Reviews *"Christgau mostly writes on books by or about notable musicians, though he hits other cultural touchstones too, such as George Orwell’s 1984. It’s in these nonmusic pieces that Christgau is most successful, shifting focus from his encyclopedic music-industry knowledge to the nuances of language. His essay on books about the 2008 financial crisis is a highlight." * Publishers Weekly *"There are few critics working today with the life-long commitment, focus, and curiosity of Robert Christgau. Book Reports doesn't scan the over half-century of the man's work, and that's what makes it all the more impressive. He's still searching, still pulling volumes from the shelves, looking at new or old ideas, cracking open the spines of preconceived notions all in the service of taking just one more look before walking away with the promise of yet another return." -- Christopher John Stephens * Popmatters *"For Christgau fans and anyone seeking thought-provoking musings on books and music." -- Melissa Engleman * Library Journal *"One reads Christgau for Christgau as much as for the subject of his work." -- Jeff Tamarkin * Mojo *"Though Christgau partisans have the most to gain from this collection, it’s also good for anyone looking for an accessible way into his extensive oeuvre." -- Chad Comello * Booklist *"Christgau is . . . one of America’s sharper public intellectuals of the past half century, and certainly one of its most influential—not to mention one of the better stylists in that cohort. Fun is a big part of why." -- David Cantwell * The New Yorker *"Though not everyone will agree with Christgau’s views (this reader certainly did not), all readers will likely appreciate his style and approach and the depth of his knowledge about a broad range of popular music. Those curious about popular music may find Christgau's style aggressive at times, but that is exactly the point; Christgau pushes the reader to think. Seasoned readers will discover that Christgau questions authors in a way that encourages one to evaluate a book at a deeper level. In short, this is a great read for fans, critics, and scholars alike." -- T. R. Harrison * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. Collectibles The Informer: John Leonard's When the Kissing Had to Stop 11 Advertisements for Everybody Else: Jonathan Lethem's The Ecstasy of Influence 14 Democratic Vistas: Dave Hickey's Air Guitar 17 II. From Blackface Minstrelsy to Track-and-Hook In Search of Jim Crow: Why Postmodern Minstrelsy Studies Matter 23 The Old Ethiopians at Home: Ken Emerson's Doo-Dah! 40 Before the Blues: David Wondrich's Stomp and Swerve 43 Rhythms of the Universe: Ned Sublette's Cuba and Its Music 46 Black Melting Pot: David B. Coplan's In Township Tonight! 49 Bwana-Acolyte in the Favor Bank: Banning Eyre's In Griot Time 56 In the Crucible of the Party: Charles and Angelilki Keil's Bright Balkan Morning 59 Defining the Folk: Benjamin Filene's Romancing the Folk 64 Folking Around: David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street 67 Punk Lives: Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me 70 Biography of a Corporation: Nelson George's Where Did Our Love Go? 72 Hip-Hop Faces the World: Steven Hager's Hip Hop; David Toop's The Rap Attack; and Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker, and Patty Romanowski's Fresh 75 Making Out Like Gangsters: Preston Lauterbach's The Chitlin' Circuit, Dan Charnas's The Big Payback, Ice-T's Ice, and Tommy James's Me, the Mob, and Music 80 Money Isn't Everything: Fred Goodman's The Mansion on the Hill 86 Mapping the Earworm's Genome: John Seabrook's The Song Machine 89 III. Critical Practice Beyond the Symphonic Quest: Susan McClary's Feminine Endings 97 All the Tune Family: Peter van der Merwe's Origins of the Popular Style 100 Bel Cantos: Henry Pleasant's The Great American Popular Singers 102 The Country and the City: Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City 109 Reflections of an Aging Rock Critic: Jon Landau's It's Too Late to Stop Now 115 Pioneer Days: Kevin Avery's Everything Is an Afterthought and Nona Willis Aronowitz's (ed.) Out of the Vinyl Deeps 117 Impolite Discourse: Jim Derogatis's Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer's A Whore Jus Like the Rest, and Nick Tosches's The Nick Torches Reader 123 Journalism and/or Criticism and/or Musicology and/or Sociology (and/or Writing): Simon Firth 129 Serious Music: Robert Walser's Running With the Devil 137 Fifteen Minutes of . . . : William York's Who's Who in Rock Music 139 The Fanzine Worldview, Alphabetized: Ira A. Robbins's (ed.) Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records 140 Awesome: Simon Reynolds's Blissed Out 143 Ingenuousness Lost: James Miller's Flowers in the Dustbin 147 Rock Criticism Lives: Jessica Hopper's The Fist Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic 151 Emo Meets Trayvon Martin: Hanif Abdurraquib's They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us 156 IV. Lives in Music Inside and Out Great Book of Fire: Nick Tosches's Hellfire and Robert Palmer's Jerry Lee Lewis Rocks! 163 That Bad Man, Tough Old Huddie Ledbetter: Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell's The Life and Legend of Leadbelly 169 The Impenetrable Heroism of Sam Cooke: Peter Guralnick's Dream Boogie 171 Bobby and Dave: Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One and Dave Van Ronk's The Mayor of MacDougal Street 178 Tell All: Ed Sanders's Fug You and Samuel R. Delany's The Motion of Light in Water 180 King of the Thrillseekers: Richard Hell's I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp 185 Lives Saved, Lives Lost: Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl and Patti Smith's M Train 189 The Cynic and the Bloke: Rod Stewart's Rod: The Autobiography and Donald Fagen's Eminent Hipsters 194 His Own Shaman: RJ Smith's The One 199 Spotlight on the Queen: David Ritz's Respect 201 The Realist Thing You've Ever Seen: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run 205 V. Fictions Writing for the People: George Orwell's 1984 213 A Classic Illustrated: R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis 217 The Hippie Grows Older: Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout 222 Comic Gurdjieffianism You Can Masturbate To: Marco Vassis' Mind Blower 224 Porn Yesterday: Walter Kendrick's The Secret Museum 225 What Pretentious White Men Are Good For: Robert Coover's Gerald's Party 230 Impoverished How, Exactly? Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doors 236 Sustainable Romance: Norman Rush's Mortals 237 Derrnig-Do Scrapping By: Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue 240 Futures by the Dozen: Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire 245 YA Poet of the Massa Woods: Sandra Newman's The Country of Ice Cream Star 248 A Darker Shade of Noir: The Indefatigable Walter Mosley 252 VI. Bohemia Meets Hegemony Épatant le Bourgeoisie: Jerrold Seigel's Bohemian Paris and T. J. Clark's The Painting of Modern Life 263 The Village People: Christine Stansell's American Moderns 278 A Slender Hope for Salvation: Charles Reich's The Greening of America 280 The Lumpenhippie Guru: Ed Sanders's The Family 285 Strait Are the Gates: Morris Dickstein's Gates of Eden 289 The Little Counterculture That Could: Carol Brightman's Sweet Chaos 293 The Pop-Boho Connection, Narrativized: Bernard F. Gendron's Between Montmarte and the Mudd Club 297 Cursed and Sainted Seekers of the Sexual Century: John Heidenry's What Wild Ecstasy 301 Bohemias Lost and Found: Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams, Richard Kostelanetz's SoHo, and Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia 304 Autobiography of a Pain in the Neck: Meredith Maran's What It's Like to Live Now 309 VII. Culture Meets Capital Twentieth Century Limited: Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air 315 Dialectical Cricket: C. L. R. James's Beyond a Boundary 320 Radical Pluralist: Andrew Ross's No Respect 323 Inside the Prosex Wars: Nadine Strossen's Defending Pornography, Joanna Frueh's Eroctic Faculties, and Lara Kipnis's Bound and Gagged 327 Growing Up Kept Down: William Finnegan's Cold New World 331 Jesus Plus the Capitalist Order: Jeff Sharlet's The Family 334 Dark Night of the Quants: Ten Books About the Financial Crisis 338 They Bet Your Life: Four Books About Hedge Funds 345 Living in a Material World: Raymond Williams's Long Revolution 350 With a God on His Side: Terry Eagleton's Culture and the Death of God, Culture, and Materialism 369 My Friend Marshall: Marshall Berman's Modernism in the Streets 374 Index 381
£27.90
University of Toronto Press Solitude and Speechlessness
Book SynopsisSolitude and Speechlessness argues that experiences of isolation are inherent to the writing and reading of Renaissance literature, and finds parallels and meaning in the lives of solitary figures including poets, ascetics, and hermits.Trade Review"Solitude and Speechlessness is a book that scholars of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry will appreciate for its detailed, precise, and accurate analysis of canonical works. It provides a re-reading of such works through a peculiar lens: the pursuit, or fear, of the sense of isolation that allows us to find, but also lose, ourselves." -- Elena Brizio, Georgetown University * Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme *"In his remarkable study, Andrew Mattison offers a fascinating examination of the various and self-conscious forms of literary withdrawal within sixteenth and seventeenth-century English writings, and of the implications that such a poetics of isolation have for the writing of literary history." -- Joshua Easterling, Murray State University * Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching *"In our current global experience of isolation, Mattison’s book has special resonance. Among many achievements, it reminds us of the virtue of being ambitious readers, challenging ourselves to wander from familiar paths." -- Anna Welch, State Library Victoria * Parergon *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Writing in Solitude 1. Lyric Futures: Hidden Ambitions in the Sidney-Pembroke Circle 2. Nameless Orphans: Ambitious Poetry in an Age of Modesty 3. The Peril of Understanding: Forms of Obscurity 4. The Lure of Solitude: Melancholy and Eremitism as Literary Dispositions 5. The Naked Sense of Retirement: Cowley, Marvell, Traherne 6. Literary History in Isolation: Bacon, Hofmannsthal, and Historical Memory Conclusion: Reading in Solitude Bibliography
£47.60
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with James Salter
Book SynopsisJames Salter (born James Horowitz in 1925) has been known throughout his career as a writer''s writer, acclaimed by such literary greats as Susan Sontag, Richard Ford, John Banville, and Peter Matthiessen for his lyrical prose, his insightful and daring explorations of sex, and his examinations of the inner lives of women and men.Conversations with James Salter collects interviews published from 1972 to 2014 with the award-winning author of The Hunters, A Sport and a Pastime, Light Years, and All That Is. Gathered here are his earliest interviews following acclaimed but moderately selling novels, conversations covering his work as a screenwriter and award-winning director, and interviews charting his explosive popularity after publishing All That Is, his first novel after a gap of thirty-four years. These conversations chart Salter''s progression as a writer, his love affair with France, his military past as a fighter pilot, and his lyrical explorations of gender relations.The collecti
£76.50
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Maurice Sendak
Book SynopsisMaurice Sendak (1928-2012) stands out as one of the most respected, influential authors of the twentieth century. Though primarily known as a children''s book writer and illustrator, he did not limit himself to these areas. He saw himself first and foremost as an artist. In this collection of interviews-the first of its kind-Sendak presents himself as a writer, illustrator, set designer, and librettist. From his early work with Randall Jarrell and Ruth Krauss through his later work with Tony Kushner and Spike Jonze, Sendak worked as a collaborator with a passion for the arts.The interviews here, many of which are hard to find or previously unpublished, span from 1966 through 2011. They show not only Sendak''s shifting artistic interests, but also changes in how he understood himself and his craft. What emerges is a portrait of an author and an artist who was alternately solemn and playful, congenial and irascible, sophisticated and populist. The man who showed millions of children and
£77.35
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Edwidge Danticat
Book Synopsis
£77.35
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Gordon Lish
Book SynopsisKnown as “Captain Fiction”, Gordon Lish (b. 1934) is among the most influential--and controversial--figures in modern American letters. Conversations with Gordon Lish collects all of Lish's major interviews, covering the entire span of his extraordinary career. Ranging from 1965 to 2015, these interviews document his pivotal role in the period's defining developments.
£77.35
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi The African American Sonnet A Literary History
Book SynopsisBased on extensive archival research, The African American Sonnet: A Literary History traces this forgotten tradition from the nineteenth century to the present. Timo Muller uses sonnets to open up fresh perspectives on African American literary history, and examines the inventive strategies African American poets devised to occupy and reshape a form overwhelmingly associated with Europe.
£81.75
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Faulkner and the Black Literatures of the Americas
Book SynopsisPlaces William Faulkner's literary oeuvre in dialogue with a hemispheric canon of black writing from the United States and the Caribbean. The volume's seventeen essays and poetry selections chart lines of engagement, dialogue, and reciprocal resonance between Faulkner and his black precursors, contemporaries, and successors in the Americas.
£26.06
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Edwidge Danticat
Book SynopsisSheds a much-needed light on Edwidge Danticat and her ability to depict timely issues in sparkling prose that delves deep into the borderlands, an uncharted in-between space located outside fixed geographic, cultural, and ideological bounds. Prevalent throughout is Danticat's expressed determination to make Haiti’s nuanced culture and its vibrant traditions accessible to a wide audience.
£23.96
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with James Salter
Book SynopsisCollects interviews published from 1972 to 2014 with the award-winning author of The Hunters, A Sport and a Pastime, Light Years, and All That Is. Gathered here are his earliest interviews following acclaimed but moderately selling novels, conversations covering his work as a screenwriter and director, and interviews charting his popularity after publishing All That Is.
£23.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Edna OBrien
Book SynopsisIn these interviews, Edna O'Brien finds her own critical voice and moves interviewers away from a focus on her life as the “once infamous Edna” toward a focus on her works. Parallels between Edna O'Brien and her literary muse and mentor, James Joyce, are often cited.
£23.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Direct Democracy Collective Power the Swarm and the Literatures of the Americas
Book SynopsisBeginning with the Haitian Revolution, Scott Henkel lays out a literary history of direct democracy in the Americas. Henkel reinterprets direct democracy as a type of collective power. In the representations of slaves, women, and workers, Henkel traces a history of power through the literatures of the Americas during the long nineteenth century.
£27.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Graham Swift
Book SynopsisThe first collection of interviews conducted with the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders. Beginning in 1985 with Swift's arrival in New York to promote Waterland and concluding with an interview from 2016 that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the collection spans Swift's more than thirty-five-year career as a writer.
£81.75
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Policing Intimacy Law Sexuality and the Color
Book SynopsisAnalyses literary depictions of sexual policing of the colour line across multiple spaces with diverse colonial histories: Mississippi through William Faulkner's work, Louisiana through Ernest Gaines's novels, Haiti through Marie Chauvet and Edwidge Danticat, and the Dominican Republic through work by Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, and Nelly Rosario.
£27.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Toni Morrison and the Natural World An Ecology
Book SynopsisOffers the first full-length ecocritical investigation of the Nobel Laureate's novels and brings to the fore an unequalled engagement between race and nature. By providing a racially inflected reading of nature, this volume makes an important contribution to the field of environmental studies and provides a landmark for Morrison scholarship.
£22.46
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi DisOrienting Planets Racial Representations of
Book SynopsisIsiah Lavender III's Dis-Orienting Planets amplifies critical issues surrounding the racial and ethnic dimensions of science fiction. This volume explores depictions of Asia and Asians in science fiction literature, film, and fandom with particular regard to China, Japan, India, and Korea.
£27.96
Wilfrid Laurier University Press The Celestial Tradition: A Study of Ezra Pound's The Cantos
Book Synopsis Despite the painstaking work of Pound scholars, the mythos of The Cantos has yet to be properly understood - primarily because until now its occult sources have not been examined sufficiently. Drawing upon archival as well as recently published material, this study traces Pound's intimate engagement with specific occultists (W.B. Yeats, Allen Upward, Alfred Orage, and G.R.S. Mead) and their ideas. The author argues that speculative occultism was a major factor in the evolution of Pound's extraordinary aesthetic and religious sensibility, much noticed in Pound criticism. The discussion falls into two sections. The first section details Pound's interest in particular occult movements. It describes the tradition of Hellenistic occultism from Eleusis to the present, and establishes that Pound's contact with the occult began at least as early as his undergraduate years and that he came to London already primed on the occult. Many of his London acquaintances were unquestionably occultists. The second section outlines a tripartite schema for The Cantos (katabasis/dromena/epopteia) which, in turn, is applied to the poem. It is argued here that The Cantos is structured on the model of a initiation rather than a journey, and that the poem does not so much describe an initiation rite as enact one for the reader. In exploring and attempting to understand Pounds' occultism and its implications to his [Pounds'] oeuvre, Tryphonopoulos sheds new light upon one of the great works of modern Western literature.
£30.56
Wilfrid Laurier University Press Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies
Book Synopsis Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies is a collection of interdisciplinary essays that examine the various contexts - political, social, and cultural - that have shaped the study of Canadian literature and the role it plays in our understanding of the Canadian nation-state. The essays are tied together as instances of critical practices that reveal the relations and exchanges that take place between the categories of the literary and the nation, as well as between the disciplinary sites of critical discourses and the porous boundaries of their methods. They are concerned with the material effects of the imperial and colonial logics that have fashioned Canada, as well as with the paradoxes, ironies, and contortions that abound in the general perception that Canada has progressed beyond its colonial construction. Smaro Kamboureli's introduction demonstrates that these essays engage with the larger realm of human and social practices - throne speeches, book clubs, policies of accommodation of cultural and religious differences, Indigenous thought about justice and ethics - to show that literary and critical work is inextricably related to the Canadian polity in light of transnational and global forces. Trade Review``Given the wide range of approaches and disciplines included in this volume, the index is particularly helpful in terms of orientation and contains not only major concepts and historical events related to Canadian studies, but also refers to important representatives of the Canadian literary scene. Moreover, each articles comes with an annotated section which, together with the overall bibliography, provides useful and interesting suggestions for further reading and discussion. The book's strengths certainly lie in the fact that it manages to emphasize the importance of the nation-state which, in spite of all cosmopolitan, global, and transnational developments at work, continues to serve as an important conceptual framework within the area of Canadian literary studies. Thus this volume is especially valuable for Canadian literary scholars and critics interested in the current debates centering on the nation with regard to (trans)national and global challenges.'' -- Felicitas Schweiker -- Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, 25.2, September 2014Table of Contents Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies, edited by Smaro Kamboureli and Robert Zacharias Preface Smaro Kamboureli and Robert Zacharias Introduction: Shifting the Ground of a Discipline: Emergence and Canadian Literary Studies in English Smaro Kamboureli National Literatures in the Shadow of Neoliberalism Jeff Derksen ""Beyond CanLit(e)"": Reading. Interdisciplinarity. Transatlantically. Danielle Fuller White Settlers and the Biopolitics of State Building in Canada Janine Brodie ""Some Great Crisis"": Vimy as Originary Violence Robert Zacharias Amplifying Threat: Reasonable Accommodations and Quebec's Bouchard-Taylor Commission Hearings (2007) Monika Kin Gagnon and Yasmin Jiwani The Time Has Come: Self and Community Articulations in Colour. An Issue and Awakening Thunder Larissa Lai Archivable Concepts: Talonbooks and Literary Translation Kathy Mezei Is CanLit Lost in Japanese Translation? Yoko Fujimoto The Cunning of Reconciliation: Reinventing White Civility in the ""Age of Apology"" Pauline Wakeham The Long March to ""Recognition"": Sákéj Henderson, First Nations Jurisprudence, and Sui Generis Solidarity Len Findlay bush/writing: embodied deconstruction, traces of community, and writing against the state in indigenous acts of inscription peter kulchyski Notes Works Cited Contributors Index
£33.11
Purdue University Press Naciones Intelectuales: Las Fundaciones De La
Book SynopsisIn Naciones intelectuales, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado explores the processes and works that laid the foundations of a new literary modernity in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. Focusing on a period that goes from the signing of the Constitution in 1917 to the death of Alfonso Reyes in 1959, Sanchez Prado centers his analysis on the way in which four elements of Mexican cultural practice - the notion of literature, the figure of the intellectual, the creation of academic institutions and the definition of national identity - emerged through the various debates held by leading figures of the period. Through an appropriation of Pierre Bourdieu's notion of 'literary field', the book analyzes different key moments, controversies, and cultural interventions, which ultimately led the diverse aesthetic spectrum created by the Revolution into becoming a highly institutional system of literature. Sanchez Prado's work deals with a wide range of writers, including Alfonso Reyes, Jorge Cuesta, Manuel Maples Arce, Ramon Lopez Velarde, Francisco Monterde, Jose Gaos, the Hiperion philosophers, and Octavio Paz. As a result, this books offers a cartography of Mexican literary institutions unprecedented in scope, which will allow readers, students, and scholars to understand the construction of modern Mexican literature in a clear, rigorous, and systematic way.
£32.26
Purdue University Press Genero, nacion y literatura: Emilia Pardo Bazan
Book SynopsisEmilia Pardo Bazan’s place in Spanish and Galician literatures has been hard won, and she has yet to receive the recognition she deserves. In Género, nación y literatura: Emilia Pardo Bazán en la literatura gallega y española, Carmen Pereira-Muro studies the work and persona of this fascinating author in the context of Spanish and Galician competing nationalisms. She re-reads the literary histories and national canons of Spain and Galicia as patriarchal master narratives that struggle to assimilate or silence Pardo Bazán’s alternative national project. Pereira-Muro argues that Pardo Bazán posited the inclusion of women in the national culture as a key step in circumventing the representational logic behind Realism and Liberalism in the modern nation-state. By insisting that women should be equal partners, Pardo Bazán problematically adopted the patriarchal binarism that assigns women to Nature and men to Culture, but she also subverted it by denying its supplemental relationship. Her astute choice and manipulation of masculine cultural models (Realism, not Romanticism; prose, not poetry; Castilian language, not Galician) ultimately won her—despite fierce opposition—inclusion in the Spanish national canon. Furthermore, the study of her thorny relations with emerging Galician nationalism shows that her exclusion from “Galician literature” was due largely to her transgressive gender performance. Finally Pereira-Muro contends that in the author’s last novel, Pardo Bazán experimented with creating a feminine writing and a feminine canon for Spain. Nevertheless, the prevailing gender politics ensured that only her realist (masculine) production made it into the Spanish canon, and not this last, modernist (feminine) writing. In conclusion, this book questions the naturalisation of national canons by uncovering the gender politics behind what is cast as naturally determined by language and geography. Doing this also exposes the parallel gender strictures at work behind seemingly opposed central (Spanish) and peripheral (Galician) national projects.
£33.11
Purdue University Press Le personnel est politique: Médias, esthétique,
Book SynopsisLooking at questions of testimony, confession, trauma,sexuality, and violence in (semi-) autobiographical works, this book explores the co-construction of personal and collectiveidentities by women writers in the age of self-disclosure and mass media. In a time when literature is accused of being self-centeredand overly narcissistic, women's autofiction in France since the turn of the millennium has been received with controversy because it disrupts readily accepted ideas about personal and national identities, gender and race, and fiction versus autobiography. Through the study of polemical writers Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume, and Nelly Arcan, Mercédès Baillargeon contendsthat, by recounting personal stories of trauma and sexuality, and thus opposing themselves in opposition to social convention, and by refusing to dispel doubtsregarding the fictional or factual nature of their texts, autofiction resists and helps redefine categories of literary genreand gender identity. This book analyzes concurrently the textual and sociopolitical implications that underlie the (de)construction of the autofictional subject, and particularly how these writers constantly redefine themselves through performance andself-fashioning made possible by media and technology. Moreover, this workraises important questions relating to the media's complicated relationship with women writers, especially those who discuss themes of trauma, sexuality,and violence, and who also question the distinction between fact and fiction. Proposing a new understanding of autofiction as a form of littérature engagée, this work contributes to a broader understanding of the French publishing establishment and, of the literary field as a cultural institution, as well asnew insight on shifting notions of identity, the Self and nationalism intoday's ever-changing and multicultural French context.Table of Contents Remerciements Introduction: L'autofiction contemporaine des femmes: scandale, posture et imposture PREMIÈRE PARTIE: CHRISTINE ANGOT: VICTIME OU MARTYRE? Chapitre un: Autofiction, métafiction et personnage médiatique chez Christine Angot Chapitre deux: Lecture, provocation et scandale dans L'Inceste: déjouer le lecteur Chapitre trois: Quitter la ville: naissance d'une tragédie? DEUXIÈME PARTIE: CHLOÉ DELAUME: LA VICTIME ENFIN BOURREAU Chapitre quatre: L'autofiction expérimentale de Chloé Delaume Table des matières Chapitre cinq: Les Mouflettes d'Atropos: l'individu dans le collectif Chapitre six: Le Cri du sablier: déconstruire les fictions individuelles Chapitre sept: La Vanité des somnambules, ou le rapport au lecteur TROISIÈME PARTIE: PARI MANQUÉ? NELLY ARCAN, LES MÉDIAS ET LE DESTIN TRAGIQUE D'UNE ÉCRIVAINE Chapitre huit: Le pacte auto/métafictionnel chez Nelly Arcan Chapitre neuf: Miroir, narcissisme et projection Chapitre dix: "La honte": postface Conclusion: Engagement, médias et nouveaux médias Bibliographie Index
£33.11
Boydell & Brewer Ltd A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch
Book SynopsisCovers the major modernist literary works of Broch and constitutes the first comprehensive introduction in English to his political, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical writings. Hermann Broch (1886-1951) is best known for his two major modernist works, The Sleepwalkers (3 vols., 1930-1932) and The Death of Virgil (1945), which frame a lifetime of ethical, cultural, political, and social thought. A textile manufacturer by trade, Broch entered the literary scene late in life with an experimental view of the novel that strove towards totality and vividly depicted Europe's cultural disintegration. As fascism took over and Broch, a Viennese Jew, was forced into exile, his view of literature as transformative was challenged, but his commitment to presenting an ethical view of the crises of his time was unwavering. An important mentor and interlocutor for contemporaries such as Arendt and Canetti as well as a continued inspiration for contemporary authors, Broch wrote to better understand and shape the political and cultural conditions for a postfascist world. This volume covers the major literary works and constitutes the first comprehensive introduction in English to Broch's political, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical writings. Contributors: Graham Bartram, Brechtje Beuker, GiselaBrude-Firnau, Gwyneth Cliver, Jennifer Jenkins, Kathleen L. Komar, Paul Michael Lützeler, Gunther Martens, Sarah McGaughey, Judith Ryan, Judith Sidler, Galin Tihanov, Sebastian Wogenstein. Graham Bartram retired as Senior Lecturer in German Studies at the University of Lancaster, UK. Sarah McGaughey is Associate Professor of German at Dickinson College, USA. Galin Tihanov is the George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London, UK.Trade Review[A] fantastic volume that introduces Broch, his work, and his historical environment. This task is noble and its execution well done, and in this they have done a significant service to the field. Instructors should be encouraged to assign chapters from this collection - no given chapter is particularly long- to be read in tandem with the works they discuss. -- STUDIES IN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY LITERATURESpecialists and general readers will find themselves repeatedly turning to this book for overall context and specific elucidation, especially since the editors validate their hope for wide appeal by translating all passages in German. . . . . [P]rovides reliable knowledge expertly presented in essays uniformly lucid, winnowing the full range of scholarship and keeping the topic in focus, never straying into side issues. . . . [A] truly indispensable guide to Broch. Very highly recommended. -- Vincent Kling * GERMAN QUARTERLY *Well suited to giving a broad readership an overview of Broch's work while providing certain historical accents...The volume succeeds overall in portraying in some detail the complexity of and also the inner tension in Broch's works, and at the same time demonstrating that his texts remain relevant for the present day. -- Martin Klebes * GERMANISTIK *This valuable collection suggests reevaluation of the neglected Austrian writer Hermann Broch (1886-1951). . . . This exciting collection, with its suggestions of new scholarly possibilities, will certainly heighten interest in one of the major literary figures of the 20th century. Recommended. * CHOICE *A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch is an indispensable volume for all Broch readers, especially for new readers in the Anglophone world. Beyond its high level of scholarly contribution, the volume balances detailed readings of all Broch's major works (literary, dramatic, and political) with a longue durée view of Broch's intellectual development from his earlier years in Vienna to his transition to novelist to his exile in the United States. The editors have woven together individual readings with a universal assessment of Broch's wide-ranging intellectual commitments, and they have made a strong argument for the continued relevance of his novels, his aesthetic theory, and his humane politics. -Donald L. Wallace, Associate Professor, United States Naval Academy, author of Embracing Democracy: Hermann Broch, Politics, and Exile, 1918 to 1951 * . *[T]his Companion addresses a palpable need, namely to provide a point of entry for a larger readership to one of the major literary figures of European modernism. . . . While not every Broch text mentioned in this Companion will be accessible to those who do not read German, many are, and the book as a whole makes a strong case for seeking them out. -- Martin Klebes * Austrian Studies *[This Companion] is not only rigorous and thorough in its scholarship, but it is a pleasant book to read and spend time with. Its essayists strike a tone that is serious but companionable-which suggests strong leadership behind the scenes on the part of its editors. . . . [An] excellent collection. -- Steve Dowden * MONATSHEFTE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Broch's Life and Works - Graham Bartram and Sarah McGaughey Perspectives on Broch's Die Schlafwandler: Narratives of History and the Self - Kathleen L. Komar Hermann Broch and the Dilemma of Literature in the Modern Age - Gunther Martens Interrogating Modernity: Hermann Broch's Postromanticism - Galin Tihanov Broch and the Theater: Die Entsühnung and Aus der Luft gegriffen as Tragic and Comic Dramatizations of the Economic Machine - Brechtje Beuker Limits of the Scientific: Broch's Die Unbekannte Größe - Gwyneth Cliver Broch's Die Verzauberung: Ludwig Klages and the Bourgeois Mitläufer - Gisela Brude-Firnau Hermann Broch's Massenwahnprojekt and Its Relevance for Our Times - Judith Ryan Human Rights and the Intellectual's Ethical Duty: Broch's Political Writings - Sebastian Wogenstein Broch's Der Tod des Vergil: Art and Power, Language and the Ineffable - Jennifer Jenkins From the "Tierkreis-Erzählungen" to Die Schuldlosen: The Creation of Broch's Last Novel - Judith Sidler Broch's Legacy and Resonance - Paul Michael Lützeler Selected Bibliography - Sarah McGaughey Notes on the Contributors Index
£89.10
University of Tennessee Press Southern Crossings: Poetry, Memory, and the
Book SynopsisDaniel Cross Turner has made a key contribution to the critical study and appreciation of the diverse field of contemporary Southern poetics. Southern Crossings"" crosses a gulf in contemporary poetry criticism while using the idea- or ideas, many and contrary- of ""Southernness"" to appraise poetries created from the profuse, tangled histories of the region. Turner's close readings are dynamic, even lyrical. He offers a new understanding of rhythm's central place in contemporary poetry while considering the work of fifteen poets. Through his focus on varied yet interwoven forms of cultural memory, Turner also shows that memory is not, in fact, pass\u00e9. The way we remember has as much to say about our present as our past: memory is living, shifting, culturally formed and framed. This is a valuable and important book that entwines new visions of poetic forms with forms of regional remembrance and identity.""- Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Native Guard: Poems Offering new perspectives on a diversity of recent and still-practicing southern poets, from Robert Penn Warren and James Dickey to Betty Adcock, Charles Wright, Yusef Komunyakaa, Natasha Trethewey, and others, this study brilliantly illustrates poetry's value as a genre well suited to investigating historical conditions and the ways in which they are culturally assimilated and remembered. Daniel Cross Turner sets the stage for his wide-ranging explorations with an introductory discussion of the famous Fugitive poets John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson and their vision of a ""constant southerness"" that included an emphasis on community and kinship, remembrance of the Civil War and its glorified pathos of defeat, and a distinctively southern (white) voice. Combining poetic theory with memory studies, he then shows how later poets, with their own unique forms of cultural remembrance, have reimagined and critiqued the idealized view of the South offered by the Fugitives. This more recent work reflects not just trauma and nostalgia but makes equally trenchant uses of the past, including historiophoty (the recording of history through visual images) and countermemory (resistant strains of cultural memory that disrupt official historical accounts). As Turner demonstrates, the range of poetries produced within and about the American South from the 1950s to the present helps us to recalibrate theories of collective remembrance on regional, national, and even transnational levels. With its array of new insights on poets of considerable reputation—six of the writers discussed here have won at least one Pulitzer Prize for poetry—Southern Crossings makes a signal contribution to the study of not only modern poetics and literary theory but also of the U.S. South and its place in the larger world. Daniel Cross Turner is an assistant professor of English at Coastal Carolina University. His articles, which focus on regional definition in national and global contexts and on aesthetic forms’ potential to record historical transitions, appear in edited collections as well as journals including Genre, Mosaic, the Southern Literary Journal, the Southern Quarterly, and the Mississippi Quarterly.Trade Review“Daniel Cross Turner has made a key contribution to the critical study and appreciation of the diverse field of contemporary Southern poetics. “Southern Crossings” crosses a gulf in contemporary poetry criticism while using the idea—or ideas, many and contrary—of “Southernness” to appraise poetries created from the profuse, tangled histories of the region. Turner’s close readings are dynamic, even lyrical. He offers a new understanding of rhythm’s central place in contemporary poetry while considering the work of fifteen poets. Through his focus on varied yet interwoven forms of cultural memory, Turner also shows that memory is not, in fact, passÉ. The way we remember has as much to say about our present as our past: memory is living, shifting, culturally formed and framed. This is a valuable and important book that entwines new visions of poetic forms with forms of regional remembrance and identity.”—Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Native Guard: Poems
£34.46
University Press of Mississippi The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn
Book SynopsisEspecially in academia, controversy rages over the merits or evils of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in particular its portrayal of Jim, the runaway slave. Opponents disrupt classes and carry picket signs, objecting with strong emotion that Jim is no fit model for African-American youth of today. In continuing outcries they claim that he and the dark period of American history he portrays are best forgotten. That time has gone, Jim's opponents charge. This is a new day. But is it? Dare we forget? The author of The Jim Dilemma argues that Twain's novel, in the tradition of all great literature, is invaluable for transporting readers to a time, place, and conflict essential to understanding who we are today. Without this work, she argues, there would be a hole in American history and a blank page in the history of African-Americans. To avoid this work in the classroom is to miss the opportunity to remember. Few other popular books have been so much attacked, vilified, or censored. Yet Ernest Hemingway proclaimed Twain's classic to be the beginning of American literature, and Langston Hughes judged it as the only nineteenth-century work by a white author who fully and realistically depicts an unlettered slave clinging to the hope of freedom. A teacher herself, the author challenges opponents to read the novel closely. She shows how Twain has not created another Uncle Tom but rather a worthy man of integrity and self-reliance. Jim, along with other black characters in the book, demands a rethinking and a re-envisioning of the southern slave, for Huckleberry Finn, she contends, ultimately questions readers' notions of what freedom means and what it costs. As she shows that Twain portrayed Jim as nobody's fool, she focuses her discussion on both sides of the Jim dilemma and unflinchingly defends the importance of keeping the book in the classroom. Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua is director of the American studies program at Dallas Institute for the Humanities.
£27.96
University Press of Mississippi Children of the Dark House: Text and Context in Faulkner
Book SynopsisThis book by a major scholar of William Faulkner's writings collects choice selections of his Faulkner criticism from the past fifteen years. Its publication underscores the significance of his indispensable work in Faulkner studies, both in criticism and in the editing of Faulkner's texts. Here, Polk's focus is mainly upon the context of Freudian themes, expressly in the works written between 1927 and 1932, the period in which Faulkner wrote and ultimately revised Sanctuary, a novel to which Polk has given concentrated study during his distinguished career. He has connected the literature with the life in a way not achieved in previous criticism. Although other critics, notably John T. Irwin and Andre Bleikasten have explored Oedipal themes, neither perceived them as operating so completely at the center of Faulkner's work as Polk does in these essays.
£20.85
