Literary studies: from c 2000 Books

Book SynopsisTwelve Anglicists (from France, America, Poland, and Romania) who met in Bucharest to debate Religion and Spirituality in Literature and the Arts at the ACED Conference in June 2015 join their voices in demonstrating the vitally spiritual power of Christianity in the recently modern world (in twentieth and twenty-first century literature and society). Poetry (by Eliot, Yeats, Heaney, David Jones, Hill, G.M. Brown) and fiction (Henry James, Lodge, Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O’Connor, Rose Macaulay and Ron Hansen), interpreted with (Thomist and more recent) theology (J.H. Newman’s, Paul Tillich’s, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s, De Certeau’s) and philosophy (from Plato to Gadamer) in mind, give heartening suggestions for transcending, along Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox lines, the modern secular ethos.Table of ContentsContents: Ioana Zirra: Introduction: The Literary Avatars of Christian Sacramentality, Theology and Practical Life in Recent Modernity – Adrian Grafe: A Plea in Favour of Guilt – Ioana Zirra: Poetic Kairoi in «Lapis Lazuli» and «A Dialogue of Self and Soul» by Yeats and in Seamus Heaney’s «A Snowshoe» (Shelf Life VI) – Anna Walczuk: Turning Away from Modern Secularisation: T. S. Eliot and His Poetic Space for a Metaphysical Quest – Roxana Paula Trandafir: C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot: Christianity through the Looking Glass – Joseph Kuhn: A Blood that Is Wise: Flannery O’Connor and the «Nouvelle Théologie» – Martin Potter: Does Art Imply Theology?: Henry James, Hans-Georg Gadamer, David Jones and Hans Urs von Balthasar – Madeline Potter: Moving beyond Ekphrasis: Sacramental Transference of Being in the Arts – Maria Fengler: Aspects of Catholic Spirituality in the Poetry of George Mackay Brown – Aleksandra Słyszewska: «New wine in new bottles»: Some Aspects of the Twentieth-Century English Catholic Novel – James Christian Brown: «The Church… I suppose it really is out to stop war»: Christianity and Peace Activism in Rose Macaulay’s Non-Combatants and Others (1916) – Michael S. Jones: Religion as Philosophy and Art in the Work of Lucian Blaga – Ioana-Ruxandra Fruntelată: Empirical Religion vs. Secularisation in Postcommunist Romania.

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Book SynopsisFrom a historical perspective, the full academic establishment of Women’s and Gender Studies is a radical and far-reaching innovation. Decisive impulses have come from the United States, the European unification and globalization. European Women’s and Gender Studies are therefore intimately linked to the English language and Anglophone cultures, as the near untranslatability of «gender» shows. In this volume 25 experts present surveys for their countries with a historical and European contextualization and offer fundamental insights not only for English Studies but also various other disciplines.Trade Review«By examining critically the specific contexts and the historical, political and cultural circumstances of their countries, the authors of each survey have offered a nuanced analysis that brings out the diversity and the challenges, but also the unfaltering dedication of past and present women academics in the process of developing and institutionalizing an important academic field.» (Anca-Luminita Iancu, American, British and Canadian Studies Vol. 29/2017) «Overall this collection of articles fulfils its goal of unveiling the work of scholars to promote an undervalued field of studies. [...] It is [...] a great inspiration for Women and Gender Studies scholars but also for researchers of other topics with a similar problem such as Post Colonial Studies.» (Shirley Doulière, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XXIII-1 | 2018) Vollständige Rezension hier lesenTable of ContentsContents: Renate Haas: Basic Concept and Realization – Ana Gabriela Macedo/Margarida Esteves Pereira: Women’s and Gender Studies in Portugal: An Overview from an Anglicist Perspective – Esther Álvarez López/Isabel Carrera Suárez/Carla Rodríguez González: Women’s Studies and English Studies in Spain: From Democracy to Transnationalism – Vita Fortunati: Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies in Italy: The Bologna Case as an Emblematic Example – Florence Binard: Beyond Invisibility and Bias: English Women’s and Gender Studies in France – Marysa Demoor: Women’s Studies in Belgium: Through the Gate of English Literature – Renate Haas: Germany: Two Steps Forward and One Back, or Slow Snowball Effect? – Susanne Hamscha: Austria: The Long and Winding Road towards the Institutionalization of Women’s and Gender Studies – Věra Eliášová/Simona Fojtová/Martina Horáková: Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies in the Czech Republic: An Uncertain Discipline – Ljiljana Ina Gjurgjan †: Croatia: The Social Symbolic in a Transitional Society and Women’s Studies – Mia Liinason: A Semi-Outsider’s Point of View: The Institutionalization of Gender Research in Sweden – Elina Valovirta/Joel Kuortti: Moderate Finnish Feminism: From a Struggle for Equality in the Welfare State to Diverse and Established Gender Studies – Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė: Lithuania: Pioneering Women’s and Gender Studies in the Post-Soviet Baltic Republics – Aleksandra Izgarjan/Dubravka Djurić: The Role of Anglicist Women in the Development of Gender Studies in Serbia: From NGO to Academia – Ana-Karina Schneider/Corina Selejan: Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies in Romania: Between Persistence and Resistance – Milena Katsarska: The Other Frontier: Anglicist Gender Studies in Bulgaria – Seda Gasparian/Gayane Muradian: Armenia: Ancient Traditions, Upheavals, and the Beginnings of Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies – Renate Haas: Europe and Beyond.

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Book SynopsisThe book focuses on the uncanny in the domestic space of Elizabeth Bowen’s fiction. Providing a psychoanalytic reading of selected works it aims to examine the image of the house in Bowen’s prose and to analyse its uncanniness in relation to the characters’ identity. In her book, Olena Lytovka focuses on an important aspect of Elizabeth Bowen’s fiction – the motif of the uncanny house. By applying the Freudian notion of the unheimlich to the analysis of selected novels and short stories, Lytovka demonstrates how the traumatic experience of loss is mirrored in the characters’ perception of the domestic space as uncanny. The uncanny, she argues, is a reflection of the psychological condition of the perceiving mind in the state of crisis rather than the quality of the space. This insightful and well-researched study is a valuable contribution to Bowen criticism and will be relevant to literary scholars and students alike. (Anna Kędra-Kardela, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin)Table of ContentsContents: The uncanny – Elizabeth Bowen – Modernist fiction – Big House fiction – Domestic space – Ghostly temporality – Trauma and identity disintegration, the place of memory and memory of place.

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Book SynopsisMonika Kocot’s book on Edwin Morgan’s literary achievement, both poetry and drama, foregrounds the themes of cultural transgression, dialogism of the author’s creative design, and various, potentially subversive games of sense creation: «verbivocovisual» constellations, mythopoetic «writings-through» and intersemiotic translations.Trade Review«Edwin Morgan’s unparalleled poetic inventiveness finds its equivalent in Monika Kocot’s similarly inventive critical and analytical work, which makes this book such a pleasure to read. Her interpretations of Morgan’s poetry are always sharp-eyed, precise and highly sovereign. Kocot may use her knowledge of contemporary theory very generously, but poetry is always at the centre of her critical attention. I can only welcome this eloquent study of one of Scotland’s greatest poets coming from one of the most gifted young Polish scholars.» (Jerzy Jarniewicz, University of Lodz) «Monika Kocot’s wonderful study of Edwin Morgan’s work is timely and most welcome, coming just a few years after the poet’s death. Impressive in its scholarship, it succeeds in getting to the heart of Morgan’s work, its irrepressible spirit, its sense of play. It casts light on Morgan the mercurial, the trickster, the antisage, endlessly inventive, pushing linguistic boundaries, yet humane, accessible. It’s good too to see Morgan’s plays given their due alongside the poetry. Like their subject matter, the author carries her scholarship lightly and writes with a discerning eye and ear. I think Morgan himself would be delighted by this study, and I can think of no higher praise than that. Message Clear.» (Alan Spence, Professor Emeritus, University of Aberdeen)Table of ContentsContents: Edwin Morgan – Literary traditions – Textuality – Constructivism – Deconstruction – Trickster – Mythopoeia – Postmodernism – Scotland – Scottish Literature.

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Book SynopsisThis study explores the poetics and politics of self in J. M. Coetzee’s «autre»-biographical works «Scenes from Provincial Life». The author provides a detailed analysis of Coetzee’s conception of self in his fictionalized memoirs, as well as of philosophical, aesthetic and political implications of «autre»-biography. She reads these works as literary figurations of an estranged self, maintaining that they engage with deeply historical but also universal questions of the relation between self and power. Coetzee’s fictionalized memoirs, she argues, are thus not merely dramatizations of the inherent elusiveness of the self but a critique of systems and discourses of normativization and oppression. Table of ContentsConcept of «autre»-biography in J. M. Coetzee’s trilogy of fictionalized memoirs «Boyhood» (1997), «Youth» (2002), and «Summertime» (2009) – The poetics and politics of self – Literary figuration of a variegated self – Sense of identity, alterity and unbelonging

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Book SynopsisAfter the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, terrorism as a literary theme has flourished in Australian literature. This book examines how terrorism as a theme has been represented in five exemplary novels and elaborates a distinctively Australian approach to the topic. The novels taken into consideration focus on strategies of fictionalisation rather than the actual violence or the threat of it. By doing so, the author argues, Australian literature provides a powerful antidote to the widespread fear of a terrorist attack. Without competing with media and political sciences, this book underlines the contribution literary studies can make to the expanding field of terrorism research.Table of ContentsContents: Terrorism – Literature – Post-9/11 Fiction – Terrorism Discourse – Australian Fiction – Janette Turner Hospital – Due Preparations for the Plague – Orpheus Lost – Adib Khan – Spiral Road – Richard Flanagan – The Unknown Terrorist – Andrew McGahan – Underground.

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates how India was portrayed in British novels and short stories during the heyday of the British Raj. In the tradition of post-colonial studies such as Edward Said’s Orientalism, it will be considered in how far fiction by Rudyard Kipling and other writers supported the institution of the Raj by establishing and spreading certain ideas about the Indian sub-continent and the Indian people. In addition, Said’s claims concerning the consistency of what he labels Orientalist discourse will be challenged to a certain degree, as British authors who lived in India are more likely to present an image of the country that is at least partly more detailed and nuanced than portrayals of the Indian scene created by writers who never saw the sub-continent.Table of ContentsContents: British fiction – India – British Raj – Anglo-Indian fiction – The image of India in fiction produced in Britain – Edward Said – Imperialism – (Post-)Colonialism.

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Book SynopsisThis book argues that the fantasy fiction rooted in J. R. R. Tolkien’s concept of Faёrie, as represented by the fantasy works of the Inklings and of U. K. Le Guin, has certain psychotherapeutic properties. Faёrie’s generic ‘ethos’ seems to draw on ‘moral imagination’ and on logos (meaning and word), which informs its secondary worlds and encourages a search for an unconditional sense of life, against the postmodern neo-nihilistic aporia. The book postulates an applicability of logotherapy (‘therapy through meaning’, developed after WW2 by Victor Frankl,) to the workings of Faёrie, whose bibliotherapeutic potential rests on its generic marks, identified by Tolkien as Fantasy, Recovery, Escape (breaking free from incarcerating meaninglessness), Consolation, and (cathartic) Eucatastrophe.Table of ContentsFantasy fiction – Faёrie – The Inklings – J. R. R. Tolkien – C. S. Lewis – Owen Barfield – Charles Williams – Ursula K. Le Guin – Mythopoeia – Moral imagination – Neonihilism – Logotherapy – Therapy through meaning – Victor Frankl – Bibliotherapy – Narrative therapy – Catharsis – Eucatastrophe – Therapia pauperum.

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Book SynopsisThis book applies the analytical methods of third-wave ecocriticism to selected twenty-first century Italian literary works. Turning abstract issues into narrative form, literary writing increases awareness of environmental issues as well as exerting a deep emotive influence on its readership. The author analyses Roberto Saviano's «Gomorra», Kai Zen's «Delta blues», Wu Ming's «Previsioni del tempo», Simona Vinci's «Rovina», Giancarlo di Cataldo's «Fuoco!», Laura Pugno's «Sirene», and Alessandra Montrucchio's «E poi la sete». He demonstrates that these works offer an invaluable opportunity to communicate meaningfully and accessibly the discomforting truths of global environmental change.Table of ContentsChemical Pollution – Changes in Land Use – Translocality

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Book SynopsisAmidst the flood of studies on cultural icons as ordering elements of societies and role models, sports icons have been neglected in scholarship despite their significance in the US. Even less attention has been paid to the emergence of popular «anti-icons» who undermine the original sports-hero ideology and its claim of the interdependence of athletic success and moral normativity. This study analyzes the phenomenon of the popular anti-icon in American sports. Based on case studies of Joe Namath, Dennis Rodman and Barry Bonds the author shows how this phenomenon has become visible from the 1960s onwards because of profound changes within the media and sports, as these fields became increasingly intertwined. These athletes subverted the sports-hero ideology and still became successful on the field but also popular off the field – especially in commercializing their anti-iconic images.Table of ContentsThe Evolution of the Sports Icon and the Anti-Icon in the USA, Joe Namath – The Prototype of a Popular Anti-Icon in Sports, Dennis Rodman – The Second Coming of Joe Namath, Barry Bonds – The Atypical Popular Anti-Icon in Sports – Conclusion: The Popular Anti-Icon in American Sports

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Book Synopsis«Inklings» nannte sich eine Gruppe von Schriftstellern und Geisteswissenschaftlern in Oxford, deren bekannteste Mitglieder J.R.R. Tolkien und C.S. Lewis waren. Die Inklings-Gesellschaft e.V. widmet sich seit 1983 dem Studium und der Verbreitung der Werke dieser und ihnen nahestehender Autoren sowie der Analyse des Phantastischen in Literatur, Film und Kunst allgemein. Ihre Jahrestagungen werden in Jahrbüchern dokumentiert. Dieser Band enthält zehn Vorträge der Tagung «Faszination Harry Potter», die 2017 in Aachen stattfand, sowie drei weitere Beiträge und zahlreiche Rezensionen. «Inklings» was the name of a group of Oxford scholars and writers; its best-known members were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The German Inklings-Gesellschaft, founded in 1983, is dedicated to the discussion and dissemination of the works of these authors and of writers commonly associated with them and to the study of the fantastic in literature, film and the arts in general. The proceedings of the annual Inklings conferences are published in yearbooks. This volume contains ten papers presented at the 2017 conference entitled «The Allure of Harry Potter». In addition, there are three general articles and numerous reviews.Table of ContentsCarsten Kullmann: The Politics of Race in the Harry Potter Novels – Isabel Busch: Protagonistinnen und Antagonistinnen bei J.K. Rowling – Dana Steglich: Zur Entwicklung des Magiesystems in Harry Potter – Denise Burkhard: (Re-)Negotiating the Notion of Home in the First Harry Potter Novels – Mattia Colombu: An Analytical Study of Character Development in the Harry Potter Novels – Patrick Schmitz: Literary World-building in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – Friedhelm Schneidewind: Religion und Ethik in Hogwarts, Narnia und Mittelerde – Susanne Kroner: How the Fanfic Community Learned to Embrace ‹Harry Potter – The Next Generation› – Franziska Burstyn: Harry Potter and the Magic of Consumption – Maria Fleischhack: J K Rowling, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Transmedial Fan Practices – Martin Simonson: Tom Bombadil in Middle-earth – Rabanus Mitterecker: Revisiting Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn – Werner Bies: Sarah Kirschs Märchengedicht «Schneelied»

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Book SynopsisThe essays in this volume examine aspects of the ever-changing American imaginary over the last two centuries from the cultural perspectives of the present age, in which transnational approaches have vigorously challenged American exceptionalist narratives. It is a time in which uncertainties and reappraisals of group and national identity, both within the US and abroad, are part of the framework of a comprehensive field of research for scholars in American Studies, in the social sciences and the humanities alike. While situated in the current tumultuous century, the contributors of this volume focus on specific issues of the US defining and redefining itself from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Table of ContentsTransatlantic, transnational and transcultural contexts – Identity and national allegiance – Sites of worlding – Trauma and fantasy in American fiction – The American Imaginary – Popular culture – The counterculture

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Book SynopsisPredicated upon the opposition of writing back and reading forward, the author challenges some of the established concerns or preoccupations of the field. Postcolonial theory, framed by several binary assumptions, e.g. the dichotomy of coloniser/colonised, perpetrator/victim, powerful/powerless, has frequently led to a partial vision regarding postcolonial subjects as well as literatures. By submitting six selected novels from India, South Africa and the Caribbean to contrastive readings, the book maps out the scope of literary interpretation, also and in particular in a postcolonial context. More than simply providing a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of each text, this study challenges both the benefits and limits of the postcolonial as a critical theoretical approach.Table of ContentsPostcolonial theory – Literary criticism – J. M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country – Robert Antoni’s Divina Trace – Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things – Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger – Earl Lovelace’s Is Just a Movie – Nadine Gordimer’s No Time Like the Present – South Africa – India – The Caribbean

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Book SynopsisUS society has controversially debated civil-military relationships and war trauma since the Vietnam War. Civic activists today promote Indigenous warrior traditions as role models for non-Native veteran reintegration and health care. They particularly stress the role of ritual and narrative for civil-military negotiations of war experience and for trauma therapy. Applying a cultural-comparative lens, this book reads non-Native soldiers’ and veterans’ life writing from post-9/11 wars as «ceremonial storytelling.» It analyzes activist academic texts, «milblogs» written in the war zone, as well as «homecoming scenarios.» Soldiers’ and veterans’ interactions with civilians constitute jointly constructed, narrative civic rituals that discuss the meaning of war experience and homecoming.Table of ContentsActivist and academic US discourse on war experience and war trauma since Vietnam – Civil-military relationships – Cultural comparison with Indigenous warrior traditions – Military life writing understood as civic war rituals – «Milblogs» – «Homecoming scenarios» for returning veterans

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Book SynopsisThe triumphal march of the automobile and its connection with American culture have often been acknowledged in scholarship. By contrast, the culture-specific, value-oriented advertising strategies of the most important US carmaker General Motors (GM) in its home market have received less attention, especially in American Studies. This study focuses on the connection between GM products and America and the fundamental values represented by politics, business, and society. The author examines which textual and visual strategies GM uses in its image advertising to establish and maintain its patriotic American image. He argues that GM’s advertising campaigns follow a patriotic leitmotif and are consistently in line with American core values, often generating new patriotic ideas.Table of ContentsAmerican Core Values – Patriotism – Consumer Culture – Image – Automobile Advertising – General Motors – Dinah Shore – «See the USA in Your Chevrolet» – «Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet» – «The Heartbeat of America» – «Keep America Rolling» – «An American Revolution» – «Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit» – «Rethink American»

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Book SynopsisThe contributions in this collection underline the vibrancy as well as complexity that characterizes the study of American literature and culture in the twenty-first century with regard to the exploration and understanding of ethnicity and gender. The book aims at contributing to the research already taking place within American Studies, while opening up the texts discussed to further literary and cultural evaluations and interpretations. America is viewed here not in isolation but as part of a fluctuating as well as geographically and culturally expansive reality as testified by the Asian, European, and American background of the volume contributors. Table of ContentsAfrican Americans and medicine – slave narratives and semiotics – Obamacare – Media sensationalism – Native American literature, photo literature – immigrant identities – Post 9/11 – Taiwanese American Literature – Chicano cinema – Chinese American masculinity – Japanese American literature – The New Woman and Eastern European feminism – Camp and Sadcore

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Book SynopsisWhat only a few decades ago would have been considered a totalitarian nightmare seems to have become reality: Surveillance practices and technologies have infiltrated all aspects of our lives, forcing us to reconsider established notions of privacy, subjectivity, and the status of the individual in society. The United States is central to contemporary concerns about surveillance. American companies are at the forefront of developing surveillance technologies; and government agencies, in the name of security and law and order, are monitoring our words and actions more than ever before. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore the implications of what many consider to be a far-reaching social, political, and cultural transformation.Table of ContentsSurveillance – American studies – Cultural studies – Literary studies – Film studies – Digital culture – SecurityWith contributions by Hugh Davies, Birgit Däwes, Andrew S. Gross, Felix Haase, Bärbel Harju, Silke Järvenpää, Caren Myers Morrison, Marek Paryż, Garrett Stewart, Bernhard H.F. Taureck and Florian Zappe.

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Book SynopsisDie Untersuchung bietet die erste Bestandsaufnahme eines bemerkenswerten Phänomens des politischen Gegenwartstheaters: In den Spielzeiten 2012/13 bis 2017/18 wurden 25 Theatertexte uraufgeführt, die sich mit der Verbrechensserie der Terrorgruppe Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (NSU) befassen. Sie reagieren damit auf Leerstellen der politischen, gesellschaftlichen sowie juristischen Aufarbeitung des NSU. Die Studie untersucht ausgewählte prototypische Theatertexte von Elfriede Jelinek bis Nuran David Calis und deren Inszenierungen. Der Fokus auf Zeugenschaft als Analyseperspektive verbindet Fragen der Darstellung, wie jene von Angehörigen der Opfer oder von TäterInnenfiguren, mit Fragen der Rezeption von TheaterzuschauerInnen.

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Book SynopsisThis volume maps cultural representations of Mass Violence from the perpetrators’ perspective. It analyzes spaces where political crimes have been committed and how these places have undergone successive resemanticization in collective memories. The chapters comparatively examine scenes of Mass Violence carried out in very diverse regions of the globe, from the Third Reich to the Argentinian Dictatorship, from the Gulag to Francoist Spain, from the Cambodian genocide to terrorism. They explore, from a "cultural" point of view, how the events have been represented, i.e. visualized and narrated, and how the crime scenes have been reappropriated for the sake of memory, mourning, and prevention, in accordance with political, social, and ideological frameworks. Table of ContentsCrime scenes and politics of memory – Perpetrator research – Artistic and investigative reenactment – Artistic representation – Sites of memory – Genocide and mass murder – Torture – Contested heritage – Gender violence

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Book SynopsisDrawing on Bernd Mahr’s model theory, this volume introduces a new approach to Romanticism in contemporary Australian literature. Focusing on two very different authors, David Malouf and the Indigenous poet Samuel Wagan Watson, this book highlights their similarities rather than their differences. It is the first book-length study dedicated specifically to each author’s poetic oeuvre. Comprehensive readings reveal that an ironic dialectic underpins how each poet writes from within a disjunct of culture and environment following colonisation, finding hope in dialogue and a productive process of negative assertion. The theoretical framing of Romanticism developed here effectively rehabilitates Romanticism as a productive paradigm in contemporary Australian poetry.Table of ContentsContemporary Australian poetry – Australian literature – Suburban Australian literature City writing – Model theory – Australian Romanticism – Romantic irony – Spatial hermeneutics – David Malouf – Samuel Wagan Watson – Indigenous poetry – Aboriginal poetry – Brisbane writing – Place-making – Australian identity

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Book Synopsis This book provides a comprehensive reading of some of A.S. Byatt’s major novels. Focusing on memory, Renaissance forms of theatrical reinvention in post-war culture, ekphrasis, visuality, the cognitive processes of the mind, gender and science, the book retraces a network of theoretical questions illuminating the author’s fictional world from within. This study devotes special attention to the craft with which Byatt translates complex issues into imaginative fiction, engaging with Byatt’s texts. It presents a lucid and coherent account of a wide range of arguments underpinning the work of one of the most prolific and acclaimed contemporary writers. Trade Review«With her perceptive textual analyses, and the extensive dialogue she establishes between the novels and the social, historical and cultural questions they mobilise, Cambiaghi does justice to the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural aspects of Byatt’s fiction, in a volume that will no doubt become essential reading to scholars, students and perceptive Byatt fans alike.» (Barbara Franchi, C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings, 9 (1), 2021) Table of ContentsCultural memory, Renaissance memory systems, Visual culture, Ekphrasis, Cognitive science, Media and TV, Gender, Post-war English culture, The sixties, 1968, Myth and fairy tales, Fiction and critical discourse, Intertextuality, Blending theory, Victorian and postmodern culture.

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Book Synopsis The horses in All the Pretty Horses are ubiquitous but rarely the center of attention. Their depiction is surprisingly authentic and without anthropomorphization. This book illustrates how an equicentric reading offers new insights into the novel’s spaces, characters, and relationships. It features comparisons with popular horse-narratives and an equicentric analysis of the novel’s gender relations. How does horsemanship redefine masculinity? What is the inherent connection between femininity and the equine? This book answers these questions from an equicentric perspective, while taking into account patterns of anthropocentrism and misogyny. In addition, the focus is on the narratees and on how the degree of equine experience they bring to the narrative may enhance the horses’ figurative significance. Table of ContentsIntroduction – Horse Scholarship – An Overview –McCarthy’s Horses – Why They Matter – Riding the McCarthy Horse – Moving Through Time on Horseback – Teaching, Dreaming, Growing – Grady’s Quest for Belonging – Making Space for the McCarthy Horse – Gender Dynamics and the Equine – On The Road Without Horses – The Horseless World of The Road – Conclusion – The Horse Sense of The Border Trilogy – Bibliography

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Book Synopsis „Inklings" nannte sich eine Gruppe von Schriftstellern und Geisteswissenschaftlern in Oxford, deren bekannteste Mitglieder J.R.R. Tolkien und C.S. Lewis waren. Die Inklings-Gesellschaft e.V. widmet sich seit 1983 dem Studium und der Verbreitung der Werke dieser und ihnen nahestehender Autoren sowie der Analyse des Phantastischen in Literatur, Film und Kunst allgemein. Ihre Jahrestagungen werden in Jahrbüchern dokumentiert. Dieser Band enthält elf Vorträge der Tagung " Frankenstein 1818 · 2018 – Parabel der Moderne", die 2018 in Ingolstadt stattfand, sowie zwei weitere Beiträge und zahlreiche Rezensionen. "Inklings" was the name of a group of Oxford scholars and writers; its best-known members were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The German Inklings-Gesellschaft, founded in 1983, is dedicated to the discussion and dissemination of the works of these authors and of writers commonly associated with them and to the study of the fantastic in literature, film and the arts in general. The proceedings of the annual Inklings conferences are published in yearbooks. This book contains eleven chapters presented as papers at the 2018 conference entitled "Frankenstein 1818 · 2018 – Parable of the Modern Age." In addition, there are two general articles and numerous reviews.

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Book Synopsis„Inklings" nannte sich eine Gruppe von Schriftstellern und Geisteswissenschaftlern in Oxford, deren bekannteste Mitglieder J.R.R. Tolkien und C.S. Lewis waren. Die Inklings-Gesellschaft e.V. widmet sich seit 1983 dem Studium und der Verbreitung der Werke dieser und ihnen nahestehender Autoren sowie der Analyse des Phantastischen in Literatur, Film und Kunst allgemein. Ihre Jahrestagungen werden in Jahrbüchern dokumentiert. Dieser Band enthält elf Vorträge der Tagung " Flora und Fauna in Fantastischen Welten", die 2019 in Bonn stattfand, sowie Rezensionen. "Inklings" was the name of a group of Oxford scholars and writers; its best-known members were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The German Inklings-Gesellschaft, founded in 1983, is dedicated to the discussion and dissemination of the works of these authors and of writers commonly associated with them and to the study of the fantastic in literature, film and the arts in general. The proceedings of the annual Inklings conferences are published in yearbooks. This book contains eleven chapters presented as papers at the 2019 conference entitled "Flora and Fauna in Fantastic Worlds" and reviews.

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Book SynopsisFailure as a pervasive occurrence in life has rarely been investigated by sociology, even though the collapse of plans, unattainability of goals and breakdown of vital relationships are ordinary experiences. The study of early-21st-century fiction reveals that imaginative literature at present explores the lacunae of failure, disillusionment and collapse as central narrative themes. About fifty years after Samuel Beckett, in whose works the failing of expression became a major concern, postmillennial narratives expose disruption or defeat as subject matter and literary trope. Unheroic failure as a motif makes its variegated appearance in diverse areas of human life such as love, religion, art, and social community. The narratives explore it as the individual’s participation in common humanity.Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Cultural Context of the Failure Theme inFiction, and the Purpose of this Study I. Human Failure Narrative Identity and Failure in Short Fiction Failure in the Novel: A Small Tale, Generally of Love The Trivial, and the Novel as ‘a Small Tale’ Personal Failure and the Political (I): Irish Fictions Failure and the Observance of the Ordinary Personal and the Political (II): Postcolonial Results: Failure, Identity, and the Ordinary Transitional Section: Failing Aspirations of Humanism II. Failure and the Artist The Failing Artist in a Short Story Cycle The Fictional Artist and His Failing in the Novel Intermediate Results Partial Failure: Divergence of Art and Life Failure and Triumph of the Fictional Artist in the Novel: A Paradox Irony and Black Humour: Artistic Failure vs. Celebrity Success and Failure in 21st-Century Biofictions Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe border and border-crossing and its significance for the Chicana in a cultural, social, gendered, and spiritual sense are at the core of this book. The three oeuvres selected—Helena Viramontes’ The Moths and Other Stories, Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters, and Norma Cantú’s Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera—are eloquent examples of feminist Chicana writers who refuse to allow their lives to be restricted by the gender, social, racial, and cultural border and who portray how Chicana women rebel against the unfair treatment they receive from their fathers, husbands and lovers. Crossing and deconstructing the man-made borders means to leave behind the known territory and discover an unknown land, in the hope of finding a new world in which Chicana women have the same rights as white women and in which they can realize their self, develop a new mestiza consciousness and liberate themselves from patriarchal constraints and religious beliefs. The author shows how the newly won self-confidence empowers the Chicana to explore the opportunities this freedom offers.Table of ContentsBackground to Chicano/a Literature − Border Theories and Realities − Border-Crossing in Chicana Writing − Mestizas Breaking Taboos: Crossing Gender, Social and Religious Borders in Helena Viramontes’ The Moths and Other Stories (1985) − Mestiza Liberation through Transgression: Crossing Gender Borders in Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986) − Growing up Mestiza: Crossing Physical, Cultural, and Spiritual Borders in Norma Cantú’s Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (1995)

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Book SynopsisLes principales caractérisations de la littérature mondiale supposent, implicite-ment ou explicitement, le dessin de centres et de périphéries littéraires. Loin de tenir un tel dessin pour figé, les essais ici regroupés l’appréhendent comme une construction relative, qui autorise bien des variations. Ils proposent des modèles alternatifs qui recomposent ou dépassent les répartitions usuelles entre centres et périphéries de la littérature mondiale. Ils explorent également les dynamiques et les poétiques à travers lesquelles une série de littératures ou d’auteurs dits périphériques construisent leur mondialité en mobilisant et en figurant consciem-ment leur interdépendance avec tous les autres espaces littéraires.Table of ContentsCentre-périphérie (Centre-periphery) – Littérature mondiale (World Literature) – Littérature libanaise (Lebanese Literature) – Littératures francophones (Francophone Literature) – Littérature équatorienne (Ecuadorian Literature) – Littérature chinoise (Chinese Literature) – Littératures socialistes (Socialist Literature) – Cinéma africain (African cinema) – Migration (Migration) – Interdépendance (Interdependence) – Intertextualité (Intertextuality) – Universalisation (Universalization) – Identité-altérité (Identity-alterity).

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Book SynopsisHuman imagination is saturated with monsters. They represent, in a number of ways, those that have been historically perceived as strangers to the human community. It is a game of alterities wherein female monsters have occupied a particularly relevant position. Women have been historically represented as the Other in this human/nonhuman dyad. In the present study nineteenth- and twentieth-century vampires’ and zombies’ narratives have guided the analysis of a contemporary neo-gothic artefact: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. 　Hamilton. This book argues at the intersection of feminist literary analysis and cultural studies methodology, and it also considers queer notions of fluidity and performativity. The author sets out that Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter represents a twenty-first-century series questioning social norms and envisioning worlds of freedom.Table of ContentsNavigating Gothic Monstrosity – Genealogy of Desire – Genealogy of Fear – Cartography: Playing in the Dark – On the Colour Line – The Remake of the Beasty Boys – Let’s talk about sex, baby!

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Book SynopsisThe Covid-19 pandemic has thrust us all into a warped, disjointed ‘coronatime,’ which has both uncontrollably accelerated, and interminably decelerated, or got frozen. Just like the pandemic, this book provides a chance to reevaluate neoliberalism’s temporal regimes of growth, decline, deceleration and acceleration. South Africa and its contemporary literature are a perfect background against which to think about temporality experimentally. Focusing on three South African authors, André Brink, J.M. Coetzee and Zakes Mda, the book examines contemporary South African revisioning of time and alterity. Through some of the previously unexplored texts, it studies what living in a post-conflict, post-revolutionary and highly traumatized society entails for one’s perception of time and otherness.Table of ContentsThe Persistence of History and South African Literature Alterity, Time and De-temporalization of Difference Magical Realism and Temporalities of Post-apartheid Towards the Ethics of Alter(nat)ing Temporalities of Post-apartheid: Alterity and Time in Fiction by Zakes Mda and J.M. Coetzee Trauma, Alterity and Time in South African Autobiographical Writing Trilogy of Fictionalized Memoirs by J.M. Coetzee Memoirs by André Brink and Zakes Mda

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Book SynopsisAustralia’s official Reconciliation project confronted Australians with the continuous violent dispossession suffered by the country’s Indigenous peoples and the pressing need to offer a public apology to them. While trauma became a tool whereby to create paths of empathy and reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, it was also a manipulative strategy to deny the country’s shameful history. This book examines Gail Jones’s literary contribution to such debates. It examines Gail Jones’s questioning of Australia’s victimology narratives, and offers an insightful discussion of the transmedia, transnational and multidirectional approach to trauma in the reconciliation-related novels she published during John Howard’s vexed Liberal Government (1996-2007).Table of ContentsTrauma – Australian contemporary fiction – Gail Jones – sorry novels – Reconciliation

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Book Synopsis„Inklings" nannte sich eine Gruppe von Schriftstellern und Geisteswissenschaftlern in Oxford, deren bekannteste Mitglieder J.R.R. Tolkien und C.S. Lewis waren. Die Inklings-Gesellschaft e.V. widmet sich seit 1983 dem Studium und der Verbreitung der Werke dieser und ihnen nahestehender Autoren sowie der Analyse des Phantastischen in Literatur, Film und Kunst allgemein. Ihre Jahrestagungen werden in Jahrbüchern dokumentiert. Dieser Band enthält drei Vorträge, drei Varia-Aufsätze sowie 4 Rezensionen. "Inklings" was the name of a group of Oxford scholars and writers; its best-known members were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The German Inklings-Gesellschaft, founded in 1983, is dedicated to the discussion and dissemination of the works of these authors and of writers commonly associated with them and to the study of the fantastic in literature, film and the arts in general. The proceedings of the annual Inklings conferences are published in yearbooks. This volume contains three papers, three varia-contributions and four book reviews.Table of ContentsAbbildungsverzeichnis - Einleitung - Beiträge zu „Transatlantische Metamorphosen/ Transatlantic Metamorphoses“ - Johannes Rüster Wessen Mann im All? 60 Jahre Perry Rhodan im Spiegel amerikanischer SF- Erzähltraditionen - Dieter Petzold Robin Hood in Nottingham, Indiana – und Umgebung - Kristin Aubel V, the Superhero? Transatlantic Crossings of a British Writer and an American Genre - Varia - Josef Schreier Phantasie und Dichtung. Einige grundsätzliche Überlegungen - Werner Bies Von „Dalís Ameisen auf einem verschatteten Notenblatt“, einer Astralgärtnerin und einem Abstieg in Alices Wonderland – oder: Friedrike Mayröcker in ihrer Zettelhöhle des Phantastischen (auch ein Nachruf) - Sarah Fißmer und Marthe-Siobhán Hecke Isolation as the Key for Survival: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison - Besprechungen - Mieder, Wolfgang, Der Froschkönig: Das Märchen in Literatur, Medien und Karikaturen. und Mieder, Wolfgang, Schneewittchen: Das Märchen in Literatur, Medien und Karikaturen. (Werner Bies) - Neubauer, Łukasz, Ed. Middle- earth, or There and Back Again. (Thomas Fornet- Ponse) - Nancy Bunting and Seamus Hamill- Keays. The Gallant Edith Bratt. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Inspiration. (Thomas Fornet- Ponse) - Michael D. C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger and David Bratman, eds. Tolkien Studies: Volume XVII. (Thomas Fornet- Ponse) - BeiträgerInnen

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Book SynopsisThis book addresses a research gap in the study of eugenics in fictional literature: the analysis of the nexus of eugenics and genetics in 21st-century novels, detached from their authors’ ideological beliefs. It is based on an understanding of literature as an interdiscourse in Jürgen Link‘s sense. The study employs categories developed by Rabinow and Rose in the context of Foucault‘s concept of “biopower.” It thereby demonstrates that, though officially fallen from grace in light of the Nazi atrocities committed in the name of racial hygiene, eugenic ideas remain surprisingly resilient in the sciences as well as in fiction. Thus, the nexus between eugenics and genetics continues to serve as an important force in the structuring of scientific and contemporary popular (inter-)discourses.Table of ContentsInhaltsverzeichnis - List of Abbreviations- Introduction- Eugenic Literatures- What's in a Name?- Simon Mawer: Mendel's Dwarf (1997)- Dan Brown, Inferno (2013)- Robert Sawyer: The Neanderthal Parallax (2002-2003)- Jodi Picoult, Second Glance (2003- Writing the Eugenetic Imagination- Works Cited- Literature- Criticism

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Book SynopsisThis book is committed to women as writers and storytellers; all the selected novels are female-centric in that the main characters are women.　The authors, also women, are from three diverse American ethnic groups from both the North and South. Through a close reading of several novels, Babakhani shows how the reinvention of cultural traditions serves these women writers as a political, decolonial, and feminist tool. Babakhani situates her readings in a critique of the concepts of realism and magical realism. 　Because magical realism sets realism against magic and implies binary oppositions, Babakhani proposes "cultural realism" as a revisionary concept that takes the cultural importance of rituals and beliefs seriously, without simply dismissing them as superstition. Table of ContentsIntroduction — Latin America and the Tradition of Magical Realism — Cultural Realism and African American Women Writers — Cultural Realism and Native American Women Writers — Conclusion — Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisJoan Didion (1934-2021) was one of America’s most iconic writers and intellectuals. Her reportage and essays, as well as her novels and memoirs provide sharp comments on a variety of facets of American culture and politics between the 1960s and the 2010s. Employing the complex relationship between life and words as guiding framework, the volume offers fresh approaches to Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, The White Album, Democracy and Where I Was From, as well as takes on her final publications The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights and Let Me Tell You What I Mean. The collection also features photographs of Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, with an accompanying essay by artist and photographer Nancy Ellison, plus a contribution by literary biographer Tracy Daugherty.Table of ContentsNotebooks – (auto)biography – photographs – Joan Didion – California – nostalgia – mental landscape – (post)-west – intimacy – reparative reading – LA – anti-sentimentality – Black Panthers – NYC – environmental psychology – place attachment – (dis)illusion – feminism – power – storytelling – abandonment – crossing story

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates men and quiltmaking, an under-researched part of theU.S.-American quilt world. It analyzes the connection between the genderedness ofmaterial practice and White masculinity concepts in the U.S.-American mainstream.The examination of the construct of masculinity in two quilt novel series from the2010s aims to answer the question of whether the characters’ attitudes towardsquiltmaking and quilts as objects provide information about change in heterosexualgender relations and whether the fictional masculinities in Wanda E. Brunstetter’s orAnn Hazelwood’s novels promote new approaches to manhood. Due to the paucity ofscholarly work on contemporary quilt fiction, this book also contributes to the studyof a hybrid genre.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments – 1 Introduction – 2 History of Quiltmaking and White Euro- American Manhood – 3 Men in Selected Fictional Texts on Quiltmaking – 4 Analyzing the Roles of Men in Two Quilt Novel Series – 5 Conclusion – Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThe beginning of the 21st century saw the rise of "New" Atheism and a resulting conflict with Theists – at the same time as the resurgence of fantasy in popular culture. This volume analyses the impact of Theist and Atheist thought on the narratology of four highly popular works of contemporary fantastic fiction. In doing so, the work demonstrates how the ideological stances and the associated patterns of thought colour the novels’ stylistic and narrative devices. The book also presents a new conditional genre metric that not only helps overcome previous impasses within fantastic genre categories but also allows insight into the aforementioned patterns of Atheist and Theist thinking. Table of ContentsTable of Contents – Introduction – <> - Terminology and Definitions - <> –Theism and Atheism in the Fantastic – <> - Delineating Theist and Atheist Narratology - Conclusion

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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