Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisTrade Review"As Kincaid’s elegant overview makes clear, Aldiss’s work is not only a paean to ceaseless creativity, but a testament to an almost compulsive preoccupation with generating new problems towards whose solution that same sparkling creativity may be directed." --Locus"A level-headed assessment. " --Times Literary Supplement "Brian Aldiss was science fiction’s most gifted stylist: innovative, elegant, mercurial and always highly readable. He was tirelessly prolific, producing not only stories of adventure in space, travelers through time and several noxious alien beings, but also experimental literary fiction and thoughtful memoir. Paul Kincaid’s superb and closely attentive account of his life and work covers the full Aldiss range, responding sympathetically not only to the extraordinary variety but also the level of ambition." --Christopher Priest, four-time winner of the BSFA Award"Paul Kincaid's cogent, career-spanning study of Brian Aldiss's life and work is a valuable contribution to SF studies. He expertly covers the many books in Aldiss's canon, shedding new light on areas that have received little scholarly attention while enumerating the author’s importance to the SF megatext. Accessible and illuminating, Brian W. Aldiss should be read by anybody writing about Aldiss, but it's also an enjoyable biography."--D. Harlan Wilson, author of J. G. Ballard"Kincaid affirms Aldiss as a crucial figure in postwar British sf, author of a handful of indisputable classics, and deeply involved in the aesthetic and critical evolution of the field." --Science Fiction Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A delicious chowder of quips and ironies. One may have heard individual lines at faculty cocktail parties, but listening to all the disparate voices of the university together, one realizes how much we sound like a thousand Franz Kafkas trying to sing a madrigal."--Chronicle of Higher Education"An enjoyable description (and vivisection!) of the various people in Academe. Essential for anyone who extracts his livelihood from the forests primeval of Academe and who periodically suffers fits on the meaning of it all."--ChoiceTable of ContentsPreface to the Second Edition vii Preface to the First Edition ix 1 A Primer of Academic Politics 1 2 Stereotypics 31 3 Tribes: Les Purs et les Appliques 63 4 Rites de Passage: Coming of age in Academe 77 5 The Rhythm of the Year: Solar Rituals 97 6 Styles and the Decay of Style 109 7 Bureaucriticism: What's Wrong and Why It Isn't Likely to Be Fixed 121 8 Confessio Amantis 139 A Triptych of Appendixes 145 1) A Political Primer for the Chair of English: Form and Content 147 b) How Departments Commit Suicide 161 c) Definition and/as Survival 179

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Book SynopsisThe Gothic novel emerged out of the romantic mist alongside a new conception of the home as a separate sphere for women. Looking at novels from Horace Walpole''s Castle of Otranto to Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein, Kate Ferguson Ellis investigates the relationship between these two phenomena of middle-class culture--the idealization of the home and the popularity of the Gothic--and explores how both male and female authors used the Gothic novel to challenge the false claim of home as a safe, protected place. Linking terror -- the most important ingredient of the Gothic novel -- to acts of transgression, Ellis shows how houses in Gothic fiction imprison those inside them, while those locked outside wander the earth plotting their return and their revenge. Trade Review"An ambitious, readable, and well-argued book, The Contested Castle ... presents useful, sometimes radical re-readings of familiar and unfamiliar gothic texts; it also takes important steps toward demonstrating, as Ellis puts it, 'that popular literature can be a site of resistance to ideological positions as well as a means of propagating them'--an argument of considerable importance for scholars in and advanced students of critical theory." -- Choice "Ellis sheds special light on the way capitalist relations and the culture of capitalism influenced the way women lived, envisioned, wrote, and read their own narratives. It's a story at least as gripping and at least as terrifying as the male and female Gothics that Ellis so gracefully presents and interprets." -- Lillian S. Robinson, author of Sex, Class, and Culture "The strength of Ellis's The Contested Castle is in its linking of the Gothic novel with a bourgeois ideology that specified the role and place of women in its system... In the light of her work, not only the Gothic novel but the rise of the novel and the realist novel will be reread as well." -- Mary O'Connor, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction, British Science Fiction Association, 2018 Finalist, Hugo Award for Best Related Work, 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List, 2017— British Science Fiction Association BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction, British Science Fiction Association, 2018 Finalist, Hugo Award for Best Related Work, 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List, 2017— Hugo Award BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction, British Science Fiction Association, 2018 Finalist, Hugo Award for Best Related Work, 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List, 2017— LocusTable of ContentsCoverTitleContentsAcknowledgmentsChapter 1. Crossing the BridgeChapter 2. Backing into the CultureChapter 3. Outside Context ProblemsChapter 4. Approaching the WorldGodChapter 5. AftermathA Few Questions on the Culture by Jude RobertsAn Iain M. Banks BibliographyNotesBibliography of Secondary SourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisProphetic short stories and apocalyptic novels like The Crystal World made J. G. Ballard a foundational figure in the British New Wave. Rejecting the science fiction of rockets and aliens, he explored an inner space of humanity informed by psychiatry and biology and shaped by surrealism. Later in his career, Ballard's combustible plots and violent imagery spurred controversy--even legal action--while his autobiographical 1984 war novel Empire of the Sun brought him fame. D. Harlan Wilson offers the first career-spanning analysis of an author who helped steer SF in new, if startling, directions. Here was a writer committed to moral ambiguity, one who drowned the world and erected a London high-rise doomed to descend into savagery--and coolly picked apart the characters trapped within each story. Wilson also examines Ballard's methods, his influence on cyberpunk, and the ways his fiction operates within the sphere of our larger culture and within SF itself.Trade ReviewLocus Recommended Reading List, 2017 "Elegantly argued, intuitively organized, and sure to be relevant to Ballardian scholars. . . . A testament to Ballard's continued relevance."--Library Journal"Scholars and fans of Ballard will find this study comprehensive and stimulating."--Publisher's Weekly"J. G. Ballard is an engaging and comprehensive study that marshals a constellation of insights around a single, robust argument. No scholar writing on Ballard in future will want to be without it. The book would also serve as an ideal introduction to Ballard for undergraduates or others coming to his work for the first time."--The British Society for Literature and Science"Wilson interweaves the biographical elements with rich and insightful analysis of Ballard's oeuvre, from the novels to the short stories, plus commentary on his non-fiction work."--Amazing Stories"A comprehensive and intelligent overview of the author's work, it is critically engaged, well-informed in terms of existing scholarship, and written in a lively and accessible style. This is an excellent introduction to Ballard's work for scholars new to the author, as well as for fans and general readers." --Science Fiction Studies"Energetically written and deeply informed, Wilson's study is a highly recommended resource for readers needing either a convenient refresher of Ballard's entire oeuvre or a singular entry point into Ballard's fascinating life work." --SFRA Review"Wilson has put together an impressive book. There is something intuitive and effortless in his assessment of Ballard's work, and around every corner are oh-my-goodness-how-could-anyone-have-possibly-missed-that moments of discovery. For fans and critics alike, this is a must-read." --American Book Review"A new comprehensive standard. Wilson's insights reach to the furthest ends of J. G. Ballard's bookshelf, complicate easy assumptions about the location of the 'autobiographical' in his novels, and, best of all, assert that if there is a science fiction worth advancing into the twenty-first century, Ballard is at the center, not the periphery, of that project."--Jonathan Lethem "In this wide-ranging and accessible work, D. Harlan Wilson argues that J. G. Ballard is a writer who remained true to science fiction even as he claimed to abandon the genre. With clear-eyed intelligence and a deep understanding of his subject, Wilson builds a compelling case for Ballard as perhaps SF’s most radical innovator."--Simon Sellars, coeditor of Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with J. G. Ballard, 1967–2008 "Did J. G. Ballard protest too much? In this engaging work, Wilson makes a compelling case that, though Ballard often distanced himself from science fiction, his entire oeuvre belongs to the genre, even if Ballard fundamentally changed the genre along the way to include the terrain of inner space and the science-fictionalization of everyday life. A wonderful reading of one of late modernity’s greatest imaginative writers."--David Ian Paddy, author of The Empires of J. G. Ballard: An Imagined Geography "Both interested and academic readers will appreciate the delicate balance Wilson achieves between the breadth of his palate and the depth of each shade, all the while amused by Wilson’s snappy prose and ever-unfolding insights that reveal with appeal in this unique and compelling study of the Seer of Shepperton. What comes after highly recommended?"--Rick McGrath, editor of Deep Ends: The J. G. Ballard Anthology

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The book offers a fresh perspective on Clarke and some thought-provoking readings of his fiction. . . . This study should prompt other scholars to follow up on Westfahl's interesting opening assertions about the unique nature of Clarke's storytelling skills and prose style. " --Fafnir"This is the most insightful analysis of Clarke I have seen. It has many gems, such as this irresistible pearl: 'Clarke's characters anticipate the way that more and more people now live their lives. Clarke's characters, then, may someday be regarded as his most significant prediction of the future, making him seem more like a twenty-first century writer than a twentieth-century writer--perhaps the greatest compliment one can imagine for a science fiction writer.' His scaffold leading to this is of the highest quality."--Gregory Benford​"The legacy of Sir Arthur has finally been given justice, and therefore this guide is to be wholeheartedly recommended."--SFFWorld"Gary Westfahl's compact critical biography closely yet succinctly examines everything from Clarke's British childhood through his last years on the island of Sri Lanka, his juvenilia through the numerous 'collaborations' that fill the last pages of his bibliography." --Shepherd Express“A well-considered reevaluation of Arthur C. Clarke’s legacy. . . . His analysis is most valuable in its scope, ranging beyond Clarke’s major works and considering his myriad stories, his less successful novels, his nonfiction, and even his juvenilia.”--Booklist"Westfahl successfully relocates the context of Clarke's work, which in turn allows him to bring a fresh perspective even to oft-analyzed texts." --InterGalactic Medicine Show"Gary Westfahl's Arthur C. Clarke (2018) fills the gap by offering a much-needed survey of Clarke's entire oeuvre, from his juvenilia to his many collaborations. This book will provide a useful starting place for future conversations about Clarke." --Science Fiction Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[Marks's] book will certainly be of interest to porn studies scholars. It also provides solid accounts of the ways that pornographers generate new erotic energies from classic texts. " --Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books"Through its in-depth investigation of the dialogue between the porn industry and the world of our supposedly 'prudish' forefathers, Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic represents an important contribution to the analysis of a cinematic genre (neo-Victorian porn) that has been partially neglected in scholarly works." --Neo-Victorian Studies"A giddy pleasure to read the future of porn studies unfolding in these pages."--Celine Parreñas Shimizu, author of The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene"Laura Helen Marks offers a persuasive exploration of the complexities of porn’s love affair with all things Victorian, particularly the fantasy invocations and reimaginings of Gothic sexualities. Her account moves across the pornographic genre and its seeming obsession with the earlier historical period in order to open some very contemporary concerns about sex, desires and technology."--Clarissa Smith, coauthor of Studying Sexualities: Theories, Representations, Cultures

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Book SynopsisExperimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, Joanna Russ's groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought. Her essays and criticism, meanwhile, helped shape the field and still exercise a powerful influence in both SF and feminist literary studies.Award-winning author and critic Gwyneth Jones offers a new appraisal of Russ's work and ideas. After years working in male-dominated SF, Russ emerged in the late 1960s with Alyx, the uber-capable can-do heroine at the heart of Picnic on Paradise and other popular stories and books. Soon, Russ's fearless embrace of gender politics and life as an out lesbian made her a target for male outrage while feminist classics like The Female Man and The Two of Them took SF in innovative new directions. Jones also delves into Russ's longtime work as a critic of figures as diverse as Lovecraft and Cather, her foundational place in feminist fandom, important essays like Amor Vincit Foeminam, aTrade ReviewA PopMatters Best Non-Fiction Book of 2019 A Locus 2019 Recommended Read Finalist, non-fiction category 2020 Locus Awards, 2020 "The primary and secondary bibliographies, along with the interviews and the through coverage of Russ's work that Jones offers make this volume one that libraries public, academic, and personal should possess, especially if they have an interest in feminist literature and/or science fiction. . . . This book is a fine tool for continuing Joanna Russ's legacy." --Science Fiction Studies"In Joanna Russ,” a new survey of Russ’s work, the writer and critic Gwyneth Jones provides a helpful window into Russ’s early life." --New Yorker"An important and compact new study. . . Russ was an unfairly neglected writer, and Jones’ introduction is a great place to start learning about her." --Seattle Times"Essential reading for those interested in the history and evolution of sci-fi as a genre, and in the continued fight for diversity, inclusion, and visibility of sci-fi and pop culture more broadly." --Popmatters"It is time [Russ],was remembered and honored for her gallant, elegant and witty contribution." --Times Literary Supplement"This overview would be a particularly good introduction for undergraduates (or any interested reader) looking for a way into Russ’s career and into the gender-in-SF issues of her time." --Locus"A rigorous biography of Russ’s mind. . . . Every writer must dream of someday having a reader who reads their work the way Gwyneth Jones reads Joanna Russ." --Fantasy & Science Fiction​"Gwyneth Jones's study of Russ's life and work is important reading for anyone interested in feminism, science fiction, or terrific writing. With insight and warmth, she reveals Russ to us as a brilliant, impossible person and as a groundbreaking, uncompromising writer."--Julie Phillips, author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon "Jones’s concise, thorough survey successfully traces the tensions and confluences between Russ’s various fields of work. Her positions as genre writer, academic, and feminist are in flux, in conversation; by creating illustrative juxtapositions within a chronological framework as well as integrating analysis with biographical detail, Jones offers insight and clarity into the difficulties that drove Russ’s career trajectory and eventual retirement from the SF field."--Brit Mandelo, author of We Wuz Pushed: On Joanna Russ and Radical Truth-Telling

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Book SynopsisAward-winning epics like the Mars Trilogy and groundbreaking alternative histories like The Days of Rice and Salt have brought Kim Stanley Robinson to the forefront of contemporary science fiction. Mixing subject matter from a dizzying number of fields with his own complex ecological and philosophical concerns, Robinson explores how humanity might pursue utopian social action as a strategy for its own survival. Robert Markley examines the works of an author engaged with the fundamental question of how weas individuals, as a civilization, and as a speciesmight go forward. By building stories on huge time scales, Robinson lays out the scientific and human processes that fuel humanity's struggle toward a more just and environmentally stable world or system of worlds. His works invite readers to contemplate how to achieve, and live in, these numerous possible futures. They also challenge us to see that SF's literary, cultural, and philosophical significance have made it the preeminent liteTrade Review"Kim Stanley Robinson crafts scientifically grounded speculative fictions in which the utopian impulse is a matter of thinking deeply about problems that most literary fiction has not yet even bothered to register. Robert Markley has done us readers of KSR an immense service in tracking the evolution of methods and themes across the wounded galaxy of this writer's work. This is the essential guide to the world KSR has made."--McKenzie Wark, author of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century "Robert Markley’s book makes it clear that there’s much, much, more to Kim Stanley Robinson than the conquest of the high frontier." --Amazing Stories"Kim Stanley Robinson's formidable expanse of science fiction leaves many of us wondering where to begin. Begin here. Having studied Kim Stanley Robinson's work for decades, Robert Markley presents a cogent and inviting introduction to one of the most important figures in twentieth century SF. Markley gracefully traces the 'slurry' of Marxism, Buddhism, and ecology running throughout the novels, highlighting the survival strategies Robinson envisions for present and future peoples. For Robinson and for Markley, literature becomes, ideally, a mode of action—as well as an ethical and political intervention for more carefully considered, just, and livable worlds."--Stacy Alaimo, author of Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times "Each tale is an attempt to move closer to some idea settling of the issues of eco-economics and cooperative living that the author sees as utopian. In the end, Robinson is both nihilistic and optimist, understanding that utopia, like enlightenment, may be achievable but not sustainable." --SFRevu

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Book SynopsisBrian W. Aldiss wrote classic science fiction novels like Report on Probability A and Hothouse. Billion Year Spree, his groundbreaking study of the field, defined the very meaning of SF and delineated its history. Yet Aldiss's discomfort with being a guiding spirit of the British New Wave and his pursuit of mainstream success characterized a lifelong ambivalence toward the genre. Paul Kincaid explores the many contradictions that underlay the distinctive qualities of Aldiss's writing. Wartime experiences in Asia and the alienation that arose upon his return to the cold austerity of postwar Britain inspired themes and imagery that Aldiss drew upon throughout his career. He wrote of prolific nature overwhelming humanity, believed war was madness even though it provided him with the happiest period of his life, and found parallels in the static lives of Indian peasants and hidebound English society. As Kincaid shows, contradictions created tensions that fueled the Trade Review"As Kincaid’s elegant overview makes clear, Aldiss’s work is not only a paean to ceaseless creativity, but a testament to an almost compulsive preoccupation with generating new problems towards whose solution that same sparkling creativity may be directed." --Locus"A level-headed assessment. " --Times Literary Supplement "Brian Aldiss was science fiction’s most gifted stylist: innovative, elegant, mercurial and always highly readable. He was tirelessly prolific, producing not only stories of adventure in space, travelers through time and several noxious alien beings, but also experimental literary fiction and thoughtful memoir. Paul Kincaid’s superb and closely attentive account of his life and work covers the full Aldiss range, responding sympathetically not only to the extraordinary variety but also the level of ambition." --Christopher Priest, four-time winner of the BSFA Award"Paul Kincaid's cogent, career-spanning study of Brian Aldiss's life and work is a valuable contribution to SF studies. He expertly covers the many books in Aldiss's canon, shedding new light on areas that have received little scholarly attention while enumerating the author’s importance to the SF megatext. Accessible and illuminating, Brian W. Aldiss should be read by anybody writing about Aldiss, but it's also an enjoyable biography."--D. Harlan Wilson, author of J. G. Ballard"Kincaid affirms Aldiss as a crucial figure in postwar British sf, author of a handful of indisputable classics, and deeply involved in the aesthetic and critical evolution of the field." --Science Fiction Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCreating Identity makes a strong and original argument. It offers a new way to think about the romance novel and to explain its massive readership among women. -- Catherine Roach, author of Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Who is the Romance Heroine and What Does She Want?1. Sexuality2. Gender3. Work4. Citizenship5. IntersectionsConclusionAfterwordAppendixBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCreating Identity makes a strong and original argument. It offers a new way to think about the romance novel and to explain its massive readership among women. -- Catherine Roach, author of Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Who is the Romance Heroine and What Does She Want?1. Sexuality2. Gender3. Work4. Citizenship5. IntersectionsConclusionAfterwordAppendixBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisShaken, not stirred -- cultural critics look at the many faces of 007 and his creator.Trade Review[O]ffers some searching reflections on aspects of the Bond phenomenon.2.2 * Journal of British Cinema and Television *[A]n entertaining and revealing examination of the many facets of Bond. * Artistic License Renewed *[A]. . . strong collection . . . lends itself to the pleasure of unexpected insights . . .convincing . . . brilliant leadoff . . . does full justice to Fleming's literary contribution . . . Volume 54, Number 4, Winter 2008 -- Andrew Hoberek * Project MUSE (MFS Modern Fiction Studies) *Table of ContentsForewordIntroductionAbbreviationsI. The Subject Is Bond1. Fleming's Company Man: James Bond and the Management of Modernism Edward P. Comentale2. "Alimentary, Dr. Leiter": Anal Anxiety in Diamonds Are Forever Dennis W. Allen3. Lesbian Bondage, or Why Dykes Like 007 Jaime Hovey4. James Bond: Cyborg-Aristocrat Patrick O'DonnellII. Ian Fleming and Style5. Living the James Bond Lifestyle Judith Roof6. James Bond, Meta-Brand Aaron Jaffe7. The Bond Market Craig N. OwensIII. Ian Fleming and the Global Imaginary8. Bond and Britishness James Chapman9. Shoot Back in Anger: Bond and the "Angry Young Man" Brian Patton10. Tropical Bond Vivian Halloran11. The Kennedys, Fleming, and Cuba: Bond's Foreign Policy Skip Willman12. Wanting to Be James Bond Alexis AlbionIV. Structures of Feeling13. Why Size Matters Christoph Lindner14. 007 and 9/11, Specters and Structures of Feeling Stephen WattAcknowledgmentsWorks CitedContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisThis edition focuses on the Middle English text, with a Modern English Verse translation on facing pages and extensive notes at the bottom of the pages. It discusses the manuscript, the anonymous poet and his other poems, and the structure of the poem and its audience, themes and characterization.Trade Review“Vantuono’s methodology is highly successful, for the pulsating beat and the exuberant spirit of Gawain are recreated in his translation.” —Speculum

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Book SynopsisThis study explores the intersection of newspaper journalism and literary production, particularly Joyce’s Ulysses, in Ireland at the end of the 19th century. Trade Review"In Scandal Work: James Joyce, the New Journalism, and the Home Rule Newspaper Wars, Margot Gayle Backus handles a fascinating topic with skill and insight. Backus treats the significance of scandal in relation not only to the work of James Joyce, but to the whole fin de siècle scene with respect to newspaper reportage, censorship, colonial politics, sexual mores, and their strategic functions in manipulating power in the social realm. Her book will be appreciated as a valuable addition to Joyce criticism and to Irish studies in general." —Margot Norris, Chancellor's Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine“Scandal Work provides close textual analysis of Joyce’s earliest writings up to Ulysses and thickens in a palimpsestic manner the political and gendered connotations of what scandal work might actually signify. The strength of Backus’s argument lies in her contention that Joyce increasingly recognized the journalistic coverage of scandal as the ultimate means to control and subvert artistic activity.” —breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies“The book also contributes something new to the immense critical literature on Joyce, not just by tracing his lifelong attention to scandal journalism as a form of politically charged speech act, but also by adeptly demonstrating its importance to his own representations of sexual and national identities . . . it provides a richly detailed account of one of our most thoroughly studied modernist writers, which contributes something new to our understanding of his verbal art, not simply as an aesthetic form opposed to low or the commodified, but as an intricate example of communication and dissemination, a powerful, if elusive, instance of the art of mass persuasion.” —Journal of British Studies“An engaged, communicative style and approach immediately mark out Margot Backus’s study of the role of journalistic and political scandal in the work of James Joyce as a fresh and winning contribution to the critical debate. . . To approach this material anew in terms of scandal itself . . . is acute and engaging in a way that few academic studies manage to be.” —SHARP News“Scandal Work will appeal to Joyce scholars and to a more general audience. The first two chapters, which show that the New Journalism emerged out of a complex network of metropolitan and regional newspapers, are absolutely fascinating.” —James Joyce Broadsheet"Backus considers the literary implications for the legal, social, and economic factors that led to an intense interest in the idea of sex scandal over the course of the Irish Home Rule debates during James Joyce's childhood. Excellent on libel laws and on newspapers and politics, this book's main virtue is that it provides significant new contexts for Joyce's writings in a lively, engaging, and thoughtful manner." —Irish University Review"This excellent study explores the intersection of newspaper journalism and literary production in Ireland at the end of the 19th century. Backus has written a thoughtful analysis of the early years of scandal journalism and, more particularly, the effects of this journalism on Irish politics and the writing career of writer James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)." —Library Journal“Margot Gayle Backus achieves an expert masterstroke in this study of fin de siècle newspaper scandals with application to works of James Joyce. With painstaking detail, she reports the Phoenix Park Murder, Dublin Castle, and Cleveland Street Scandals as well as information on the scandal figures Myles Joyce and Charles Dilke. . . . A major strength is the proliferation of Backus’s insightful ways of perceiving Joyce’s developmental theorizing about scandal and increasingly ingenious stylistic integration of those theories.” —Irish Literary Supplement"Though this is primarily a work backgrounding and analyzing works of literature (particularly Ulysses), the author provides an important contribution to Irish studies through her insightful and rigorous exploration of the series of scandals." —Choice“The book presents a powerful reading of Joyce’s engagement with the culture of journalistic scandal at the fin-de-siècle.” —James Joyce Quarterly

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Book SynopsisSylvia Huot argues that the presence of giants in French prose romances demonstrates fantasies of conflict and conquest and the suppression of alternative trajectories in Arthurian Britain. Trade Review"In her beautifully written Outsiders: The Humanity and Inhumanity of Giants in Medieval French Prose Romance, Sylvia Huot organizes a wealth of material into a taxonomy of giants and their complex role in medieval French literature. Huot imaginatively uses that mapping to demonstrate the many ways in which the figure of the giant is a cultural fantasy through which medieval writers imagined the limits of personhood. Tracing that fantasy through medieval concepts of race and ethnicity, Huot makes an original and important claim not just about what giants do for medieval writers or their audiences, but also about the vulnerable boundaries of the human that are both put into question and reaffirmed by representations of giant outsiders." —Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan"Giants emerge from Sylvia Huot’s scintillating new book as a 'constitutive outside' that is central to medieval European ideas of the self and of civilisation. Their presence enables Arthurian romance in particular implicitly to define norms for gender, race, ethics, and the human. Not least of this book’s merits is an ongoing and illuminating meditation on parallels between medieval ideologies of exclusion and modern discourses on race or indeed terrorism." —Simon Gaunt, King’s College London"Sylvia Huot's Outsiders is a book that medieval studies and monster theory have long needed. Attentive to how history and monstrosity together make race—and how that category of identity was far from stable in the Middle Ages—Huot examines the giants populating French romance. A bearer of captivating stories about the limits of the human, giants figure as a threat of violence against everything cherished (and thus a call to unending, genocidal war) as well as, at times, representing sympathetic inclinations towards earthly life, alternatives to the stories in which they are depicted as demonic. An erudite work of scholarship composed with great verve, Outsiders is a book that anyone interested in the history of monsters and the vexed making of the human will want to read." —Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington University“Tracing the treatment of giants from the Bible through the later medieval period, the study embraces large themes: humanity and inhumanity, religious fervor, violence, assimilation, love, desire, sacrifice, construction of racial and ethnic difference. . . . With few exceptions, giants, unmourned in death, are the irredeemable Other whose antagonism and precarious survival are essential to the construction and continuity of idealized Western Christian culture. Highly recommended.” —Choice“Sylvia Huot’s work is a timely and important investigation of giant figures in medieval French literature. Although Huot focuses very precisely on French discussion of race, gender, and class, specifically, can be applied not only across genres, but placed within a medieval and early modern European context. It is a well-timed work, a pleasure to read, and will expand the discussion on giants and other monsters of medieval literature. The theoretical discourse is especially useful for academics in expanding the notions of monstrosity and humanity within medieval and early modern literature.”—Renaissance Quarterly.

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Book SynopsisFrancis Ingledew''s book makes the case that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the canonical works of medieval English literature, should be recognized as a response to King Edward III''s foundation in 1349 of the chivalric Order of the Garter. As well as providing the basis for a thorough reinterpretation of the poem''s purposes and meanings, this argument dates to the mid-fourteenth-century reign of Edward III (132777) a poem conventionally ascribed to the reign of Richard II (137799). Through close readings of the poem and of an array of overlooked historical sources, Ingledew presents Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a critique of Edward III''s sexual and military behavior. Ingledew''s argument takes him deep into chivalric practice in Edward''s court of the 1340s, much of it connected with the early years of war with France. Ingledew pursues the significance of sexual scandal associated with Edward, especially the rape of the Countess of Salisbury cTrade Review"Francis Ingledew, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Order of the Garter, proposes a radical, and in many ways plausible, new reading of the poem, which relates it much more closely to the foundation of the Order of the Garter. . . . [Ingledew argues] that the poem fits much better into the heyday of Edward III, perhaps dating from the 1350s, when Edward was regarded as a model of chivalry by English and Continental historians. . . . [Ingledew positions] the poem . . . [as] a contemporary response to, and critique of, chivalry and sexual morality at Edward's court. . . . Whether they are totally, or partially, convinced by its arguments, medieval literary scholars and historians will need to take account of this book." —Times Literary Supplement"Disputes the chivalric poem's traditional dating to the reign of Richard II (1377-99) and argues that the text should be seen as a response to the reign of his grandfather Edward III and the founding of the Orders of the Garter in 1349, as well as a sexual scandal involving a reputed rape by the king." —The Chronicle of Higher Education"Many critics situate the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the alliterative revival of the late 14th century, the reign of Richard II. Ingledew offers here an elaborate mode of correcting the date and associating the poem with the military events, chivalric aspirations, and sexual rumors of the reign of Edward III (1327-77). . . . Ambitious, detailed, and certainly directed at experts in the fields of medieval language, literature, and history." —Choice"Francis Ingledew's thesis in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Order of the Garter is not only that the Garter motto is authorial, but that SGGK itself is a cloaked rebuke of sexual wrongdoing in Edward's court in the 1340s. . . . a provocative and important book; it cannot be ignored." —Arthuriana“ . . . after the indignities to which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is sometimes subjected, Francis Ingledew's close attention to its relationship with medieval chronicle (notably those of Froissart and Jean le Bel) and the conflicting accounts of Edward III's alleged crime make for a very compelling and fascinating argument. There is much of value here.” —Medium Aevum“While a number of studies have explored the importance of the inscription to a reading of the poem – including even whether it was the work of the poem’s original scribe – Francis Ingledew’s “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and the Order of the Garter is by far the most meticulously researched and the most ambitious.” —Speculum“What Ingledew does very successfully is to connect the story of Sir Gawain and its vision of history with contemporary historiography and chronicle accounts of Edward and his affair with the Countess of Salisbury. . . . Ingledew’s exploration of the connections between the story of the founding of the Order of the Garter and the plot of Sir Gawain is also rewarding.” —Modern Philology"Exhaustively researched and insightfully theorized, Ingledew's study proposes historical, cultural, and discursive contexts for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight more comprehensive, and more persuasive, than any hitherto attempted. It sets an exalted critical and scholarly standard against which to judge future interpretations of this complex and elegant poem." —Robert Hanning, Columbia University"This is a daring and provocative book about the great but still mysterious Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ingledew boldly —and, for this reader convincingly—locates Sir Gawain in the triumphal years of Richard's grandfather Edward III, a period when chivalric aspiration supported a series of Enlgish military triumphs and Edward was the beau ideal of both insular and continental historians, who often align him with King Arthur. He argues for a significant and quite precise connection between the poem and the chivalric ideology ritualized in the Order of the Garter and other international knightly orders. Ingledew links Gawain's sexual temptation to a disruptive sexual scandal at the core of Edward's court, in the king's rumored rape of the Countess of Salisbury. More importantly, in a massively informed but supple opening chapter, Ingledew shows how this scandal figures in the romance historiography of Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart, who respectively narrate and deny the scandal. This leads in turn to the book's claim that we should read Sir Gawain as much through the canons of its contemporary historiography (both Trojan and Arthurian) as we do in the context of twelfth and thirteenth-century romance. And behind this, even more ambitiously, is Ingledew's often eloquent call to read both historiography and romance as closely linked manifestations of an erotics of history. No one has explored these issues with the force and focused learning Ingledew brings to them, particularly his subtle readings of Arthurian-inflected historiography from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the fifteenth century." —Christopher Baswell, UCLA

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Book SynopsisSavage Economy traces the medieval English romance from its thirteenth-century origins to 1500, showing its evolution from a genre that affirmed aristocratic identity to one that appealed more broadly. Trade Review"Walter Wadiak’s subtly audacious gambit in Savage Economy is to use the retroactive logic of romance, a genre built upon the promise of a good return, as a master code for reading romance anew. Just as a cause can only be understood backwards, through its effects, so too can we understand what romance always was only through a sustained engagement with its supposedly depreciated Middle English iterations. In the outlawry of the Gest of Robyn Hode or the reckless expenditures of fourteenth-century spendthrift romances, we encounter, both as persistent return and as the nostalgic longing to return, the ideological underpinnings that romance otherwise works to repress. Most audaciously retroactive of all, perhaps, the book manages to rehabilitate the gift as a theoretical concept equal to the commodity fetish for helping demystify the workings of a capitalism that remains indebted to, and invested in, the distinctive violence of chivalry. The returns of Savage Economy are, like those of romance, manifold, accumulative, surprising." —George Edmondson, Dartmouth College"With his Savage Economy: The Returns of Middle English Romance, Walter Wadiak delivers a dynamically written and intellectually sparkling study of medieval romance. Treating his materials with deftness, acuity, and theoretical sophistication, he engages the medieval texts with penetrating uses of theory in a way that will stimulate a number of important advances in work on medieval 'romance' and 'ballad' and, no doubt, medieval literature generally." —Andrew Galloway, Cornell University"Savage Economy offers a timely history of romance’s interwoven belatedness and modernity. Resisting the view of medieval romance as ideological fantasy, Walter Wadiak shows the violent cultural work it performs through the gifts that are offered. In its exposure of the aggressivity of the chivalric gift economy, this book offers its readers an incredible gift of its own." —Elizabeth Scala, University of Texas at Austin“Savage Economy is a fine contribution to understanding the intersections of violence and political economy in the romances of late medieval England, as well as suggesting these as reasons for the persistence of romance and medieval nostalgia in the early modern era.” —Renaissance Quarterly“Walter Wadiak’s Savage Economy is an exemplary first book, applying a valuable and underutilized critical approach to material that has long been perceived as problematic and obscure, thereby revealing its richness and literary-historical significance. . . . [T]his is an important contribution to the critical literature.” —Modern Philology “Wadiak’s Savage Economy provides a thought-provoking approach to some of the central concerns of romance criticism, the nature of romance, and the reasons for its continued resurrection and popularity. Scholars of romance specifically, and medieval English literature more generally, as well as those interested in the chivalric tradition in literature and culture, will find much here to reflect on and think with.” —Sixteenth Century Journal“This book’s focus is ambitious, and its argument is both insightful and compelling… The work begun in this book promises to be generative and to foster further studies into mercantile and economic issues related to the history of chivalric and aristocratic romance.” —Journal of English and Germanic Philology“Wakiak’s thesis of the recurring exchange of chivalric violence and romance fluidity fits well with recent trends in romance scholarship. He is adept at reading romance’s possibilities and offers much to think about in a wide range or Middle English texts.” —Speculum

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Book SynopsisThe first of a two-volume memoir, Between Two Millstones, Book 1 explores Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s exile from the Soviet Union and struggles to find a home in the West.Trade Review"Between Two Millstones is the name of the autobiography that picks up where The Oak and the Calf left off. . . . Published in Russian periodicals in the late 1990s and now translated into English, the book charts a striking transformation in how Western readers saw Solzhenitsyn, and how he, in turn, saw himself." —National Review“. . . we must be grateful for these sketches and the insight into the times that they offer, as well as the all-too-rare and occasional glimpses of the lovable man behind the publicly impenetrable mask.” —Chronicles“Solzhenitsyn remained a Russian patriot. His literary mission was the restoration of his homeland to a condition of liberty and flourishing that Leninist-Stalinism destroyed. This is the ultimate truth of the recently released English edition of Book 1 of Between Two Millstones, which is Solzhenitsyn’s account of his forced exile in the West in 1974.” —Law & Liberty“We can be thankful to the University of Notre Dame Press for publishing, late last year, Between Two Millstones, Book I: Sketches of Exile, 1974-1978, translated by Peter Constantine and with an introduction by the Solzhenitsyn scholar Daniel J. Mahoney. . . . Between Two Millstones is an entirely different category. While March 1917 is a crucial episode in the work that Solzhenitsyn relentlessly devoted himself to for decades of research and writing, the former is much more causal—not a journal, precisely, but full of incident.” —First Things“[Solzhenitsyn] is a writer with a necessarily solitary occupation, yet he is put upon by outside forces that feel to him as inexorable as Soviet oppression. . . . This will be enjoyed by serious readers of this author.” —San Francisco Book Review“Constantine’s formidable translation of the first volume of Solzhenitsyn’s memoir is a birth-centennial tribute to the great Russian writer. . . . This memoir is a timely and propitious antidote to the current perplexing world situation, which is marked by the rise of neo-Nazism, international wars, criminal activities on the part of governments, and callous disregard for the law and constitutional traditions.” —Choice“Between Two Milestones is a testament not only to the courage and clear-sightedness of Solzhenitsyn but also to the evils of the Soviet Union and the pathologies that still plague the West. . . . Insightful, surprisingly humorous at places, and always focused on those things that make life work living—family, God, culture, and one’s own country—Between Two Milestones illuminates the struggles one faces when living in the West and what one can make of it in this free but empty civilization.” —Voegelin View“[Solzhenitsyn] was a polymath, an able scientist, and mathematician who devoured literature in many languages. . . . For readers who seek to understand one of the pivotal geniuses of the 20th century, Between Two Millstones is a treasure.” —Claremont Review of Books"An engaging tale of Solzhenitsyn's initial exposure to Western ways." —Rain Taxi"Here we meet Solzhenitsyn the writer, a man searching for a quiet place to gather his thoughts, refine them, and put them on paper. . . . In this book above all others, perhaps, Solzhenitsyn shows how he subtly shifted the emphasis of Russian Orthodox Christianity toward a path of greater sobriety." —Society

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Book SynopsisGiants are a ubiquitous feature of medieval romance. As remnants of a British prehistory prior to the civilization established, according to the Historium regum Britannie, by Brutus and his Trojan followers, giants are permanently at odds with the chivalric culture of the romance world. Whether they are portrayed as brute savages or as tyrannical pagan lords, giants serve as a limit against which the chivalric hero can measure himself. In Outsiders: The Humanity and Inhumanity of Giants in Medieval French Prose Romance, Sylvia Huot argues that the presence of giants allows for fantasies of ethnic and cultural conflict and conquest, and for the presentationand suppressionof alternative narrative and historical trajectories that might have made Arthurian Britain a very different place. Focusing on medieval French prose romance and drawing on aspects of postcolonial theory, Huot examines the role of giants in constructions of race, class, gender, and human subjectivity. STrade Review"In her beautifully written Outsiders: The Humanity and Inhumanity of Giants in Medieval French Prose Romance, Sylvia Huot organizes a wealth of material into a taxonomy of giants and their complex role in medieval French literature. Huot imaginatively uses that mapping to demonstrate the many ways in which the figure of the giant is a cultural fantasy through which medieval writers imagined the limits of personhood. Tracing that fantasy through medieval concepts of race and ethnicity, Huot makes an original and important claim not just about what giants do for medieval writers or their audiences, but also about the vulnerable boundaries of the human that are both put into question and reaffirmed by representations of giant outsiders." —Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan"Giants emerge from Sylvia Huot’s scintillating new book as a 'constitutive outside' that is central to medieval European ideas of the self and of civilisation. Their presence enables Arthurian romance in particular implicitly to define norms for gender, race, ethics, and the human. Not least of this book’s merits is an ongoing and illuminating meditation on parallels between medieval ideologies of exclusion and modern discourses on race or indeed terrorism." —Simon Gaunt, King’s College London"Sylvia Huot's Outsiders is a book that medieval studies and monster theory have long needed. Attentive to how history and monstrosity together make race—and how that category of identity was far from stable in the Middle Ages—Huot examines the giants populating French romance. A bearer of captivating stories about the limits of the human, giants figure as a threat of violence against everything cherished (and thus a call to unending, genocidal war) as well as, at times, representing sympathetic inclinations towards earthly life, alternatives to the stories in which they are depicted as demonic. An erudite work of scholarship composed with great verve, Outsiders is a book that anyone interested in the history of monsters and the vexed making of the human will want to read." —Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington University“Tracing the treatment of giants from the Bible through the later medieval period, the study embraces large themes: humanity and inhumanity, religious fervor, violence, assimilation, love, desire, sacrifice, construction of racial and ethnic difference. . . . With few exceptions, giants, unmourned in death, are the irredeemable Other whose antagonism and precarious survival are essential to the construction and continuity of idealized Western Christian culture. Highly recommended.” —Choice“Sylvia Huot’s work is a timely and important investigation of giant figures in medieval French literature. Although Huot focuses very precisely on French discussion of race, gender, and class, specifically, can be applied not only across genres, but placed within a medieval and early modern European context. It is a well-timed work, a pleasure to read, and will expand the discussion on giants and other monsters of medieval literature. The theoretical discourse is especially useful for academics in expanding the notions of monstrosity and humanity within medieval and early modern literature.”—Renaissance Quarterly.

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Book SynopsisA timely examination of the conflict between the techno-utopia promised by real-world scientists and the techno-dystopia predicted by science fiction.Trade Review"As a study of everything you wanted to know about the terrors of technology but were to afraid to ask, Technophobia! Is impressive."--The Guardian, 1 April 2006Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Dreams of Techno-Heaven, Nightmares of Techno-Hell 1. Technology Is God: Machine Transcendence 2. Haunted Utopias: Artificial Humans and Mad Scientists 3. Cybernetic Slaves: Robotics 4. Machines Out of Control: Artificial Intelligence and Androids 5. Rampaging Cyborgs: Bionics 6. Infinite Cyberspace Cages: The Internet and Virtual Reality 7. Engineered Flesh: Biotechnology 8. Malevolent Molecular Machines: Nanotechnology 9. Technology Is a Virus: Machine Plague 10. Epilogue: Technophobia Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA probing examination of how science fiction literature and film has presented feminist debates about difference, globalization, and technoscience.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Science Fiction's Alien Constructions Part I. Difference, Identity, and Colonial Experience in Feminist Science Fiction 1. Cultural Chameleons: Anticolonial Identities and Resistance in Octavia E. Butler's Survivor and Dawn 2. The Alien in Us: Metaphors of Transgression in the Work of Octavia E. Butler Part II: Technologies and Gender in Science Fiction Film 3. Technoscience's Stepdaughter: The Feminist Cyborg in Alien Resurrection 4. Our Bodies as Our Selves: Body, Subjectivity, and (Virtual) Reality in The Matrix Part III: Posthuman Embodiment: Deviant Bodies, Desire, and Feminist Politics 5. The Anatomy of Dystopia: Female Technobodies and the Death of Desire in Richard Calder's Dead Girls 6. Beyond Binary Gender: Genderqueer Identities and Intersexed Bodies in Octavia E. Butler's Wild Seed and Imago and Melissa Scott's Shadow Man Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A must read." -- Laura Sneddon * Women Write about Comics *"Whaley presents a compelling study of women of African descent in American comics. . . . The kaleidoscopic nature of her study allows readers to form a comprehensive idea about the politics of race and gender in American comics from the late 1930s until today. . . . With its far‐ranging thematic scope and range, Black Women in Sequence is destined to become a cornerstone in the study of gender and race in American comics." -- Kirsten Mollegaard * Journal of Popular Culture *"One of the first book-length works to deal specifically with the construction and experience of black women in sequential art. . . . Whaley considers the creation and consumption of sequential media by black women, often erased from conversations about fan culture. . . . An extraordinarily ambitious work." -- Joshua Abraham Kopin * American Literature *"Engaging and provocative, Black Women in Sequence is relevant not only to comic scholars, but to anyone with an interest in how difference is represented using visual rhetoric." * Feminist Media Studies *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Re-inking the Nation: Jackie Ormes’s Black Cultural Front Comics 2. Black Cat Got Your Tongue?: Catwoman, Blackness, and Postracialism 3. African Goddesses, Mixed-Race Wonders, and Baadasssss Women: Black Women as “Signs” of African in US Comics 4. Anime Dreams for African Girls: Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water 5. Where I’m Coming From: Black Female Artists and Postmodern Comix Conclusion: Comic Book Divas and the Making of Sequential Subjects Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe text of The Brothers Karamazov is removed from English-speaking readers not only by time but also by linguistic and cultural boundaries. Victor Terras's companion work offers readers an understanding of the Dostoevsky novel as the expression of a philosophy and a work of art.

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Book SynopsisThe author places Huckleberry Finn in the context of long standing American debate about race and culture. He points out that this quintessentially American novel, assigned to many schools as an important weapon against racism, yet including the word ""nigger"", arouses controversy.

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Book SynopsisDictated in an idiomatic, associative style, this book exposes the doubleness of Carson McCullers's life. A mine of information for anyone interested in McCullers and American literary life in the 1950s, these memoirs are also a testament to the courage and love of life of their author.Trade ReviewThis autobiography was a heroic last-ditch effort. - Atlantic Monthly ""An extraordinary document. Dictated in an idiomatic, associative style, it exposes the doubleness of [Carson] McCullers's life.... A rich mine of information for anyone interested in McCullers, and American literary life in the 1950s, these memoirs are also a testament to the courage and sheer love of life of their author." - Richard Gray, Times Literary Supplement.

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Book SynopsisMark Twain's ""Own Autobiography"" stands as the last of Twain's great yarns. This book covers a wealth of critical work done on Twain since 1990. It also includes a discussion of literary domesticity, locating the autobiography within the history of Twain's literary work and within Twain's own understanding and experience of domestic concerns.Trade Review"Now, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true." - Mark Twain "Distinctly Mark Twain." - Publishers Weekly"

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Book SynopsisThe foremost Proust scholar of our time offers a brilliantly revised and annotated edition of the first volume of the twentieth century's most acclaimed novelTrade Review“A perfect entry point to begin the journey of a lifetime . . . a more engaging version.”—Mayank Austen Soofi, Live Mint"For William C. Carter, the dean of American Proust studies, to agree to do a new edition of the Scott Moncrieff translation of Swann’s Way is a coup for readers. The new version corrects numerous thematic and lexical errors, and preserves much of Scott Moncrieff’s celebrated style. Carter’s very readable revision is wisely and discreetly annotated, and it offers as accurate a translation as possible. It is also an unmitigated delight to read."—Allan H. Pasco, Hall Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas"No one has grasped the interplay of Proust's life and work better than William Carter. He has now applied that knowledge to the iconic but flawed translation of In Search of Lost Time by Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, correcting Scott Moncrieff's faults-- his outright errors and his idiosyncratic Victorianisms--and providing essential notes to Proust's many cultural references. The result is a volume of enormous use to both first-time readers and those who are returning to Proust for further understanding and pleasure."—Harold Augenbraum, Editor, Collected Poems of Marcel Proust"In this thoroughly revised, updated and annotated version of Swann’s Way, William C. Carter, the prominent expert of Marcel Proust’s life and work, offers American readers the most accurate and valuable rendition of Scott Moncrieff’s translation to date. When appropriate and without altering the beauty of Moncrieff’s version, Carter has modernized it, made it compatible with U.S. spelling, and perceptively restored the French original’s simplicity as well as its intended meaning. Unobtrusive and yet detailed notes in this first volume of Proust’s monumental novel will guide general readers, students, and scholars alike in appreciating a text that has captivated millions of readers worldwide for the past hundred years."—Catherine Perry, University of Notre Dame“My favorite translation of Proust is Proust’s first English translator, Scott Moncrieff, but updated and corrected and annotated by one of the greatest Proustians alive today, William C. Carter . . . of whom I’m an enormous fan. . . . Beautifully annotated . . . An invaluable resource.”—Caroline Weber, author of Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris

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Book SynopsisFrom the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a meditation on the deeply Jewish and surprisingly spiritual roots of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics Few artists have had as much of an impact on American popular culture as Stan Lee. The characters he createdSpider-Man and Iron Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Fouroccupy Hollywood's imagination and production schedules, generate billions at the box office, and come as close as anything we have to a shared American mythology. This illuminating biography focuses as much on Lee's ideas as it does on his unlikely rise to stardom. It surveys his cultural and religious upbringing and draws surprising connections between celebrated comic book heroes and the ancient tales of the Bible, the Talmud, and Jewish mysticism. Was Spider-Man just a reincarnation of Cain? Is the Incredible Hulk simply Adam by another name? From close readings of Lee's work to little-known anecdotes from Marvel's history, the book paints a portrait of Lee that goes much deeper Trade Review"Mr. Leibovitz provides fresh interpretations of the Marvel universe, itself a super-heroic feat. Lee’s contentious heroes, he finds, take their cue from the Talmud, which unveiled spiritual truths through the clash of opposing interpretations."—Michael Saler, Wall Street Journal“The Marvel and DC universes are almost certainly the most extensive pieces of continuous narrative in human history—which should commend them to the attention of anybody interested in culture…The Jewishness of the early comics industry…is ever present in the story…[and] Leibovitz drills deeply into this.”—Sam Leith, ProspectCHOICE 2021 Outstanding Academic Title“Liel Leibovitz’s Stan Lee: A Life in Comics interprets Lee’s and his collaborators’ Marvel co-creations—such as the X-Men and Spider-Man—in a uniquely Jewish context, bringing fresh insights and added dimension to characters whose genius lies, in part, in their ability to credibly sustain such interpretations.”—Danny Fingeroth, author of A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee“From one of our most incisive Jewish cultural critics—someone who is equally at home in the history of Jewish thought and text and the pop culture world of the postwar period—this is a thoroughly entertaining, deeply intelligent, and highly thoughtful work.”—Jeremy Dauber, author of Jewish Comedy: A Serious History

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Book SynopsisA literary testament showing how Mary Lee Settle's great novels followed the map of her remarkable life.

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Book SynopsisA leading literary critic’s innovative study of how the Nobel Prize–winning author turned life into art.Trade Review"... a breezy, highly readable and often entertaining study of some important figures in the author’s life..." -- Jay Parini - Literary Review"The book [Bellow's People] also makes one want to rediscover Bellow’s characters in all their Dickensian, tragi-comic brilliance, and read again his sentences, which shine with a rare intensity." -- The National

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Book SynopsisA memoir about the magic and inspiration of books from a beloved and best-selling author.Trade Review"A warm-hearted accounting of the power of fiction to shape one author’s life..." -- Times Literary Supplement

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Book Synopsis"Dubus relives, absent self-pity or blame, a life shaped by bouts of violence and flurries of tenderness." —Vanity FairTrade Review"Townie is a better, harder book than anything [Dubus III] has yet written; it pays off on every bet that’s been placed on him." -- Dwight Garner - New York Times"Harrowing and strange and beautiful…This book marks an important moment in the growing body of Dubus’s work." -- Bret Lott - Boston Globe"As a memoir, and as a family story, Townie is beautiful and almost perfectly executed. As a meditation on violence, from an author who once embraced it, it is shocking, necessary and indispensable." -- Michael Schaub - NPR"This haunting memoir is as explosive as a Muhammad Ali prize fight, as vivid as a Basquiat canvas…This wrenching story can only strengthen the reputation of Andre Dubus III. From father to son, the torch has passed." -- Dan Cryer - San Francisco Chronicle"A stormy and courageous memoir." -- Kate Bittman - The New Yorker"[Dubus III] is such a solid writer, he redeems the genre. He shows that truth can be as honest as fiction." -- Mark Lindquist - Seattle Times"Dubus has an eye for searing detail that is unequaled so far this century…and he employs that here to maximum effect." -- Joy Tipping - Dallas Morning News"The best first-person account of an author’s life I have ever read. The violence that is described is the kind that is with us every day, whether we recognize it or not. The characters are wonderful and compassionately drawn. I sincerely believe Andre Dubus may be the best writer in America. His talent is enormous. No one who reads this book will ever forget it." -- James Lee Burke"Whatever it cost Dubus to bare his soul and write this brutally honest and life-affirming memoir, it is an extraordinary gift to his readers." -- Wally Lamb"I’ve never read a better or more serious meditation on violence, its sources, consequences, and, especially, its terrifying pleasures, than Townie. It’s a brutal and, yes, thrilling memoir that sheds real light on the creative process of two of our best writers, Andre Dubus III and his famous, much revered father. You’ll never read the work of either man in quite the same way afterward. You may not view the world in quite the same way either." -- Richard Russo

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Book SynopsisA memoir about the magic and inspiration of books from a beloved and best-selling author.Trade Review"A warm-hearted accounting of the power of fiction to shape one author’s life…" -- Times Literary Supplement

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisFourteen conjure tales by one of America's most influential African American fiction writers.Table of ContentsIntroduction A Note on the Texts THE TEXTS OF THE CONJURE STORIES The Goophered Grapevine Po' Sandy The Conjurer's Revenge Dave's Neckliss A Deep Sleeper Lonesome Ben The Dumb Witness A Victim of Heredity; or, Why the Darkey Loves Chicken The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt Mars Jeems's Nightmare Sis' Becky's Pickaninny Tobe's Tribulations Hot-Foot Hannibal The Marked Tree CONTEXTS Sarah Ingle • The Terrain of Chesnutt's Conjure Tales Charles W. Chesnutt • From His Journal, Spring 1880 [Why could not a colored man . . . write a far better book about the South?] [I think I must write a book] William Wells Brown • [Voudooism in Missouri] Joel Chandler Harris • The Sad Fate of Mr. Fox Ovid • The Transformation of Daphne into a Laurel Charles W. Chesnutt • Letters to Albion W. Tourgée and George Washington Cable To Tourgée, Sept. 26, 1889 To Cable, March 29, 1890 To Cable, June 13, 1890 Paul Laurence Dunbar • The Deserted Plantation Charles W. Chesnutt • Superstitions and Folk-lore of the South The Free Colored People of North Carolina Adaptation of "The Dumb Witness" The Negro in Art: How Shall He Be Portrayed? Post-Bellum-Pre-Harlem CRITICISM EARLY CRITICISM Critical Notices of The Conjure Woman William Dean Howells • Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories Benjamin Brawley • [Fiction with a Firm Sense of Art] Helen M. Chesnutt • Chesnutt and Walter Hines Page MODERN CRITICISM Robert Hemenway • [Black Magic, Audience, and Belief] William L. Andrews • [A Critique of the Plantation Legend] Robert B. Stepto • [The Cycle of the First Four Stories] John Edgar Wideman • [Julius's Ex-Slave Narrative] Werner Sollors • [Reason, Property, and Modern Metamorphoses] Houston A. Baker Jr. • [The Sound of the Conjure Stories] Eric J. Sundquist • [Chesnutt's Revision of Uncle Remus] Richard H. Brodhead • [Chesnutt's Negotiation with the Dominant Literary Culture] Candace J. Waid • Conjuring the Conjugal: Chesnutt's Scenes from a Marriage Glenda Carpio • [Black Humor in the Conjure Stories] Charles W. Chesnutt: A Chronology Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisHannah Webster Foster's two major Early American works with a wealth of primary materials are now available in a Norton Critical Edition.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface A Note on the Texts The Texts of The Coquette and The Boarding School The Coquette The Boarding School Sources and Contexts On Coquetry Anonymous • A modern Coquette's account of herself Anonymous • For the Massachusetts Gazette. On Coquetry The Life and Death of Elizabeth Whitman The Letters of Elizabeth Whitman to Joel and Ruth Barlow, 1779–1783 Inventory of Whitman's Belongings on Her Death Bryan Waterman • The Elizabeth Whitman Paper Trail William Hill Brown • From The Power of Sympathy Anonymous • A Pathetick Fragment. By the late unfortunate Miss Whitman The Nineteenth-Century Legacy J. Horatio Nichols • From The New England Coquette William R. Hayden • From Clara Wharton; A Sequel to Eliza Wharton Anonymous • Tragedy in Tale of Love Caroline Wells Healey Dall • From The Romance of the Association Criticism Carroll Smith-Rosenberg • From Domesticating 'Virtue': Coquettes and Revolutionaries in Young America Claire C. Pettengill • [Female Friendship in Foster’s Novels] Julia A. Stern • [Live Burial and the Tyrannies of Voice in The Coquette] Gillian Brown • From Consent, Coquetry, and Consequences Jeffrey H. Richards • [Theater, Sexuality, and National Virtue in Foster's Novels] Gwendolyn Audrey Foster • [The Dialogics of Sisterly Advice in The Boarding School] Elizabeth Hewitt • [Foster's Epistolarity] Rodney Hessinger • [Gender in the Seduction Tales of the Late Eighteenth Century] Blevin Shelnutt • The Coquette and Pseudonymous Attribution Hannah Webster Foster: A Chronology Elizabeth Whitman: A Chronology Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAnonymously published in 1554, Lazarillo de Tormes remains a centrepiece of Renaissance literature and is arguably the most popular example of the picaresque novel.

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Book Synopsistwilight and Philosophy What can vampires tell us about the meaning of life? Is Edward a romantic hero or a dangerous stalker? Is Bella a feminist? Is Stephenie Meyer? How does Stephenie Meyer's Mormonism fit into the fantastical world of Twilight? Is Jacob better for Bella than Edward? The answers to these philosophical questions and more can be found inside Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality. With everything from Taoism to mind reading to the place of God in a world of vampires, this book offers some very tasty philosophy for both the living and the undead to sink their teeth into. Whether you're on Team Edward or Team Jacob, whether you loved or hated Breaking Dawn, this book is for you! To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.comTable of ContentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Supernatural Humans We Can’t Live Without xi Introduction: Undead Wisdom 1 PART ONE TWILIGHT 1 You Look Good Enough to Eat: Love, Madness, and the Food Analogy 7George A. Dunn 2 Dying to Eat: The Vegetarian Ethics of Twilight 25Jean Kazez 3 Can a Vampire Be a Person? 39Nicolas Michaud 4 Carlisle: More Compassionate Than a Speeding Bullet? 49Andrew Terjesen and Jenny Terjesen PART TWO NEW MOON 5 Vampire-Dämmerung: What Can Twilight Tell Us about God? 63Peter S. Fosl and Eli Fosl 6 To Bite or Not to Bite: Twilight, Immortality, and the Meaning of Life 79Brendan Shea 7 Mind Reading and Morality: The Moral Hazards of Being Edward 93Eric Silverman 8 Love and Authority among Wolves 107Sara Worley PART THREE ECLIPSE 9 Bella Swan and Sarah Palin: All the Old Myths Are Not True 121Naomi Zack 10 Vampire Love: The Second Sex Negotiates the Twenty-first Century 131Bonnie Mann 11 Edward Cullen and Bella Swan: Byronic and Feminist Heroes . . . or Not 147Abigail E. Myers 12 Undead Patriarchy and the Possibility of Love 163Leah McClimans and J. Jeremy Wisnewski 13 The “Real” Danger: Fact vs. Fiction for the Girl Audience 177Rebecca Housel PART FOUR BREAKING DAWN 14 Twilight of an Idol: Our Fatal Attraction to Vampires 193Jennifer L. McMahon 15 Bella’s Vampire Semiotics 209Dennis Knepp 16 Space, Time, and Vampire Ontology 219Philip Puszczalowski 17 For the Strength of Bella? Meyer, Vampires, and Mormonism 227Marc E. Shaw 18 The Tao of Jacob 237Rebecca Housel CONTRIBUTORS: Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducing the Stars of Our Show, Humans, Vampires, and Shape-Shifters Alike 247 INDEX: For Those Who Can’t Read Minds 253

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Book SynopsisMarking the 50th anniversary of Lewis death, The Intellectual World of C.S. Lewis sees leading Christian thinker Alister McGrath offering a fresh approach to understanding the key themes at the centre of Lewis theological work and intellectual development.Trade Review“I have read many of Lewis's works repeatedly over the years and have read much of the secondary literature on him. The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewisdoes a good job in placing him in the intellectual context of his time.” (Modern-day Pilgrim, 8 April 2014) “McGrath’s volume is useful to both Lewis scholars and lay readers interested in Lewis or the themes with which he engaged.” (The Way, 1 April 2014) “There are acute and stimulating observations on Surprised by Joy as autobiography cast in a Christian mould, and its reliability as a source for historians. There are two particularly fine chapters showing the long-range influence on Lewis of the tradition of classical, medieval and early modern literature.” (Peter Webster's Blog, 22 January 2014) “Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.” (Choice, 1 December 2013) “Many will also be grateful for these two books by Alister McGrath. Both reflect his thorough research, careful weighing of evidence, wide reading, and clarity of expression. . . The book contains useful studies on different aspects of Lewis as a Christian thinker; and I particularly enjoyed the slightly mischievous chapter in which McGrath argues that Lewis should be seen as a “real” theologian, not just the amateur one that he himself claimed to be.” (Church Times, 22 November 2013) “There is more to be said about Lewis as apologist and theologian but McGrath has written what will long be regarded as the essential guide.” (The Church of England Newspaper, 23 June 2013) “McGrath is ingenious and persuasive in searching Lewis’s writings for clues to his private life … [A] devoted and meticulous biography.” (The Times Literary Supplement, 21 June 2013) “Alister McGrath's biography of C.S. Lewis was an incredible exploration of one of the greatest minds in the history of Christian thought. I've always enjoyed reading Lewis because of the way he explains concepts in a way that is refreshing and inspiring. I found McGrath to have that kind of way with words in his exploration of Lewis' life. He takes the exploration a step further in a new companion book to the Lewis biography, THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD OF C.S. LEWIS.” (Tom Farr Reviews, 1 June 2013)"Lewis will go on being read nevertheless, because he is capable of great writing, but precisely which works and what the reception will be is also an open question. There are, however, many useful insights in this collection of essays, especially as regards the approach to Lewis’s modes of thought, with much unspoken about Lewis’s verbal practices." (Oxford Journals 2016)Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii A Brief Biography of C. S. Lewis ix Introduction 1 1. The Enigma of Autobiography: Critical Reflections on Surprised by Joy 7 2. The “New Look”: Lewis’s Philosophical Context at Oxford in the 1920s 31 3. A Gleam of Divine Truth: The Concept of Myth in Lewis’s Thought 55 4. The Privileging of Vision: Lewis’s Metaphors of Light, Sun, and Sight 83 5. Arrows of Joy: Lewis’s Argument from Desire 105 6. Reason, Experience, and Imagination: Lewis’s Apologetic Method 129 7. A “Mere Christian”: Anglicanism and Lewis’s Religious Identity 147 8. Outside the “Inner Ring”: Lewis as a Theologian 163 Works by Lewis Cited 185 Index 187

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Book SynopsisThe focus of this book is on speech production and speech processing associated with cleft palate, covering phonetic (perceptual and instrumental), phonological and psycholinguistic perspectives, and including coverage of implications for literacy and education, as well as cross-linguistic differences. It draws together a group of international experts in the fields of cleft lip and palate and speech science to provide an up-to-date and in-depth account of the nature of speech production, and the processes and current evidence base of assessment and intervention for speech associated with cleft palate. The consequences of speech disorders associated with cleft on intelligibility and communicative participation are also covered. This book will provide a solid theoretical foundation and a valuable clinical resource for students of speech-language pathology, for practising speech-language pathologists, and for others interested in speech production in cleft palate, including researchers aTable of ContentsList of Contributors xi Preface xvii Part One Speech Production and Development 1 Sara Howard and Anette Lohmander 1 Physical Structure and Function and Speech Production Associated with Cleft Palate 5 Martin Atkinson and Sara Howard 1.1 Introduction 5 1.2 The Hard and Soft Palates and the Velopharynx 6 1.3 The Tonsils and Adenoids 9 1.4 The Larynx 11 1.5 The Jaws, Dentition and Occlusion 12 1.6 Symmetry: Structure and Function 15 1.7 The Tongue 16 1.8 The Lips 18 1.9 Summary: Compensations Across Systems 19 References 19 2 The Development of Speech in Children with Cleft Palate 23 Kathy L. Chapman and Elisabeth Willadsen 2.1 Overview 23 2.2 The Impact of Clefting on Speech Production 24 2.3 Variables Impacting Speech Development for Young Children with Cleft Palate 25 2.4 Speech Development: Birth to Age Five 26 2.5 Conclusion 35 References 36 3 The Influence of Related Conditions on Speech and Communication 41 Christina Persson and Lotta Sjögreen 3.1 Introduction 41 3.2 Conditions Related to Structural Etiologies 42 3.3 Conditions Related to Neurological Aetiology 47 3.4 Conditions Related to a Combination of Structural and Neurological Aetiology 49 3.5 Clinical Implications 50 References 50 4 Surgical Intervention and Speech Outcomes in Cleft Lip and Palate 55 Anette Lohmander 4.1 Introduction 55 4.2 Basics of Surgery on Cleft Palate 57 4.3 Basics of Outcomes 64 4.4 Speech Outcomes 65 4.5 Conclusion 69 Appendix 4.A Review of Evidence and Methodology in Studies of Speech Outcome in Individuals Born with Cleft Lip and Palate 70 References 82 5 Secondary Management and Speech Outcome 87 John E. Riski 5.1 Introduction 87 5.2 Secondary Surgical Management of Velopharyngeal Incompetence 88 5.3 Secondary Pharyngeal Flap 88 5.4 Posterior Pharyngeal Wall Augmentation by Muscle Transposition 91 5.5 Studies Comparing Treatments of VPI 94 5.6 Posterior Pharyngeal Wall Augmentation by Implants and Injections 95 5.7 Velarplasty 96 5.8 Other Considerations in Managing VPI 97 5.9 Complications Secondary to Pharyngoplasties 99 5.10 Conclusions 99 References 100 6 Cleft Palate Speech in the Majority World: Models of Intervention and Speech Outcomes in Diverse Cultural and Language Contexts 105 Debbie Sell, Roopa Nagarajan and Mary Wickenden 6.1 Introduction 105 6.2 Speech Outcomes in a Majority World Context 106 6.3 Different Models of Provision 109 6.4 Attitudes/Cultural Aspects 115 6.5 Conclusion 119 References 119 Part Two Speech Assessment and Intervention 123 Anette Lohmander and Sara Howard 7 Phonetic Transcription for Speech Related to Cleft Palate 127 Sara Howard 7.1 Introduction 127 7.2 What is Phonetic Transcription? 128 7.3 Why Transcribe? 129 7.4 What to Transcribe and How to Transcribe It 130 7.5 Features of Cleft Speech Production 131 7.6 Pitfalls of Transcription 134 7.7 Conclusion 138 Appendices 139 References 142 8 Instrumentation in the Analysis of the Structure and Function of the Velopharyngeal Mechanism 145 Debbie Sell and Valerie Pereira 8.1 Introduction 145 8.2 Visualization of the Velopharyngeal Mechanism 147 8.3 Multiview Videofluoroscopy 147 8.4 Nasendoscopy Procedure 151 8.5 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) 155 8.6 Variability in Practice 158 8.7 Future 162 References 162 9 Cross Linguistic Perspectives on Speech Assessment in Cleft Palate 167 Gunilla Henningsson and Elisabeth Willadsen 9.1 Introduction 167 9.2 Vulnerable Speech Sounds 168 9.3 Language Background of the Listener Assessing the Speech of Children with Cleft Palate 170 9.4 What Is Known about More Unfamiliar Languages? 173 9.5 Cross Linguistic Speech Samples 173 9.6 Influence on Assessment of Language Acquisition in the Young Child with Cleft Palate 176 9.7 Conclusion 177 References 177 10 Voice Assessment and Intervention 181 Lesley Cavalli 10.1 Introduction 181 10.2 Defining a Voice Disorder 181 10.3 Assessment 184 10.4 Instrumental Assessment 189 10.5 Vocal Handicap Measures 190 10.6 Treatment 191 10.7 Conclusion 195 References 196 11 Nasality – Assessment and Intervention 199 Triona Sweeney 11.1 Introduction 199 11.2 Perceptual Assessment of Nasality and Nasal Airflow Errors 205 11.3 Instrumental Assessment of Nasality and Nasal Airflow Errors 207 11.4 Interpreting Results 211 11.5 Intervention 214 11.6 Conclusion 216 Appendix 11.A Temple Street Scale of Nasality and Nasal Airflow Errors 217 References 217 12 Articulation – Instruments for Research and Clinical Practice 221 Fiona E. Gibbon and Alice Lee 12.1 Introduction 221 12.2 Electropalatography (EPG) 222 12.3 Imaging Techniques 228 12.4 Motion Tracking 233 12.5 Conclusion 235 Acknowledgement 235 References 235 13 Psycholinguistic Assessment and Intervention 239 Joy Stackhouse 13.1 Introduction 239 13.2 What is a Psycholinguistic Approach? 240 13.3 A Psycholinguistic Assessment Framework 242 13.4 Intervention from a Psycholinguistic Perspective 245 13.5 Literacy: Phonological Awareness and Spelling 250 13.6 Summary 254 References 255 14 Early Communication Assessment and Intervention 259 Nancy Scherer and Brenda Louw 14.1 Introduction 259 14.2 Assessment 260 14.3 Intervention 267 References 272 15 Phonological Approaches to Speech Difficulties Associated with Cleft Palate 275 Anne Harding-Bell and Sara Howard 15.1 Introduction 275 15.2 Variability, Variation and Compensation 277 15.3 Classification of Speech Difficulties Related to Cleft Palate 278 15.4 Phonological Assessment of Speech Data Related to Cleft Palate 278 15.5 Phonological Consequences of Speech Production Related to Cleft Palate 279 15.6 Intervention 283 15.7 Summary 287 References 288 16 Speech Intelligibility 293 Tara L. Whitehill, Carrie L. Gotzke and Megan Hodge 16.1 Introduction 293 16.2 Definition of Intelligibility and Related Concepts 294 16.3 Measurement Issues 294 16.4 Studies of Intelligibility in Speakers with Cleft Palate 296 16.5 Current and Future Developments 298 16.6 Conclusion 300 References 301 17 Communicative Participation 305 Christina Havstam and Anette Lohmander 17.1 Introduction 305 17.2 ICF 306 17.3 Communicative Participation 307 17.4 Conclusions and Clinical Implications 312 References 312 18 Evaluation and Evidence-Based Practice 317 Linda D. Vallino-Napoli 18.1 Introduction 317 18.2 Intervention for Speech Disorders 318 18.3 Evidence-Based Practice 319 18.4 The Systematic Review Process 323 18.5 Evidence Findings Establishing Therapy Effectiveness 325 18.6 Instrumentation – Visual Feedback 349 18.7 Surgery 350 18.8 Comments about Intervention Effectiveness 351 18.9 Intervention and the International Classification of Function (ICF) 352 18.10 Research Designs for Intervention Studies 352 18.11 Conclusions 352 Appendix 18.A Commonly Used Evidence Hierarchies for Intervention Studies 354 References 354 Index 359

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Book SynopsisSuch Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction explores how fiction works in the brains and imagination of both readers and writers. Demonstrates how reading fiction can contribute to a greater understanding of, and the ability to change, ourselves Informed by the latest psychological research which focuses on, for example, how identification with fictional characters occurs, and how literature can improve social abilities Explores traditional aspects of fiction, including character, plot, setting, and theme, as well as a number of classic techniques, such as metaphor, metonymy, defamiliarization, and cues Includes extensive end-notes, which ground the work in psychological studies Features excerpts from fiction which are discussed throughout the text, including works by William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, Anton Chekhov, James Baldwin, and others Trade Review“Such Stuff as Dreamsis a remarkable book in several ways. It stands out by the breadth of the topics covered, extending beyond the reader to also include the writing and the communication about fiction, and by the diversity and richness of the many different concepts and studies brought to bear upon the topic.” (JLTonline, 1 July 2014 Review copy sent on 29.05.14 to PsycCRITIQUES Featured in The Scotsman - 25 July 2011 Featured in The Yorkshire Post - 23 August 2011 Featured in The Guardian - 22 July 2012 Featured in The Independent - 28 August 2012 Featured in The Globe & Mail - 9 September 2011 BBC Radio 4 interview - 7 July 2012 Featured in Times Literary Supplement - 30 March 2012 "Such Stuff as Dreams is a welcome and well-informed foray into a neglected research area. As someone who has thought very hard about the making of fiction as well as the creative engagement with it, Oatley is an excellent guide to the science of an art form whose value, in this brave new world of cognitive neuroscience, is undiminshed. His claim is that fiction, like other art forms, allows us to experience emotions in new contexts, and thus learn more about these emotions and ourselves. His achievement is to show us the many ways in which this is true." (The Psychologist, April 2012) "Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers." (Choice, 1 January 2012) "Fiction, according to this cognitive psychologist, is a "dream" or mental "model" or "simulation", and now its effects can be probed with modern scientific techniques . . . Oatley explains with enthusiasm the results of his and others' experiments on readers." (The Guardian, 22 July 2011) "Keith Oatley's book asks why we read, and what happens to our mind when we do. It is a winning combination of psychology, literary criticism and speculation." (The Scotsman, 30 July 2011) Review in The Times and The Sunday Times e- paper - 12/07/11. "Much of the discussion is compelling, and this book could well change the way you read . . . Still, his writing is entertaining and he's tapping into a rich vein, and I hope he will explore the subject further." (New Scientist, 23 July 2011)?Table of ContentsPreface. Acknowledgments. 1 Fiction as dream: Models, world-building, simulation. 2 The space-in-between: Childhood play as the entrance to fiction. 3 Creativity: Imagined worlds. 4 Character, action, incident: Mental models of people and their doings. 5 Emotions: Scenes in the imagination. 6 Writing fiction: Cues for the reader. 7 Effects of fiction: Is fiction good for you? 8 Talking about fiction: Interpretation in conversation. Endnotes. Bibliography. Name Index. Subject Index.

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Book SynopsisLooking for some new business insights? Forget about Wall Street. Learn a lesson or two from Arthur Miller and David Mamet on Broadway. Put down Forbes and Fortune for once and spend an evening with Chaucer and George Bernard Shaw. You'll pass an enjoyable evening and discover some fresh new management perspectives.Table of ContentsSelling as Theater: The Art of Dazzling the Customer. Selling on a Grand Scale: Playing to an Image-Conscious Society. Maintaining Individuality in Corporate Life. Overcoming Corporate Gospel and the Will to Believe. Survival of the Fittest in a Darwinian Business World. Office Politics, Stress Management, and Chaos. Conclusion: The More Things Change... Notes. A Working Man and Woman's Guide to Further Reading. Acknowledgments. Index.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of Winesburg, Ohio, an autobiography of Midwestern life and culture by one of the leading figures of 20th-century American letters.Trade ReviewThe American Portrait of the Artist. - Charles Baxter ""Probably unequaled... for the austerity of moral courage and sincerity of conviction.... A book which should be read by every intelligent American."", - The New York Times ""The pilgrim's progress of a man at once a genuine artist... and a small-town, pool-playing, story-telling Midwesterner."" - Sinclair Lewis ""In the field of literary autobiography, it stands practically alone in America."" - The Nation ""The voice of the soliloquist... amplifies the drama of A Story Teller's Story, as does the persistent theme of escape, from an America of fact and factories, marketing and manufacturing, to the borderless Ohio's of imagination and creation. Part manifesto, part reverie, part romance, it is full of scene-sets, stage directions, vignettes, and 'moments'. An Epilogue replays what seems a never-ending struggle in the writer's life between 'the fanciful' and 'the physical', between the work one does for a living and the work one does to be alive...."" - From the introduction by Thomas Lynch

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Book SynopsisExamines the writings of D.H. Lawrence, a British writer whose literature focused primarily on interpersonal relationships in domestic settings, and Eileen Chang, a Chinese writer who migrated to the US and explored Chinese heterosexual love in her writing.Trade Review“With suggestive pairings of novels by two famous literary authors who are seldom considered together, Sijia Yao invites us to think comparatively on the topic of love across different cultures. By juxtaposing love with cosmopolitanism, her sensitive readings underscore both their transformative potential and inexhaustible appeal.”—Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Duke University “Cosmopolitan Love introduces a new way to understand how D. H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang (best-known for Lust, Caution) reconceived love as the basis for social and political transformation. In demonstrating the fascinating affinity between the two writers, Sijia Yao emphasizes the cross-cultural nature of their achievement. Cosmopolitan Love is notable for its compelling theoretical foundation and insightful close readings.”—Keith Cushman, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and recipient of the Harry T. Moore Award for Lifetime Contributions to D. H. Lawrence Studies “This book articulates love not only as essential to modern society but also as transcending of parochial and national boundaries. Sijia Yao offers an insightful reading of Eileen Chang and D. H. Lawrence in pursuit of cosmopolitan sensibility.”—Ban Wang, William Haas Professor of Chinese Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University, author of At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical EcologyTable of Contents Introduction Chapter One: Incest Prohibition and Cosmopolitanism Chapter Two: Sexual Love as Public Defiance Chapter Three: Adulterous Love as Modern Creation Chapter Four: The Twin Utopias of Transcendental Love Conclusion Bibliography

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