Literary studies: from c 2000 Books
LUP - University of Michigan Press Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by W
Book SynopsisForegrounds some of the ways in which women playwrights from across a range of contexts and working in a variety of forms and styles are illuminating the contemporary world while also contributing to its reshaping as they reflect, rethink, and reimagine it through their work for the stage.Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Critical Visions Penny Farfan I. Replaying the Canon 1. Feminist Adaptations / Adaptations of Feminism: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad Penny Farfan 2. Indigenizing the Colonial Narrative: Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife Denise Varney 3. Does Revenge Fall Softly? YaËl Farber’s Molora Catherine Cole 4. Indecent Collaborations and / in Queer Time(s) Katie N. Johnson and Sara L. Warner II. Representing Histories 5. The Bloodstained Distance: Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box Alisa Solomon 6. Unmaking a Devil’s Bargain: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the Wars and the Idea of America Soyica Diggs Colbert and Robert J. Patterson 7. “A Change Is Gonna Come?” Protest and Racial Progress in debbie tucker green’s ear for eye Lynette Goddard 8. Maternal Agency and Reproductive Justice in Lisa Loomer’s Roe Sharon L. Green III. Staging Lives 9. The Mythic Migrant, the Witnessing Self: HÉlÈne Cixous and Le Dernier CaravansÉrail: OdyssÉes Emine Fisek 10. Exceptional Embodiment in Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy Ryan Claycomb 11. Acting and Reenacting the Malvinas/Falklands War in Lola Arias’s Minefield/Campo minado Paola S. HernÁndez 12. Fun Home: Lesbian Feminism Meets Broadway Musical Theatre Stacy Wolf IV. Re-imagining Family 13. A ‘rock inside the flesh’: Motherwork in Marie Clements’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women Karen Bamford and Sheila Rabillard 14. Quiara Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful and the Dramaturgy of Free Jazz Natalie Alvarez and Jimena Ortuzar 15. British Muslim Feminism and the Marriage Trap: Alia Bano’s Shades Meenakshi Ponnuswami 16. Lesbian Interspecies Performance: Holly Hughes’s The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony) Kim Marra V. Navigating Communities 17. Bread of Life: Whiti Hereaka’s Rewena Diana Looser 18. Transcultural Memory and Food in Julia Cho’s Aubergine Esther Kim Lee 19. Truth and Absurdity on the London Stage: Liwaa Yazji’s Goats and its Audiences Margaret Litvin with Liwaa Yazji 20. “I Will Tend Your Garden”: The Terms of Proximity in Grace PassÔ’s Por Elise Honey Crawford VI. Articulating Intersections 21. Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root: Intersectionality and the Jena Six Juliet Guzzetta 22. Economic Disenfranchisement and Gender Inequality in Emma Dante’s mPalermu Francesca Spedalieri 23. The Magic of Change: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The World of Extreme Happiness Xing Fan 24. “But nostalgia’s a disease”: Viewing Lynn Nottage’s Sweat in the Age of Trump Courtney Elkin Mohler VII. New World Order(s) 25. Miss Piggy the Seer in the Land of Trump’s Blind: Elfriede Jelinek’s On the Royal Road: The Burgher King Sue-Ellen Case 26. Has She “Escaped Alone” to Tell Us? Caryl Churchill: ‘Messenger’ for the Twenty-First Century Rosemary Malague 27. Climate Change and the Capitalocene in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole Wendy Arons 28. The Ghosts of Greenham Common in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children Lesley Ferris Afterwords: Emerging Currents: Fighting on Two Fronts Lesley Ferris Notes on Contributors
£27.50
The University of Michigan Press Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by
Book SynopsisForegrounds some of the ways in which women playwrights from across a range of contexts and working in a variety of forms and styles are illuminating the contemporary world while also contributing to its reshaping as they reflect, rethink, and reimagine it through their work for the stage.Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Critical Visions Penny Farfan I. Replaying the Canon 1. Feminist Adaptations / Adaptations of Feminism: Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad Penny Farfan 2. Indigenizing the Colonial Narrative: Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife Denise Varney 3. Does Revenge Fall Softly? YaËl Farber’s Molora Catherine Cole 4. Indecent Collaborations and / in Queer Time(s) Katie N. Johnson and Sara L. Warner II. Representing Histories 5. The Bloodstained Distance: Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box Alisa Solomon 6. Unmaking a Devil’s Bargain: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the Wars and the Idea of America Soyica Diggs Colbert and Robert J. Patterson 7. “A Change Is Gonna Come?” Protest and Racial Progress in debbie tucker green’s ear for eye Lynette Goddard 8. Maternal Agency and Reproductive Justice in Lisa Loomer’s Roe Sharon L. Green III. Staging Lives 9. The Mythic Migrant, the Witnessing Self: HÉlÈne Cixous and Le Dernier CaravansÉrail: OdyssÉes Emine Fisek 10. Exceptional Embodiment in Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy Ryan Claycomb 11. Acting and Reenacting the Malvinas/Falklands War in Lola Arias’s Minefield/Campo minado Paola S. HernÁndez 12. Fun Home: Lesbian Feminism Meets Broadway Musical Theatre Stacy Wolf IV. Re-imagining Family 13. A ‘rock inside the flesh’: Motherwork in Marie Clements’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women Karen Bamford and Sheila Rabillard 14. Quiara Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful and the Dramaturgy of Free Jazz Natalie Alvarez and Jimena Ortuzar 15. British Muslim Feminism and the Marriage Trap: Alia Bano’s Shades Meenakshi Ponnuswami 16. Lesbian Interspecies Performance: Holly Hughes’s The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony) Kim Marra V. Navigating Communities 17. Bread of Life: Whiti Hereaka’s Rewena Diana Looser 18. Transcultural Memory and Food in Julia Cho’s Aubergine Esther Kim Lee 19. Truth and Absurdity on the London Stage: Liwaa Yazji’s Goats and its Audiences Margaret Litvin with Liwaa Yazji 20. “I Will Tend Your Garden”: The Terms of Proximity in Grace PassÔ’s Por Elise Honey Crawford VI. Articulating Intersections 21. Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root: Intersectionality and the Jena Six Juliet Guzzetta 22. Economic Disenfranchisement and Gender Inequality in Emma Dante’s mPalermu Francesca Spedalieri 23. The Magic of Change: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The World of Extreme Happiness Xing Fan 24. “But nostalgia’s a disease”: Viewing Lynn Nottage’s Sweat in the Age of Trump Courtney Elkin Mohler VII. New World Order(s) 25. Miss Piggy the Seer in the Land of Trump’s Blind: Elfriede Jelinek’s On the Royal Road: The Burgher King Sue-Ellen Case 26. Has She “Escaped Alone” to Tell Us? Caryl Churchill: ‘Messenger’ for the Twenty-First Century Rosemary Malague 27. Climate Change and the Capitalocene in Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole Wendy Arons 28. The Ghosts of Greenham Common in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children Lesley Ferris Afterwords: Emerging Currents: Fighting on Two Fronts Lesley Ferris Notes on Contributors
£69.30
University of California Press Ghostlier Demarcations
£63.90
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Contemporary British Fiction
Book SynopsisA comprehensive introduction to British fiction from 1979 to the present. The volume outlines the main developments in contemporary fiction and engages with key themes such as cultural identity, gender, myth and history, postcolonialism and urban culture.Trade Review"[An] insightful, perceptive and nuanced analysis ... the collection is a landmark in the critical analysis of current literary culture." Times Higher Education Supplement "I was impressed by the range and conscientious skill of the critics... this collection discusses much of the best in contemporary British writing, and deserves to be successful." Sir Frank Kermode, formerly King Edward Professor of English at Cambridge "An admirably ambitious attempt to map the contemporary literary scene, impressive both in the range and the depth of its coverage. Certainly the sharpest and most up-to-date book I have read on the subject." Jonathan CoeTable of ContentsNotes on Contributors. General Introduction: Contemporary British Fiction. (Rod Mengham). Part I: Myth and History. Introduction. (Richard J. Lane and Philip Tew). 1. Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy . (John Brannigan). 2. The Fiction of Jim Crace. (Richard J. Lane). 3. The Novels of Graham Swift. (Tamas Benyei). 4. The Fiction of Iain Sinclair. (Rod Mengham). Part II: Urban Thematics. Introduction. (Richard J. Lane and Philip Tew). 5. The Fiction of Will Self. (Liorah Anne Golomb). 6. Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia. (Anthony Ilona). 7. Zadie Smith's White Teeth. (Dominic Head). 8. The Fiction of A. L. Kennedy. (Philip Tew). Part III: Cultural Hybridity. Introduction. (Richard J. Lane and Philip Tew). 9. Salman Rushdie. (Stephen Baker). 10. The Fiction of James Kelman and Irvine Welsh. (Drew Milne). 11. Caryl Phillips. (Brad Buchanan). Part IV: Pathological Subjects. Introduction. (Richard J. Lane and Philip Tew). 12. The Fiction of Angela Carter. (Robert Eaglestone). 13. Jeanette Winterson's Evolving Subject. (Kim Middleton Meyer). 14. Kazuo Ishiguro and the Work of Art. (Mark Wormald). 15. The Fiction of Martin Amis. (James Diedrick). Glossary of Major Theoretical Sources. (Richard J. Lane and Philip Tew). Index.
£54.00
Ohio University Press A Companion to the Works of Elizabeth Strout
Book SynopsisIn this first study of novelist Elizabeth Strout's best-selling works, Katherine Montwieler reveals how Strout's voice, characters, and themes generate a powerful empathic response among mainstream readersmostly womenthat elite scholars undervalue at their own peril. This accessible companion also includes an exclusive interview with Strout.Trade Review“Companion is the appropriate word for Katherine Montwieler’s study of the works of Elizabeth Strout. With her careful analysis and gentle invitation to notice, among other things, the ‘quiet kindnesses, unexpected acts of grace’ of Strout’s characters, the author makes space in this book for enthusiastic readers, fans, and scholars alike to honor Strout’s stories and their centrality to our contemporary literary landscape."
£40.50
John Wiley & Sons Broken Irelands
Book SynopsisExamines Irish novels of the post-crash era, addressing the proliferation of writing that downplays realistic and grammatical coherence in works of fiction. McGlynn argues that they are reflecting and responding to social and economic conditions during the global economic crisis and its aftermath of recession, austerity, and precarity.
£56.95
The University of Alabama Press Zombiescapes and Phantom Zones Ecocriticism and
Book SynopsisChronicles the weirdest, ugliest, and most mixed-up characters to appear on the literary scene since World War II - creatures intimately linked to damaged habitats that rise from the muck, not to destroy the world, but to save it. The book asks what happens to these landscapes after the madness and destruction. What monsters and magic surface then?
£23.36
Fordham University Press Forms of a World
Book SynopsisForms of a World argues that poetic innovations of contemporary Anglophone poetry shape and are shaped by global forces. The poets in this book sense these conditions before they are made fully present and offer various responses to global transformation.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 1. Stolen Landscapes: The Investments of the Ode and the Politics of Land 19 2. Let Us Go: Lyric and the Transit of Citizenship 44 3. The Crowd to Come: Poetic Exhortations from Brooklyn to Kashmir 65 4. The No-Prospect Poem: Poetic Views of the Anthropocene 90 Coda 119 Acknowledgments 129 Notes 133 Bibliography 165 Index 183
£23.39
Fordham University Press Forms of a World Contemporary Poetry and the
Book SynopsisForms of a World argues that poetic innovations of contemporary Anglophone poetry shape and are shaped by global forces. The poets in this book sense these conditions before they are made fully present and offer various responses to global transformation.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 1. Stolen Landscapes: The Investments of the Ode and the Politics of Land 19 2. Let Us Go: Lyric and the Transit of Citizenship 44 3. The Crowd to Come: Poetic Exhortations from Brooklyn to Kashmir 65 4. The No-Prospect Poem: Poetic Views of the Anthropocene 90 Coda 119 Acknowledgments 129 Notes 133 Bibliography 165 Index 183
£78.30
University of Toronto Press Universality and Social Policy in Canada
Book SynopsisBringing together top scholars in the field, Universality and Social Policy in Canada provides an overview of the universality principle in social welfare.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Understanding Universality DANIEL BÉLAND, GREGORY P. MARCHILDON, AND MICHAEL J. PRINCE 1 Placing Universality in Canadian Social Policy and Politics MICHAEL J. PRINCE 2 Equalization and the Fiscal Foundation of Universality P.E. BRYDEN 3 The Single-Tier Universality of Canadian Medicare GREGORY P. MARCHILDON 4 Elementary and Secondary Education: The First Universal Social Program in Canada JENNIFER WALLNER AND GREGORY P. MARCHILDON 5 From Family Allowances to the Struggle for Universal Childcare in Canada RIANNE MAHON WITH MICHAEL J. PRINCE 6 Universality and the Erosion of Old Age Security DANIEL BÉLAND AND PATRIK MARIER 7 Common Differences: The Universalism of Disability and Unevenness of Public Policy MICHAEL J. PRINCE 8 Segmented Citizenship: Indigenous Peoples and the Limits of Universality MARTIN PAPILLON 9 Universality and Immigration: Differential Access to Social Programs and Societal Inclusion TRACY SMITH-CARRIER 10 Universality and Social Policy in the United Kingdom ALEX WADDAN AND DANIEL BÉLAND 11 Universal Social Policy in Sweden PAULA BLOMQVIST AND DANIEL BÉLAND Conclusion: Resiliencies, Paradoxes, and Lessons GREGORY P. MARCHILDON, DANIEL BÉLAND, AND MICHAEL J. PRINCE List of Contributors Index
£28.80
Duke University Press Big Ambitious Novels by TwentyFirstCentury Women
Book Synopsis
£11.39
University of Toronto Press Useless Joyce
Book SynopsisTim Conley’s Useless Joyce provocatively analyses Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and takes the reader on a journey exploring the perennial question of the usefulness of literature and art. Conley argues that the works of James Joyce, often thought difficult and far from practical, are in fact polymorphous meditations on this question. Examinations of traditional textual functions such as quoting, editing, translating, and annotating texts are set against the ways in which texts may be assigned unexpected but thoroughly practical purposes. Conley’s accessible and witty engagement with the material views the rise of explication and commentary on Joyce’s work as an industry not unlike the rise of self-help publishing. We can therefore read Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as various kinds of guides and uncover new or forgotten uses for them. Useless Joyce invites new discussions about the assumptions at work behind ourTrade Review"...Conley’s insatiable appetite to read Joyce for his usefulness enriches our understanding of his texts and will provoke further research and inquiry." -- Eleni Loukopoulou, Independent Scholar * James Joyce Quarterly, vol 55 no 1-3, Spring/Summer '18 *"Useless Joyce provides an implicit defense of literary pleasure, with the teacher-critic serving as mediator of that pleasure." -- Mark Wollaeger * James Joyce Literary Supplement, Fall 2018 *‘Highly recommended.’ -- R.D. Newman * Choice Magazine vol 55:10:2018 *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Note on Abbreviations Introduction Part One: Textual Functions Chapter 1: Guidance Systems Chapter 2: Misquoting Joyce Chapter 3: Limited Editions, Edited Limitations Chapter 4: Translation, Annotation, Hesitation Part Two: Cultural Appropriations Chapter 5: Make a Stump Speech of It Chapter 6: Win a Dream Date with James Joyce Chapter 7: The Stephen Dedalus Diet Conclusion: Means without End Appendix Notes Bibliography Index
£20.69
University of Toronto Press Being Poland
Book SynopsisBeing Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland’s return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland’s cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland’s modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film. Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.Trade Review"Although designed to cater to the needs of students of Polish studies and literature, this volume will also be of great use to all scholars interested in central and eastern European history, culture, and literature, and indeed to the general public." -- Aleksandra Witczak Haugstad, Research Council of Norway * H-Net Reviews (H-Poland) *"In 2006, several scholars decided to do something about the lack of a comprehensive, up-to-date, research-based work dealing with Polish literature and culture. It took over a decade to complete this ambitious project of delivering a new and updated history of this vast subject for a non-Polish speaking audience…the result of the combined efforts of sixty scholars from both sides of the Atlantic is both impressive and voluminous." -- Aleksandra Witczak Haugstad, Research Council of Norway * H-Net, HABSBURG *Table of Contents1. Transitions 2. Strategies 3. Transmissions 4. Genres and Their Discontents 5. Postwar and Post-1989 Drama 6. Essay 7. Diaries 8. Reportage 9. Literary Theory 10. Film 11. Popular Culture 12. Mass Media
£53.10
University of Toronto Press American Little Magazines of the Fin de Siecle
Book SynopsisIn American Little Magazines of the Fin de Siecle, Kirsten MacLeod examines the rise of a new print media form – the little magazine – and its relationship to the transformation of American cultural life at the turn of the twentieth century. Though the little magazine has long been regarded as the preserve of modernist avant-gardes and elite artistic coteries, for whom it served as a form of resistance to mass media, MacLeod’s detailed study of its origins paints a different picture. Combining cultural, textual, literary, and media studies criticism, MacLeod demonstrates how the little magazine was deeply connected to the artistic, social, political, and cultural interests of a rising professional-managerial class. She offers a richly contextualized analysis of the little magazine’s position in the broader media landscape: namely, its relationship to old and new media, including pre-industrial print forms, newspapers, mass-market magazines, fine pr
£38.70
University of Nebraska Press Reading the Contemporary Author
Book SynopsisReaders, literary critics, and theorists alike have long demonstrated an abiding fascination with the author, both as a real person—an artist and creator—and as a theoretical concept that shapes the way we read literary works. Whether anonymous, pseudonymous, or trending on social media, authors continue to be an object of critical and readerly interest. Yet theories surrounding authorship have yet to be satisfactorily updated to register the changes wrought on the literary sphere by the advent of the digital age, the recent turn to autofiction, and the current literary climate more generally. In Reading the Contemporary Author the contributors look back on the long history of theorizing the author and offer innovative new approaches for understanding this elusive figure. Mapping the contours of the vast territory that is contemporary authorship, this collection investigates authorship in the context of narrative genres ranging from memoir and autobiograpTrade Review“A brilliant exploration of new manifestations of authorship in the twenty-first century. Alison Gibbons and Elizabeth King provide a powerful through line that reveals transformations in how we approach the subjectivity and intent of the author amid the digital revolution, the relation to identity politics, complex interactions of fact and fiction, and the role of authorial reflexivity as a process of epistemological and self-examination that extends beyond metafictional play. Through an original outside-in structure, Reading the Contemporary Author is a compelling narratological inquiry into how changing concepts of the author have played a central, mediating role in how we read and interpret the increasingly uncertain thresholds of texts and contemporary life.”—Virginia Newhall Rademacher, author of Derivative Lives: Biofiction, Uncertainty, and Speculative Risk in Contemporary Spanish Narrative“The articles in this valuable work provide a foray into the multifarious nature of contemporary authorship, demonstrating that, although our conception of authorship has taken many forms and will take many more, the author always remains a pivotal, often controversial, site of analysis.”—Marjorie Worthington, author of The Story of “Me”: Contemporary American Autofiction“An important contribution to the knowledge of contemporary authorship but also to contemporary narrativity and contemporary narrative genres, including biofiction, autofiction, memoir, novels featuring novelist narrators, and more.”—Sylvie Patron, author of The Narrator: A Problem in Narrative TheoryTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgements Introduction: Authorship in Literary Criticism and Narrative TheoryElizabeth King and Alison Gibbons PART I: THE AUTHOR ON THE WORLD STAGE: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 1. The Public Intellectual on Stage: Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieOdile Heynders 2. The Pseudonymic Author and Elena Ferrante’s Evasions of GenderJaclyn Partyka 3. The Permissible Author: Cultural Politics and the Market Economy of the Literary SphereChristopher González PART II: THE AUTHOR IN THE MIRROR: AUTO-AUTHORSHIP, MEMOIR, AND THE NARRATING ‘I’ 4. Authorship and AutobiographyArnaud Schmitt 5. “I wanted to be present to hear her last words”: A Cognitive Approach to Multimodal Autobiographical ElegyAlison Gibbons 6. The Author as a Work of Art: Graphic Memoir, Style, and Authorial AgentsNancy Pedri 7. Radical Realism and Modes of Fictionality in Contemporary Auto/Biographical LiteratureFiona Doloughan PART III: THE AUTHOR ON THE PAGE: REPRESENTATIONS OF AUTHORSHIP IN FICTION 8. Reconstructing the Author through Biofiction’s Anchored ImaginationMichael Lackey and Laura Cernat 9. The Anxiety of Authorship: Novelists as NarratorsPaul Dawson 10. Dead Authors Tell No Tales: The Ailing Author-Character in Contemporary Novels about NovelistsElizabeth King CODA 11. The Author beyond ‘the implied author’: From Postclassical to Postcritical NarratologyStefan Kjerkegaard ContributorsIndex
£48.60
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Harry Potter and the Other Race Justice and
Book SynopsisA timely anthology that examines, interrogates, and critiques representations of race and difference across various Harry Potter media, including books, films, and official websites, as well as online forums and the classroom.
£19.96
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Harry Potter and the Other
Book SynopsisA timely anthology that examines, interrogates, and critiques representations of race and difference across various Harry Potter media, including books, films, and official websites, as well as online forums and the classroom.
£77.35
MP-MPP University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Karl Ove Knausgaard
Book SynopsisPresents a collection of twenty-two interviews, each conducted during the ten-year span in which Karl Ove Knausgaard’s literary prowess gained worldwide recognition. Knausgaard is both a daring writer and a daring interviewee, grounding his observations in the ordinary aspects of the world around him.
£77.35
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Karl Ove Knausgaard
Book SynopsisPresents a collection of twenty-two interviews, each conducted during the ten-year span in which Karl Ove Knausgaard’s literary prowess gained worldwide recognition. Knausgaard is both a daring writer and a daring interviewee, grounding his observations in the ordinary aspects of the world around him.
£22.46
University of Minnesota Press The Political Arrays of American Indian Literary
Book SynopsisBringing fresh insight to a century of writing by Native AmericansThe Political Arrays of American Indian Literary History challenges conventional views of the past one hundred years of Native American writing, bringing Native American Renaissance and post-Renaissance writers into conversation with their predecessors. Addressing the political positions such writers have adopted, explored, and debated in their work, James H. Cox counters what he considers a “flattening” of the politics of American Indian literary expression and sets forth a new method of reading Native literature in a vexingly politicized context. Examining both canonical and lesser-known writers, Cox proposes that scholars approach these texts as “political arrays”: confounding but also generative collisions of conservative, moderate, and progressive ideas that together constitute the rich political landscape of American Indian literary history. Reviewing a broad range of genres including journalism, short fiction, drama, screenplays, personal letters, and detective fiction—by Lynn Riggs, Will Rogers, Sherman Alexie, Thomas King, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Winona LaDuke, Carole laFavor, and N. Scott Momaday—he demonstrates that Native texts resist efforts to be read as advocating a particular set of politicsMeticulously researched, The Political Arrays of American Indian Literary History represents a compelling case for reconceptualizing the Native American Renaissance as a literary–historical constellation. By focusing on post-1968 Native writers and texts, argues Cox, critics have often missed how earlier writers were similarly entangled, hopeful, frustrated, contradictory, and unpredictable in their political engagements.Trade Review"With his own array of historicist assiduity, keen sensitivity to contemporary issues, and a storyteller’s verve, James H. Cox uncovers the multitudes of political ambivalences that American Indian literature contains. He introduces a trove of unknown works and challenges us to make sense of them with our assumptions of what’s requisite for Native political perspectives. As he compellingly demonstrates, that’s a hard row to hoe."—Joshua B. Nelson, author of Progressive Traditions: Identity in Cherokee Literature and Culture"In this field-changing study, James H. Cox introduces the political array, a paradigm that allows him to demonstrate that Native texts and their authors are more politically complicated—more nuanced, more situational, more dynamic and fluid—than our all too often reductive generalizations indicate. More, he makes visible previously understudied connections between pre- and post-1968 Native writers. Elegantly researched, wonderfully lucid, and truly essential."—Eric G. Anderson, George Mason University"Cox’s monograph will prompt a variety of scholars to continue to add to and complicate what is an important and necessary endeavor—to understand the complexities and contradictions that shape and are shaped by Indigenous literary history in the United States."—Transmotion"What Cox’s text offers is a new paradigm from which to consider the study of American Indian literature, and for that alone he should be justly lauded."—Tribal College
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Training for Catastrophe: Fictions of National
Book SynopsisA timely, politically savvy examination of how impossible disasters shape the very real possibilities of our worldWhy would the normally buttoned-down national security state imagine lurid future scenarios like a zombie apocalypse? In Training for Catastrophe, author Lindsay Thomas shows how our security regime reimagines plausibility to focus on unlikely and even unreal events rather than probable ones. With an in-depth focus on preparedness (a pivotal, emergent national security paradigm since 9/11) she explores how fiction shapes national security.Thomas finds fiction at work in unexpected settings, from policy documents and workplace training manuals to comics and video games. Through these texts—as well as plenty of science fiction—she examines the philosophy of preparedness, interrogating the roots of why it asks us to treat explicitly fictional events as real. Thomas connects this philosophical underpinning to how preparedness plays out in contemporary politics, emphasizing how it uses aesthetic elements like realism, genre, character, and plot to train people both to regard some disasters as normal and to ignore others.Training for Catastrophe makes an important case for how these documents elicit consent and compliance. Thomas draws from a huge archive of texts—including a Centers for Disease Control comic about a zombie apocalypse, the work of Audre Lorde, and the political thrillers of former national security advisor Richard Clarke—to ask difficult questions about the uses and values of fiction. A major statement on how national security intrudes into questions of art and life, Training for Catastrophe is a timely intervention into how we confront disasters.Trade Review "Training for Catastrophe reveals how science fictional narratives habitually assume that, no matter what happens, the further expansion of the security state in the name of ‘preparedness’ and safety is the first, last, and only possible response to crisis. Lindsay Thomas calls on us to think outside the fantasies of total surveillance and maximum control that dominate contemporary visions of the future—and the apocalypse will never be the same."—Gerry Canavan, president, Science Fiction Research Association "In Training for Catastrophe, Lindsay Thomas chronicles how the national security state uses fiction to shape public perception about risk, security, preparedness, and the future and with what consequences. This timely and important work shows how preparedness documents at once produce a false sense of security and reproduce the inequities of structural racism. It is a must read for the contemporary moment."—Priscilla Wald, author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative "This book would benefit any cross-disciplinary analysis within the humanities, as it skillfully interweaves political science and media, cultural, and literary studies."—Critical Studies on Terrorism "Thomas’s writing is clear, and she deftly weaves together scholarship from the fields of literary and security studies."—Modern Fiction Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Prepare Yourself1. Training in an Empiricist Epistemology of Fiction2. Realism: Consenting to the Possibilistic Logic of Preparedness3. Thinking Generically: The Professional Management of Disaster4. Character: The Resilience of the Hero5. Looking for the Plot: Counterterrorism and the Hermeneutics of SuspicionEpilogue: The Uses of FictionAcknowledgmentsNotes Index
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Training for Catastrophe: Fictions of National
Book SynopsisA timely, politically savvy examination of how impossible disasters shape the very real possibilities of our worldWhy would the normally buttoned-down national security state imagine lurid future scenarios like a zombie apocalypse? In Training for Catastrophe, author Lindsay Thomas shows how our security regime reimagines plausibility to focus on unlikely and even unreal events rather than probable ones. With an in-depth focus on preparedness (a pivotal, emergent national security paradigm since 9/11) she explores how fiction shapes national security.Thomas finds fiction at work in unexpected settings, from policy documents and workplace training manuals to comics and video games. Through these texts—as well as plenty of science fiction—she examines the philosophy of preparedness, interrogating the roots of why it asks us to treat explicitly fictional events as real. Thomas connects this philosophical underpinning to how preparedness plays out in contemporary politics, emphasizing how it uses aesthetic elements like realism, genre, character, and plot to train people both to regard some disasters as normal and to ignore others.Training for Catastrophe makes an important case for how these documents elicit consent and compliance. Thomas draws from a huge archive of texts—including a Centers for Disease Control comic about a zombie apocalypse, the work of Audre Lorde, and the political thrillers of former national security advisor Richard Clarke—to ask difficult questions about the uses and values of fiction. A major statement on how national security intrudes into questions of art and life, Training for Catastrophe is a timely intervention into how we confront disasters.Trade Review "Training for Catastrophe reveals how science fictional narratives habitually assume that, no matter what happens, the further expansion of the security state in the name of ‘preparedness’ and safety is the first, last, and only possible response to crisis. Lindsay Thomas calls on us to think outside the fantasies of total surveillance and maximum control that dominate contemporary visions of the future—and the apocalypse will never be the same."—Gerry Canavan, president, Science Fiction Research Association "In Training for Catastrophe, Lindsay Thomas chronicles how the national security state uses fiction to shape public perception about risk, security, preparedness, and the future and with what consequences. This timely and important work shows how preparedness documents at once produce a false sense of security and reproduce the inequities of structural racism. It is a must read for the contemporary moment."—Priscilla Wald, author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative "This book would benefit any cross-disciplinary analysis within the humanities, as it skillfully interweaves political science and media, cultural, and literary studies."—Critical Studies on Terrorism "Thomas’s writing is clear, and she deftly weaves together scholarship from the fields of literary and security studies."—Modern Fiction Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Prepare Yourself1. Training in an Empiricist Epistemology of Fiction2. Realism: Consenting to the Possibilistic Logic of Preparedness3. Thinking Generically: The Professional Management of Disaster4. Character: The Resilience of the Hero5. Looking for the Plot: Counterterrorism and the Hermeneutics of SuspicionEpilogue: The Uses of FictionAcknowledgmentsNotes Index
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French
Book SynopsisExploring why there is so much fecal matter in literary works that matterCacaphonies takes fecal matter and its place in literature seriously. Readers and critics have too long overlooked excrement’s vital role in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century French canon. In a stark challenge to the tendency to view this literature through sanitizing abstractions, Annabel L. Kim undertakes close readings of key authors to argue for feces as a figure of radical equality, both a literary object and a reflection on literature itself, without which literary studies is impoverished and sterile. Following the fecal through line in works by Céline, Beckett, Genet, Sartre, Duras, and Gary and the contemporary authors Anne Garréta and Daniel Pennac, Kim shows that shit, far from vanishing from the canon after the early modern period, remains present in the modern and contemporary French literature that follows. She argues that all the shit in the canon expresses a call to democratize literature, making literature for all, just as shit is for (or of) all. She attends to its presence in this prized element of French identity, treating it as a continually uttered desire to manifest the universality France aspires to—as encapsulated by the slogan Liberté, égalité, fraternité—but fails to realize. In shit there is a concrete universalism that traverses bodies with disregard for embodied differences. Cacaphonies reminds us that literature, and the ideas to be found therein, cannot be separated from the corporeal envelopes that create and receive them. In so doing, it reveals the aesthetic, political, and ethical potential of shit and its capacity to transform literature and life. Trade Review "In dazzling readings of classic French texts, Annabel L. Kim reclaims feces as literary matter. Sidestepping familiar psychoanalytic frames, Kim turns excrement into a force for democracy. From Céline to Duras to Garréta, this caca communism blows up our old ways of thinking. Irreverent and erudite, as funny as Rabelais, Cacaphonies is a genuine scatological pleasure!"—Lynne Huffer, Emory University "We tend to assume that the trajectory of modern literature repeats that of society and technology (urbanization, sanitation, dematerialization, sanitization, deodorization) in taking us ever further away from the excretory body. It does not, insists Annabel L. Kim. On the contrary, modern literature refuses to endorse the fantasy of being ‘free from or clear of shit.’ Thus, to turn to the excretory body in literary works is to ask what literature’s deepest understanding of the human is, and what literature itself is. Cacaphonies is an extraordinarily engaging project: insightful, serious, self-consciously ‘profane,’ metacritically alive."—Thangam Ravindranathan, author of Behold an Animal: Four Exorbitant Readings "Kim’s readings are creative, bold and surprising. They reek, but they are never gratuitous, and they open up a field of literary waste studies that poses pressing ecological questions."—Times Literary Supplement "Kim’s book offers a fresh, fun(ny), clever, and innovative perspective on canonical texts while weaving through her analysis a discussion about life and death, and about how shit ultimately brings us back to that."—H-France Reviews "A must-read, Cacaphonies provides a truly insightful, engaging, and joyful reading experience."—The French Review Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: We Have Always Been FecalPart I. Necessary Shit1. Céline: Shit on the Installment Plan2. Beckett: Shit for BrainsPart II. Shitty Ideas3. Fecal Freedom: Sartre and Genet’s ))< >((4. To Wipe the Other: Duras’s and Gary’s Fecal Care EthicsPart III. Political Shit5. Fighting Words: Anne Garréta’s Ultimate Weapon6. Daniel Pennac’s Excremental Poetics: Literature for AllConclusion: Caca CommunismAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£77.60
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Edinburgh German Yearbook 11: Love, Eros, and
Book SynopsisNew essays exploring the resurgence of the theme of romantic relationships and love in German literature since around the turn of the millennium. While sociologists have long agreed that the problems of modern and contemporary subjectivity crystallize in the issue of romantic relationships and love (e.g., Luhmann, Illouz, Beck, etc.), the theme of love, so crucial to the foundational text of modern German literature, Goethe's Werther, all but disappeared from German prose literature in the second half of the twentieth century. Yet over the past fifteen years German-language literature has witnessed an explosion of novels with "Liebe" in their titles as well as novels that centrally focus on intersubjective erotic and emotional relationships. A number of major contemporary writers (Treichel, Walser, Kermani, Ortheil, Maron, Zaimoglu, Genazino) have written Liebesromane or novels in which significant sociohistorical questions are refracted through the love relationships of their protagonists. German film likewise has increasingly thematized love relationships under postromantic conditions, e.g. in the films of the Berlin school. Simultaneously, the development of both feminist and LGBTQ politics over the past decades has exploded the heteronormative discourses ofdesire in a way that has both expanded and enriched the lovers' discourse, while recent developments of urban (hetero)sexuality have expanded the previously available models of expressing erotic relationships in ways that are reminiscent of the utopian ending of Goethe's first version of Stella. The present collection offers a wide-ranging set of essays on these developments. Contributors: Esther K. Bauer, Sven Glawion, Silke Horstkotte,Sarra Kassem, Maria Roca Lizarazu, Helmut Schmitz, Angelika Vybiral. Helmut Schmitz is Reader in German at the University of Warwick. Peter Davies is Professor and Head of German at the University of Edinburgh.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Love, Literature, (Post-)Modernity: On the Re-Emergence of Love in Contemporary German Literature - Helmut Schmitz Not so Happily Ever After: Romantic Love in Novels by Alain Claude Sulze - Esther K. Bauer Love as Literature: Hanns-Josef Ortheil's Die große Liebe - Helmut Schmitz Healthy Socialists and Kinky Heroes: Carnivalesque Deconstruction of Heteronormativity in Thomas Brussig's Helden wie wir - Sven Glawion Disembodied Love and Desire: Virtual Love in Daniel Glattauer's Gut gegen Nordwind - Angelika Vybiral Thomas Mann in Furs: Remediations of Sadomasochism in Maxim Biller's Im Kopf von Bruno Schulz and Harlem Holocaust - Maria Roca Lizarazu Precarious Subjects, Vulnerable Love: Thomas Melle's 3000 Euro, Feridun Zaimoglu's Isabel and Julia Wolf's Alles ist jetzt - Silke Horstkotte Love as Anathema: Social Constraints and the Demise of Desire in Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand - Sarra Kassem
£58.50
Modern Language Association of America Teaching Modern Latin American Poetries
Book SynopsisOffers techniques for teaching modern Latin American poetry in college courses, including considerations of teaching the silva, human rights, poetry in indigenous Languages, community-based learning, lesser-known contemporary poetry, Afro-descendant poetry, performance, the long poem, and queer theory. Provides classroom exercises and assignments.Trade ReviewThis is more than a guide for literature and Spanish-Language classrooms-it is a resource for other disciplines as well . . . an indispensable resource." - Juan Pablo Lupi, University of California, Santa Barbara
£34.81
University of Iowa Press Poetics and Praxis After Objectivism
Book SynopsisPoetics and Praxis ‘After’ Objectivism examines late twentieth-and early twenty-first-century poetics and praxis within and against the dynamic, disparate legacy of Objectivism and the Objectivists. This is the first volume in the field to investigate the continuing relevance of the Objectivist ethos to poetic praxis in our time. The book argues for a reconfiguration of Objectivism, adding contingency to its historical values of sincerity and objectification, within the context of the movement’s development and disjunctions from 1931 to the present. Essays and conversations from emerging and established poets and scholars engage a network of communities in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., shaped by contemporaneous oppositions as well as genealogical (albeit discontinuous) historicisms. This book articulates Objectivism as an inclusively local, international, and interdisciplinary ethos, and reclaims Objectivist poetics and praxis as modalities for contemporary writers concerned with radical integrations of aesthetics, lyric subjectivities, contingent disruption, historical materialism, and social activism. The chapter authors and roundtable contributors reexamine foundational notions about Objectivism—who the Objectivists were and are, what Objectivism has been, now is, and what it might become—delivering critiques of aesthetics and politics; of race, class, and gender; and of the literary and cultural history of the movement’s development and disjunctions from 1931 to the present.
£65.70
University of Iowa Press Profiles and Plotlines: Data Surveillance in
Book SynopsisAlgorithmic data profiling is not merely an important topic in contemporary fiction, it is an increasingly dominant form of storytelling and characterization in our society. These stories are being told inside boardrooms, banks, presidential briefings, police stations, advertising agencies, and technology companies. And so, to the extent that data has taken up storytelling, literature must take up data. After all, profiling coincides with character development; surveillance reflects point of view; and data points track as plot points in tales of the political economy. In Profiles and Plotlines, Katherine Johnston engages this energetic reformation of contemporary literature to account for a society and economy of frenetic counting. Fiction and poetry are capable of addressing precisely that for which algorithms cannot or do not account: the effects of profile culture; the ideologies and supposed truth-power of data; the gendered and racialized dynamics of watching and being watched; and the politics of who counts and what gets counted. Johnston analyzes prescient work by contemporary authors such as Jennifer Egan, Claudia Rankine, Mohsin Hamid, and William Gibson to probe how the claims of data surveillance serve to make lives seem legible, intelligible, and sometimes even expendable.Trade Review“This magnificent book mobilizes contemporary fiction and poetry to confront the unequal effects of surveillance-based profiling. Literature tracks growing apprehension about the datafication of everyday life, but, as Katherine Johnston shows, literature can also provide insight into the rhetorical and partial nature of all data profiling.”—Torin Monahan, author, Crisis Vision: Race and the Cultural Production of Surveillance“Profiles and Plotlines is a tour de force. Surveillance—corporate, state, or domestic—is one of the key issues of our time. Katherine Johnston deftly guides readers through a wealth of material as she explains how literature encounters/incarnates data. A triumph.”—Toby Miller, author, A COVID Charter, A Better World“Johnston’s sharp analyses of contemporary American literature distinguishes the prevalence of a datafied and quantified culture. Her unique blending of literary studies, cultural studies, and media studies highlights the ways in which the reciprocal relationship between algorithms and stories has recreated how we understand character profiling in our information society.”—Joelle Mann, author, Mixed Media in Contemporary American Literature: Voices Gone Viral
£69.30
University of South Carolina Press Understanding Chuck Palahniuk
Book SynopsisEver since his first novel, Fight Club, was made into a cult film by David Fincher, Chuck Palahniuk has been a consistent presence on the New York Times best-seller list. A target of critics but a fan favorite, Palahniuk has been loathed and loved in equal measure for his dark humor, edgy topics, and confrontational writing style. In close readings of Fight Club and the thirteen novels that this controversial author has published since, Douglas Keesey argues that Palahniuk is much more than a “shock jock” engaged in mere sensationalism. His visceral depictions of sex and violence have social, psychological, and religious significance. Keesey takes issue with reviewers who accuse Palahniuk of being an angry nihilist and a misanthrope, showing instead that he is really a romantic at heart and a believer in community. In this first comprehensive introduction to Palahniuk’s fiction, Keesey reveals how this writer’s outrageous narratives are actually rooted in his own personal experiences, how his seemingly unprecedented works are part of the American literary tradition of protagonists in search of an identity, and how his negative energy is really social satire directed at specific ills that he diagnoses and wishes to cure. After tracing the influence of his working-class background, his journalistic education, and his training as a “minimalist” writer, Understanding Chuck Palahniuk exposes connections between the writer’s novels by grouping them thematically: the struggle for identity (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke); the horror trilogy (Lullaby, Diary, Haunted); teen terrors (Rant, Pygmy); porn bodies and romantic myths (Snuff, Tell-All, Beautiful You); and a decidedly unorthodox revision of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Damned, Doomed).Drawing on numerous author interviews and written in an engaging and accessible style, Understanding Chuck Palahniuk should appeal to scholars, students, and fans alike.
£26.96
Purdue University Press Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction
Book Synopsis Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction is the first in-depth study to map out the representation of consumption in contemporary Brazilian prose, highlighting how our interactions with commodities connect seemingly disconnected areas of everyday life, such as eating habits, the growth of prosperity theology, and ideas of success and failure. It is also the first text to provide a pluralistic perspective on the representation of consumption in this fiction that moves beyond the concern with aesthetic judgment of culture based on binaries such as good/bad or elevated/degraded that have largely informed criticism on this body of literary work. Current Brazilian fiction provides a variety of perspectives from which to think about our daily interactions with commodities and about how consumption affects us all in subtle ways. Collectively, the narratives analyzed in the book present a wide spectrum of more or less hopeful portrayals of existence in consumer culture, from totalizing dystopia to transformative hope.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: A Consumer's Dystopia Chapter Two: The Consuming Self Chapter Three: Consumer Culture's "Collateral Damage" Chapter Four: A Consumer's Dreams and Nightmares Chapter Five: Working-Class Consumption Consuming Together Aesthetic Interruptions of the Mundane Low and High Tactical Consumption Conclusion Conclusiom Notes Works Cited Index
£73.10
Purdue University Press Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction
Book Synopsis Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction is the first in-depth study to map out the representation of consumption in contemporary Brazilian prose, highlighting how our interactions with commodities connect seemingly disconnected areas of everyday life, such as eating habits, the growth of prosperity theology, and ideas of success and failure. It is also the first text to provide a pluralistic perspective on the representation of consumption in this fiction that moves beyond the concern with aesthetic judgment of culture based on binaries such as good/bad or elevated/degraded that have largely informed criticism on this body of literary work. Current Brazilian fiction provides a variety of perspectives from which to think about our daily interactions with commodities and about how consumption affects us all in subtle ways. Collectively, the narratives analyzed in the book present a wide spectrum of more or less hopeful portrayals of existence in consumer culture, from totalizing dystopia to transformative hope.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: A Consumer's Dystopia Chapter Two: The Consuming Self Chapter Three: Consumer Culture's "Collateral Damage" Chapter Four: A Consumer's Dreams and Nightmares Chapter Five: Working-Class Consumption Consuming Together Aesthetic Interruptions of the Mundane Low and High Tactical Consumption Conclusion Conclusiom Notes Works Cited Index
£33.11
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Willful Girls: Gender and Agency in Contemporary
Book SynopsisExplores the process of "becoming woman" through an analysis of the depiction of girls and young women in contemporary Anglo-American and German literary texts. What does it mean to "become woman" in the context of neoliberalism and postfeminism? What is the role of will in this process? Willful Girls explores these questions through an analysis of the depiction of girls and youngwomen in contemporary Anglo-American and German literary texts. It identifies four sets of concerns that are vital for an understanding of gendered subject formation in the contemporary context: agency and volition; body and beauty; sisterhood and identification; and sex and desire. The book examines numerous nonfiction feminist texts as well as novels by Helene Hegemann, Caitlin Moran, Charlotte Roche, Emma Jane Unsworth, Kate Zambreno, and Juli Zeh, among others. These texts illustrate the complex processes by which female subjects become women today. Failure, refusal, disgust, and anger are striking features of these becomings. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed (Willful Subjects) and thinkers including Simone de Beauvoir, Rosi Braidotti, and Elizabeth Grosz, the book demonstrates the significance of willfulness for understandings and assertions of female agency. In addition, it proposesa view of literary works themselves as instances of willfulness. The book will be of interest to scholars working in comparative literature, English, German studies, and feminist, gender, and queer studies. Emily Jeremiah is Senior Lecturer in German and Gender Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.Trade ReviewAn intricate and important work of literary criticism which will be of interest to scholars, students, and those curious about contemporary feminisms across national and linguistic boundaries. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *[T]his book [is] a useful corrective to the excessive focus on 'adult models of subjectivity' (2) that still dominate mainstream feminist literature. Jeremiah is, instead, attentive to literary depictions of childhood . . . . Jeremiah's methodology is both comparative and connective . . . . [Her] narration is lucid, cogent, and conversational, beginning with a synoptic reading of the various novels, and culminating in a sustained critical engagement with their various thematic issues. . . . It is perhaps a measure of how good Jeremiah's critical work is that I found [this book] to be an excellent template for examining similar concerns in other genres, such as Modernist poetry and ?lm. -- Shalini Sengupta * CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S WRITING *[O]ffers a critical exploration of the formation of gendered subjects by analyzing depictions of young women in a selection of . . . texts, both fiction and nonfiction. . . . [W]ill prove useful both in the German and Anglo-American context. * GEGENWARTSLITERATUR *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Willful Girls Contemporary Anglo-American and German Feminisms Agency and Volition Body and Beauty Sisterhood and Identification Sex and Desire Conclusion: Green Girls, Trainwrecks, and Willful Politics Notes Bibliography Index
£76.50
Boydell & Brewer Ltd German Women's Writing in the Twenty-First
Book SynopsisEssays in this volume rethink conventional ways of conceptualizing female authorship and re-examine the formal, aesthetic, and thematic terms in which German women's literature has been conceived. What is the status of women's writing in German today, in an era when feminism has thoroughly problematized binary conceptions of sex and gender? Drawing on gender and queer theory, including the work of Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault, the essays in this volume rethink conventional ways of conceptualizing female authorship and re-examine the formal, aesthetic, and thematic terms in which "women's literature" has been conceived. With aneye to the literary and feminist legacy of authors such as Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Bachmann, contributors treat the works of many of contemporary Germany's most significant literary voices, including Hatice Akyün, Sibylle Berg,Thea Dorn, Tanja Dückers, Karen Duve, Jenny Erpenbeck, Julia Franck, Katharina Hacker, Charlotte Roche, Julia Schoch, and Antje Rávic Strubel -- authors who, through their writing or their roles in the media, engage with questionsof what it means to be a woman writer in twenty-first-century Germany. Contributors: Hester Baer, Necia Chronister, Helga Druxes, Valerie Heffernan, Alexandra Merley Hill, Lindsay Lawton, Sheridan Marshall, Mihaela Petrescu, Jill Suzanne Smith, Carrie Smith-Prei, Maria Stehle, Katherine Stone. Hester Baer is Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Maryland. Alexandra Merley Hill is Associate Professor of German at the University of Portland.Trade Review[S]ucceeds in demonstrating the continued relevance of 'German women's writing,' not least its ability to critique, destabilize, and confound. . . . A welcome resource for undergraduate and graduate seminars, the volume is also of value for scholarly research on the diverse approaches and authors that constitute the field of the field of German women's writing today. -- Brigitte Rossbacher * STUDIES IN 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY LITERATURE *[A] very useful volume which takes stock of women's writing today while also exploring how women have been affected by socio-cultural, political, and economic changes. -- Linda Shortt * MONATSHEFTE *[A] volume which shows the variety of topics covered by women's German-language writing today. It succeeds in fulfilling its aim of making the case for women's writing in the age of neoliberalism and for feminist analysis that avoids what is facile or categorical. -- Stuart Parkes * JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES *[E]ngaging, provocative . . . . [D]emonstrates . . . the ways in which feminist analyses open up texts to critical questions of gender within larger configurations of identity and the lasting need to consider women's literature. -- Barbara Kosta * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *The volume succeeds in making the case for the relevance of reading and researching women's writing in the twenty-first century. . . . It . . . is a fine example of careful, profound, and progressive scholarship. Editors and contributors are to be commended for this excellent work. -- Katharina Gerstenberger * GEGENWARTSLITERATUR *Baer and Hill have put together an attractive collection that seeks to analyze contemporary fiction in conjunction with feminism. Using new perspectives in feminist theory, the contributors offer original interpretations and challenging insights. . . . Approaching contemporary literature in fresh, productive ways, all these essays are interesting and well researched. . . . Recommended. * CHOICE *In sum, this volume presents a valuable and highly recommended reference for anyone interested not only in contemporary women's writing, but also intersectional feminist research and the debates surrounding feminist literary criticism. -- Sonja Klocke * WOMEN IN GERMAN NEWSLETTER *Table of ContentsIntroduction: German Women's Writing Beyond the Gender Binary - Hester Baer and Alexandra Merley Hill Language-Bodies: Interpellation and Gender Transition in Antje Rávic Strubel's Kältere Schichten der Luft and Judith Hermann's "Sonja" - Necia Chronister Matrilineal Narrative and the Feminist Family Romance - Valerie Heffernan The Pitfalls of Constructing a Female Genealogy: Cultural Memory of National Socialism in Recent Family Narratives - Katherine Stone Reckoning with God: Attitudes toward Religion in German-Language Women's Writing in the Twenty-First Century - Sheridan Marshall Muslim Writing, Women's Writing - Lindsay Lawton Popfeminism, Ethnicity, and Race in Contemporary Germany: Hatice Akyün's Popfeminist Autobiographic Works Einmal Hans mit scharfer Soße (2005) and Ali zum Dessert (2008) - Mihaela Petrescu The Awkward Politics of Popfeminist Literary Events: Helene Hegemann, Charlotte Roche, and Lady Bitch Ray - Carrie Smith-Prei The Awkward Politics of Popfeminist Literary Events: Helene Hegemann, Charlotte Roche, and Lady Bitch Ray - Maria Stehle The Indictment of Neoliberalism and Communism in the Novels of Katharina Hacker, Nikola Richter, Judith Schalansky, and Julia Schoch - Helga Druxes Sounds of Silence: Rape and Representation in Juli Zeh's Bosnian Travelogue - Jill Suzanne Smith Bibliography Notes on the Contributors Index
£23.74
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Tatort Germany: The Curious Case of
Book SynopsisNew essays by leading scholars examining today's vibrant and innovative German crime fiction, along with its historical background. Although George Bernard Shaw quipped that "the Germans lack talent for two things: revolution and crime novels," there is a long tradition of German crime fiction; it simply hasn't aligned itself with international trends. Duringthe 1920s, German-language writers dispensed with the detective and focused instead on criminals, a trend that did not take hold in other countries until after 1945, by which time Germany had gone on to produce antidetective novels that were similarly ahead of their time. German crime fiction has thus always been a curious case; rather than follow the established rules of the genre, it has always been interested in examining, breaking, and ultimately rewriting those rules. This book assembles leading international scholars to examine today's German crime fiction. It features innovative scholarly work that matches the innovativeness of the genre, taking up the Regionalkrimi;crime fiction's reimagining and transforming of traditional identities; historical crime fiction that examines Germany's and Austria's conflicted twentieth-century past; and how the newly vibrant Austrian crime fiction ties in with and differentiates itself from its German counterpart. Contributors: Angelika Baier, Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Kyle Frackman, Sascha Gerhards, Heike Henderson, Susanne C. Knittel, Anita McChesney, Traci S. O'Brien,Jon Sherman, Faye Stewart, Magdalena Waligórska. Lynn M. Kutch is Professor of German at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Todd Herzog is Professor and Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.Trade ReviewOpens up both the foreign view of German-language crime literature and the cultural self-descriptions to which [that literature] gives rise. . . . [Also] contains contributions on crime literature 'by women for women,' on feminist crime literature . . . . -- Nele Hoffmann * ARBITRIUM *[C]omprehensive and interesting analysis. . . . For readers in Germany and Austria as well the essays in Tatort Germany should be of great interest [because it allows one] to learn how the German-language detective novel is perceived in the US. I recommend Tatort Germany as an enrichment of any collection of secondary literature on the genre. * CRIMEMAG *This volume offers a rich insight into contemporary German-language crime fiction and its emerging trends. . . . [T]he extensive analysis of currently untranslated texts--with quotations in English--performs an important function, too, especially as it serves to encourage more translations of German-language crime novels in future. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *The volume's focus on contemporary trends in German-language crime fiction offers a welcome corrective to [the widespread lack of knowledge of German-language crime fiction in the English-speaking world], as does its exploration of the 'peculiarly German twists' of the genre in its three sections on place, history, and identity. . . . [R]ich and diverse . . . highly recommended for researchers of genre fiction, whether working in German Studies or beyond: quotations are provided in German and English, and an extensive bibliography[y] direct[s] readers to resources in both languages. . . . -- Katharina Hall * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *[C]onvincingly make[s] a case for the serious scholarly study of your favorite guilty pleasure: those prolific German crime novels that are, in their own idiosyncratic way, every bit as good as their English and Swedish counterparts. By placing twenty-first century German crime fiction into its historical, international and theoretical contexts, Kutch and Herzog-and the volume's contributors-provide a fascinating broader explanation of a current literary phenomenon. -- Rob McFarland * WOMEN IN GERMAN NEWSLETTER *That crime fiction written in German represents a 'curious case' has been established before, but a more wide-reaching case can indeed be made for contemporary German-language crime fiction, and the editors and contributors of this volume succeed in doing so quite admirably. -- Thomas Kniesche * JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Lynn M. Kutch and Todd Herzog Vor Ort: The Functions and Early Roots of German Regional Crime - Kyle Frackman Krimi Quo Vadis: Literary and Televised Trends in the German Crime Genre - Sascha Gerhards Plurality and Alterity in wolf Haas's Detective Brenner Mysteries - Jon Sherman The Case of the Austrian Regional Crime Novel - Anita McChesney "Darkness at the Beginning": The Holocaust in Contemporary German Crime Fiction - Magdalena Waligórska Case Histories: The Lagacy of Nazi Euthanasia in Recent German Heimatkrimis - Susanne C. Knittel "Der Fall Loest": A Case Study of Crime Stories and the Public Sphere in the GDR - Carol Anne Costabile-Heming What's in Your Bag?: "Freudian Crimes" and Austria's Nazi Past in Eva Rossmann's Freudsche Verbrechen - Traci S. O'Brien Layered Deviance: Intersexuality in Contemporary German Crime Fiction - Angelika Baier Girls in the Gay Bar: Performing and Policing Identity in Crime Fiction - Faye Stewart Eva Rossmann's Culinary Mysteries - Heike Henderson Works Cited Index
£23.74
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Musical Novel: Imitation of Musical
Book SynopsisAnalyzes two groups of "musical novels" -- novels that take music as a model for their construction -- including jazz novels by Toni Morrison and Michael Ondaatje, and novels based on Bach's Goldberg Variations. What is a "musical novel"? This book defines the genre as musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its form. The musical novel crosses medial boundaries, aspiring to techniques, structures, and impressions similar tothose of music. It takes music as a model for its own construction, borrowing techniques and forms that range from immediately perceptible, essential aspects of music (rhythm, timbre, the simultaneity of multiple voices) to microstructural (jazz riffs, call and response, leitmotifs) and macrostructural elements (themes and variations, symphonies, albums). The musical novel also evokes the performance context by imitating elements of spontaneity that characterize improvised jazz or audience interaction. The Musical Novel builds upon theories of intermediality and semiotics to analyze the musical structures, forms, and techniques in two groups of musical novels, which serve as case studies. The first group imitates an entire musical genre and consists of jazz novels by Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Xam Wilson Cartiér, Stanley Crouch, Jack Fuller, Michael Ondaatje, and Christian Gailly. The secondgroup of novels, by Richard Powers, Gabriel Josipovici, Rachel Cusk, Nancy Huston, and Thomas Bernhard, imitates a single piece of music, J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. Emily Petermann is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz.Trade Review[R]ecommends itself to literary or music libraries, as well as to all those interested in the sounds and structures of the contemporary Anglo-American novel. * AMERIKASTUDIEN *[A] necessary work of methodology, refining and clarifying prior attempts at intermedial analysis into a toolset that offers much as a foundation for future works of criticism. * H-MUSIC *For the scholar of musical fiction, this book is of great interest. * JIVE-TALK.COM *[O]f significant interest not only to the literary scholar but also to the philosopher of art. . . . Petermann's exploration of th[e] literary subgenre [of the 'musical novel'], defined as 'musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its very form' (p.2) invites us to rethink a series of classical problems - the essence of music, boundaries of art forms, musical sense and meaning, the relation between music and language - through the lens of these peculiar textual artworks. * UNIVERSA. RECENSIONI DI FILOSOFIA *Selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of 2014 * . *[A]n important contribution to the field of word and music studies. . . . Petermann offers a theory of intermediality that standardizes the features of novels that 'transpos[e] elements of music.' . . . . [E]xpertly crafted. . . . If for no other reason, one should read The Musical Novel to enjoy the author's elegant language --Petermann's prose was music to this reviewer's ears. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Petermann makes a strong and patient case for a thriving tradition of intermediality, and one - this is what distinguishes her book from earlier passes at the subject - that crucially involves audience expectations and reception as part of the equation: knowing the Goldberg Variations or a particular jazz standard provides a subliminal framework for fictional improvisation which a reader unfamiliar with the music might lack. * TLS *The musical knowledge that Petermann displays throughout her book is as sound as her literary background: this promotes illuminating insights for readers coming from both worlds. . . . [Her] theory of intermediality is entirely persuasive and plausible, and as such it is highly useful to anybody seeking to expand further the field of word and music studies. Overall . . . a most thoughtful and comprehensive formalist approach to intermediality in general and the musical novel in particular. * MUSIC & LETTERS *Table of ContentsIntroduction Theorizing the Musical Novel Elements of Sound in Jazz Novels Structural Patterns in Jazz Novels The Performance Situation in Jazz Novels Structural Patterns in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations Composition, Performance, and Reception in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations Conclusion Appendix: Diagrams of Intermediality in Selected Novels Works Cited Index
£23.74
H.W. Wilson Publishing Co. Critical Insights: Amy Tan
Book SynopsisThis volume discusses some of Tan's key themes: communication across generations of a family when those generations have grown up in different cultures, the immigrant experience, mother/daughter relationships, the intersection of gender roles and an Asian or Asian American experience, and depression and the artist, among others.Amy Tan has called writing "an extreme privilege, but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone." It seems Amy Tan will always be most associated with her highly successful debut novel, The Joy Luck Club. Yet she has also published five other bestselling novels, two memoirs, two children's books, and has participated in adapting her writing into many other forms of media, including film, television, and opera. This volume offers insights into the full range of her creative work.
£83.20
University of South Carolina Press Understanding Jonathan Franzen
Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive study to address Franzen's work to date, including his latest novel, Crossroads. Jonathan Franzen—novelist and essayist—is a critical darling, commercial success, and magnet for controversy. His third novel, The Corrections (2000), was selected for Oprah's book club, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and won the National Book Award. Franzen has been featured on the cover of Time and in an episode of The Simpsons. Love him or hate him, the publication of each new novel is a literary event. In Understanding Jonathan Franzen, Timothy Galow studies Franzen's first five novels plus his most recent, Crossroads, which was published to much fanfare in 2021. He opens with the Oprah controversy—Franzen, it seems, did not want his books to be popular—and goes on to unpack the author's ambivalent relationship to his status within the "Theory Generation" of 1980s college graduates turned writers and the postmodern threads that run throughout his work. For Franzen, the social and individual are inseparable. Galow examines why Franzen's stories of (white, bourgeois) American life have inspired and provoked readers for over two decades.
£17.06
University of South Carolina Press Understanding David Mamet: With a New Preface
Book SynopsisA new preface covers Mamet's most recent plays and nonfiction writingUnderstanding David Mamet analyzes the broad range of David Mamet's plays and places them in the context of his career as a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction prose, as well as drama. In addition to playwriting and directing for the theater, Mamet also writes, directs, and produces for film and television, and he writes essays, fiction, poetry, and even children's books. Author Brenda Murphy centers her discussion around Mamet's most significant plays—Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, The Cryptogram, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Edmond, The Woods, Lakeboat, Boston Marriage, and The Duck Variations—as well as his three novels—The Village, The Old Religion, and Wilson. Murphy also notes how Mamet's one-act and less known plays provide important context for the major plays and help to give a fuller sense of the scope of his art. In her new preface, Murphy provides an overview of Mamet's plays, fiction, and essays in the 2010s and the continued move to the right in his political and cultural thinking.
£17.06
University of South Carolina Press Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation
Book SynopsisAn engaging study of Black Feminism as expressed through literature written by and about Black girlsIn Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation, author Janaka Lewis examines Black girlhood in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The representation of Black girlhood in contemporary literature has long remained underexplored. Through this literary history of "Black Girl Magic," Lewis offers one of the first studies in this rapidly growing field of study. Light and Legacies poignantly showcases the activist dimensions of creative literature through work by women writers such as Toni Morrison and Toni Cade. As vectors of protest, these stories reflect historical events while also creating an enduring space of liberation and expression. The book provides didactic and reflective portrayals of the Black experience—an experience which has long been misunderstood. In a work both enlightening and personal, Lewis brilliantly weaves accounts of her own journey in conjunction with the liberating stories that shaped her and so many others.
£76.50
University of South Carolina Press Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and
Book SynopsisAn engaging study of Black Feminism as expressed through literature written by and about Black girlsIn Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation, author Janaka Lewis examines Black girlhood in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The representation of Black girlhood in contemporary literature has long remained underexplored. Through this literary history of "Black Girl Magic," Lewis offers one of the first studies in this rapidly growing field of study. Light and Legacies poignantly showcases the activist dimensions of creative literature through work by women writers such as Toni Morrison and Toni Cade. As vectors of protest, these stories reflect historical events while also creating an enduring space of liberation and expression. The book provides didactic and reflective portrayals of the Black experience—an experience which has long been misunderstood. In a work both enlightening and personal, Lewis brilliantly weaves accounts of her own journey in conjunction with the liberating stories that shaped her and so many others.
£26.06
Bucknell University Press,U.S. The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of
Book SynopsisDrawing on the poetry of four major voices in the Spanish lyric of today, Judith Nantell explores the epistemic works of Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas, arguing that, for them, the poem is the fundamental means of exploring the nature of both knowledge and poetry. In this first interpretive analysis of the epistemic nature of their poetry, Nantell innovatively engages these poets, each of whom has contributed one of their own poems along with a previously unpublished explication of their chosen poem. Each also provides an original biographical sketch to support Nantell’s development of a poetics of epiphany. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Judith Nantell's The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a fantastic addition to scholarship on Spanish contemporary poetry. This is an incredibly original and multifaceted work, and the combination of scholarly analyses with contributions from the authors themselves and their poetry makes this a highly original and perceptive piece of work." -- Diana Cullell * editor, Spanish Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology *“Judith Nantell’s The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a significant work of criticism that brings to light current lyric innovations in Spain, with particular attention to the epistemic strain in the work of four very recent poets: Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas. Nantell’s primary argument is that these four share a vision of their art as a process and a movement towards a state of acute realization and insight into their chosen art and, indeed, into the nature of reality. Nantell shows the four to be authors of a “universalist” lyric poetry, written in Spanish across and beyond borders, and fueled – but not limited by -- literary canon, tradition, and artistic influence. This study exhibits a wealth of insights and original observations, bolstered and fortified by the critical armature reflective of the depth and extension of Judith Nantell’s research.” -- Sylvia Sherno * co-editor, Contemporary Spanish Poetry: The Word and the World *"The book is a major contribution to an understanding of the contemporary Spanish lyric, apt for a general audience, specialists in contemporary Spanish literature, and as a model for introducing new poets in graduate classes. In a sense, the study is itself epiphanic. One reads the delimited analyses of just four poets and then somewhat surprisingly realizes that the study offers a clearly defined road map leading into the core of the contemporary Spanish lyric." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today offers an enthusiastic celebration of the work of four contemporary Spanish poets....Those in search of an introduction to the work of four poets that highlights each poet’s voice through the inclusion and discussion of biographical statements, poetics, poems, and auto-analyses, though, will undoubtedly find this book to be a valuable resource and point of entry into the work of these four poets." * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *"Judith Nantell's The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a fantastic addition to scholarship on Spanish contemporary poetry. This is an incredibly original and multifaceted work, and the combination of scholarly analyses with contributions from the authors themselves and their poetry makes this a highly original and perceptive piece of work." -- Diana Cullell * editor, Spanish Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology *“Judith Nantell’s The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a significant work of criticism that brings to light current lyric innovations in Spain, with particular attention to the epistemic strain in the work of four very recent poets: Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas. Nantell’s primary argument is that these four share a vision of their art as a process and a movement towards a state of acute realization and insight into their chosen art and, indeed, into the nature of reality. Nantell shows the four to be authors of a “universalist” lyric poetry, written in Spanish across and beyond borders, and fueled – but not limited by -- literary canon, tradition, and artistic influence. This study exhibits a wealth of insights and original observations, bolstered and fortified by the critical armature reflective of the depth and extension of Judith Nantell’s research.” -- Sylvia Sherno * co-editor, Contemporary Spanish Poetry: The Word and the World *"The book is a major contribution to an understanding of the contemporary Spanish lyric, apt for a general audience, specialists in contemporary Spanish literature, and as a model for introducing new poets in graduate classes. In a sense, the study is itself epiphanic. One reads the delimited analyses of just four poets and then somewhat surprisingly realizes that the study offers a clearly defined road map leading into the core of the contemporary Spanish lyric." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today offers an enthusiastic celebration of the work of four contemporary Spanish poets....Those in search of an introduction to the work of four poets that highlights each poet’s voice through the inclusion and discussion of biographical statements, poetics, poems, and auto-analyses, though, will undoubtedly find this book to be a valuable resource and point of entry into the work of these four poets." * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ... vi Note on Translations ... vii Introduction ... 1 1 Luis Muñoz: The Instant ... 26 Complete Poems by Muñoz ... 75 2 Abraham Gragera: The Word ... 93 Complete Poems by Gragera ... 148 3 Josep M. Rodríguez: The Images ... 184 Complete Poems by Rodríguez ... 262 4 Ada Salas: Poetry and Poetics ... 302 Complete Poems by Salas ... 368 Afterword ... 389 Acknowledgments ... 395 Notes ... 398 Works Cited ... 399 Index ... 415
£32.30
Bucknell University Press,U.S. The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of
Book SynopsisDrawing on the poetry of four major voices in the Spanish lyric of today, Judith Nantell explores the epistemic works of Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas, arguing that, for them, the poem is the fundamental means of exploring the nature of both knowledge and poetry. In this first interpretive analysis of the epistemic nature of their poetry, Nantell innovatively engages these poets, each of whom has contributed one of their own poems along with a previously unpublished explication of their chosen poem. Each also provides an original biographical sketch to support Nantell’s development of a poetics of epiphany. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"Judith Nantell's The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a fantastic addition to scholarship on Spanish contemporary poetry. This is an incredibly original and multifaceted work, and the combination of scholarly analyses with contributions from the authors themselves and their poetry makes this a highly original and perceptive piece of work." -- Diana Cullell * editor, Spanish Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology *“Judith Nantell’s The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a significant work of criticism that brings to light current lyric innovations in Spain, with particular attention to the epistemic strain in the work of four very recent poets: Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas. Nantell’s primary argument is that these four share a vision of their art as a process and a movement towards a state of acute realization and insight into their chosen art and, indeed, into the nature of reality. Nantell shows the four to be authors of a “universalist” lyric poetry, written in Spanish across and beyond borders, and fueled – but not limited by -- literary canon, tradition, and artistic influence. This study exhibits a wealth of insights and original observations, bolstered and fortified by the critical armature reflective of the depth and extension of Judith Nantell’s research.” -- Sylvia Sherno * co-editor, Contemporary Spanish Poetry: The Word and the World *"The book is a major contribution to an understanding of the contemporary Spanish lyric, apt for a general audience, specialists in contemporary Spanish literature, and as a model for introducing new poets in graduate classes. In a sense, the study is itself epiphanic. One reads the delimited analyses of just four poets and then somewhat surprisingly realizes that the study offers a clearly defined road map leading into the core of the contemporary Spanish lyric." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today offers an enthusiastic celebration of the work of four contemporary Spanish poets....Those in search of an introduction to the work of four poets that highlights each poet’s voice through the inclusion and discussion of biographical statements, poetics, poems, and auto-analyses, though, will undoubtedly find this book to be a valuable resource and point of entry into the work of these four poets." * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *"Judith Nantell's The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a fantastic addition to scholarship on Spanish contemporary poetry. This is an incredibly original and multifaceted work, and the combination of scholarly analyses with contributions from the authors themselves and their poetry makes this a highly original and perceptive piece of work." -- Diana Cullell * editor, Spanish Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology *“Judith Nantell’s The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today is a significant work of criticism that brings to light current lyric innovations in Spain, with particular attention to the epistemic strain in the work of four very recent poets: Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas. Nantell’s primary argument is that these four share a vision of their art as a process and a movement towards a state of acute realization and insight into their chosen art and, indeed, into the nature of reality. Nantell shows the four to be authors of a “universalist” lyric poetry, written in Spanish across and beyond borders, and fueled – but not limited by -- literary canon, tradition, and artistic influence. This study exhibits a wealth of insights and original observations, bolstered and fortified by the critical armature reflective of the depth and extension of Judith Nantell’s research.” -- Sylvia Sherno * co-editor, Contemporary Spanish Poetry: The Word and the World *"The book is a major contribution to an understanding of the contemporary Spanish lyric, apt for a general audience, specialists in contemporary Spanish literature, and as a model for introducing new poets in graduate classes. In a sense, the study is itself epiphanic. One reads the delimited analyses of just four poets and then somewhat surprisingly realizes that the study offers a clearly defined road map leading into the core of the contemporary Spanish lyric." * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *"The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today offers an enthusiastic celebration of the work of four contemporary Spanish poets....Those in search of an introduction to the work of four poets that highlights each poet’s voice through the inclusion and discussion of biographical statements, poetics, poems, and auto-analyses, though, will undoubtedly find this book to be a valuable resource and point of entry into the work of these four poets." * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ... vi Note on Translations ... vii Introduction ... 1 1 Luis Muñoz: The Instant ... 26 Complete Poems by Muñoz ... 75 2 Abraham Gragera: The Word ... 93 Complete Poems by Gragera ... 148 3 Josep M. Rodríguez: The Images ... 184 Complete Poems by Rodríguez ... 262 4 Ada Salas: Poetry and Poetics ... 302 Complete Poems by Salas ... 368 Afterword ... 389 Acknowledgments ... 395 Notes ... 398 Works Cited ... 399 Index ... 415
£107.20
Collective Ink Vade Mecum – Essays, Reviews & Interviews
Book SynopsisVade Mecum brings together Richard Skinner's best essays, reviews and interviews from 1992-2014. There are close critical engagements with writers (Kazuo Ishiguro, Italo Calvino, Shakespeare's The Tempest) and composers (Erik Satie, Iannis Xenakis, Luc Ferrari), meditations on films and filmmakers (Antonioni, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Chinatown) and idiosyncratic reflections on Werner Herzog's Of Walking in Ice and Steely Dan.
£11.77
Liverpool University Press The Mauritian Novel: Fictions of Belonging
Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this work is available on Modern Languages Open (https://www.modernlanguagesopen.org/). On 12 March 2018, Mauritius celebrated fifty years as an independent nation amidst much fanfare. Yet behind the nation’s official image of multicultural ‘unity in diversity’ lurk deep socio-economic inequalities and inter-ethnic tensions that are insistently critiqued in its literature. Against this backdrop, this book analyses how the idea of belonging – a sense of attachment to, and identification with, a place or people – is problematised in a range of contemporary francophone Mauritian novels. The island-nation’s complex history and the multi-ethnic composition of its modern-day population mean that belonging is a central but fraught issue in both reality and fiction. Waters explores how diverse forms of affirmative, affective belonging intersect with, and are frequently inhibited by, exclusionary ‘politics of belonging’ at communal, national or international levels. Using an eclectic theoretical approach to the central concept of belonging, Waters offers in-depth textual analyses of novels by leading Mauritian writers Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, Bertrand de Robillard, Amal Sewtohul and Carl de Souza. Despite their thematic and formal diversity, these novels are shown to be characterised by a common rejection of dominant discourses of ethnic, diasporic affiliation and by a common commitment to the ongoing, future-orientated project of Mauritian nationhood. As such, this book offers an original insight into the dynamics of belonging and exclusion in diverse, multi-ethnic societies.Trade ReviewReviews'In this insightful book, Julia Waters provides new perspectives to chart the Mauritian 21st century novel - these stimulating and provocative essays illustrate the challenge provided by both the varied subject matter and the critical lenses adopted.' Kumari R Issur, University of MauritiusTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Problem of Belonging in Mauritius1. Belonging to the Moment: Carl de Souza’s Les Jours Kaya2. Belonging to the Island: Nathacha Appanah’s Blue Bay Palace and Ananda Devi’s Ève de ses décombres3. Belonging Nowhere: Shenaz Patel’s Le Silence des Chagos4. Everyday Belonging: Bertrand de Robillard’s L’Homme qui penche and Une interminable distraction au monde5. Nomadic Belonging: Amal Sewtohul’s Histoire d’Ashok et d’autres personnages de moindre importance and Made in MauritiusConclusion: Over the RainbowBibliographyIndex
£41.31
Liverpool University Press Maps and Territories: Global Positioning in the
Book SynopsisThe rapidity of postwar globalization and the structural changes it has brought to both social and spatial aspects of everyday life has meant, in France as elsewhere, the destabilizing of senses of place, identity, and belonging, as once familiar, local environments are increasingly de-localized and made porous to global trends and planetary preoccupations. Maps and Territories identifies such preoccupations as a fundamental underlying impetus for the contemporary French novel. Indeed, like France itself, the protagonists of its best fiction are constantly called upon to renegotiate their identity in order to maintain any sense of belonging within the troubled territories they call home. Maps and Territories reads today’s French novel for how it re-maps such territories, and for how it positions its protagonists vis-à-vis the pressures of globalization, uncovering previously unseen affinities amongst, and offering fresh readings of—and offering exciting new perspectives on—a diverse set of authors: namely, Michel Houellebecq, Chloé Delaume, Lydie Salvayre, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Virginie Despentes, Philippe Vasset, Jean Rolin, and Marie Darrieussecq. In the process, it sets the literary works into dialogue with a range of today’s most influential theorists of postmodernity and globalization, including Paul Virilio, Marc Augé, Peter Sloterdijk, Bruno Latour, Fredric Jameson, Edward Casey, David Harvey, and Ursula K. Heise.Trade Review'This book importantly addresses questions that are at the very heart of contemporary debates about our relationship to space and places in a world where borders and distance are being redefined by the forces of globalization.' Jean-Xavier Ridon, University of Nottingham'Its wide-ranging corpus, ambitious scope, and nuanced readings make Armstrong’s study an essential starting point for anyone interested in the current state of contemporary French fiction, and a persuasive account of the concerted way in which that fiction is capturing the profound social, physical, and psychical effects of globalization.' Edward Welch, Modern Language Review'[The book] provides insightful examples of how the French view their own sense of belonging within the dynamics of new territories and realities. [...] Maps and Territories is extremely useful for scholars of contemporary French novels. His clear prose and thoughtful commentary help explain the unease that a changing postwar France experiences today. Thanks to Armstrong's thoughtful analysis, we better understand pressures facing an ever-increasing urbanized society in France and the world.'Kory Olson, L'Esprit CréateurTable of ContentsIntroductionI. Watching the World Go ByChapter One: Absolute Clarity: Michel Houellebecq’s La carte et le territoireChapter Two: Dérive psychose géographique: Chloé Delaume’s J’habite dans la télévisionII. Getting Up to SpeedChapter Three: Planetary Ambitions: Lydie Salvayre’s Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestiqueChapter Four: Décalage Permanent: Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s FuirIII. Falling Through the CracksChapter Five: A Tale of Two Frances: Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex TrilogyChapter Six: Deep Dérive: Philippe Vasset’s La conjurationIV. Making RoomChapter Seven: Asymmetrical Tactics: Jean Rolin’s OrmuzChapter Eight: Sense of Planet: Marie Darrieussecq’s Le paysConclusionWorks Cited
£109.50
Liverpool University Press Beyond Return: Genre and Cultural Politics in
Book SynopsisIn the aftermath of the efflorescence of experimental literature and theory that characterized the Trente Glorieuses (1945-75), ‘contemporary’ French literature is often said to embrace more traditional or readable novelistic forms. This rejection of the radical aesthetics of mid-century French literature, this rehabilitation of fictional forms that have been called sub-literary, regressive, or outdated, has been given a name: the ‘return to the story.’ In Beyond Return, Lucas Hollister proposes new perspectives on the cultural politics of such fictions. Examining adventure novels, radical noir, postmodernist mysteries, war novels, and dystopian fictions, Hollister shows how authors like Jean Echenoz, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Jean Rouaud, and Antoine Volodine develop radically dissimilar notions of the aesthetics of ‘return,’ and thus redraw in different manners the boundaries of the contemporary, the French, and the literary. In the process, Hollister argues for the need to move beyond the nostalgic, anti-modernist rhetoric of the ‘return to the story’ in order to appreciate the potentialities of innovative contemporary genre fictions.Trade Review'Beyond Return is a rich, intellectually vigorous, and persuasive study of contemporary French fiction and its presumed return to subject, story, and world. Entertainingly written and well-documented, it focuses on four major writers of the past forty or fifty years, each representing a different take on how such returns can be situated in terms of modernist and postmodernist stances or beyond them, on what they can consist of, and on what they can mean.'Gerald J. Prince, University of Pennsylvania'This book will be an original contribution to scholarship on contemporary French fiction. Hollister’s significant achievement here is to demonstrate how innovative French takes on genre fiction may provide important insights on literary history and cultural politics.'Ruth Cruickshank, Royal Holloway, University of LondonTable of ContentsIntroduction: Contemporary, French, Literature1. The Story and the World (Jean Rouaud)Anti-modern Adventure (The Imitation of Happiness)Littérature-monde2. A Circle of Circles (Jean-Patrick Manchette)Noir Form!Getting out of Circles (West Coast Blues)Endless Circles? (The Prone Gunman)3. Ghosts (Jean Echenoz)The Manchette ConnectionDisplacing Violence (One Year)The Phantom Limb (1914)4. Apocalypse and Posthistory (Antoine Volodine)The Volodinian Dystopia (View of the Boneyard)Post-ExoticismConclusion: Beyond Return
£109.50
Liverpool University Press Poetry & the Dictionary
Book SynopsisPoetry is an ancient verbal art, which has its roots in the oral epics and fragments that survive from classical times. Dictionaries of English, by contrast, are a comparatively recent phenomenon, beginning with the ‘hard words’ that Robert Cawdrey gathered in A Table Alphabeticall in 1604 and extending to the present edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, with its ongoing revisions. This innovative collection of essays is the first volume to explore the ways in which dictionaries have stimulated the imaginations of modern and contemporary poets from Britain, Ireland, and America, while also considering how poetry has itself been a rich source of material for lexicographers. As well as gauging the influence of major dictionaries like the OED, the essays single out encounters with more specialised works and broach uses of words that are not typically included in dictionaries. In doing so, the contributors not only cast familiar questions of ambiguity and etymology in a fresh light, but they also reveal a number of surprising and energising points of contact, from Hugh MacDiarmid’s rediscovery of Scots to Tina Darragh’s visual appropriations of dictionary pages. As such, Poetry & the Dictionary will prove an indispensable volume for all readers – academic or not – who find themselves fascinated by the language’s many involutions.Trade ReviewReviews ‘This fascinating collection of essays offers a set of new perspectives on experimental poetics as a tradition and as a current practice. This will be a book of substantial interest to scholars, critics, students and readers of contemporary poetry.’ Professor Andrew Roberts, University of Dundee'This collection affords the poet, the lexicographer, and the literary scholar a fruitful and rich cross-disciplinary dive into the mechanics of both language and lyricism... a worthy collection of essays.'D. A. Lockhart, Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America'Readers who want to know about W.H. Auden's "love affair with the OED" (p. 83) will find enlightenment here, while the poems and essays of T.S. Eliot are individually indexed in a highly professional index at the back of the book. [...] Equally rewarding for the curious reader is Tara Stubbs's essay on Marianne Moore, an American poet of the early 20th-century.' Patrick Hanks, International Journal of Lexicography'For readers willing to engage with this more academic text, Poetry & the Dictionary will provide a degree of poetic and intellectual investigation that may ultimately lead to polyvocal poetry.’ Renée M. Sgroi, Carousel Magazine'Looking through a … broader scope, Piers Pennington and Andrew Blades's Poetry & the Dictionary tracks the centuries-long relationship between the terms of their book's title … remind[ing] us that the dictionary itself cannot be "depersonalized," that no "picture" it presents is necessarily clear.' Chelsie Malyszek, LA Review of BooksTable of ContentsPart 1: Poetry and the Dictionary1. IntroductionAndrew Blades and Piers Pennington2. ‘When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my Dictionary’: Poets and Dictionaries, Dictionaries and PoetsCharlotte Brewer3. Poetry in the Oxford English Dictionary: A Quantitative ProfileDavid-Antoine Williams4. Lexicography in Modern PoetryMatthew SperlingPart 2: British and Irish Poetry and the Dictionary5. Jamieson, Jargons, Jangles, and Jokes: Hugh MacDiarmid and DictionariesMichael Whitworth6. Not even inventedDeborah Bowman7. Proper Names, the Dictionary, and the Poetry of ExperimentPiers Pennington8. Etymology and Elegy: Paul Muldoon’s ‘Yarrow’ and ‘Cuthbert and the Otters’Mia GaudernPart 3: American Poetry and the Dictionary9. Briefer Mentions and Lyrical Lexicons: Marianne Moore’s Responses to Dictionaries in The Dial and ObservationsTara Stubbs 10. A Collected Unconscious: James Merrill’s DictionariesAndrew Blades11. ‘All Things are Words of Some Strange Tongue’: Dictionary Definition Form in Contemporary American PoetryKate Potts12. Long Poems about Everything: Dictionary as Subject and Model for Poem, 1974–2016Giles Goodland
£109.50
Liverpool University Press Science Fiction and Climate Change: A
Book SynopsisShortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Best Non-Fiction Award 2020Shortlisted for the Locus Science Fiction Foundation Non-Fiction Award 2021An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched.Despite the occasional upsurge of climate change scepticism amongst Anglophone conservative politicians and journalists, there is still a near-consensus amongst climate scientists that current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas are sufficient to alter global weather patterns to disastrous effect. The resultant climate crisis is simultaneously both a natural and a socio-cultural phenomenon and in this book Milner and Burgmann argue that science fiction occupies a critical location within this nature/culture nexus. Science Fiction and Climate Change takes as its subject matter what Daniel Bloom famously dubbed ‘cli-fi’. It does not, however, attempt to impose a prescriptively environmentalist aesthetic on this sub-genre. Rather, it seeks to explain how a genre defined in relation to science finds itself obliged to produce fictional responses to the problems actually thrown up by contemporary scientific research. Milner and Burgmann adopt a historically and geographically comparatist framework, analysing print and audio-visual texts drawn from a number of different contexts, especially Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and the United States. Inspired by Williams's cultural materialism, Bourdieu's sociology of culture and Moretti's version of world systems theory, the book builds on Milner’s own Locating Science Fiction to produce a powerfully persuasive study in the sociology of literature. Trade Review'[This] volume offers an interesting introductory overview covering a variety of climate fictions... The clear, easily accessible writing style and overall useful introductory nature of the material would definitely recommend the volume as a text for undergraduates studying climate fictions as part of a literary studies or cultural studies curriculum.'Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts'Andrew Milner and J.R. Burgmann’s Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach adds some vitally needed critical rigor to the burgeoning subgenre of SF literature and media Daniel Bloom has labelled “cli-fi,” that is, climate fiction.'Jerome Winter, SFRA Review'Science Fiction and Climate Change is a comprehensive examination of the current state of CF [climate fiction]. It is pleasingly open to genre and form, and Milner and Burgmann's accessible style results in a book that is at once objective sociological-literary commentary and personal reflection on the practice of CF research.' Jasmin Kirkbride, Green LettersTable of Contents1. Ice, Fire and Flood: A Short Pre-History of Climate Fiction 2. A Theoretical Interlude 3. Climate Fiction and the World Literary System 4. The Classical Dystopia in Climate Fiction 5. The Critical Dystopia in Climate Fiction 6. The Problem of Fatalism in Dystopian Climate Fiction 7. Base Reality Texts and Eutopias 8. Cli-Fi in Other Media 9. Changing the Climate: Some Provisional Conclusions
£43.29
Liverpool University Press The Culture of The Culture : Utopian Processes
Book SynopsisIn a career that spanned over thirty years, Iain M. Banks became one of the best-loved and most prolific writers in Britain, with his space opera series concerned with the pan-galactic utopian civilisation known as "the Culture" widely regarded as his most significant contribution to science fiction. The Culture of "The Culture" focuses solely on this series, providing a comprehensive, thematic analysis of Banks’s Culture stories from Consider Phlebas to The Hydrogen Sonata. It explores the development of Banks’s political, philosophical and literary thought, arguing that the Culture offers both an image of a harmonious civilisation modelled on an alternative socialist form of globalisation and a critique of our neo-liberal present. As Joseph Norman explains, the Culture is the result of an ongoing utopian process, attempting through the application of technoscience to move beyond obstacles to progress such as imperialism, capitalism, the human condition, religious dogma, patriarchy and crises in artistic representation. The Culture of "The Culture" defines Banks’s creation as culture: a utopian way of doing, of being, of seeing: an approach, an attitude and a lifestyle that has enabled, and is evolving alongside, utopia, rather than an image of a static end-state.Trade Review'[The Culture of "The Culture"] stands as an invaluable contribution to the study of Banks’s CULTURE series, in particular its relation to the space opera subgenre and the history of utopian thinking.' Chad Andrews, Science Fiction Studies‘Norman provides a deep, thorough overview of the complex world of the Culture and the ways in which it both fulfills and belies our assumptions about a utopian society… optimism drives Banks’ work, and it goes far in explaining why the Culture sequence remains not only eminently and beautifully readable but an emotional necessity for this historical moment.’ Jeremy Brett, SFRA ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Interventions, Imperialism, the Technologiade2. Thinking the Break: The Culture as Postscarcity Utopia3. Senescence, Rejuvanessence, and (Im)mortality: The Culture and the Posthuman4. Feminist Space Opera and the Handy Man5. Secularism, Humanism and the Quasi-religious Culture 6. Art in Utopia and Utopian Art: the Culture of 'the Culture'Conclusion
£109.50
