Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisThis book makes the argument that Machado de Assis, hailed as one of Latin American literature’s greatest writers, was also a major theoretician of the modern novel form. Steeped in the works of Western literature and an imaginative reader of French Symbolist poetry, Machado creates, between 1880 and 1908, a “new narrative,” one that will presage the groundbreaking theories of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure by showing how even the language of narrative cannot escape being elusive and ambiguous in terms of meaning. It is from this discovery about the nature of language as a self-referential semiotic system that Machado crafts his “new narrative.” Long celebrated in Brazil as a dazzlingly original writer, Machado has struggled to gain respect and attention outside the Luso-Brazilian ken. He is the epitome of the “outsider” or “marginal,” the iconoclastic and wildly innovative genius who hails from a culture rarely studied in the Western literary hierarchy and so consigned to the status of “eccentric.” Had the Brazilian master written not in Portuguese but English, French, or German, he would today be regarded as one of the true exemplars of the modern novel, in expression as well as in theory. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade Review"Earl E. Fitz advances the question of language as key to innovation and modernity in the mature works of Machado de Assis. Fitz attributes his departure from realism to a new awareness of the mutability, instability, self-referentiality and inescapable ambiguity of language in relation to meaning. What the novels are really about is not what they seem." -- K. David Jackson * Yale University *Is Machado de Assis a theoretician of the novel? Earl Fitz’s book is a fascinating response to such a question. In this exciting journey through the writer’s late novels, we learn that Machado didn’t tell us what he was thinking; differently, he showed us the very act of thinking through language. It’s worth reading: Fitz’s passion for Machado is contagious. -- Pedro Meira Monteiro, Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Spanish and Portuguese * Princeton University *"A masterwork of original and seminal scholarship that rescues a critically important Latin American writer from an undeserved obscurity." * Midwest Book Review *"Earl Fitz’s book should be appreciated as a complement to the many other excellent studies of Machado’s relation to a plentiful external landscape. Lest we become overly confident about our ability to know these realities, we should pause and, considering perspectives like those of this book, clean our glasses." * Journal of Lusophone Studies *"Fitz’s study provides a strong argument for why scholars interested in narrative theory and form should give, if not renewed, then new attention to the work of Machado de Assis." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"[A] passionate and convincingly argued monograph...Fitz’s study makes a vital contribution to Machadoan criticism in that it highlights, perhaps more clearly, more forcefully, and in more detail than previously offered, the holistic view Machado came to embrace of narrative as a dynamic confluence of unstable signs capable of creating seemingly stable realities." * Hispania *"Along with the translation of more works by Brazilian writers and scholars alike, books like Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory pave the way for the reception of literary works that, otherwise, remain regrettably off the radar even among many in academia." * Hispanic Review *"Earl E. Fitz advances the question of language as key to innovation and modernity in the mature works of Machado de Assis. Fitz attributes his departure from realism to a new awareness of the mutability, instability, self-referentiality and inescapable ambiguity of language in relation to meaning. What the novels are really about is not what they seem." -- K. David Jackson * Yale University *Is Machado de Assis a theoretician of the novel? Earl Fitz’s book is a fascinating response to such a question. In this exciting journey through the writer’s late novels, we learn that Machado didn’t tell us what he was thinking; differently, he showed us the very act of thinking through language. It’s worth reading: Fitz’s passion for Machado is contagious. -- Pedro Meira Monteiro, Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Spanish and Portuguese * Princeton University *"A masterwork of original and seminal scholarship that rescues a critically important Latin American writer from an undeserved obscurity." * Midwest Book Review *"Earl Fitz’s book should be appreciated as a complement to the many other excellent studies of Machado’s relation to a plentiful external landscape. Lest we become overly confident about our ability to know these realities, we should pause and, considering perspectives like those of this book, clean our glasses." * Journal of Lusophone Studies *"Fitz’s study provides a strong argument for why scholars interested in narrative theory and form should give, if not renewed, then new attention to the work of Machado de Assis." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"[A] passionate and convincingly argued monograph...Fitz’s study makes a vital contribution to Machadoan criticism in that it highlights, perhaps more clearly, more forcefully, and in more detail than previously offered, the holistic view Machado came to embrace of narrative as a dynamic confluence of unstable signs capable of creating seemingly stable realities." * Hispania *"Along with the translation of more works by Brazilian writers and scholars alike, books like Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory pave the way for the reception of literary works that, otherwise, remain regrettably off the radar even among many in academia." * Hispanic Review *Table of ContentsAbbreviations .. ivA Note on Translations... v Introduction ... 1 One - The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas ... 95 Two - The Psychiatrist ... 132 Three - Quincas Borba ... 169 Four - Dom Casmurro ... 196 Five - Esau and Jacob ... 235 Six - Counselor Ayres Memorial ... 260 Conclusion ... 283Acknowledgements ... 310Bibliography ... 311Index ... 324About the Author ... 325

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Book SynopsisNarrative Mourning explores death and its relics as they appear within the confines of the eighteenth-century British novel. It argues that the cultural disappearance of the dead/dying body and the introduction of consciousness as humanity’s newfound soul found expression in fictional representations of the relic (object) or relict (person). In the six novels examined in this monograph—Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; Sarah Fielding's David Simple and Volume the Last; Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling; and Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho—the appearance of the relic/relict signals narrative mourning and expresses (often obliquely) changing cultural attitudes toward the dead. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Oliver’s study represents a fascinating and welcome addition to eighteenth-century literary studies. Considering the novel of sensibility and the gothic novel in relation to death, Narrative Mourning addresses contemporary beliefs about death, the dead body, the soul, and the material objects associated with death. Oliver explores relics—objects such as waxen transi and hair jewelry—and relicts—the people left behind after a death occurs. Throughout, she offers a number of insightful readings, from the high body count of David Simple and its sequel, to Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison with the mock-widow and pseudo-ghost Clementina della Porretta, to the haunting narrative strategies of The Man of Feeling." -- Bonnie Latimer * author of Making Gender, Culture and the Self in the Fiction of Samuel Richardson *"With its extensive close readings of both the novel of sensibility and the Gothic novel, Kathleen M. Oliver’s Narrative Mourning: Death and Its Relics in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel compellingly argues for the cultural disappearance of the dead in its lucid examination of relics and relicts in fictional representations of death and loss. Its distinctive focus on objects, persons, and ghosts offers a fascinating and well-needed study of the role of melancholy and mourning in the eighteenth-century novel." -- Jolene Zigarovich * author of Writing Death and Absence in the Victorian Novel *"'Death and loss haunt the eighteenth-century British novel,'" writes Kathleen M. Oliver in her compelling study, Narrative Mourning. From Clarissa Harlowe's mourning rings to her own corpse in Clarissa; from portraits to wax effigies in The Mysteries of Udolpho; from relics to relicts in David Simple, Volume the Last, and Grandison; from torn manuscript to lively spectral narrator in The Man of Feeling, Oliver's careful readings limn the dynamic 'lives' of eighteenth-century literary remains." -- Mary Elizabeth Hotz * author of Literary Remains: Representations of Death and Burial in Victorian England *"[Narrative Mourning's] clearly marked conclusions...eloquently and often lyrically summarize the concerns of each chapter and section while signposting the more difficult arguments in the interest of accessibility." * Eighteenth-Century Fiction *Table of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction: The Relic Objects 1 “With My Hair in Crystal”: Commemorative Hair Jewelry and the Entombed Saint in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (1748) 2 “You Know Me Then”: The Relic versus the Real in Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) Part I. The Secret Life of Portraits Part II. Death as the Lost Beloved Persons 3 “All the Horrors of Friendship”: Counting the Bodies in Sarah Fielding’s David Simple (1744) and Volume the Last (1753) Part I. The Sorrows of Young David: Melancholia Part II. Double Vision: Allegory 4 “It is All for You!”: Dying for Love in Samuel Richardson’s The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753) Ghosts 5 “‘Tis at Least a Memorial for Those Who Survive”: The It-Narrator, Death Writing, and the Ghostwriter in Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) Conclusion: Death and the Novel Acknowledgments Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisWriting Lives in the Eighteenth Century is a collection of essays on memoir, biography, and autobiography during a formative period for the genre. The essays revolve around recognized male and female figures—returning to the Boswell and Burney circle—but present arguments that dismantle traditional privileging of biographical modes. The contributors reconsider the processes of hero making in the beginning phases of a culture of celebrity. Employing the methodology William Godwin outlined for novelists of taking material “from all sources, experience, report, and the records of human affairs,” each contributor examines within the contexts of their time and historical traditions the anxieties and imperatives of the auto/biographer as she or he shapes material into a legacy. New work on Frances Burney D’Arblay’s son, Alexander, as revealed through letters; on Isabelle de Charriere; on Hester Thrale Piozzi; and on Alicia LeFanu and Frances Burney’s realignment of family biography extend current conversations about eighteenth century biography and autobiography. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Rich and thought-provoking, Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century offers fresh perspectives on figures at the centre of studies of eighteenth-century life writing, including James Boswell and Frances Burney, and engages them in a fascinating dialogue with less prominent writers, such as Isabelle de Charrière and Alicia LeFanu. The essays are deeply knowledgeable, elegantly written, and pose important questions for studies of the genre. Collectively, they will be of significant value to scholars of eighteenth-century literature and life writing." -- Amy Culley * author of British Women’s Life Writing, 1760-1840: Friendship, Community, and Collaboration *"Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century offers a rich and expansive collection of essays by accomplished scholars, demonstrating how underserved the topic of life writing has been in the field that, arguably, invented its modern form." -- Laura Rosenthal * author of Nightwalkers: Prostitute Narratives from the Eighteenth Century *"Rich and thought-provoking, Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century offers fresh perspectives on figures at the centre of studies of eighteenth-century life writing, including James Boswell and Frances Burney, and engages them in a fascinating dialogue with less prominent writers, such as Isabelle de Charrière and Alicia LeFanu. The essays are deeply knowledgeable, elegantly written, and pose important questions for studies of the genre. Collectively, they will be of significant value to scholars of eighteenth-century literature and life writing." -- Amy Culley * author of British Women’s Life Writing, 1760-1840: Friendship, Community, and Collaboration *"Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century offers a rich and expansive collection of essays by accomplished scholars, demonstrating how underserved the topic of life writing has been in the field that, arguably, invented its modern form." -- Laura Rosenthal * author of Nightwalkers: Prostitute Narratives from the Eighteenth Century *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Art of Writing Lives Tanya Caldwell Chapter 1: Dr. Johnson’s Apology for the Married Life of Hester Thrale’: Hester Lynch Piozzi’s Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson LLD Lisa Berglund Chapter 2: The Education of Alexander d’Arblay: “The Idol of the World” Peter Sabor Chapter 3: Trying to Set the Record Straight: Alicia LeFanu, Frances Burney D’Arblay, and the Limits of Family Biography Marilyn Francus Chapter 4: The Life of Isabelle de Charrière: ‘Written by Herself’ Victoria Warren Chapter 5: Clashes of conversations in James Boswell’s Hebrides and Life of Johnson and ‘My Firm Regard to Authenticity’ James J. Caudle Chpater 6: Charles Burney’s Handel Reconsidered Todd Gilman Acknowledgements Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisLaurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy continues to be as widely read and admired as upon its first appearance. Deemed more accessible than Sterne’s Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and often assigned as a college text, A Sentimental Journey has received its share of critical attention, but—unlike Tristram Shandy—to date it has not been the subject of a dedicated anthology of critical essays. This volume fills that gap with fresh perspectives on Sterne’s novel that will appeal to students and critics alike. Together with an introduction that situates each essay within A Sentimental Journey’s reception history, and a tailpiece detailing the culmination of Sterne’s career and his death, this volume presents a cohesive approach to this significant text that is simultaneously grounded and revelatory.Trade Review"This collection brings together a group of distinguished Sterne scholars whose focus on the author’s final publication demonstrates the way new questions, new methodologies, new pairings, and new contexts can invigorate our understanding of Sterne, his world, and his work." -- Elizabeth Kraft * author of Laurence Sterne Revisited *"The prime virtue of this collection is that it combines more traditional literary approaches with more recent models of literary scholarship, influenced by affect theory, gender studies, animal studies, and thing theory. As such, it stands as a valuable snapshot of Sterne studies in the present." -- Jesse Molesworth * author of Chance and the Eighteenth-Century Novel: Realism, Probability, Magic *"A welcome addition to criticism on Sterne." * XVII-XVIII *"The strength of the resulting volume lies not only in the constituent essays, but also in the intelligence and creativity with which Newbould and Gerard have disposed and framed them, setting them in constantly illuminating conversation with one another. In their expert editorial hands, A Sentimental Journey has never looked so rich in imaginative implication and interpretative possibility." * The Shandean *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Abbreviations and Conventions W. B. Gerard and M-C. Newbould, “Introduction: A Sentimental Journey’s Critical Legacies.” I. Men, Women, and other Animals 1. Shaun Regan, “Refining Masculinity in Yorick’s Journey: Courtesy, Chivalry, Gallantry.” 2. Julia Banister, “Yorick’s War: Patriot Politics, Military Men, and Willing Women in A Sentimental Journey.” 3. Glynis Ridley, “Sterne’s Journey into Animal Affect.” II. Words, Structures, Things 4. Chris Ewers, “Spatial Digression and the Borders of Knowledge in A Sentimental Journey.” 5. Alexander Hardie-Forsyth, “(O)economy and Order: Laurence Sterne’s Chaptering.” 6. Fraser Easton, "Yorick's Speech and the Starling's Song: The Limits of Elocution in A Sentimental Journey" 7. Jennifer Preston Wilson, “Things of the Spirit: Vibrant Matter in A Sentimental Journey.” III. Historical Contexts, Rewritten Texts 8. Melvyn New, “Boswell and Sterne in 1768.” 9. Peter Budrin, “The Shadow of Eliza: Sterne’s Underplot in A Sentimental Journey.” 10. Paul Goring, “Debt, Death, and Literary Inheritance: The Ends of Sterne and A Sentimental Journey.” Pat Rogers, “Afterword” Acknowledgments Works Cited and Selected Bibliography Index About the Contributors

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Book SynopsisCalila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite explores the last six novels by Spain´s most honored contemporary woman writer. Its scholarship is enriched by the voice of Calila herself—as Brown called Martín Gaite, who was a dear friend—as they conversed and exchanged letters during the composition of the novels. The book opens with an introduction to Martín Gaite´s life and literature and ends with a consideration of her legacy. Each central chapter analyzes a later novel in its historical, biographical, and critical contexts. From the young adult fantasy Caperucita en Manhattan (Red Riding Hood in Manhattan) to the post-Transition epistolary masterpiece Nubosidad variable (Variable Cloud), the Transition-era saga La Reina de las Nieves (The Farewell Angel), the Proustian reminiscence Lo raro es vivir (Living’s the Strange Thing), the narrative tapestry Irse de casa (Leaving Home), and the memoir of family secrets Los parentescos (Family Relations), these fascinating novels evoke themes that resonate today. Trade Review"Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martin Gaite is a fascinating window into the life and later works of one of the most eminent Spanish novelists of all times. Joan L. Brown combines relevant history, original analysis and personal anecdotes from 'Calila’s' personal letters into a compelling and delightful rendition." -- María-Luisa Guardiola * editor of the Royal Spanish Academy's critical edition of Antonio García Gutiérrez's El trovador *"Martín Gaite’s works are now studied all around the world, especially in further education establishments. More and more students are researching her latest novels and Calila will be an indispensable read as Brown combines the critical study of the author’s texts, with their socio-historical background, and a personal view of the process of writing." -- Maria-José Blanco * author of Life-writing in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Cuadernos de todo and her Novels of the 1990s *"As I read Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite, I had to battle the temptation to put the volume aside in order to re-read the novels that Brown analyzes in the book. There can hardly be a greater testament to a literary critic’s skill than her capacity to communicate to the reader her love and enthusiasm for the texts she analyzes. Brown’s central argument in Calila is that Martín Gaite’s novels of the 1990s deserve to be read, and the book will, without a doubt, bring new and returning readers and inspire renewed critical interest in the writer’s later work." * Hispania *"This insightful monograph on Martín Gaite’s final six novels is part-literary criticism and part-personal anecdote based on the extended friendship between the author and Brown who draws from a variety of scholarly sources, personal correspondence and photographs to provide readings of her works." * Anales de la literatura española contemporánea *"Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martin Gaite is a fascinating window into the life and later works of one of the most eminent Spanish novelists of all times. Joan L. Brown combines relevant history, original analysis and personal anecdotes from 'Calila’s' personal letters into a compelling and delightful rendition." -- María-Luisa Guardiola * editor of the Royal Spanish Academy's critical edition of Antonio García Gutiérrez's El trovador *"Martín Gaite’s works are now studied all around the world, especially in further education establishments. More and more students are researching her latest novels and Calila will be an indispensable read as Brown combines the critical study of the author’s texts, with their socio-historical background, and a personal view of the process of writing." -- Maria-José Blanco * author of Life-writing in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Cuadernos de todo and her Novels of the 1990s *"As I read Calila: The Later Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite, I had to battle the temptation to put the volume aside in order to re-read the novels that Brown analyzes in the book. There can hardly be a greater testament to a literary critic’s skill than her capacity to communicate to the reader her love and enthusiasm for the texts she analyzes. Brown’s central argument in Calila is that Martín Gaite’s novels of the 1990s deserve to be read, and the book will, without a doubt, bring new and returning readers and inspire renewed critical interest in the writer’s later work." * Hispania *"This insightful monograph on Martín Gaite’s final six novels is part-literary criticism and part-personal anecdote based on the extended friendship between the author and Brown who draws from a variety of scholarly sources, personal correspondence and photographs to provide readings of her works." * Anales de la literatura española contemporánea *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction: Calila and Her Later Novels 1 Backstory: Carmen Martín Gaite’s Earlier Life and Literature 2 Caperucita en Manhattan: A Young Adult Novel of Recovery 3 Nubosidad variable: Contemporary Feminism in Post-Transition Spain 4 La Reina de las Nieves: Rewriting a Tragedy of Spain’s Transition 5 Lo raro es vivir: Existential Questions in Uncertain Times 6 Irse de casa: Back to the Future in Democratic Spain 7 Los parentheses: Fractured Families in the Twenty-First Century Conclusion: The Later Novels and Martín Gaite’s Legacy Notes Works Cited Index

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Book Synopsis'I know it's a daring suggestion, but I'll make it anyway.'Charmian Clift was a writer ahead of her time. Lyrical and fearless, her essays seamlessly the personal and the political.In 1964, Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston returned to Australia after living and writing for many years in the cosmopolitan community of artists on the Greek island of Hydra. Back in Sydney, Clift found her opinions were far more progressive than those of many of her fellow Australians.This new edition of Charmian Clift's essays, selected and introduced by her biographer Nadia Wheatley, are drawn from the weekly newspaper column Clift wrote through the turbulent and transformative years of the 1960s. In these 'sneaky little revolutions', as Clift once called them, she supported the rights of women and migrants, called for social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, opposed conscription and the war in Vietnam, acknowledged Australia's role in the Asia-Pacific, fought censorship, called for an Australian film industry — and much more. In doing so, she set a new benchmark for the form of the essay in Australian literature.

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Book SynopsisArchetypes from Underground: Notes on the Dostoevskian Self uncovers archetypal imagery in Dostoevsky's stories and novels and argues that archetypes bring a new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of his works. In this interdisciplinary study, Harrison analyzes selected texts in light of fresh research in Dostoevsky studies, cultural history, comparative mythology, and depth psychology. He argues that one of Dostoevsky's chief concerns is the crisis of modernity, and that he dramatizes the conflicts of the modern self by depicting the dynamic, transformative nature of the psyche. Harrison finds the language and imagery of archetypes in Dostoevsky's characters, symbols, and themes, and shows how these resonate in remarkable ways with the archetypes of self, persona, and the shadow. He demonstrates that major themes in Dostoevsky coincide with Western esotericism, such as the complementarity of opposites, transformation, and the symbolism of death and resurrection. These arguments inform a close reading of several of Dostoevsky's texts, including The Double, Notes from Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov. Archetypes inform these works and others, bringing vitality to Dostoevsky's major characters and themes. This research represents a departure from the religious and philosophical questions that have dominated Dostoevsky studies. This work is the first sustained analysis of Dostoevsky's work in light of archetypes, framing a topic that calls for further investigation. Archetypes illumine the author's ideas about Russian national identity and its faith traditions and help us redefine our understanding of Russian realism and the prominent place Dostoevsky occupies within it.Trade Review"Readers are often asked to choose between two filters, the secular and the religious, in their quest for Dostoevsky's paradoxical sense of personality: socially conditioned but not schematic, rebellious but not free. Lonny Harrison suggests that we work instead with an expanded Jungian concept of archetype, with its unconscious, its shadow, its ego-transcendence and rebirth. The result is a fascinating hypothesis about the Dostoevskian psyche, poised between the ruins of European positivism and the potentials of cosmic myth." -- Caryl Emerson, Princeton University -- 201603

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Book SynopsisCan literary criticism help transform entrenched Settler Canadian understandings of history and place? How are nationalist historiographies, insular regionalisms, established knowledge systems, state borders, and narrow definitions continuing to hinder the transfer of information across epistemological divides in the twenty-first century? What might nation-to-nation literary relations look like? Through readings of a wide range of northeastern texts - including Puritan captivity narratives, Wabanaki wampum belts, and contemporary Innu poetry - Rachel Bryant explores how colonized and Indigenous environments occupy the same given geographical coordinates even while existing in distinct epistemological worlds. Her analyses call for a vital and unprecedented process of listening to the stories that Indigenous peoples have been telling about this continent for centuries. At the same time, she performs this process herself, creating a model for listening and for incorporating those stories throughout.This commitment to listening is analogous to homing - the sophisticated skill that turtles, insects, lobsters, birds, and countless other beings use to return to sites of familiarity. Bryant adopts the homing process as a reading strategy that continuously seeks to transcend the distortions and distractions that were intentionally built into Settler Canadian culture across centuries.Trade Review"The Homing Place enacts and advocates for a paradigm shift in 'literary relations' in North America, revealing the 'invisible wall ' in colonial perceptions that may at first seem as impermeable as the nation-state borders that divide the continent. Yet just as Indigenous people and homelands have always traversed those borders, so may our readings transcend that wall. Rachel Bryant foregrounds and leads us to acknowledge the active ways our embodied minds evade or engage Indigenous contexts and communities, producing greater awareness of the impacts of our activities as readers and writers, Native people and settlers, those who make policy, and those who are most impacted by it." -- - Lisa Brooks, Amherst College"Bryant's excavation of US and Canadian exceptionalisms could not be timelier. She shows how Anglo-Atlantic writing has built a 'system of self-protection' that has sought to contain Indigenous geographies and indeed Indigenous agency. At the same time, she shows how First Nations have always effectively written back against this system. This book shines new light on settler colonialism and Indigenous resurgence, historic and contemporary, through sharp analyses of some influential but lesser-discussed writers. It belongs on the shelf of every scholar in Indigenous Studies, Canadian Studies, American Studies, Atlantic and Maritime Studies, Material Culture Studies, Cultural Geography, and Literary Criticism, for it creates fresh new dialogues among all of these fields and interests." -- Siobhan Senier, University of New Hampshire"If you are interested in Indigenous affairs, the history of how the eastern tribes came to be in such dire straits today, and how literature has reflected these changes - and even attempts to embrace and effect change for the better - then The Homing Place will certainly appeal to you." -- The Miramichi ReaderIf you are of settler ancestry and are open to the reconciliation process in its truest sense, and if you are willing to learn as part of that process, The Homing Place is a good place to start.... Rachel Bryant reminds her readers that there is a huge amount of work to do. I'm very glad to have come across this book, the truth within its pages, and the author's dedication to making a positive contribution to the reconciliation process. -- Patty Musgrave -- Atlantic Books Today, 20180509Table of Contents Introduction: Inscriptions of Possession and Place Cultural Iconoclasm: John Gyles's Atlantic Canadian Captivity Narrative Canadian Exceptionalism: Finding Anna Brownell Jameson in the Anglo Atlantic World Longing across the Line: Cultural Storytelling in the Northeast Borderlands Making Words Walk: Joséphine Bacon's Poetic Tshissinuatshitakana ""A wigwam on the hill"": Meeting Rita Joe in Native Space Cartographic Dissonance: Between Geographies in Douglas Glover's Elle Conclusion: The Homing Place Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTimothy Findley (1930-2002) was one of Canada's foremost writers--an award-winning novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who began his career as an actor in London, England. Findley was instrumental in the development of Canadian literature and publishing in the 1970s and 80s. During those years, he became a vocal advocate for human rights and the anti-war movement. His writing and interviews reveal a man concerned with the state of the world, a man who believed in the importance of not giving in to despair, despite his constant struggle with depression. Findley believed in the power of imagination and creativity to save us. Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley is the first full biography of this eminent Canadian writer. Sherrill Grace provides insight into Findley's life and struggles through an exploration of his private journals and his relationships with family, his beloved partner, Bill Whitehead, and his close friends, including Alec Guinness, William Hurt, and Margaret Laurence. Based on many interviews and exhaustive archival research, this biography explores Findley's life and work, the issues that consumed him, and his often profound depression over the evils of the twentieth-century. Shining through his darkness are Findley's generous humour, his unforgettable characters, and his hope for the future. These qualities inform canonic works like The Wars (1977), Famous Last Words (1981), Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), and The Piano Man's Daughter (1995).Trade Review"Written with great sensitivity and attention to detail, Grace’s comprehensive biography succeeds in giving a complete picture of its subject as an individual and an artist." - Publishers Weekly"A meticulously researched deep dive into a troubled and fascinating life—passionate, engaged, often messy, vastly rewarding." - Margaret Atwood"Memory and remembering were central to Timothy Findley’s life and work—and equally to Sherrill Grace’s outstanding biography of the celebrated Canadian author. Drawing impressively and insightfully on a vast archive of letters, photos, journals, diaries, and interviews, and on her own towering talents as one of Canada’s foremost literary scholars, Grace presents a compelling portrait of a complex man and brilliant multifaceted writer—himself a master of auto/biography—whose professional and personal experiences tracked the far-reaching changes of late-20th-century Canada’s social and cultural landscape." - - Christl Verduyn, Mount Allison University"A tactful, sensitive, generous, storyteller, Sherrill Grace recounts the life of one of Canada’s greatest storytellers, illuminating his life and work, the people he knew and the cultural times in which he performed that life so passionately. We follow him as he learns his craft through writing and through living that intense, well-examined, if often tormented, life. At once learned and elegant, this immensely readable biography is a glorious summing up of all the themes of his work and life." - Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto, author of The Canadian Postmodern"A powerful, eye-opening portrait of the artist as an anguished man who tried desperately to live by his motto: Against despair." - Jerry Wasserman, Emeritus Professor of English and Theatre, UBC, editor of Modern Canadian Plays"Sherrill Grace brings thoughtful attention to both the man and the work, the latter of which notably marked the national literature by its particular obsessions and inventions." - Andrew Pyper, author of The Demonologist and The Homecoming

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Book SynopsisPerceptive, controversial, topical, and achingly funny, Miriam Toews’s books have earned her a place at the forefront of Canadian literature. In this first monograph on Toews’s work, Sabrina Reed examines the interplay of trauma and resilience in the author’s fiction. Reed skillfully demonstrates how Toews situates resilience across key themes, including: the home as both a source of trauma and an inspiration for resilient action; the road trip as a search for resolution and redemption; and the reframing of the Mennonite diaspora as an escape from patriarchal oppression. The dual suicides of Toews’s father and sister stand out as the most shocking and tragic of the author’s biographical details, and Reed explores Toews’s use of autofiction as a reparative gesture in the face of this trauma.Written in an accessible style that will appeal to both scholars and devotees of Toews’s work, Lives Lived, Lives Imagined is a timely examination of Toews’s oeuvre and a celebration of fiction’s ability to simultaneously embody compassion and anger, joy and sadness, and to brave the personal and communal oppressions of politics, religion, family, society, and mental illness.Table of Contents Ch 1: Home is Where the Hope Is? A Complicated Kindness and A Boy of Good Breeding Ch 2: “On the Road” (With Children): The Flying Troutmans and Summer of My Amazing Luck Ch 3: “All trauma presents a choice”: Irma Voth and Women Talking Ch 4: “Coming for to carry me home”: Autofiction and Reparation: Swing Low: A Life and All My Puny Sorrows Epilogue: The Fight Against the Night: Fight Night

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Book SynopsisPart literary history, part feminist historiography And Wrote My Story Anyway: Novels by Black South African Women critically examines influential novels in English by eminent black female writers. Studying these writers' key engagements with nationalism, race and gender during apartheid and the transition to democracy, Barbara Boswell traces the ways in which black women's fiction critically interrogates narrow ideas of nationalism. She examines who is included and excluded, while producing alternative visions for a more just South African society. This is an erudite analysis of ten well-known South African writers, spanning the apartheid and post-apartheid era: Miriam Tlali, Lauretta Ngcobo, Farida Karodia, Agnes Sam, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb, Rayda Jacobs, Yvette Christiansë, Kagiso Lesego Molope and Zukiswa Wanner. Boswell argues that black women's fiction could and should be read as a subversive site of knowledge production in a setting, which, for centuries, denied black women's voices and intellects. Reading their fiction as theory, for the first time these writers' works are placed in sustained conversation with each other, producing an arc of feminist criticism that speaks forcefully back to the abuse of a racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power.Table of Contents Acknowledgements Author's Preface Acronyms Introduction ‘… And Wrote My Story Anyway': Black South African Women's Fiction and the Nation Chapter 1 Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women's Writing Chapter 2 Rewriting the Apartheid Nation: Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo Chapter 3 Dissenting Daughters: Girlhood and Nation in the Fiction of Farida Karodia and Agnes Sam Chapter 4 Interrogating 'Truth' in the Post-Apartheid Nation: Zoë Wicomb and Sindiwe Magona Chapter 5 Making Personhood; Remaking History in Yvette Christiansë and Rayda Jacobs's Neo-Slave Narratives Chapter 6 Black Women Writing 'New' South African Masculinities: Kagiso Lesego Molopes and Zukiswa Wanner Conclusion Literature as Theory: Towards a Black South African Feminist Criticism Select References Index

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Book SynopsisThis book suggests that James Joyce, like Yeats and his fellow Revivalists, was attracted to the west of Ireland as a place of authenticity and freedom. It shows how his acute historical sensibility is reflected in Dubliners, posing new questions about one of the most enduring collections of short stories ever written. The answers provided are a fusion of history and literary criticism, using close readings that balance techniques of realism and symbolism. The result is an original study that shines new light on Dubliners and Joyce’s later masterpieces.Trade Review'This is a sparklingly written and unflaggingly enjoyable book, founded on a deep and wide-ranging knowledge of Joyce and his times.' Bernard O'Donoghue'Who would think that a new study of James Joyce's first book could break fresh ground? Frank Shovlin has done it. His riveting book on 'Dubliners' shows that Joyce began at his best. After the power and beauty of his short stories, Joyce had nowhere to go except into complexity and length.' Brenda Maddox, Times Literary Supplement * Times Literary Supplement *'Shovlin’s book functions as an act of cultural memory in its retrieval of social and historical narratives attached to phrases, names, places, and songs that Joyce deploys. Journey Westward thus is part of a growing area in Joyce studies with cultural memorial concerns.' Oona Frawley, James Joyce QuarterlyTable of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: 'The journey westward' 1. 'Endless stories about the distillery': Joyce and Whiskey 2. 'Their friends, the French': Joyce, Jacobitism and the Revival 3. 'He would put in allusions': The Uses and Abuses of Revivalism Conclusion: Protestant Power and Plates of Peas Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisVietnam and Beyond: Tim O’Brien and the Power of Storytelling is a comprehensive, in-depth study of one of the most thought-provoking writers of the Vietnam war generation. This volume breaks away from previous readings of O’Brien’s development as a trauma artist and an outspoken chronicler of the American involvement in Vietnam: its thematic, rather than chronological, approach contextualizes O’Brien’s work beyond the confines of war literature. The necessary exploration of O’Brien’s recurrent engagement with the conflict in Vietnam leads to a thorough discussion of the writer’s revision of key American (and western) ideas and concerns: the association between courage, heroism and masculinity, the celebration of the pioneering spirit in the frontier narrative, the sense of superiority in the encounter with foreign civilizations, the fraught relationship between power and truth, or reality and imagination, and the attempt and the right to speak about unspeakable events. All these themes, as Ciocia illustrates, highlight O’Brien’s compelling preoccupation with the role and the ethical responsibility of the storyteller. With his clear privileging of ‘story-truth’ over ‘happening-truth’, O’Brien makes a bold, serious investment in the power of fiction, as testified by his formal experimentations, metanarrative reflections and sustained meditations on matters such as individual agency, moral accountability and authenticity. Approached from this fresh perspective, O’Brien emerges as a figure deserving to find a wider audience and demanding renewed scholarly attention for his remarkable achievements as a contemporary mythographer, an acute observer of the human condition and a sharp critic of American culture.Trade ReviewReviews'Argumentatively comprehensive and original ... a book that really does take discussion about Tim O’Brien as a world writer to the next level.' Philip D. BeidlerTable of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1. Introduction 2. The Courage of Authenticity 3. Remapping the National Landscape 4. Trauma, Gender and the Poetics of Uncertainty 5. The Power of Storytelling Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisStanislaw Lem died on 26 March, 2006 but in this book his voice can be heard afresh for the benefit of all those who believe that, with his passing, a quintessential element of twentieth-century artistic and intellectual heritage has come to an end. Peter Swirski’s edited and annotated translation of Lem’s fifteen-year correspondence with his principal American translator offers an unparalleled testimony to the raw intellectual powers, smouldering literary passions, and abiding personal concerns from the central period of the writer’s life and career. Even as they reposition Lem as a consummate litterateur and an intellectual oracle, the letters reveal tantalizing glimpses of the man behind the giant. Fighting depression, at times hitting the bottle, plagued by ill health, obsessed by his legacy, driven to distraction by lack of appreciation in the United States, Lem the arch-rationalist emerges here at his most human, vulnerable, and... likeable.Trade ReviewReviews'Utterly absorbing, absolutely first-rate Lem and first-rate Swirski.' Nicholas Ruddick'Lem emerges from Peter Swirski’s mastery of his subject in both the stunning breadth of his genius and a humanity forged by the nightmare of modern Polish history.' Ken Krabbenhoft, New York UniversityIn those moments when Lem pauses and steps away from his career as author and critic, he reveals himself as a man continually haunted by the Holocaust, as an irascible elder aware of his foibles, and an imaginative philosophe. SFRA Review'An absolute delight ... Swirski’s translation reads lucidly, and follows Lem’s own stylistic quirks ... the letters offer a needed glimpse into Lem’s own artistic self-presentation as he sought to negotiate how he was read outside of Poland.' Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction'Utterly absorbing… absolutely first-rate Lem and first-rate Swirski.'Nicholas Ruddick, author of Fire in the Stone: Parehistoric Fiction from Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel'Lem emerges from Peter Swirski’s mastery of his subject in both the stunning breadth of his genius and a humanity forged by the nightmare of modern Polish history. Swirski’s writing is graceful, engaging, and unmarred by jargon or pretense.' Ken Krabbenhoft, New York University'The world’s leading Lem critic Peter Swirski competes with Lem in erudition and style—and the winner is the reader.'Bo Pettersson, University of Helsinki'Short, dense, valuable.'SFRA'I recommend this volume highly to anyone wishing to follow the complex workings of a profound thinker's mind and to sample his ironic perspective on society, literature, politics, and the foreseeable future.'Slavic and East European JournalTable of Contents Introduction Letters, 1972-1987 Appendices Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIrish Science Fiction revisits a critical paradigm that has often been overlooked or dismissed by science fiction scholars – namely, that science fiction can be understood in terms of myth. Science fiction springs from pseudo-science rather than ‘proper’ science, because pseudo-science is more easily converted into narrative; in this book it is argued that different cultures produce distinct pseudo-sciences, and thus, unique science fiction traditions. Fennell's innovative framework is used to examine Irish science fiction from the 1850s to the present day, covering material written both in Irish and in English. Considering science fiction novels and short stories in their historical context, Irish Science Fiction analyses a body of literature that has largely been ignored by Irish literature researchers. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Irish science fiction, and the first to consider Irish-language stories and novels alongside works published in English.Trade ReviewReviews 'An important and groundbreaking book... it introduced me to a whole body of writing about which – after 40 years in the field – I knew next to nothing, and made me want to search out and read much of it. I imagine most readers will feel the same way, and will, as do I, feel gratitude to the author for guiding us to and through the heretofore terra incognita of Irish science fiction.' Philip O'Leary'Irish Science Fiction is a timely study in more ways than one. A chronological examination of two centuries of Irish sf, it is a groundbreaking and long-overdue work, coming in the wake of much recent interest in other “national” sf traditions (Ukrainian, Italian, and Israeli, among others). Covering texts in both English and Irish Gaelic, the book is both an analysis of a surprisingly diverse selection of Irish literature and an important injection of sf into the field of Irish literary studies.' Conor Reid, Science Fiction Studies'The widely cast net of theoretical argumentation, the constant change of focus, and the vivacity of style all make Irish Science Fiction a particularly rewarding read.'Australasian Journal of Irish StudiesTable of Contents Introduction 1. Mad Science and the Empire: Fitz-James O’Brien and Robert Cromie 2. ‘Future War’ and Gender in Nineteenth-Century Ireland 3. Nationalist Fantasies of the Early Twentieth Century 4. States of Emergency: Irish SF During World War Two 5. The 1960s: Lemass, Modernization and the Cold War 6. The Wrong History: Bob Shaw, James White and the Troubles 7. Exotic Doom: the SF of Ian McDonald 8. The Dystopian Decades: From Recession to Tiger and Back Again 9. The Shape of Irish SF to Come Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLemography is a unique collection of critical essays on Stanislaw Lem, writer and philosopher. Its aim is to introduce aspects of his work hitherto unknown or neglected by scholarship and evaluate his influence on twentieth-century literature and culture—and beyond. The book’s uniqueness is enhanced by the global makeup of the contributors who hail from Canada, United States, Great Britain, Germany, Croatia, Poland, Sweden and Finland. In all cases, these are scholars and translators who for many years have pursued, and in some cases defined, Lem scholarship. Rather than study Lem as a science fiction writer, each essay commands a wider sphere of reference in order to appraise Lem’s literary and philosophical contributions. Each focuses on a different novel (or set of novels) from the writer’s opus, examining them critically. Between them, the essays cover virtually all phases of Lem’s multidimensional career, ensuring comprehensive coverage.Trade ReviewReviews 'As Lem scholarship grows in size, readers will find plenty of well-articulated thought in these works to ponder upon.' Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction'Read Lem. And read Swirski. Or the other way around. Whichever way you do it, just do it.' The Montreal Review'Lemography and Swirski’s Philosopher of the Future are multi-faceted and original contributions.'Science Fiction Studies‘All in all, this is an excellent edited collection that deepens our understanding of Lem’s work and legacy, and it will hopefully spur further research into Lem’s oeuvre.’ Michael Godhe, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Table of Contents Lem Redux: From Poland to the World - WACLAW M. OSADNIK and PETER SWIRSKI The Unknown Lem: Man From Mars, The Astronauts, The Magellan Nebula - PETER SWIRSKI Investigating the Investigation: Mystery Narratives in The Investigation and The Chain of Chance - DAVID SEED Embodiment Problems: Adapting Solaris to Film - NICHOLAS RUDDICK The Hilarious and Serious Teachings of Lem’s Robot Fables: The Cyberiad - BO PETTERSSON Literature, Futurology, or Philosophy? The Futurological Congress - IRIS VIDMAR and PETER SWIRSKI Problems and Dilemmas:Lem’s Golem XIV - VICTOR YAZNEVICH Lem, Cervantes, and Metafiction: Peace on Earth and Fiasco - KENNETH KRABBENHOFT Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisAlthough the self-definition of Surrealism and the initial defining of science fiction as a genre both took place in the 1920s and the links between the two are manifest, no full study has appeared till now on Surrealism and SF. Across ten original essays, Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics looks at how the Surrealist movement in France and the USA used, informed, contributed to, and criticised SF from that moment, whilst including discussion of the related genre of comics. Among its aims are a reassessment of Jules Verne in the light of Surrealism and an analysis of the debate in the 1950s on the ‘new’ Anglo-American literature arriving in France. This received, in fact, a mixed reception from the Surrealists of that decade even though writers and intellectuals close to the movement in the 1920s were directly responsible for its success. The book includes further essays on the subsequent impact of Surrealism on SF novelists J.G. Ballard and Alan Burns, and features essays that argue for Salvador Dalí’s closeness to SF in the 1960s and his disagreement with the earlier scientific romance defined by Verne. The chapters that bring in comics range from theoretical discussions of the relation between the original comic strips of Rodolphe Töpffer and the key Surrealist technique of automatism, used in art and writing, through the cybernetic implications of the proto-SF Surrealist ciné-roman ‘M. Wzz…’ of 1929, which has never discussed in any detail before, to the 1948 Vache paintings by René Magritte, inspired by Louis Forton’s strip Les Pieds nickelés. This pioneering set of essays shows how Surrealism from the 1920s to the 1970s did not just receive and adapt SF but impacted the genre in its later manifestations.Trade ReviewReviews 'A timely and fascinating collection that raises important contemporary questions and speaks to several disciplines.'Hugo Frey'Parkinson has done an admirable job adding details and signposts to the endless journey of Surrealism.' Laura Winton, Rain TaxiTable of Contents Acknowledgments List of illustrations Introduction 1. Abigail Susik - Surrealism and Jules Verne: Navigating Context, Intertext and Subtext for a Collage by Max Ernst 2. Barnaby Dicker - André Breton, Rodolphe Töpffer and the Automatic Message 3. Jonathan P. Eburne - Approximate Life: The Tribulations of Mr. Wzz… 4. Gilda Axelroud - René Magritte’s 'Vache' Paintings and 'Les Pieds nickelés': A Bataillean Reassessment 5. Gavin Parkinson - Possible Worlds: Surrealism, Michel Carrouges, and the Critical Reception of Anglo-American Science Fiction in France 6. Joanna Pawlik - The Comic Book Conditions of Chicago Surrealism 7. Jeannette Baxter - Accident and Apocalypse in Alan Burns’s 'Europe after the Rain' 8. Gavin Parkinson - Surrealist Painting as Science Fiction: Considering J.G. Ballard’s Innate Releasing Mechanism 9. Julia Pine - A Fantastic Voyage: Mapping Salvador Dalí’s Science Fiction World of Tomorrow 10. Elliott King - Ten Recipes for Immortality: A Study in Dalínian Science and Paranoiac Fictions Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisStanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem’s life, career, and literary legacy to light. Part One traces the context of his cultural influence, telling the story of one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century. It includes a comprehensive critical overview of Lem’s literary and philosophical oeuvre which comprises not only the classics like Solaris, but his untranslated first novels, realistic prose, experimental works, volumes of nonfiction, latter-day metafiction, as well as the final twenty years of polemics and essays. The critical and interpretive Part Two examines a range of Lem’s novels with a view to examining the intellectual vistas they open up before us. It focuses on several of Lem’s major but less studied books. “Game, Set, Lem” uses game theory to shed light on his arguably most surreal novel, the Kafkaesque and claustrophobic Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961). “Betrization Is the Worst Solution… Except for All Others” takes a close look at the quasi-utopia of Return From the Stars (1961) and at the concept of ethical cleansing and mandatory de-aggression. “Errare Humanum Est” focuses on the popular science thriller The Invincible (1964) in the context of evolution. “A Beachbook for Intellectuals” is a critical fugue on Lem’s medical thriller cum crime mystery, The Chain of Chance (1976). Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future closes with a two-part coda. “Fiasco” recapitulates and reflects on the literary and cognitive themes of Lem’s farewell novel, and “Happy End of the World!” reviews The Blink of an Eye, Lem’s farewell book of analyses and prognoses from the cusp of our millennium.Trade ReviewReviews 'An indispensable contribution to Lem studies. No critic is ever likely to do a better job of summarizing Lem’s entire oeuvre and meting out cognitive justice to this philosopher of the future than Swirski.' Nicholas Ruddick'A worthy addition to Lem criticism. Divided in three parts, a biographical section, essays on Lem’s work and a coda, and featuring eleven photographs, the work offers a panoramic view of Lem’s oeuvre and ideas.' Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction'Peter Swirski’s book is impressive: it demonstrates a grasp of a very large body of knowledge… Swirski conveys Lem thoroughly yet in the most entertaining way. This marriage of the heavy and the light, the profound and the playful, is a great achievement and mirrors the Polish master.' Michael Kandel, translator of major works of Stanislaw Lem including Fiasco, His Master's Voice, and The Cyberiad'An indispensable contribution to Lem studies. No critic is ever likely to do a better job of summarizing Lem’s entire oeuvre and meting out cognitive justice to this philosopher of the future than Swirski.' Nicholas Ruddick, author of Fire in the Stone: Prehistoric Fiction from Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel'Swirski does an amazing job… must-read not only for the admirers of Lem but for all who see literature and philosophy as relevant for what they tell us about ourselves.'Philosophy in Review'A great road map into the technological new world… Swirski added another layer to the portrait of the artist… conclusively seals his status as a world-wide leading expert on Lem.'The Montreal Review'Swirski does an admirable job bringing a wide range of disciplines to bear on the work of a thinker whose importance to fields as diverse as literature, science, and philosophy cannot be overestimated.'Science Fiction Studies‘Swirski approaches Lem’s fiction with accuracy, originality, and nuance, providing an inquisitive blueprint for further explorations into Lem’s work and into wider Science Fiction from a finely tuned, more practically minded, perspective.’ Joe Howsin, Fantastika Journal ‘It should also appeal to readers who have admired his work for a long time. In this sense, the monograph is both an introduction to and a thorough exploration of Lem’s oeuvre and intellectual legacy: a wonderful place for any scholar new to Lem to start.’ Michael Godhe, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Table of ContentsCOGITO ERGO LEM A Hard Nut to Crack—Pas de Deux—The Blink of the Cosmic Eye PART I: BIOGRAPHY CHAPTER 1. LIFE AND TIMES A Master of Thrills and Chills—The Reading of This Book Is Good for You—Renaissance Polymath—Lemberg—Highcastle—Well Over 180—Operation Barbarossa—Jan Donabidowicz—Lvov to Cracow—Social Parasite—The Genre In Which I Write—Borges for the Space Age—A Writing Consortium—Wissenschaftskolleg—Away From the Typewriter—On the Sidelines—Encyclopedic Oracle CHAPTER 2. IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF BOOKS Ariadne’s Thread—The New World of Adventure—The Other Inner Planet—Different Face—Allegorical Pen—SimCity—Hylas and Philonous—The Tricky Relation—The Golden Phase—A Happy Ending—Ammer-Ka—Out Yonder In Space—Dicty—The Seat of His Pants—Of Extraterrestrial Origin—A Critical Point—Cat’s Cradle— Hypertrophic Trends—Hoary Fallacy—Homo Rationis Capax—Der Völkermord—The Thanatos Syndrome—After the Last Goosebump Has Vanished—The Entire Human Race—Trompe l’Oeil—LEM!—My Farewell—Moratorium—The World According to Lem—Man and Machine PART II: ESSAYS CHAPTER 3. GAME, SET, LEM Ariadne’s Thread—Cold War Hysteria—The Third Pentagon—Nuclear-age Quixote—The Lottery in Babylon—I-Guess-What-You-Guess-What-I-Guess—Barnaby the Scrivener—Whoops! Apocalypse!—The Mission—Minimax/Maximin—The Mission Game—Subjective Rationality—The Collusion Game—Dead Men Don’t Tell Lies—An Allegorical Everyman—The Decipherment of Linear B CHAPTER 4. BETRIZATION IS THE WORST SOLUTION… EXCEPT FOR ALL OTHERS Time Machine—Word Become Flesh—Defanging the Human Beast—La bête humaine—The Hobbesian Premise—It Can’t Happen Here—50-50—Bennett, Trimaldi and Zakharov—The Technological Grail—Less Than Human—Chihuahuas in Eden—Nietzschean Superman—Droids, Borgs, and Bots—One for the Old Generation, One for the New—D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r CHAPTER 5. ERRARE HUMANUM EST The Invincible Has Landed—Models of Inquiry—From Literature to Biterature—The Alien as Alien—Knowledge and Metaknowledge—Regis III—Part of the Landscape—Nature Plays Fair—Ch. I., Ch. Ph., Ch. T., Ch. B.—Omnia Vincit Armor—Dictyostelium discoideum—Overzealous Carpenters—The Infallible CHAPTER 6. A BEACHBOOK FOR INTELLECTUALS A Novel of Ideas—Gun for Hire—Whodunit with Probability as the Butler—The Devil’s Parody of the Movies—The Locked Room—Terrorism Is Not a Hardware Issue—Good Cop, Bad Cop—The Garden of Earthly Delights—You, Me, Pulsars, and the Page You’re Reading—Ladykillers—Hero or Not?—Runny Nose—A Writer for All Reasons PART III: CODA CHAPTER 7. FIASCO You’ll See the Quintans—The War of the Worlds—Intelligent and Electronic—Let’s Do It Our Way—Mark Tempe—The Digla—Crystal Ball—To Make a Long Story Short CHAPTER 8. HAPPY END OF THE WORLD! The Blink of an Eye—Glow-In-the-Dark Monkeys—Cerebroproteinal Neuroprocessor—Encyclopedia of Ignorance APPENDIX. STANISLAW LEM: BOOKS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

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Book SynopsisConceived as a second edition to Kawakami's acclaimed A Self-Conscious Art, which was the first full-length study in English of Patrick Modiano’s work, this book has been comprehensively updated with two new chapters, notably discussing the author's recent work and his Nobel Prize win. Kawakami shows how by parodying precursors such as Proust or the nouveau romanciers, Modiano's narratives are built around a profound lack of faith in the ability of writing to retrieve the past through memory, and this failure is acknowledged in the discreet playfulness that characterises his novels. This welcome update on the work of one of the most successful modern French novelists will be essential reading for scholars working on contemporary French writing.Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Degree Zero Voices: The Empty Narrator2 Disorderly Narratives: The Order of Narration3 Unreal Stories: The ‘effet d’irréel’4 Being Serious: Modiano’s Use of History5 Being Playful: Parody and Disappointment6 Being Popular: The Modiano Novel7 Being a Woman: Mothers and Lovers8 Being Eternal: The Endless Recurrence of Time and WritingNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.This book explores the emergence and development of terraforming in science fiction from H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) to James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar (2009). Terraforming is the process of making other worlds habitable for human life. Its counterpart on Earth – geoengineering – has begun to receive serious consideration as a way to address the effects of climate change. This book asks how science fiction has imagined the ways we shape both our world and other planets and how stories of terraforming reflect on science, society and environmentalism. It traces the growth of the motif of terraforming in stories by such writers as H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon in the UK, American pulp science fiction by Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, the counter cultural novels of Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin and Ernest Callenbach, and Pamela Sargent’s Venus trilogy, Frederick Turner’s epic poem of terraforming, Genesis, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s acclaimed Mars trilogy. It explores terraforming as a nexus for environmental philosophy, the pastoral, ecology, the Gaia hypothesis, the politics of colonisation and habitation, tradition and memory. This book shows how contemporary environmental awareness and our understanding of climate change is influenced by science fiction, and how terraforming in particular has offered scientists, philosophers, and many other readers a motif to aid in thinking in complex ways about the human impact on planetary environments. Amidst contemporary anxieties about climate change, terraforming offers an important vantage from which to consider the ways humankind shapes and is shaped by their world.Trade Review'Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction is the first study to trace the historical development of environmental science fiction, and it convincingly frames this development within the genre’s representation of planetary adaptation...Pak’s is a very good book.'Professor Eric Otto, Florida Gulf Coast University'Pak’s magisterially complete history of the idea of terraforming marks an important milestone in science fiction studies. He rightly sees the terraforming concept as the ideal test-bed for an astonishingly wide range of crucial gedankenexperiments in many fields. His analysis of the social, political, philosophical, spiritual, and moral dilemmas that the terraforming genre offers—humanity’s place in nature only the most obvious--makes this a book of importance far beyond the science fiction community.'Frederick Turner'Terraforming is a solid contribution to exploring the global weirding elements of speculative fiction and ecological futures—catastrophic, wonderful, and mundane.' Andrew Hageman, Paradoxa'Terraforming is an eminently readable, enjoyable, and a well-informed criticism of selected science-fiction narratives.'Andrew Rowcroft, The British Society for Literature and Science'Pak’s volume is indispensable to the study of terraforming stories. Both science fiction scholars and environmental theorists will find in this book a broad history of a complex idea expressed clearly and cogently. Pak explores an impressive number of texts and traces the development of terraforming sf with a deep understanding of its complexities, its social origins, and its philosophical import. This is a timely study that will surely become seminal to future scholars of terraforming stories.' James Hamby, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts‘Pak's Terraforming certainly rises to the challenge, making a strong case for ecological science fiction not simply as an important subliterature worthy of attention by English specialists but also as a mode of creative mythopoesis.’ Gerry Canavan, Science Fiction Studies‘This is an important book and will be essential reading for scholars of ecocriticism and of the development of ideas in SF.’ Anthony Nanson, The BSFA Review‘Such a wide-ranging examination inevitably runs the risk of becoming unwieldy, or of collapsing under the weight of its own ambitious scope. Pak’s grasp of his material, however, is hugely impressive, and he moves with confidence through the whole of twentieth-century sf.’ Thomas Connolly, SFRA Review ‘Pak’s decades-spanning analysis of terraforming is an impressive work. It finds in sf an opportunity for a“disciplined thought experiment” (Pak 8)—a space for speculations about the future, yes, but also and especially for reflections on the present.’ Benjamin R. DeVries, Fafnir—Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy ResearchTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Terraforming: Engineering Imaginary Environments 1: Landscaping Nature’s Otherness in Pre-1960s Terraforming and Proto-Gaian Stories 2: The American Pastoral and the Conquest of Space 3: Ecology and Environmental Awareness in 1960s-1970s Terraforming Stories 4: Edging Toward an Eco-Cosmopolitan Vision 5: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy Conclusion Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisTouchstones examines the ways in which John McGahern became a writer through his reading. This reading, it is shown, was both extensive and intensive, and tended towards immersion in the classics. As such, new insights are provided into McGahern’s admiration and use of writers as diverse as Dante Alighieri, William Blake, James Joyce, Albert Camus and several others. Evidence for these claims is found both through close reading of McGahern’s published texts as well as unprecedented sleuthing in his extensive archive of papers held at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The ultimate intention of the book is to draw attention to the very literary and writerly nature of McGahern as an artist, and to place him, not just as a great Irish writer, but as part of a long and venerable European tradition.Trade ReviewReviews 'Well-organized, well-written, passionate when needed, and intensely readable... I was thrilled to find so much that is new in Shovlin’s study.' Eamonn Wall, Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies, University of Missouri-St. Louis'Frank Shovlin elegantly and insightfully weaves a tapestry of allusions and linkages around [McGahern's] work.'Ruth Gilligan, Times Literary Supplement'This is a smart, convincing, and approachable study. ... Frank Shovlin’s Touchstones gives abundant insights into how this art came about and as such makes for an ideal introduction to the various influences and precedents at play in John McGahern’s impressive fictional world.'Gerald Dawe, Irish University ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Abbreviations Touching Stones: Matthew Arnold and the Canon 1 We Other Clerks: James Joyce and the Classical Temper 2 A Walking Mirror: Stendhal, Horace, Nietzsche 3 One lone paperback: Tolstoy and Religious Sensibility 4 Magic: The Centrality of W. B. Yeats 5 Instinct: Douglas Stewart and Sex 6 The fume of muscatel: Yeats's Ghosts 7 Bohemian Rhapsody: Patrick Kavanagh and Generation X 8 Absurdity: Camus comes to Clones 9 Aristocracy: Andrew Marvell, W. B. Yeats and the Curse of Cromwell 10 The Consolations of Nothingness: William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Prayer 11 Deliberate Happiness: W. B. Yeats and the Inner Life 12 Stranger in Paradise: Dante and Epic Style Conclusion: What Then? Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA methodologically innovative account of the role of women writers in the development of early psychological theory and practice in the long eighteenth century. Women writers played a central, but hitherto under-recognised, role in the development of the philosophy of mind and its practical outworkings in Romantic era England, Scotland and Ireland. This book focuses on the writings and lives of five leading figures - Anna Barbauld, Honora Edgeworth, Hannah More, Elizabeth Hamilton and Maria Edgeworth - a group of women who differed profoundly in their political, religious and social views but were nevertheless associated through correspondence, family ties and a shared belief in the importance of female education. It shows how through the philosophical language of materiality and embodiment that they developed and the 'enlightened domesticity' that they espoused they transformed educational practice and made substantial interventions into the social reformist politics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Alive to the manifold overlaps between emotional, and often religious, experience and experiment in the developing science of mind at this time, the book illuminates the potential and the limits of domestic Enlightenment, particularly in projects of moral and industrial 'improvement' and casts new light on a wide variety of other fields: the history of science, early psychology and religion, reformist politics and Romanticism, and how all these reflected the political and social fallout of the French Revolution in the first years of the nineteenth century. JOANNA WHARTON is an Early Career Fellow at Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences.Trade ReviewAlthough it is focused on education and philosophy, Wharton's book will give historically oriented scholars in a variety of fields a valuable tool for their own teaching and research. * EUROPEAN ROMANIC REVIEW *Wharton's own style honors the detailed, synthetic, and grounded didactic strategies employed by her four conservative, often devoutly Christian women. This valuable study makes that work not just visible but tangible. * SEL STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE 1500-1900 *Wharton's insightful book offers an original contribution to the fields of eighteenth-century studies and women's studies; its compelling analyses and engaging writing style together make it an absolute page-turner and a pleasure to read. -- Rita J. Dashwood * Eighteenth-Century Fiction *Table of ContentsIntroduction 'Things Themselves': Anna Letitia Barbauld's Lessons and Hymns Honora Edgeworth and the 'experimental science' of education Profession and occlusion: Hannah More's 'vital Christianity' Clearing out the 'rubbish': Elizabeth Hamilton's domestic philosophy 'The spirit of industry': Maria Edgeworth's object lessons Afterword Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA lively exploration of the relation between the arrival of the novel, the literary form that uses life-as-a-journey as its master trope, and the transport revolution in eighteenth-century Britain. In 1700 the fastest coach from London to Manchester took five days. By 1790 the development of the turnpike road system across England had reduced this figure to twenty-seven hours, and both the landscape and the ways in which people experienced it had been radically transformed. This revolution in transport came at the same time as the emergence of the novel as a dominant literary form in Britain. In this highly original reading of some of themajor novelists of the long eighteenth century - Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne and Austen - Chris Ewers shows how these two developments interacted. He argues that this reconfiguration of local geography and the new experience of moving through space at speed had a profound effect upon the narrative and form of the novel, leaving its mark on genre, prose technique, the depiction of class and gender relations and the way texts are structured. It is noaccident, he concludes, that the arrival of the novel, the literary form that uses life-as-a-journey as a master trope, is roughly co-terminous with the revolution of internal transport in Britain. CHRIS EWERS is a lecturer in Eighteenth Century Literature at the University of ExeterTrade ReviewThis book does much to unearth the imprint left by transit systems on the writing of the long eighteenth century, and is elegant in its execution. How novelists responded to the emerging mobilities of their decade, and the corresponding modes of movement of their characters, is at last given the attention it has been waiting for. * THE CAMBRIDGE QUARTERLY *Fresh vistas are here to discover in this busy, enthusiastic book. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Fills an important gap itself by demonstrating how 'the extended prose narratives of the 1700s mirror the extended range of spatial experience that accompanied the transport revolution' (p. 190). * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *Mobility in the English Novel provides a compelling complement to recent studies of global mobility . . . demonstrating, through its series of sensitive, imaginative arguments, the literary origins of the modern freedom of movement that many people are missing acutely right now, and some have never really had. * EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Mobility and the eighteenth-century novel Travelling by sea and land in Robinson Crusoe Tom Jones and the epic of mobility Smollett and the changing landscape of the ramble Sterne and the invention of speed Crash: Sentimental journeys and alternative mobilities Northanger Abbey and the Austen's 'wandering story' Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA major history of the evolution of political journalism in the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period. The reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) saw a remarkable boom in political journalism and newspaper culture in London, in which some of the leading literary lights of the age, Swift, Defoe, Addison, Steele, were heavily involved. While scholars have dealt at length with the physical development and circulation of these newspapers and with their literary contribution, much less has been done to trace the evolving ideologies of London's political newspapers in this period. In this major contribution to the study of eighteenth-century political culture, Ashley Marshall shows how the ideologies of the leading papers evolved in direct and indirect response to one another. She offers provocative re-readings of well-known journals, including Defoe's Review, Swift's Examiner and the various publishing ventures of Richard Steele, and first accounts of the wealth of smaller, short-lived journals which made up the ecosystem of periodical publishing at the time. A ground-breaking final chapter looks at the radically different ways in which periodical writers imagined and addressed their public. Drawing out the distinction between the Whig ideal of a highly engaged citizenry and a Tory press which conditioned its readers to be dutiful subjects rather than active citizens, Marshall argues that these rhetorical differences reflected an ongoing debate about the ultimate role of journalism.Trade ReviewThere is no question that Marshall's monograph finds itself affixed to an extensive historiographical lineage, with academic interest in early eighteenth-century British publishing going back decades. But due to its distinctive breadth of content, its novel approach to examining the broader influence of the relevant news writers, and its immensely accommodating bibliography, Political Journalism in London should receive consideration as the new standard-bearer of the field. -- H-NET REVIEWSThis book is both an excellent overview of the existing scholarship and an original contribution to knowledge of early political journalism. It shows Marshall's trademark erudition and attention to nuance and complexity, and it is written clearly enough to appeal to nonspecialists. Essential. * CHOICE *In her discussions of major authors (Swift, Defoe, and Steele), Marshall introduces a wealth of scholarship and endeavors to build upon and then thread between others' positions. * EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INTELLIGENCER *With this monograph, Marshall makes a substantial and even provocative contribution to the study of political journalism in London during a key time of transition in British history. * JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Culture of Political Journalism, 1695-1714 Early Hanoverian Political Journalism, 1714-1720 Power and Politics in Defoe's Radical Review Swift, Oldisworth, and St. John: The High Toryism of The Examiner Steele's Party Journalism The Journalists on Popular Politics and Public Engagement Conclusion: Journalism and Authority Appendix: London Political Newspapers and Periodicals, 1695-1720: A Tabular Representation Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis collection of essays addresses a very broad range of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s most significant works, examining them through the lens of “transgression.” Transgression bears relevance to Hoffmann’s life and professions in three ways. First, his official career path was that of jurisprudence; he was active as a lawyer, a judge and eventually as one of the most important magistrates in Berlin. Second, his personal life was marked by numerous conflicts with political and social authorities. Seemingly no matter where he went, he experienced much chaos, grief and impoverishment in leading his always precarious existence. Third, his works explore characters and concepts beyond the boundaries of what was considered aesthetically acceptable. “Normal” bourgeois existence was often juxtaposed to the lives of criminals, sinners, and other deviants, both within the spaces of the known world as well as in supernatural realms. He, perhaps more than any other author of the German Romantic movement, regularly portrayed the dark side of existence in his works, including unconscious psychological phenomena, nightmares, somnambulism, vampirism, mesmerism, Doppelgänger, and other forms of transgressive behavior. It is the intention of this volume to provide a new look at Hoffmann’s very diverse body of work from numerous perspectives, stimulating interest in Hoffmann in English language audiences.Trade ReviewReviews'This new resource is both enjoyable and thoroughly thought-provoking—and so is well worth consultation by faculty and students.'Seán Williams, European Romantic Review'Transgressive Romanticism engages its central spatial metaphor to make Hoffmann’s complex potential as a protorealist clear: expertly attuned to the forms of life and literature with which he was familiar, while always ready to subvert and think beyond them.'Polly Dickson, German Studies ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction --- Christopher R. Clason, Oakland UniversityI. Transgression and Institutions1. “A poor, imprisoned animal.” Persons, Property, and the Unnatural Nature of the Law in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Das Majorat.” --- Alexander Schlutz, John Jay College and CUNY Graduate Center2. Vergiftete Gaben: Violating the Laws of Hospitality in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “Das Fräulein von Scuderi” --- Peter Erickson, Colorado State University 3. Transgressive Science in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Fantastic Tales --- Paola Mayer, University of GuelphII. Transgression and the Arts4. E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Bamberg Theater --- Frederick Burwick, University of California, Los Angeles5. Transitions and Slippages of Mimesis in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der goldene Topf,” “Die Fermate,” and “Das öde Haus.” --- Beate Allert, Purdue University6. Transgressions: On the (De-)Figuration of the Vampire in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “Vampyrism" --- Nicole Sütterlin, Harvard UniversityIII. Transgression in the Märchen 7. Transgressive Play and Uncanny Toys in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Das fremde Kind” --- Christina Weiler, Purdue University8. Attending to the Everyday: Idiosyncrasy in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Golden Pot” --- Ruth Kellar, University of Wisconsin, Madison9. Prinzessin Brambilla: The Aesthetic between Public and Private --- Howard Pollack-Millgate, DePauw UniversityIV. Transgression of Reception in Kater Murr10. Hoffmann’s “Two Worlds” and the Problem of Life-Writing --- Julian Knox, Georgia College11. “Real Humor Cannot Be Captured in a Novel”: Kierkegaard Reading E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr --- James Rasmussen, United States Air Force AcademyWorks CitedIndex

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this work is available on Modern Languages Open (https://www.modernlanguagesopen.org/). On 12 March 2018, Mauritius celebrated fifty years as an independent nation amidst much fanfare. Yet behind the nation’s official image of multicultural ‘unity in diversity’ lurk deep socio-economic inequalities and inter-ethnic tensions that are insistently critiqued in its literature. Against this backdrop, this book analyses how the idea of belonging – a sense of attachment to, and identification with, a place or people – is problematised in a range of contemporary francophone Mauritian novels. The island-nation’s complex history and the multi-ethnic composition of its modern-day population mean that belonging is a central but fraught issue in both reality and fiction. Waters explores how diverse forms of affirmative, affective belonging intersect with, and are frequently inhibited by, exclusionary ‘politics of belonging’ at communal, national or international levels. Using an eclectic theoretical approach to the central concept of belonging, Waters offers in-depth textual analyses of novels by leading Mauritian writers Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, Bertrand de Robillard, Amal Sewtohul and Carl de Souza. Despite their thematic and formal diversity, these novels are shown to be characterised by a common rejection of dominant discourses of ethnic, diasporic affiliation and by a common commitment to the ongoing, future-orientated project of Mauritian nationhood. As such, this book offers an original insight into the dynamics of belonging and exclusion in diverse, multi-ethnic societies.Trade ReviewReviews'In this insightful book, Julia Waters provides new perspectives to chart the Mauritian 21st century novel - these stimulating and provocative essays illustrate the challenge provided by both the varied subject matter and the critical lenses adopted.' Kumari R Issur, University of MauritiusTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Problem of Belonging in Mauritius1. Belonging to the Moment: Carl de Souza’s Les Jours Kaya2. Belonging to the Island: Nathacha Appanah’s Blue Bay Palace and Ananda Devi’s Ève de ses décombres3. Belonging Nowhere: Shenaz Patel’s Le Silence des Chagos4. Everyday Belonging: Bertrand de Robillard’s L’Homme qui penche and Une interminable distraction au monde5. Nomadic Belonging: Amal Sewtohul’s Histoire d’Ashok et d’autres personnages de moindre importance and Made in MauritiusConclusion: Over the RainbowBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched. Haitian writers have made profound contributions to debates about the converging paths of political and natural histories, yet their reflections on the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism are often neglected in heated disputes about the future of human life on the planet. The 2010 earthquake only exacerbated this contradiction. Despite the fact that Haitian authors have long treated the connections between political violence, precariousness, and ecological degradation, in media coverage around the world, the earthquake would have suddenly exposed scandalous conditions on the ground in Haiti. This book argues that contemporary Haitian literature historicizes the political and environmental problems brought to the surface by the earthquake by building on texts of earlier generations, especially at the end of the Duvalier era and its aftermath. Informed by Haitian studies and models of postcolonial ecocriticism, the book conceives of literature as an “eco-archive,” or a body of texts that depicts ecological change over time and its impact on social and environmental justice. Focusing equally on established and less well-known authors, the book contends that the eco-archive challenges future-oriented, universalizing narratives of the Anthropocene and the global refugee crisis with portrayals of different forms and paths of migration and refuge within Haiti and around the Americas.Trade Review'Walsh provides a well-written and well-researched piece of work, one that scholars of Haiti will be excited to read. The book carries out a close ecocritical engagement with Haitian literature, using a broad corpus of primary works and drawing on the extensive body of recent work in Haitian studies. Walsh is a thoughtful and sensitive reader, and with this work further establishes himself as a leading scholar of Haiti.' Martin Munro, Florida State University‘Dans une approche internationale qui commence à dépasser l’attitude de déni pour mettre en relief les problématiques concernant l’environnement et les relations historiques et humaines, ce volume nous permet d’alimenter le débat et nous offre une bonne démarche de travail.’ -- ‘In an international approach that is beginning to go beyond the attitude of denial to highlight environmental issues and historical and human relations, this volume allows us to fuel the debate and offers us a good working approach.’ Emanuela Cacchioli, Studi Francesi‘The book is persuasive in the best ways: gently, intelligently, insistently, so that it achieves finally something that is quite rare—it leads you to rethink a whole literary tradition in ways that will resonate for years and generations to come.' Martin Munro, New West Indian Guide Table of ContentsIntroduction: "Tè glise, Continents à la dérive: Haiti between Shifting Continents, Past and Present"I. The Eco-ArchiveCh. 1 "For an Eco-Archive"Ch. 2 "Haitian Odysseys"II. Literary WitnessesCh. 3 "The Banality of Disaster"Ch. 4 "The Distant Literary Witness and the Ghosts of History in the ‘Other America’"III. The Anthropocene from BelowCh. 5 "Fictions of Migration and Refuge from the Anthropocene"Epilogue: "Land and Seas of Migration and Refuge, Past and Present"

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Book SynopsisThe rapidity of postwar globalization and the structural changes it has brought to both social and spatial aspects of everyday life has meant, in France as elsewhere, the destabilizing of senses of place, identity, and belonging, as once familiar, local environments are increasingly de-localized and made porous to global trends and planetary preoccupations. Maps and Territories identifies such preoccupations as a fundamental underlying impetus for the contemporary French novel. Indeed, like France itself, the protagonists of its best fiction are constantly called upon to renegotiate their identity in order to maintain any sense of belonging within the troubled territories they call home. Maps and Territories reads today’s French novel for how it re-maps such territories, and for how it positions its protagonists vis-à-vis the pressures of globalization, uncovering previously unseen affinities amongst, and offering fresh readings of—and offering exciting new perspectives on—a diverse set of authors: namely, Michel Houellebecq, Chloé Delaume, Lydie Salvayre, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Virginie Despentes, Philippe Vasset, Jean Rolin, and Marie Darrieussecq. In the process, it sets the literary works into dialogue with a range of today’s most influential theorists of postmodernity and globalization, including Paul Virilio, Marc Augé, Peter Sloterdijk, Bruno Latour, Fredric Jameson, Edward Casey, David Harvey, and Ursula K. Heise.Trade Review'This book importantly addresses questions that are at the very heart of contemporary debates about our relationship to space and places in a world where borders and distance are being redefined by the forces of globalization.' Jean-Xavier Ridon, University of Nottingham'Its wide-ranging corpus, ambitious scope, and nuanced readings make Armstrong’s study an essential starting point for anyone interested in the current state of contemporary French fiction, and a persuasive account of the concerted way in which that fiction is capturing the profound social, physical, and psychical effects of globalization.' Edward Welch, Modern Language Review'[The book] provides insightful examples of how the French view their own sense of belonging within the dynamics of new territories and realities. [...] Maps and Territories is extremely useful for scholars of contemporary French novels. His clear prose and thoughtful commentary help explain the unease that a changing postwar France experiences today. Thanks to Armstrong's thoughtful analysis, we better understand pressures facing an ever-increasing urbanized society in France and the world.'Kory Olson, L'Esprit CréateurTable of ContentsIntroductionI. Watching the World Go ByChapter One: Absolute Clarity: Michel Houellebecq’s La carte et le territoireChapter Two: Dérive psychose géographique: Chloé Delaume’s J’habite dans la télévisionII. Getting Up to SpeedChapter Three: Planetary Ambitions: Lydie Salvayre’s Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestiqueChapter Four: Décalage Permanent: Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s FuirIII. Falling Through the CracksChapter Five: A Tale of Two Frances: Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex TrilogyChapter Six: Deep Dérive: Philippe Vasset’s La conjurationIV. Making RoomChapter Seven: Asymmetrical Tactics: Jean Rolin’s OrmuzChapter Eight: Sense of Planet: Marie Darrieussecq’s Le paysConclusionWorks Cited

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Book SynopsisThe meaning of life is a common concern, but what is the meaning of midlife? With the help of illustrious writers such as Dante, Montaigne, Beauvoir, Goethe, and Beckett, The Midlife Mind sets out to answer this question. Erudite but engaging, it takes a personal approach to that most impersonal of processes, aging. From the ancients to the moderns, from poets to playwrights, writers have long meditated on how we can remain creative as we move through our middle years. There are no better guides, then, to how we have regarded middle age in the past, how we understand it in the present, and how we might make it as rewarding as possible in the future.Trade Review"In this elegantly essayistic book, Hutchinson contemplates the central stretch of our human existence. Personal as well as learned, conversational but braced, it ranges widely through European cultures (Dante to Beckett, Montaigne to Beauvoir) and reminds us that being caught in the middle, with or without a crisis, can produce opportunities as well as restriction. Its great distinction is to respond to both with wise and warmhearted understanding." -- Andrew Motion, Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, author of "Ways of Life: On Places, Painters and Poets" "Weaving granular readings of major literary renderings of midlife with reflections on his own, Hutchinson's The Midlife Mind is more than another book 'about' middle age. Mobilizing the qualities of irony and self-awareness for which it advocates, it is an elegant and absorbing performance of middle age as a preferred mode of writing and living." -- Josh Cohen, professor of modern literary theory, Goldsmiths, University of London, psychoanalyst, author of "Not Working: Why We Have to Stop" "Hutchinson has reached middle age (forty-three) and uses his own experience of aging and what some famous writers have said about midlife to explore its meaning. He first sets the cultural context (it turns out that the 'midlife crisis,' like Philip Larkin's 'sexual intercourse,' began as a concept in the 1960s), drawing on philosophers ancient and modern but especially on Michel de Montaigne, who withdrew from political and social life at the ripe old age of thirty-eight to compose his famous essays. Hutchinson then skillfully invokes a wide range of creative writers, including Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, George Eliot, Henry James, TS Eliot, Samuel Beckett, and Simone de Beauvoir, for their experiences and views. It consoles him that some of the finest works of art have been produced in middle age." * The Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisAn enlightening, nuanced, and accessible introduction to the life and work of one of the greatest writers of short fiction in history. Anton Chekhov's stories and plays endure, far beyond the Russian context, as outstanding modern literary models. In a brief, remarkable life, Chekhov rose from lower-class, provincial roots to become a physician, leading writer, and philanthropist, all in the face of a progressive fatal disease. In this new biography, Michael C. Finke analyzes Chekhov's major stories, plays, and nonfiction in the context of his life, both fleshing out the key features of Chekhov's poetics of prose and drama and revealing key continuities across genres, as well as between his lesser-studied early writings and the later works. An excellent resource for readers new to Chekhov, this book also presents much original scholarship and is an accessible, comprehensive overview of one of the greatest modern dramatists and writers of short fiction in history.Trade Review“A crown achievement of his life-time engagement with Chekhov, Finke’s concise biography tells a compelling and comprehensive story of the Russian writer’s life and work. Written with surgical precision and creative sensitivity, this highly readable book pulsates with a multitude of insights into Chekhov as a person and an artist. Freedom from Violence and Lies will be a treasure for anyone interested in Russian literature and this great beloved writer.” -- Radislav Lapushin, Associate Professor of Russian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill“This valuable guide to the last great Russian writer of the nineteenth century achieves an exceptional balance between the life and the work. A wealth of biographical detail is harmoniously intertwined with rich analysis of Chekhov’s literary work, abounding with original and perspicacious interpretations. Chekhov’s life is studied in its two parallel streams—those of a writer’s career and of a medical professional. The latter further reveals competing lines of travail: as a practicing doctor, as a philanthropist, and as a student of the history and sociology of health care. The reader will enjoy a charming image of the writer, but also frequent, delicate reflections on the unique problems a scholar of Chekhov encounters, fascinating excavations into the deeper reaches of Chekhov’s work, and subtle commentaries on his poetics. An intellectual endeavor of considerable complexity, Finke’s book will have a distinguished place amidst the vast literature on Chekhov.” -- Savely Senderovich, Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature and Medieval Studies, Cornell University

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Book SynopsisDidactics and the Modern Robinsonade examines modern and contemporary Robinsonade texts written for young readers, looking specifically at the ways in which later adaptations of the Robinson Crusoe story subvert both traditional narrative structures and particular ideological codes within the genre. This collection redresses both the gender and geopolitical biases that have characterized most writings within the Robinsonade genre since its inception, and includes chapters on little-known works of fiction by female authors, as well as works from outside the mainstream of Anglo-American culture.Trade Review'Ian Kinane discerns the beginnings of a post-colonial didactics entering the Robinsonade […] Kinane is marking a significant shift away from the Euro-centric Robinsonade’s allegiance to the colonialist ideology that undergrided the genre for two centuries. […] The young reader, viewing the world through Karana or Friday’s eyes, perceives the perversions and injustices of imperial power.'Susan Naramore Maher, Children’s Literature Association QuarterlyTable of ContentsForeword: The Progressive Pedagogies of the Modern Robinsonade - Andrew O’MalleyIntroduction: The Robinsonade Genre and the Didactic Impulse: A Reassessment - Ian Kinane1. ‘What a Crusoe crowd we shall make!’: Destabilizing Imperialist Attitudes to Space in G. Warren Payne’s Three Boys in Antarctica - Sinead Moriarty2. Borrowing (from) Crusoe: Library Books and Identity Formation in the Irish Free State - Mairéad Mooney and Clíona Ó Gallchoir3. Navigating Nationhood, Gender, and the Robinsonade in The Dreams of Myfanwy - Siwan M. Rosser4. Call it Courage and the Survival of the Imperial Robinsonade - Clive Barnes5. Shifting Perspectives in Two Mid-Twentieth Century Robinsonades - Ian Kinane6. Between Communitas and Pantheism: Terry Pratchett’s Nation as a Post-Christian Robinsonade for a Post-Colonial World - Anja Höing7. Romance, the Robinsonade, and the Cultivation of Adolescent Female Desire in Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens - Amy Hicks

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Book SynopsisThe Epistolary Art of Catherine the Great is the first study to analyse comprehensively the letters of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia (reigned 1762-1796) and to argue that they constitute a masterpiece of eighteenth-century epistolary writing. In this book, Kelsey Rubin-Detlev traces Catherine’s development as a letter-writer, her networking strategies, and her image-making, demonstrating the centrality of ideas, literary experimentation, and manipulation of material form evident in Catherine’s epistolary practice. Through this, Rubin-Detlev illustrates how Catherine’s letters reveal her full engagement with the Enlightenment and further show how creatively she absorbed and responded to the ideas of her century. The letter was not merely a means by which the empress promoted Russia and its leader as European powers; it was a literary genre through which Catherine expressed her identity as a member of the social, political, and intellectual elite of her century.Trade ReviewReviews'The monograph truly brings to life the complexity of Catherine’s voice as reflected in her letter writing art as it evolved over decades. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural history of the eighteenth century, and an inspiring example of cultural and literary analysis of epistolary heritage.'American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), from their 2020 book awards.'The book exhibits great imagination in the range of skills Rubin-Detlev demonstrates in spanning the broad historical grasp, theorisations of the letter genre and of gender construction as well as a fine sense of nuance when teasing out subtleties of evolving word usage or cliché, the nuances of Catherine’s switching between languages, and textual detail. All of these facets are seamlessly integrated with an engaging and imaginative writing style especially impressive in a first book.'Prof. Judith Pallot (Christ Church, Oxford) and Prof. Jeremy Hicks (Queen Mary University of London), judges of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Alexander Nove Prize 2019.‘Kelsey Rubin-Detlev’s monograph... constitutes an important contribution to the study of the sources of the time of Catherine II.’ Aleksandr Lavrov, Cahiers du Monde russe (translated from French)Table of ContentsList of illustrationsAcknowledgementsList of abbreviationsNote on dates, quotations and transliteration Introduction: Catherine the Great, letter-writing and the elite EnlightenmentThe letters of Catherine the GreatThe elite Enlightenment of Catherine the GreatChapter 1: Catherine the epistolarianCatherine’s epistolary education: 1742-1762Catherine’s début: 1762-1774In transition: 1774-1781Mastery: 1781-1789An Enlightenment monarch in a Revolutionary world: 1789-1796Catherine’s epistolary geographyCatherine and her contemporariesChapter 2: Catherine the Great and eighteenth-century epistolary styleLettres galantesLettres familièresPortrait and narrative lettersLove lettersChapter 3: Fashioning the great Enlightenment monarchGender and epistolary self-fashioningCatherine’s image as an Enlightenment intellectualFashioning greatnessThe correct exercise of military mightCompensating for military heroism: flourishing provincesPatronage of the arts and sciencesEthical greatnessThe legislatorChapter 4: The play of authority in epistolary formAuthority and linguistic masteryAuthority and writing practicesEpistolary etiquettePaper useDatelinesSalutationsClosersForegoing etiquetteAffection-seeking formulaePostscriptsSignatures, addresses and attachmentsChapter 5: Epistolary publicity and the audience for Catherine’s correspondencesThe injunction against publicationBuilding reputation through networks of epistolary sociabilityManaging celebrity through epistolary circulationFrom reputation to glory: writing for posterity by addressing gens de mériteChapter 6: Greatness contested: Catherine’s epistolary response to the French RevolutionChronology of Catherine’s epistolary actions against the French RevolutionOld and new in Catherine’s epistolary styleGreatness contested: confronting the pastConclusion: new readers and new ways of reading Catherine’s lettersBibliography of works citedArchival sourcesEditions of Catherine’s lettersSecondary sources: EnglishSecondary sources: FrenchSecondary sources: RussianSecondary sources: GermanSecondary sources: ItalianIndex

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Book SynopsisLemography is a unique collection of critical essays on Stanislaw Lem, writer and philosopher. Its aim is to introduce aspects of his work hitherto unknown or neglected by scholarship and evaluate his influence on twentieth-century literature and culture—and beyond. The book’s uniqueness is enhanced by the global makeup of the contributors who hail from Canada, United States, Great Britain, Germany, Croatia, Poland, Sweden and Finland. In all cases, these are scholars and translators who for many years have pursued, and in some cases defined, Lem scholarship. Rather than study Lem as a science fiction writer, each essay commands a wider sphere of reference in order to appraise Lem’s literary and philosophical contributions. Each focuses on a different novel (or set of novels) from the writer’s opus, examining them critically. Between them, the essays cover virtually all phases of Lem’s multidimensional career, ensuring comprehensive coverage.Trade ReviewReviews 'As Lem scholarship grows in size, readers will find plenty of well-articulated thought in these works to ponder upon.' Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction'Read Lem. And read Swirski. Or the other way around. Whichever way you do it, just do it.' The Montreal Review'Lemography and Swirski’s Philosopher of the Future are multi-faceted and original contributions.'Science Fiction Studies‘All in all, this is an excellent edited collection that deepens our understanding of Lem’s work and legacy, and it will hopefully spur further research into Lem’s oeuvre.’ Michael Godhe, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Table of Contents Lem Redux: From Poland to the World - WACLAW M. OSADNIK and PETER SWIRSKI The Unknown Lem: Man From Mars, The Astronauts, The Magellan Nebula - PETER SWIRSKI Investigating the Investigation: Mystery Narratives in The Investigation and The Chain of Chance - DAVID SEED Embodiment Problems: Adapting Solaris to Film - NICHOLAS RUDDICK The Hilarious and Serious Teachings of Lem’s Robot Fables: The Cyberiad - BO PETTERSSON Literature, Futurology, or Philosophy? The Futurological Congress - IRIS VIDMAR and PETER SWIRSKI Problems and Dilemmas:Lem’s Golem XIV - VICTOR YAZNEVICH Lem, Cervantes, and Metafiction: Peace on Earth and Fiasco - KENNETH KRABBENHOFT Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisStanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem’s life, career, and literary legacy to light. Part One traces the context of his cultural influence, telling the story of one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century. It includes a comprehensive critical overview of Lem’s literary and philosophical oeuvre which comprises not only the classics like Solaris, but his untranslated first novels, realistic prose, experimental works, volumes of nonfiction, latter-day metafiction, as well as the final twenty years of polemics and essays. The critical and interpretive Part Two examines a range of Lem’s novels with a view to examining the intellectual vistas they open up before us. It focuses on several of Lem’s major but less studied books. “Game, Set, Lem” uses game theory to shed light on his arguably most surreal novel, the Kafkaesque and claustrophobic Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961). “Betrization Is the Worst Solution… Except for All Others” takes a close look at the quasi-utopia of Return From the Stars (1961) and at the concept of ethical cleansing and mandatory de-aggression. “Errare Humanum Est” focuses on the popular science thriller The Invincible (1964) in the context of evolution. “A Beachbook for Intellectuals” is a critical fugue on Lem’s medical thriller cum crime mystery, The Chain of Chance (1976). Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future closes with a two-part coda. “Fiasco” recapitulates and reflects on the literary and cognitive themes of Lem’s farewell novel, and “Happy End of the World!” reviews The Blink of an Eye, Lem’s farewell book of analyses and prognoses from the cusp of our millennium.Trade ReviewReviews 'An indispensable contribution to Lem studies. No critic is ever likely to do a better job of summarizing Lem’s entire oeuvre and meting out cognitive justice to this philosopher of the future than Swirski.' Nicholas Ruddick'A worthy addition to Lem criticism. Divided in three parts, a biographical section, essays on Lem’s work and a coda, and featuring eleven photographs, the work offers a panoramic view of Lem’s oeuvre and ideas.' Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction'Peter Swirski’s book is impressive: it demonstrates a grasp of a very large body of knowledge… Swirski conveys Lem thoroughly yet in the most entertaining way. This marriage of the heavy and the light, the profound and the playful, is a great achievement and mirrors the Polish master.' Michael Kandel, translator of major works of Stanislaw Lem including Fiasco, His Master's Voice, and The Cyberiad'An indispensable contribution to Lem studies. No critic is ever likely to do a better job of summarizing Lem’s entire oeuvre and meting out cognitive justice to this philosopher of the future than Swirski.' Nicholas Ruddick, author of Fire in the Stone: Prehistoric Fiction from Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel'Swirski does an amazing job… must-read not only for the admirers of Lem but for all who see literature and philosophy as relevant for what they tell us about ourselves.'Philosophy in Review'A great road map into the technological new world… Swirski added another layer to the portrait of the artist… conclusively seals his status as a world-wide leading expert on Lem.'The Montreal Review'Swirski does an admirable job bringing a wide range of disciplines to bear on the work of a thinker whose importance to fields as diverse as literature, science, and philosophy cannot be overestimated.'Science Fiction Studies‘Swirski approaches Lem’s fiction with accuracy, originality, and nuance, providing an inquisitive blueprint for further explorations into Lem’s work and into wider Science Fiction from a finely tuned, more practically minded, perspective.’ Joe Howsin, Fantastika Journal ‘It should also appeal to readers who have admired his work for a long time. In this sense, the monograph is both an introduction to and a thorough exploration of Lem’s oeuvre and intellectual legacy: a wonderful place for any scholar new to Lem to start.’ Michael Godhe, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Table of ContentsCOGITO ERGO LEM A Hard Nut to Crack—Pas de Deux—The Blink of the Cosmic Eye PART I: BIOGRAPHY CHAPTER 1. LIFE AND TIMES A Master of Thrills and Chills—The Reading of This Book Is Good for You—Renaissance Polymath—Lemberg—Highcastle—Well Over 180—Operation Barbarossa—Jan Donabidowicz—Lvov to Cracow—Social Parasite—The Genre In Which I Write—Borges for the Space Age—A Writing Consortium—Wissenschaftskolleg—Away From the Typewriter—On the Sidelines—Encyclopedic Oracle CHAPTER 2. IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF BOOKS Ariadne’s Thread—The New World of Adventure—The Other Inner Planet—Different Face—Allegorical Pen—SimCity—Hylas and Philonous—The Tricky Relation—The Golden Phase—A Happy Ending—Ammer-Ka—Out Yonder In Space—Dicty—The Seat of His Pants—Of Extraterrestrial Origin—A Critical Point—Cat’s Cradle— Hypertrophic Trends—Hoary Fallacy—Homo Rationis Capax—Der Völkermord—The Thanatos Syndrome—After the Last Goosebump Has Vanished—The Entire Human Race—Trompe l’Oeil—LEM!—My Farewell—Moratorium—The World According to Lem—Man and Machine PART II: ESSAYS CHAPTER 3. GAME, SET, LEM Ariadne’s Thread—Cold War Hysteria—The Third Pentagon—Nuclear-age Quixote—The Lottery in Babylon—I-Guess-What-You-Guess-What-I-Guess—Barnaby the Scrivener—Whoops! Apocalypse!—The Mission—Minimax/Maximin—The Mission Game—Subjective Rationality—The Collusion Game—Dead Men Don’t Tell Lies—An Allegorical Everyman—The Decipherment of Linear B CHAPTER 4. BETRIZATION IS THE WORST SOLUTION… EXCEPT FOR ALL OTHERS Time Machine—Word Become Flesh—Defanging the Human Beast—La bête humaine—The Hobbesian Premise—It Can’t Happen Here—50-50—Bennett, Trimaldi and Zakharov—The Technological Grail—Less Than Human—Chihuahuas in Eden—Nietzschean Superman—Droids, Borgs, and Bots—One for the Old Generation, One for the New—D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r CHAPTER 5. ERRARE HUMANUM EST The Invincible Has Landed—Models of Inquiry—From Literature to Biterature—The Alien as Alien—Knowledge and Metaknowledge—Regis III—Part of the Landscape—Nature Plays Fair—Ch. I., Ch. Ph., Ch. T., Ch. B.—Omnia Vincit Armor—Dictyostelium discoideum—Overzealous Carpenters—The Infallible CHAPTER 6. A BEACHBOOK FOR INTELLECTUALS A Novel of Ideas—Gun for Hire—Whodunit with Probability as the Butler—The Devil’s Parody of the Movies—The Locked Room—Terrorism Is Not a Hardware Issue—Good Cop, Bad Cop—The Garden of Earthly Delights—You, Me, Pulsars, and the Page You’re Reading—Ladykillers—Hero or Not?—Runny Nose—A Writer for All Reasons PART III: CODA CHAPTER 7. FIASCO You’ll See the Quintans—The War of the Worlds—Intelligent and Electronic—Let’s Do It Our Way—Mark Tempe—The Digla—Crystal Ball—To Make a Long Story Short CHAPTER 8. HAPPY END OF THE WORLD! The Blink of an Eye—Glow-In-the-Dark Monkeys—Cerebroproteinal Neuroprocessor—Encyclopedia of Ignorance APPENDIX. STANISLAW LEM: BOOKS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

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Book SynopsisCriminal Moves: Modes of Mobility in Crime Fiction offers a major intervention into contemporary theoretical debates about crime fiction. It seeks to overturn the following preconceptions: that the genre does not warrant critical analysis, that genre norms and conventions matter more than textual individuality, and that comparative perspectives are secondary to the study of the British-American canon. Criminal Moves challenges the distinction between literary and popular fiction and proposes that crime fiction be seen as constantly violating its own boundaries. Centred on three axes of mobility, the essays ask how can we imagine a mobile reading practice that realizes the genre’s full textual complexity, without being limited by the authoritative self-interpretations provided by crime narratives; how we can overcome restrictive notions of ‘genre’, ‘formula’ or ‘popular’; and how we can establish transnational perspectives that challenge the centrality of the British-American tradition and recognize that the global history of crime fiction is characterized, not by the existence of parallel national traditions, but rather by processes of appropriation and transculturation. Criminal Moves presents a comprehensive reinterpretation of the history of the genre that also has profound ramifications for how we read individual crime fiction texts.Trade ReviewReviews'The three editors of this rich collective volume are driven by the ambitious desire to radically revise crime fiction studies, sweeping away existing prejudices and providing a new conceptual framework to the study of the genre... in a few years, this work will be acknowledged as a turning point in the history of crime scholarship.'Stefano Serafini, Linguæ &'Criminal Moves is an excellent resource for scholars who are reconsidering how they research and teach foundational texts in the crime fiction genre. It can also help readers identify ways to analyse and appreciate transnational works outside of the traditional British-American canon without confining them to a fixed taxonomy.'Jennifer Schnabel, Crime Fiction Studies'Criminal Moves is an exciting venture. [...] It asks provocative questions about the transparency of narrative. [...] It is the reader, as consumer and companion of the detective and author, who is at the core of the experience. Also, the issue of the reader’s gaze and attention are important considerations.'Fred Isaac, CluesTable of ContentsIntroduction: Criminal Moves: Towards a Theory of Crime Fiction MobilityJesper Gulddal, Stewart King and Alistair RollsMobility of Meaning1. Behind the Locked Door: Leblanc, Leroux and the Anxieties of the Belle ÉpoqueJean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby2. Moving Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab and Breaking the Frame of Poe’s 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue’Alistair Rolls3. Reading Affects in Raymond Chandler’s The Big SleepHeta Pyrhönen4. Contradicting the Golden Age: Reading Agatha Christie in the Twenty-First CenturyMerja MakinenMobility of Genre5. Criminal Minds: Reassessing the Origins of the Psycho-ThrillerMaurizio Ascari6. Foggy Muddle: Narrative, Contingency and Genre Mobility in Dashiell Hammett’s The Dain CurseJesper Gulddal7. Burma’s Bagnoles: Urban Modernity and the Automotive Saccadism of Léo Malet’s Nouveaux mystères de Paris (1954-1959)Andrea Goulet8. Secrecy and Transparency in Hideo Yokoyama’s Six FourAndrew PepperTransnational Mobility9. The Reader and World Crime Fiction: The (Private) Eye of the BeholderStewart King10. From Vidocq to the Locked Room: International Connections in Nineteenth-Century Crime FictionStephen Knight11. Brain Attics and Mind Weapons: Investigative Spaces, Mobility and Transcultural Adaptations of Detective FictionMichael B. Harris-Peyton 

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Book SynopsisAnita Brookner was known for writing boring books about lonely, single women. Misreading Anita Brookner unlocks the mysteries of the famously depressed Brookner heroine by creating entirely new ways to read six Brookner novels.Drawing on Brookner’s legacy as a renowned historian of French Romantic art and on diverse intertextual sources from Charles Baudelaire to Henry James, Renée Vivien and Freud, this book argues that Brookner’s solitary twentieth-century women can also be seen as variations of queer nineteenth-century male artist archetypes. Conjuring a cast of Romantic personae including the flâneur, the dandy, the aesthete, the military man, the queer, the analysand, the degenerate and the storyteller, it illuminates clusters of nineteenth-century behaviours which help decode the lives of Brookner’s twentieth-century women. This exploration of Brookner’s ‘performative Romanticism’ exposes new depths within her outsider introverts, who are revealed as a subversive blend of the historical, the contemporary, the masculine and the feminine.Trade ReviewReviews ‘Anita Brookner deserves this detailed, sophisticated, brilliant reading that appreciates Brookner’s peculiar genius and uncovers the ways in which she “does indeed write a different kind of novel.” Given the intertextual, allusive nature of Brookner’s work and her extraordinary expertise on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European art and literature, Dr Mayer’s “misreading” of Brookner’s “performative romanticism” is entirely appropriate.' Ann Holbrook, Professor of English at Saint Anselm College'By tracing the ways in which Brookner’s intellectual achievements as an art historian informed her fiction, Mayer celebrates the subversive potential of Brookner’s performative Romanticism, and offers an important reevaluation of this author’s too long underrated body of work.'Kathryn Pallant, Contemporary Women's WritingTable of ContentsIntroduction1. The Military Man, the Analysand and the Queer in A Friend from England (1987)2. The Aesthete in A Misalliance (1986)3. The Dandy in Brief Lives (1990)4. The Flâneur in Undue Influence (1999)5. The Degenerate in Falling Slowly (1998)Epilogue

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Book SynopsisLewis Grassic Gibbon galvanised the Scottish literary scene in 1932 with Sunset Song, the first novel of the epic trilogy A Scots Quair, which drew vividly upon his upbringing on a croft in Aberdeenshire to capture the zeitgeist of the early twentieth century and provide a compelling moral mandate for social and political change in the inter-war period. Yet his literary legacy of seventeen volumes produced in his short life, under his own name of James Leslie Mitchell as well as his Scots pseudonym, testify to his versatility, as historian, essayist, biographer and fiction writer. Set against an informed conspectus of the author’s life and times and incorporating substantive new source material, this study highlights his core principles, rooted in his rural upbringing: his restless humanitarianism and his veneration for the natural world. Subsequently, he is seen as a combative writer whose fame in recent years – as cultural nationalist, left-wing libertarian, proto-feminist, neo-romantic visionary and trailblazing modernist – has carried far beyond his native land. In tune with the intellectual climate of the inter-war years, Gibbon emerges as a passionate advocate of revolutionary political activism. In addition, as a profound believer in the overarching primacy of nature, he stands as a supreme practitioner in the field of ecofiction. Coupled with his modernist accomplishments with language and narrative, this firmly establishes him among the foremost fiction writers of the twentieth century – uniquely, one whose achievement has consistently won both critical and popular acclaim.Trade Review'William K. Malcolm's book is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to the life and work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Setting Gibbon's writing within the tumultuous historical contexts of the period, Malcolm portrays a hugely talented and hard-working novelist of radical political commitment whose tragically short life culminated in the achievement of A Scots Quair, one of the great novel sequences in twentieth-century literature in English.'Dr Scott Lyall, Edinburgh Napier UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsBiographical OutlineAbbreviationsNote on the Texts1. Life and background2. Narrative preludes: The Calends of Cairo and Persian Dawns, Egyptian Nights3. The real stuff of history: Hanno, Niger, The Conquest of the Maya and Nine Against the Unknown4. Autofiction: Stained Radiance and The Thirteenth Disciple5. Setting tales upon the truth: Three Go Back, The Lost Trumpet and Gay Hunter6. Haunted by horrors: Image and Superscription and Spartacus7. Distant cousin Lewis Grassic Gibbon: A Scots Quair and Scottish Scene8. LegacyNotesBibliographyFurther Reading

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Book SynopsisLewis Grassic Gibbon galvanised the Scottish literary scene in 1932 with Sunset Song, the first novel of the epic trilogy A Scots Quair, which drew vividly upon his upbringing on a croft in Aberdeenshire to capture the zeitgeist of the early twentieth century and provide a compelling moral mandate for social and political change in the inter-war period. Yet his literary legacy of seventeen volumes produced in his short life, under his own name of James Leslie Mitchell as well as his Scots pseudonym, testify to his versatility, as historian, essayist, biographer and fiction writer. Set against an informed conspectus of the author’s life and times and incorporating substantive new source material, this study highlights his core principles, rooted in his rural upbringing: his restless humanitarianism and his veneration for the natural world. Subsequently, he is seen as a combative writer whose fame in recent years – as cultural nationalist, left-wing libertarian, proto-feminist, neo-romantic visionary and trailblazing modernist – has carried far beyond his native land. In tune with the intellectual climate of the inter-war years, Gibbon emerges as a passionate advocate of revolutionary political activism. In addition, as a profound believer in the overarching primacy of nature, he stands as a supreme practitioner in the field of ecofiction. Coupled with his modernist accomplishments with language and narrative, this firmly establishes him among the foremost fiction writers of the twentieth century – uniquely, one whose achievement has consistently won both critical and popular acclaim.Trade Review'William K. Malcolm's book is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to the life and work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Setting Gibbon's writing within the tumultuous historical contexts of the period, Malcolm portrays a hugely talented and hard-working novelist of radical political commitment whose tragically short life culminated in the achievement of A Scots Quair, one of the great novel sequences in twentieth-century literature in English.'Dr Scott Lyall, Edinburgh Napier UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsBiographical OutlineAbbreviationsNote on the Texts1. Life and background2. Narrative preludes: The Calends of Cairo and Persian Dawns, Egyptian Nights3. The real stuff of history: Hanno, Niger, The Conquest of the Maya and Nine Against the Unknown4. Autofiction: Stained Radiance and The Thirteenth Disciple5. Setting tales upon the truth: Three Go Back, The Lost Trumpet and Gay Hunter6. Haunted by horrors: Image and Superscription and Spartacus7. Distant cousin Lewis Grassic Gibbon: A Scots Quair and Scottish Scene8. LegacyNotesBibliographyFurther Reading

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Book SynopsisEmilia Pardo Bazán, the most prolific and influential Spanish female writer of the nineteenth century, was a very controversial figure, vilified for her embracement of naturalism and her robust feminist stance.When Insolación was published in 1889 it provoked a litany of negative comments and personal insults. This subtle, psychological novel, drawing on many aspects of its author's personal life, deals with the relationship between Asís, a respectable Galician widow, and Pacheco, a feckless womaniser from Andalucía. Although they scarcely know each other, Asís accepts Pacheco's invitation to visit the San Isidro Fair, where a heady cocktail of sun, alcohol and revelry causes her to behave in an uncharacteristic manner.Insolación explores the conflict between Asís's self-recrimination and concern for the 'qué dirán' and her nascent sexuality. Finally, despite her determination to banish Pacheco from her mind and her intention to go back to Galicia, the couple sleep together and decide to marry.The perceived promiscuity of this work of fiction scandalised the reading public as well as many leading critics. Pereda considered Asís's behaviour reprehensible and Clarín dismissed the novel as a pseudo-erotic boutade. Nowadays, Insolación is recognised as an important novel.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Foreword2. Emilia Pardo Bazán3. The social and political background4. The intellectual and literary context: romanticism, realism, costumbrismo and naturalism5. Insolación: genesis and reception6. Structure and narrative viewpoint7. Language and translation8. BibliographyInsolación / Sunstroke

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Book SynopsisEmilia Pardo Bazán, the most prolific and influential Spanish female writer of the nineteenth century, was a very controversial figure, vilified for her embracement of naturalism and her robust feminist stance.When Insolación was published in 1889 it provoked a litany of negative comments and personal insults. This subtle, psychological novel, drawing on many aspects of its author's personal life, deals with the relationship between Asís, a respectable Galician widow, and Pacheco, a feckless womaniser from Andalucía. Although they scarcely know each other, Asís accepts Pacheco's invitation to visit the San Isidro Fair, where a heady cocktail of sun, alcohol and revelry causes her to behave in an uncharacteristic manner.Insolación explores the conflict between Asís's self-recrimination and concern for the 'qué dirán' and her nascent sexuality. Finally, despite her determination to banish Pacheco from her mind and her intention to go back to Galicia, the couple sleep together and decide to marry.The perceived promiscuity of this work of fiction scandalised the reading public as well as many leading critics. Pereda considered Asís's behaviour reprehensible and Clarín dismissed the novel as a pseudo-erotic boutade. Nowadays, Insolación is recognised as an important novel.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Foreword2. Emilia Pardo Bazán3. The social and political background4. The intellectual and literary context: romanticism, realism, costumbrismo and naturalism5. Insolación: genesis and reception6. Structure and narrative viewpoint7. Language and translation8. BibliographyInsolación / Sunstroke

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Best Non-Fiction Award 2020Shortlisted for the Locus Science Fiction Foundation Non-Fiction Award 2021An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched.Despite the occasional upsurge of climate change scepticism amongst Anglophone conservative politicians and journalists, there is still a near-consensus amongst climate scientists that current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas are sufficient to alter global weather patterns to disastrous effect. The resultant climate crisis is simultaneously both a natural and a socio-cultural phenomenon and in this book Milner and Burgmann argue that science fiction occupies a critical location within this nature/culture nexus. Science Fiction and Climate Change takes as its subject matter what Daniel Bloom famously dubbed ‘cli-fi’. It does not, however, attempt to impose a prescriptively environmentalist aesthetic on this sub-genre. Rather, it seeks to explain how a genre defined in relation to science finds itself obliged to produce fictional responses to the problems actually thrown up by contemporary scientific research. Milner and Burgmann adopt a historically and geographically comparatist framework, analysing print and audio-visual texts drawn from a number of different contexts, especially Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and the United States. Inspired by Williams's cultural materialism, Bourdieu's sociology of culture and Moretti's version of world systems theory, the book builds on Milner’s own Locating Science Fiction to produce a powerfully persuasive study in the sociology of literature. Trade Review'[This] volume offers an interesting introductory overview covering a variety of climate fictions... The clear, easily accessible writing style and overall useful introductory nature of the material would definitely recommend the volume as a text for undergraduates studying climate fictions as part of a literary studies or cultural studies curriculum.'Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts'Andrew Milner and J.R. Burgmann’s Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach adds some vitally needed critical rigor to the burgeoning subgenre of SF literature and media Daniel Bloom has labelled “cli-fi,” that is, climate fiction.'Jerome Winter, SFRA Review'Science Fiction and Climate Change is a comprehensive examination of the current state of CF [climate fiction]. It is pleasingly open to genre and form, and Milner and Burgmann's accessible style results in a book that is at once objective sociological-literary commentary and personal reflection on the practice of CF research.' Jasmin Kirkbride, Green LettersTable of Contents1. Ice, Fire and Flood: A Short Pre-History of Climate Fiction 2. A Theoretical Interlude 3. Climate Fiction and the World Literary System 4. The Classical Dystopia in Climate Fiction 5. The Critical Dystopia in Climate Fiction 6. The Problem of Fatalism in Dystopian Climate Fiction 7. Base Reality Texts and Eutopias 8. Cli-Fi in Other Media 9. Changing the Climate: Some Provisional Conclusions

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Book SynopsisIn a career that spanned over thirty years, Iain M. Banks became one of the best-loved and most prolific writers in Britain, with his space opera series concerned with the pan-galactic utopian civilisation known as "the Culture" widely regarded as his most significant contribution to science fiction. The Culture of "The Culture" focuses solely on this series, providing a comprehensive, thematic analysis of Banks’s Culture stories from Consider Phlebas to The Hydrogen Sonata. It explores the development of Banks’s political, philosophical and literary thought, arguing that the Culture offers both an image of a harmonious civilisation modelled on an alternative socialist form of globalisation and a critique of our neo-liberal present. As Joseph Norman explains, the Culture is the result of an ongoing utopian process, attempting through the application of technoscience to move beyond obstacles to progress such as imperialism, capitalism, the human condition, religious dogma, patriarchy and crises in artistic representation. The Culture of "The Culture" defines Banks’s creation as culture: a utopian way of doing, of being, of seeing: an approach, an attitude and a lifestyle that has enabled, and is evolving alongside, utopia, rather than an image of a static end-state.Trade Review'[The Culture of "The Culture"] stands as an invaluable contribution to the study of Banks’s CULTURE series, in particular its relation to the space opera subgenre and the history of utopian thinking.' Chad Andrews, Science Fiction Studies‘Norman provides a deep, thorough overview of the complex world of the Culture and the ways in which it both fulfills and belies our assumptions about a utopian society… optimism drives Banks’ work, and it goes far in explaining why the Culture sequence remains not only eminently and beautifully readable but an emotional necessity for this historical moment.’ Jeremy Brett, SFRA ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Interventions, Imperialism, the Technologiade2. Thinking the Break: The Culture as Postscarcity Utopia3. Senescence, Rejuvanessence, and (Im)mortality: The Culture and the Posthuman4. Feminist Space Opera and the Handy Man5. Secularism, Humanism and the Quasi-religious Culture 6. Art in Utopia and Utopian Art: the Culture of 'the Culture'Conclusion

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Book SynopsisGiven the extensive influence of the 'transport revolution' on the past two centuries (a time when trains, trams, omnibuses, bicycles, cars, airplanes, and so forth were invented), and given science fiction’s overall obsession with machines and technologies of all kinds, it is surprising that scholars have not paid more attention to transportation in this increasingly popular genre. Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles is the first book to examine the history of representations of road transport machines in nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century American science fiction. The focus of this study is on two machines of the road that have been locked in a constant, often bitter, struggle with one another: the automobile and the bicycle. With chapters ranging from the early science fiction of the pulp magazine era in the 1920s and 1930s, to the postcyberpunk of the 1990s and more recent media of the 2000s such as web television, zines, and comics, this book argues that science fiction by and large perceives the car as anything but a marvelous invention of modernity. Rather, the genre often scorns and ridicules the automobile and instead promotes more sustainable, more benign, more restrained technologies of movement such as the bicycle.Trade Review‘With its broad historic reach, its synthesis of a variety of disparate types of research from a variety of scholarly disciplines, its lucid prose, and its welcome readability, Withers' Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles offers a significant contribution to both ecocritical discourse and the study of science fiction as a genre.’- Lisa Swanstrom, University of UtahTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Perfectibility and Techno-Optimism in the Pulp Era2. Murderous Cars, Space Bikes, and Alien Bicycles in the Golden Age3. Electric Cars, Auto-Dueling, and Bike Shares in the New Wave4. Messenger Skateboards and Messenger Bikes in Postcyberpunk5. Staying Mobile in the Post-Apocalyptic World6. Kids on Bikes in 1980s Nostalgia TextsConclusion

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book-length study of Forster’s posthumously-published novel. Nine essays focus exclusively on Maurice and its dynamic afterlives in literature, film and new media during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Begun in 1913 and revised over almost fifty years, Maurice became a defining text in Forster’s work and a canonical example of queer fiction. Yet the critical tendency to read Maurice primarily as a ‘revelation’ of Forster’s homosexuality has obscured important biographical, political and aesthetic contexts for this novel. This collection places Maurice among early twentieth-century debates about politics, philosophy, religion, gender, Aestheticism and allegory. Essays explore how the novel interacts with literary predecessors and contemporaries including John Bunyan, Oscar Wilde, Havelock Ellis and Edward Carpenter, and how it was shaped by personal relationships such as Forster’s friendship with Florence Barger. They close-read the textual variants of Forster’s manuscripts and examine the novel’s genesis and revisions. They consider the volatility of its reception, analysing how it galvanizes subsequent generations of writers and artists including Christopher Isherwood, Alan Hollinghurst, Damon Galgut, James Ivory and twenty-first-century online fanfiction writers. What emerges from the volume is the complexity of the novel, as a text and as a cultural phenomenon.Trade ReviewReviews'Twenty-First-Century Readings of E.M. Forster's Maurice is a smart and wide-ranging collection of essays on a critically neglected novel whose time is very much now. Exploring the novel’s queer politics, historical contexts, and aesthetic afterlives, the contributors elevate it in the Forster canon and establish its vital relevance to contemporary LGBT life.'Benjamin Bateman, University of Edinburgh'I would absolutely recommend the book. Twenty-First-Century Readings not only encapsulates and expands the present state of research concerning Maurice but above all, it invites and creates space for further Maurice related discussions... A real treat for the fans of Maurice and its author.'Anna Kwiatkowska, Polish Journal of English Studies'The scholarly ambition and intellectual range of the essays collected in Emma Sutton and Tsung-Han Tsai’s new volume suggest that scholarly work on E.M. Forster retains a pleasing energy and vibrancy in the author’s anniversary year... a deeply satisfying collection... It will undoubtedly send readers to the greenwood afresh, copies of Maurice in hand.'Fraser Riddell, Language and Literary Studies of WarsawTable of ContentsIntroduction: Maurice Through TimeEmma Sutton and Tsung-Han TsaiPart I. Forebears and Friends1. ‘An unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort’: E. M. Forster, Maurice, and the Legacy of AestheticismJoseph Bristow2. Women In and Out: Forster, Social Purity, and Florence BargerGemma Moss3. The Master and the Pupil: E. M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, and the Forging of a Queer AestheticCharlotte CharterisPart II. Contemporary Contexts4. ‘Flat pieces of cardboard stamped with a conventional design’: Women and Narrative Exclusion in E. M. Forster’s Maurice Anna Watson5. Maurice: Beyond Body and SoulFinn Fordham6. Maurice and ReligionKrzysztof FordońskiPart III. Afterlives7. ‘A man embedded in society’: Homosexuality and the ‘Social Fabric’ in Maurice and Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool LibraryDavid Medalie8. Sexuality, Allegory, and Interpretation: E. M. Forster’s Maurice and Damon Galgut’s Arctic SummerHoward J. Booth9. Maurice without Ending, from Forster’s Palimpsest to Fan-TextClaire Monk

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. ‘Who ever thought they would one day be able to read Malcolm Lowry’s fabled novel of the 1930s and 40s, In Ballast to the White Sea? Lord knows, I didn’t’ – Michael Hofmann, TLS This book breaks new ground in studies of the British novelist Malcolm Lowry (1909–57), as the first collection of new essays produced in response to the publication in 2014 of a scholarly edition of Lowry’s ‘lost’ novel, In Ballast to the White Sea. In their introduction, editors Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs show how the publication of In Ballast sheds new light on Lowry as both a highly political writer and one deeply influenced by his native Merseyside, as his protagonist Sigbjørn Hansen-Tarnmoor walks the streets of Liverpool, wrestling with his own conscience and with pressing questions of class, identity and social reform. In the chapters that follow, renowned Lowry scholars and newer voices explore key aspects of the novel and its relation to the wider contexts of Lowry’s work. These include his complex relation to socialism and communism, the symbolic value of Norway, and the significance of tropes of loss, hauntings and doublings. The book draws on the unexpected opportunity offered by the rediscovery of In Ballast to look afresh at Lowry’s oeuvre, to ‘remake the voyage’. Trade Review‘Remaking the Voyage makes a major contribution to Lowry studies, perhaps unsurprisingly given the strength of the academic contributors. It genuinely advances humanistic knowledge of Lowry’s In Ballast, additionally offering an intriguing identity politics argument or interpretive nexus, comprising cultural and geographical location, class and political awareness/affiliation.’- Professor Richard J. Lane, Vancouver Island UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionHelen Tookey and Bryan BiggsHaunted by Books: Malcolm Lowry’s Ultramarine and In Ballast to the White SeaPatrick A. McCarthy‘We’ve got a bastard duke on board’: Class, Fantasy and Politics in Malcolm LowryBen ClarkeMalcolm Lowry and the End of CommunismMark CrawfordIn Ballast to the White Sea: The Springboard for Russian Influences on Malcolm Lowry’s Visionary Intellect Nigel H. FoxcroftIn Ballast to the White Sea: A Plunge into the MatrixAnnick Drösdal-LevillainWalking with Shadows: Index, Inscription and Event in Malcolm Lowry’s In Ballast to the White SeaCian Quayle‘Hva vet vi?’: In Ballast to the White Sea and the Weighting of EvidenceChris Ackerley Identity and Doubles: Being and Writing in Malcolm Lowry’s In Ballast to the White SeaPierre SchaefferThe Lost Other: Malcolm Lowry’s Creative ProcessCatherine Delesalle-NanceyInfernal Discourse: Narrative Poetics among the Ashes of In Ballast to the White Sea and Under the VolcanoChristopher Madden‘Leaning forward eagerly’: Malcolm Lowry’s Moviegoers and In Ballast to the White Sea Miguel Mota and Paul TiessenFrom In Ballast to the White Sea to Rumbo al Mar Blanco: The Spanish Reception of Malcolm Lowry’s Unfinished NovelAlberto Lena‘Glimpses of Immortality’: Our Voyages with Vik DoyenSherrill Grace

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Book SynopsisIn France, the fundamental intellectual debate over ecology might best be summarized by the contrasting views of Michel Serres and Luc Ferry. In The Natural Contract, Serres calls for an end to humans’ war on nature: Our world view must turn from anthropocentric to ecocentric, and our relationship to the earth must become symbiotic instead of parasitic. Luc Ferry’s response to Serres in The New Ecological Order ridicules the metaphor of a natural contract, by which humans (and humanism) would no longer reign over the earth. Ferry accuses Serres and other ecological thinkers of being “premodern” and “prehumanistic”; valuing nonhuman life as much as human life evokes the ridiculous trials of five centuries ago when beetles and rats were threatened with excommunication if they did not cease their antihuman activities.After analyzing the Serres-Ferry debate, Ecocritics and Ecoskeptics examines environmental themes in novels by Michel Tournier, Stéphane Audeguy, and Chantal Chawaf. It then considers the complex and evolving relationship between humans and animals as expressed in novels by Vercors and Olivia Rosenthal, and in philosophical works by Jacques Derrida, Élisabeth de Fontenay, and Peter Singer, among others. Two novels each by the humanist J.-C. Rufin and the humorist Iegor Gran provide a dose of healthy skepticism. Rufin’s stories reveal the potential dark side of extreme environmentalism—authoritarianism and terrorism—while Gran’s hilarious satires critique some environmentalists’ piousness, opportunism, humorlessness, and antihumanism. The book concludes that environmentalism and humanism are not incompatible, if we proceed beyond the traditional humanism of Ferry and other modernists. Essays by philosophers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Rabhi, Edgar Morin, and Michel Maffesoli demonstrate that an inclusive, ecological humanism is not only possible but necessary for our survival.Trade Review"This pioneering study provides eco-humanist insights into a broad spectrum of contemporary French fiction. Professor Krell contributes richly to discussions around the green agenda that are more and more urgent because of the intensity of manmade changes in our planet’s climate."Daniel Finch-Race, Research Fellow in Environmental Humanities at Università Ca' Foscari'This book belongs to a recent current of expanding criticism exploring environmental issues in French Literature. [...] Ecocritics and Ecoskeptics intends to portray the diverse landscape of French environmental literature. [...] It succeeds in doing so, with theoretical references ranging from the anthropological to the philosophical, and from Antiquity to today [...] offer[ing] a rich perspective to the emergent field of French eco-criticism.'Lucile Desblache, L'Esprit Créateur'Krell’s study clears an ambitious path into the genealogy of humanism and its historical tensions with ecocriticism, [...] inviting readers into longstanding philosophical meditations about what it means to be human in the age of ecological vulnerability. [...] Krell deftly weaves together close readings and extensive forays into humanistic and ecocritical theory and situates the texts he brings together within the specificities of French ecological thought. [...] Krell seeks out diverse approaches to ecological questions without obscuring his overarching argument about the compatibility of environmentalism and humanism. [...] The book provides a rich resource for both established and new scholars of ecocriticism. Perhaps more importantly, though, his work exemplifies not only ho w the humanities intervene in pressing questions about life in the Anthropocene epoch, but also why the humanities can, and must, continue to reflect on deeply crucial questions about what it means to value simultaneously human ingenuity and the environment.'Lisa Connell, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Fundamental Debate: Michel Serres the ecocritic vs. Luc Ferry the criticPart 1: Three French EcofictionsChapter 1Time, Weather, and Waste: Michel Tournier’s GeminiChapter 2Cloud Erotica: Stéphane Audeguy’s The Theory of CloudsChapter 3A Fairy in the Age of Prometheus: Chantal Chawaf’s Mélusine des détritusPart 2: The Animal QuestionChapter 4Ethical Humanism and the Animal Question: Vercors’s You Shall Know ThemChapter 5Marginality and Animality: Olivia Rosenthal’s Que font les rennes après Noël?Part 3: Two Ecoskeptics: The Humanist and the HumoristChapter 6Deep Ecology Gone Wrong: J.-C. Rufin’s Globalia and Le Parfum d’AdamChapter 7From Ecohumor to Ecohumanism: Iegor Gran’s O.N.G! and L’Écologie en bas de chez moiConclusion: Environmentalism is a HumanismAppendix: Interviews with Stéphane Audeguy and Iegor GranBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAs publishers in private printing presses, as writers of dissident texts and as political campaigners against censorship and for intellectual freedom, a radical group of twentieth-century Irish women formed a female-only coterie to foster women’s writing and maintain a public space for professional writers. This book documents the activities of the Women Writers’ Club (1933–1958), exploring its ethos, social and political struggles, and the body of works created and celebrated by its members. Examining the period through a history of the book approach, it covers social events, reading committees, literary prizes, publishing histories, modernist printing presses, book fairs, reading practices, and the various political philosophies shared by members of the Club. It reveals how professional women writers deployed their networks and influence to carve out a space for their writing in the cultural marketplace, collaborating with other artistic groups to fight for creative freedoms and the right to earn a living by the pen. The book paints a vivid portrait of the Women Writers’ Club, showcasing their achievements and challenging existing orthodoxy on the role of women in Irish literary life.Trade Review‘The book is a triumph of archival detective work… Brady’s history chronicles a space laboriously carved out by twenty-five years of wit, courage and cunning… It is a finely drawn, rich and illuminating history, and offers significant insights into the relationship between women’s social networks, cultural activism, and sexual dissidence with implications far beyond mid-twentieth century Ireland.’ Gerardine Meaney, Irish University ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Intellectual Fraternities? Dublin United Arts Club, the Irish Academy of Letters, and the Irish PEN 2. Coterie Culture and the Women Writers’ Club, 1933-1958 3. ‘A Wild Field to a Later Generation’: The ‘Book of the Year’ Award 4. Women Writers in Irish Print Culture, 1930-1960 5. Coterie Culture and Modernist Presses: The Gayfield Press Conclusion

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Book SynopsisJohn Hughes explores Hardy's claim that his art sought to intensify the expression of things through three main sections on music, the body, and voice. These offer intersecting and mutually informing discussions of the central drama of inexpression and expressivity in Hardys work, as it affects the various personae of the text, including the reader. Throughout, the book draws on themes in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell to reveal how Hardys fiction and poetry express and represent the affective and physical conditions of mind, and their conflicts with social fictions of identity. The first main section on music incorporates three chapters that examine how Hardys writing stages musical experience as an expression of human desire and individuality at odds with the constraints of rationality, Victorian fiction form, and social convention. Intricate and extensive readings are linked also to larger contextual and theoretical issues in order to show how music as a theme and motif highlights the kinds of creativity and ethical cruxes that characterise Hardys work throughout his career. The second section on embodiment and sensation shows how close attention to Hardys writing on the topics of facial and bodily expression (and affectivity) reveal much about the sources of his inspiration, and its philosophical conditions and implications. The third section on voice offers three chapters, each of which centrally employs a close metrical reading of an important Hardy poem within its larger biographical and inter-textual contexts. These readings demonstrate how fundamental were Hardys innovations in meter to the power and originality of his work, and to its expressive treatment of his abiding preoccupations with love, grief, childhood, and the loss of faith.

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