Literary theory Books

Book Synopsis''To create today is to create dangerously''Camus argues passionately that the artist has a responsibility to challenge, provoke and speak up for those who cannot in this powerful speech, accompanied here by two others.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Book SynopsisEva Barbarossa is a writer and researcher based in Los Angeles and Italy. Her writing has appeared in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, Surface, and The Island Review.Trade ReviewEva Barbarossa delights in details and shows how much fun technology can be when science appears to be magic. * Mark Kurlansky, author of Paper: Paging Through History (2016), Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas (2018), and Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate (forthcoming 2019) *In this delightful and engaging account, Eva Barbarossa shows us how our attraction to magnets is just as much part of culture as it is science--and has been for millennia. Magnet brings together everything from magic and mystery to mesmerism and MRIs as Barbarossa unpacks the meaning of a magnet's pull. Magnet is a must read. * Lydia Pyne, author of Bookshelf (2016) and Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff (forthcoming 2019) *Table of ContentsPrologue In which I eat hundreds of magnets. 1. Birth In which humans find a stone with magical properties. 2. Earth In which we discover we live on an ancient magnet. 3. Home In which we use magnets to find our way. 4. Alignment In which man and beast align to the magnetic fields. 5. North In which we hunt for polar magnets. 6. Health In which we believe magnets harm and heal. 7. Transcendence In which magnetic fluids provide hope. 8. Tricks In which we use magnets to make trouble. 9. Toys In which we find magnets for play and pedagogy. 10. Technology In which everything needs a magnet. Afterword In which I do not eat more magnets. Acknowledgements Selected sources Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBest Fifteen Books of March 2019, Refinery29Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, Paste MagazineObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a woman (or, for that matter, a man) to choose to wear them?Meditating on the labyrinthine nature of sexual identity and the performance of gender, High Heel moves from film to fairytale, from foot binding to feminism, and from the golden ratio to glam rock. Summer Brennan considers this most provocative of fashion accessories as a nexus of desire and struggle, sex and society, violence and self expression, setting out to understand what it means to be a woman by walking a few hundred years in her shoes.Object Lessons is published in partnershiTrade Review[B]risk, readable … Brennan circles around the shoes from all angles, and her brief chapters add up to a kaleidoscopic view of feminine public existence, both wide-ranging and thoughtful. * Jezebel *High Heel is poetry in prose, and while a serious work about the shoe in worldwide history and contemporary culture, it sounds more rhythmic, like poetry in motion. * San Francisco Book Review *In High Heel, the wonderful Summer Brennan embraces a slippery, electric conundrum: Does the high heel stand for oppression or power? … In 150 little essays, Brennan goes at it with poetry, literary references, myth, the psychopathology of rape, fairy tales, politics, and fashion history. All is brought off so beautifully that you can’t help reading … High Heel elevates us, keeps us off balance, and sharpens the point. * The Philadelphia Inquirer *Myths about the transformative power of high heels are central to Summer Brennan’s latest book, High Heel. Part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, the book traces the history and cultural associations of high heels, primarily as worn by women. Drawing from Ovid’s tales to Cinderella to witch trials to modern courtrooms, Brennan makes the case that high heels are an apt metaphor for the ways in which women have been hobbled in their mobility. She also tackles the relationship between beauty and suffering, highlighting the fraught nature of reclaiming objects defined under patriarchy for feminism. * Paste *The lovely cadences stack up like so many sand castles that sift iconic examples of high heels into a finely grained pile of pros and cons that each reader will sift through quite differently … Whether you're for them or against them, the radical uncertainty of Brennan's take on high heels is worth reflection. High Heel is a properly modern consideration of what is at stake and it uses thoroughly intriguing methods of inquiry to approach a well-balanced lack of resolution. * PopMatters *From Cinderella’s glass slippers to Carrie Bradshaw’s Manolo Blahniks, Summer Brennan deftly analyzes one of the world’s most provocative and sexualized fashion accessories in High Heel, part of the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury. Told in 150 vignettes that alternately entertain and educate, disturb and depress, the book ruminates on the ways in which society fetishizes, celebrates, and demonizes the high heel as well as the people, primarily women, who wear them … Whether you see high heels as empowering or a submission to patriarchal gender roles (or land somewhere in between), you’ll likely never look at a pair the same way again after reading High Heel. * Longreads *High Heel is thought-provoking meditation on what it means to move through the world as a woman. Brennan’s book, written in very small sections, is short, but powerful enough to completely change your world view. * Refinery29 *High Heel is a riveting, ferociously intelligent, deeply liberating book. I would like to press a copy of it into the hands of every woman I know—and every man, too. -- Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up (2017)In the ongoing book series Object Lessons, about the hidden lives of ordinary things, [Brennan] steps into the shoe as a starting point to consider the politics of femininity and of being a woman in public – from the trouble with fairy tales to Sylvia Plath’s black patent pumps. * The Globe and Mail (Canada) *Table of ContentsPart One The Garden of Forking Paths Part Two Daphne in Flight, Daphne in Flower Part Three Ashes, Sea Foam, Glass, Gold Part Four The Minotaur Part Five A Goddess At The End of the World Acknowledgements Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe World in a Grain of Sand offers a framework for reading literature from the global South that goes against the grain of dominant theories in cultural studies, especially, postcolonial theory. It critiques the valorization of the local in cultural theories typically accompanied by a rejection of universal categories - viewed as Eurocentric projections. But the privileging of the local usually amounts to an exercise in exoticization of the South. The book argues that the rejection of Eurocentric theories can be complemented by embracing another, richer and non-parochial form of universalism. Through readings of texts from India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Egypt, the book shows that the fine grained engagement with culture, the mapping of ordinary lives not just as objects but subjects of their history, is embedded in much of postcolonial literature in a radical universalism - one that is rooted in local realities, but is able to unearth in them the needs, conflicts and desires that stretch across cultures and time. It is a universalism recognized by Marx and steeped in the spirit of anti-colonialism, but hostile to any whiff of exoticism.Trade ReviewPraise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"A brave attempt to locate political violence in a milieu that neocons are averse to. It succeeds in raising questions that the establishment seeks to drown in its shrill rhetoric and shattering sounds of carpet-bombing." * New Indian Express *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"The anthology aims to give the subject of terror a genealogy other than the one ascribed to it by the Bush doctrine, to examine its impacts in places other than the United States of the 21st century, but most importantly to allow us to engage with the phenomenon in the most complex, situated, historicized, and empathetic way possible. The attempt to canvas literature to make these arguments is quite unique." -- Aparna Sundar * Against The Current *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"It privileges literary texts as forms of media where imaginative and empathetic dialogues can be forged with the histories of occluded and supposedly silent others." -- Amit R Baishya * North East Review *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"An attempt to represent a holistic view that is contrary to the new global understanding of terrorism with rich philosophical insights [and] an innovative way to counter the idea of methodological universalism in understanding social reality." -- Bhagat Oinam * South Asian Popular Culture *A bracing critique of postcolonial orthodoxy from a standpoint decisively to the left of it. Some books are enjoyable but not necessary; this one is both. -- Terry EagletonA bracing critique of postcolonial orthodoxy from a standpoint decisively to the left of it. Some books are enjoyable but not necessary; this one is both. -- Terry EagletonMore than three decades after its intellectual and institutional beginnings, postcolonial theory must still learn to read-and how not to read-postcolonial literature. So argues, convincingly, Nivedita Majumdar in this careful and militantly progressive new work of postcolonial literary criticism and interpretation. A theory launched by high poststructuralism and a then stylish postmodernism's cult of difference and allergy to universals trips over literary narratives that, on the contrary, have everything to do with the concrete universals inseparable from struggles against gender and class oppression. Whether, as Majumdar carefully demonstrates, these narratives (here mostly Anglo- and, refreshingly, non-Anglo-Indian) ultimately prove to be truthful reflections of such struggles and their underlying social realities or not, their genuinely critical reading presupposes a radical universalism at odds with many of the originating texts of postcolonial theory-a theory that Majumdar here goes a long way towards rectifying and redeeming. -- Neil LarsenIn crisp, honest, prose, Majumdar treats the academy's postcolonial royalty with remarkable candor in a series of sharp, often acerbic, close readings. We too often call dissent what are really acts of accommodation, she argues, and ignore the real-world fiction of the periphery - the work, say, of Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay, Mahasweta Devi, and A. Sivanandan - who take their stand not with a classless "difference" but with radical universalism. A compelling case that the darling texts of the Western awards industry (the novels of Ondaatje, Lahiri, and Neel Mukherjee) reflect troubling neo-Orientalist or neoliberal ideas. -- Timothy BrennanIn this vigorously discriminating and deeply engaged book, Professor Majumdar seeks to restore to Postcolonial Studies its pristine political purpose. Going beyond or behind the pervasive complicities of the Postcolonial with Cultural Studies, World Literature and the New Left, she argues for a more meaningful resistance based on the older certitudes of class struggle. She proposes an alternative Postcolonial canon in which the little-known Sharatchandra and Sivanandan are put forward as being more particular and therefore more universal than liberal global figures such as Tagore and Ondaatje. This return to the local, in her affirmation, is a more radical and universalist new turn. -- Harish Trivedi, University of Delhi

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Book SynopsisWith intellectual reference points that include Foucault and Freud, Wittig, Kristeva and Irigaray, this is one of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years and is perhaps the essential work of contemporary feminist thought.Trade Review‘Indispensable for feminist theory.’ - Hypatia‘At times brilliant, always groundbreaking, Gender Trouble is bound to make some trouble of its own.’ - Outweek‘The most authoritative attack to date on the "naturalness" of gender. This is a brilliant and innovative book.’ - Sandra Lee Bartky'Rereading this book, as well as reading it for the first time, reshapes the categories through which we experience and perform our lives and bodies. To be troubled in this way is an intellectual pleasure and a political necessity.' - Donna HarawayTable of ContentsPreface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

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Book SynopsisThis collection of beautiful Persian love poetry is richly illustrated with images from the British Museumâ s world-famous collection.

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Book SynopsisEurie Dahn is Associate Professor of English at The College of Saint Rose, NY, USA. She is the author of Jim Crow Networks: African American Periodical Cultures (2021).

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Book SynopsisBest Books of 2019Scholarly KitchenObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Hashtags can silence as well as shout. They originate in the quiet of the archive and the breathless suspense of the control room, and find voice in the roar of rallies in the streets. The #hashtag is a composite creation, with two separate but related design histories: one involving the crosshatch symbol and one about the choice of letters after it.Celebration and criticism of hashtag activism rarely address the hashtag as an object or try to locate its place in the history of writing for machines. Although hashtags tend to be associated with Silicon Valley invention myths or celebrity power users, the story of the hashtag is much longer and more surprising, speaking to how we think about naming, identity, and being human in a non-human world.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewThe hashtag is everywhere--but why and what does it do? In this small book, Liz Losh insightfully answers this question through historical research, case studies, and rhetorical analyses that explore the possibilities, dangers, and limitations of #CommunicateThis; #HijackThis; #DoesThisReallyMakeADifference. Brilliant and compellingly written, it takes on #controversies and helps us understand how gender, race, and labor matter. * Wendy Chun, Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media, Simon Fraser University, Canada, and author of Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media (2017) *This is the story you didn’t know existed--the story of how one little symbol enabled efficient and powerful communication among human beings and between computers. The hashtag is one of the most interesting communicative inventions of this century. Dr. Losh explains how it got this way in clear language and with an eye for detail. * Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia, USA, and author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (2018) *Table of Contents#HASHTAG #OCTOTHORPE #INVENTOR #PERSON #PLACE #SLOGAN #BRAND #ORIGIN #INTERSECTION #NOISE #CHATTER #FILE #METADATA #ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Notes Index

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Book SynopsisWhat is literary theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is literature, and does it matter? These are some of questions addressed by Jonathan Culler in this Very Short Introduction to literary theory. Often a controversial subject, said to have transformed the study of culture and society in the past two decades, literary theory is accused of undermining respect for tradition and truth and encouraging suspicion about the political and psychological implications of cultural projects rather than admiration for great literature. Here, Jonathan Culler explains ''theory'', not by describing warring ''schools'' but by sketching key ''moves'' theory has encouraged, and speaking directly about the implications of theory for thinking about literature, human identity, and the power of language. In this new edition Culler takes a look at new material, including the ''death of theory'', the links between the theory of narrative and cognitive science, trauma theory, ecocriticism, and includes a new chapter on ''Ethics and aesthetics''. This lucid introduction is useful for anyone who has wondered what all the fuss is about or who wants to think about literature today.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition It is impossible to imagine a clearer treatment of the subject, or one that is, within the given limits of length, more comprehensive. Culler has always been remarkable for his expository skills, and here he has found exactly the right method and tone for his purposes. * Sir Frank Kermode *A must read for all literature students. * Bookwise *Table of Contents1. What is theory? ; 2. What is literature and does it matter? ; 3. Literature and cultural studies ; 4. Language, meaning, and interpretation ; 5. Rhetoric, poetics, and poetry ; 6. Narrative ; 7. Performative language ; 8. Identity, identification, and the subject ; 9. Ethics and aesthetics ; Appendix: Theoretical schools and movements ; References ; Further Reading ; Index

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Book Synopsis''An old teapot, used daily, can tell me more of my past than anything I recorded of it.'' Sylvia Townsend WarnerThere are many ways of telling the story of a life and how we''ve got to where we are. The questions of why and how we think the way we do continues to preoccupy philosophers. In The Stuff of Life, Timothy Morton chooses the objects that have shaped and punctuated their life to tell the story of who they are and why they might think the way they do. These objects are ''things'' in the richest sense. They are beings, non-human beings, that have a presence and a force of their own. From the looming expanse of Battersea Power Station to a packet of anti-depressants and a cowboy suit, Morton explores why ''stuff'' matters and the life of these things have so powerfully impinged upon their own. Their realization, through a concealer stick, that they identify as non-binary reveals the strange and wonderful ways that objects can form our worlds.Part memoir, part philoTable of ContentsChapter 0: Introducing Chapter 1: Electric Peanuts Chapter 2: Inner Bodyworker Chapter 3: Wimbledon Park Station Chapter 4: Oso Chapter 5: Arc Lights Chapter 6: CPAP Chapter 7: Antidepressants Chapter 8: Cowboy Costume Chapter 9: Concealer Chapter 10: Battersea Power Station Chapter 11: Clangers Chapter 12: Drum Kit Chapter 13: Avebury Ring Chapter 14: The Chicken Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisMore comprehensive and up-to-date than ever before.

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Book SynopsisFredric Jameson introduces here the major themes of French theory: existentialism, structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. In a series of accessible lectures, Jameson places this effervescent period of thought in the context of its most significant political conjunctures, including the Liberation of Paris, the Algerian War, the uprisings of May ’68, and the creation of the EU.The philosophical debates of the period come to life through anecdotes and extended readings of work by the likes of Sartre, Beauvoir, Fanon, Barthes, Foucault, Althusser, Derrida, Deleuze, groups like Tel Quel and Cahiers du Cinéma, and contemporary thinkers such as Rancière and Badiou. Eclectic, insightful, and inspired, Jameson’s seminars provide an essential account of an intellectual moment comparable in significance to the Golden Age of Athens, historically fascinating and of persistent relevance.

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Book SynopsisBeginning theory has been helping students navigate through the thickets of literary and cultural theory for over two decades. This new and expanded fourth edition continues to offer readers the best single-volume introduction to the field. The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists and technical language is lucidly and expertly unravelled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics and the theories they represent, Beginning theory allows readers to develop their own ideas once first principles and concepts have been grasped. The book has been updated for this edition and includes a new introduction, expanded chapters, and an overview of the subject ('Theory after "Theory"') which maps the arrival of new 'isms' since the second edition appeared in 2002 and the third edition in 2009.Trade Review'There is no other book that offers such a comprehensive account of the field, combined with thoughtful, detailed exposition of the theoretical approaches under discussion. Far from being a modest survey of contemporary literary theory, it has had a vital role in shaping the way that theory is taught in Britain and North America.'English Association Newsletter‘In the fourth edition of his popular introduction to literary theory, Barry (emer., Aberystwyth Univ., Wales) amends and updates earlier versions (1995, 2002, 2009) and adds sections on newer theories such as consilience and posthumanism. The book is written explicitly for students of English literature, and in citing examples Barry tends to stick to the canonical—Wordsworth, Austen, Shakespeare, et al.—which renders the book less useful than it might be for students of other literatures and languages. Nevertheless, Barry’s readable text focuses helpfully on putting students at ease and giving them tools to think through difficult concepts and theories. In addition, practical exercises familiarize students new to the discipline with different ways of using theory to analyze literature. Most of the changes to the new edition are insubstantial, and some newer theories and practices, such as those relating to technology, are given short shrift. The majority of the references and suggestions for further reading are also the same as those used in earlier versions. Even so the book provides an approachable, understandable introduction to literary theory and would be useful to those not already in possession of the third edition.’M. Anderson, Southern Oregon University, Choice connect, Vol. 56, No. 2, October 2018 -- .Table of ContentsPreface to the fourth editionIntroduction1 Theory before 'theory'2 Structuralism 3 Post-structuralism and deconstruction 4 Postmodernism 5 Psychoanalytic criticism 6 Feminist criticism7 Queer theory8 Marxist criticism 9 New historicism and cultural materialism 10 Postcolonial criticism 11 Stylistics 12 Narratology 13 Ecocriticism14 Literary theory – a history in ten events15 Theory after 'Theory'AppendicesWhere do we go from here? Further readingIndex

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Feared and worshiped in equal measure, snakes have captured the imagination of poets, painters, and philosophers for centuries. From Ice Age cave drawings to Snakes on a Plane, this creature continues to enthrall the public. But what harm has been caused by our mythologizing? While considering the dangers of stigma, Erica Wright moves from art and pop culture to religion, fetish, and ecologic disaster. This book considers how the snake has become more symbol than animal, a metaphor for how we treat whatever scares us the most, whether or not our panic is justified.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.Trade ReviewCaptivating * Lit Reactor *Deeply personal and highly readable…The navigation among such disparate topics, often at a rapid pace, is decidedly easy going, which has to be attributed to Wright’s accessible and captivating voice… Snake is full of power, packed with sobering reminders about the human-animal relationship and our responsibility in maintaining it. * Chapter16 *We give no creature as much cultural meaning as we do the snake, as Erica Wright shows us in this winning tour through history and biology, religion and fear, medicine and fashion. But the real meat of this book is Wright’s bright sensibility. What she sees when she writes about snakes includes: environmental and biological apocalypse, the meaning of fear, existential crises trying to sleep through the night in an absolutely dark cave, the complicated sublime, "the grace alongside the fangs…awful and beautiful together.” That’s the genius of this book: the self as both instrument and subject. As it turns out, what we talk about when we talk about snakes is ourselves. * Ander Monson, Professor of English, University of Arizona, USA, and author of I Will Take the Answer (2020) *Table of ContentsPreface 1. Kingsnakes and Beauty Queens 2. The Problem of the Serpent 3. From Mademoiselle Dorita to Britney Spears: The Snake Charmer Girls 4. A Mouse in Your Teeth 5. Say Amen and Pass the Cottonmouth 6. Python Pocketbooks 7. Who’s a Good Boy? 8. Snakes Are Not Cheap: Titanoboa and Other Monsters in the Lake 9. The Hobbyist 10. Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth 11. Magnanimity and True Courage Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe 50th Anniversary edition of the ground-breaking, worldwide bestselling feminist tract.The Female Eunuch retains that power of transformation; it asserts the possibility of creativity within female experience' GuardianA worldwide bestseller, translated into over twelve languages, The Female Eunuch is a landmark in the history of the women's movement.Drawing liberally from history, literature and popular culture, past and present, Germaine Greer's searing examination of women's oppression is at once an important social commentary and a passionately argued masterpiece of polemic.Probably the most famous, most widely read book on feminism ever.Trade Review‘A dazzling tract, erudite, outrageous, funny.’Cosmopolitan ‘Brilliantly written, quirky and sensible, full of bile and insight…The best feminist book so far’New York Times ‘A dazzling combination of erudition, eccentricity and eroticism.’Newsweek ‘Intelligent, funny and beautifully written’Vogue ‘Germaine Greer in THE FEMALE EUNUCH converted me to Women’s Lib, as much by her bawdy sense of humour as by the bite of her polemic’ Kenneth Tynan, Observer ‘A fine, continuous flow of angry power…terrific polemical force’ Listener

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPraise for * René Girard *The explosion of social media, the resurgence of populism, and the increasing virulence of reciprocal violence all suggest that the contemporary world is becoming more and more recognizably "Girardian" in its behavior -- Robert Pogue Harrison * The New York Review of Books *The man who helped us perhaps more than any other social thinker of our time to understand violence, death and martyrdom -- Jerry Bowyer * Forbes *Praise for * Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven *Influential and comprehensive. Haven's Evolution of Desire is exemplary in its sensitivity ... Her readers are challenged but left free to make up their own minds -- Jonathan Benthall * TLS *A penetrating account of an important thinker - and as agile, profound, and affecting as its subject * Kirkus *Essential reading for Girard devotees and a perfect entrée for newcomers. Rich with details and ideas, Cynthia Haven's book gives everything it promises and something more: a personal account of a close friend. Highly recommended -- Maria StepanovaHere is a book that gives us Girard in all his genius and generosity. I can't recommend it enough -- Morgan Meis * The New Yorker *René Girard's provocative theories on violence, religion, desire, and scapegoating are intensely relevant to contemporary American society. Cynthia Haven offers an account of Girard's life and ideas that is as compelling as a good detective story. It should receive the widest possible readership -- David Streitfeld * Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.In an election year, political signs can be impossible to avoid. They're in front yards, on bumper stickers, and in some places you might never have expected. Tobias Carroll chronicles the permutations and secret histories of political signs, venturing into the story of how they came to be and illuminating how the signs around us shape us in ways we often fail to appreciate. In an era of political polarization and heated debate, what can be learned from studying how our personal space becomes the setting for both? Understanding political signs can help us understand our current political moment, and how we might transcend it.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewA page-turner of cultural analysis and shrewd observation. * Los Angeles Review of Books *During a moment in which Americans are besieged by an onslaught of political messaging from the sublime to the ridiculous, this slim, thoughtful volume helps make sense of what we’re seeing. Tobias Carroll has written a timely meditation on the political sign, an object that telegraphs our deeply held beliefs and exists in 'the space between poetry and prose'… You won’t look at a MAGA hat the same way again. * NPR's Book Concierge *The artifacts he examines look more curious than their familiarity would suggest. * Inside Higher Ed *We have long been taught to think about the politics of signs, but less often is this applied to political signs themselves—our yard signs and bumper stickers and billboards—these strange creatures of the American electoral landscape, some proliferating and gone like dandelions, others stuck in place like barnacles, even as years of political changes leave them as decontextualized fossils. In this brisk and encompassing work, Tobias Carroll examines and makes strange these instruments of power and change and reaction, offering us a sharp and unyielding look at everything that is on the surface that we still do not see. * Mark Doten, author of Trump Sky Alpha *Tobias Carroll has opened my eyes to the signs around me, and now I can’t stop seeing. * Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George of Washington and Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Ubiquity of Yard Signs 2. The Sign Wars 3. The Business of Signs 4. The Pros and Cons of Being Generic 5. Political Signs in the Public Eye 6. Signs as Shorthand, Signs as Remakes 7. On Protest Signs 8. The Making of a Protest Sign 9. Sports & Signs & Sponsors 10. Signs in the Seats Interlude: The Punk Chapter 11. Knives Bats New (Political) Tats 12. HOPE and Its Discontents 13. When Art Is a Sign 14. When a Sign Is Art Conclusion Acknowledgments & Thanks Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn this entertaining and enlightening collection David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane Austen and James Joyce.Trade ReviewExciting...a book for starting up trains of thought or discussion... It did make me think, as a writer, as a reader, as a teacher -- AS Byatt * Sunday Times *Here is scholarship made human... There has been no better populist study of fiction since Forster's Aspects of the Novel * Financial Times *It is wonderful to be clued in to some of the magic tricks of the trade; the point of view, the stream of consciousness, the use of names, the sense of place, time-shift and intertextuality * Los Angeles Times *Lodge has the knack of wearing his scholarship lightly... One finds here precisely that expansive, humane wisdom which is so sorely lacking in much narrow-minded modern criticism.... He gets to the bottom of things, telling us why we read fiction....admirers will find in The Art of Fiction concentrated essence of Lodge * Guardian *These essays are as fresh and as readable as ever -- David Evans * Independent *

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Book SynopsisFrom Zeus and Europa, to Diana, Pan, and Prometheus, the myths of ancient Greece and Rome seem to exert a timeless power over us. But what do those myths represent, and why are they so enduringly fascinating? Why do they seem to be such a potent way of talking about our selves, our origins, and our desires?This imaginative and stimulating Very Short Introduction goes beyond a simple retelling of the stories to explore the rich history and diverse interpretations of classical myths. It is a wide-ranging account, examining how classical myths are used and understood in both high art and popular culture, taking the reader from the temples of Crete to skyscrapers in New York, and finding classical myths in a variety of unexpected places: from arabic poetry and Hollywood films, to psychoanalysis, the bible, and New Age spiritualism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized Table of ContentsForeword ; 1. Without bulls there would be no Europe ; 2. Contexts, then and now ; 3. Gods and heroes ; 4. Metamorphoses of mythology ; 5. On the analyst's couch ; 6. The sexual politics of myth ; 7. Mythology, spirituality, and the New Age ; Conclusion ; References and further reading ; Timeline

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored and On KindnessA collection of literary essays like no other - exploring the deep connections between literature and psychoanalysis - from Britain''s leading psychoanalyst.For Adam Phillips - as for Freud and many of his followers - poetry and poets have always held an essential place, as both precursors and unofficial collaborators in the psychoanalytic project. But the same has never held true in reverse. What, Phillips wonders, at the start of this deeply engaging book, has psychoanalysis meant for writers? And what can writing do for psychoanalysis?Phillips explores these questions through an exhilarating series of encounters with - and vivid readings of - writers he has loved, from Byron and Barthes to Shakespeare and Sebald. And in the process he demonstrates, through his own unique style, how literature and psychoanalysis can speak to and of each other.''Adam PTrade ReviewPublisher's description. Adam Phillips explores the relationship between psychoanalysis and writing in a thrillingly erudite sequence of essays. From Byron to Barthes and Shakespeare to Sebald, Phillips demonstrates how literature and psychoanalysis are closely interlinked, sharing many ideas, theories and narratives. * Penguin *

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Book SynopsisWhy do some books grab you from the very first line?What did Aristotle have to say about the art of telling stories?Is there a secret structure to stories known by all the best writers? In this neat pocket book, English lecturer Amy Jones describes the clever narrative scaffolds used for thousands of years by novelists and scriptwriters. With helpful examples, diagrams and cartoons, this is an essential reference guide for writers of all ages and disciplines. WOODEN BOOKS are small but packed with information. "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisRadical alternatives to consent and traumaArguing that we have become culturally obsessed with healing trauma, Sexuality Beyond Consent calls attention to what traumatized subjects do with their pain. The erotics of racism offers a paradigmatic example of how what is proximal to violation may become an unexpected site of flourishing. Central to the transformational possibilities of trauma is a queer form of consent, limit consent, that is not about guarding the self but about risking experience. Saketopoulou thereby shows why sexualities beyond consent may be worth risking-and how risk can solicit the future.Moving between clinical and cultural case studies, Saketopoulou takes up theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play and The Night Porter, to chart how trauma and sexuality join forces to surge through the aesthetic domain. Putting the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche in conversation with queer of color critique, performance studies, and phTrade ReviewLavishly brilliant. Rarely has a book so daringly startled me. Clarity, nuance, pain, even tenderness here braid uniquely, keyed to sexual collisions with race. A series of showstopping claims result, glistening with seduction. Never have I felt so welcomed into trauma as a mode of doing, a mode of expanding, a mode of greeting what is foreign in oneself. Take this invitation laced with surprise. * Kathryn Bond Stockton, author of Gender(s) *Making a vibrant argument for psychoanalysis’s importance in grappling with our modern racial dramas, Sexuality Beyond Consent weaves together insights from queer theory, performance studies, and critical race theory to explore overwhelm. Saketopoulou’s clear and compelling prose brings together clinical case studies, Laplanche, and Slave Play to arrive at an ethics for dealing with power and difference now—the result is a dazzling, brilliant read. * Amber Jamilla Musser, author of Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance *Offers nothing less than a theory of sexuality, one that refuses contemporary pieties. In a series of profound and sometimes personal reflections, Saketopoulou subjects our reigning models of consent to close scrutiny, and asks what happens when fantasy—intractable, recalcitrant, but also protean and surprising—belies our most dearly held political and ethical commitments. The result is a work that excavates the complex enmeshments of the sexed body, race, and history, and demonstrates the ongoing salience of psychoanalytic concepts to feminist and anti-racist cultural analysis. Saketopoulou’s critique of the liberal sexual subject is politically necessary and intellectually thrilling. * Damon Ross Young, University of California, Berkeley *This brilliant, often counter-intuitive examination of sexuality, race, and consent explores how we might yield to the opacity in ourselves. Saketopoulou unpacks with startling insight moments beyond the politics of identity and trauma to imagine how the surrendering of consent might lead to an ethical expansion rather than diminishment of the self. * David L. Eng, University of Pennsylvania *

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Book SynopsisIn Bodies That Matter, renowned theorist and philosopher Judith Butler argues that theories of gender need to return to the most material dimension of sex and sexuality: the body. Butler offers a brilliant reworking of the body, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the matter of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain sex from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She clarifies the notion of performativity introduced in Gender Trouble and via bold readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud explores the meaning of a citational politics. She also draws on documentary and literature with compelling interpretations of the film Paris is Burning, Nella Larsen's Passing, and short stories by Willa Cather.Trade Review"As a philosopher of gender [Judith Butler] is unparalleled." – Village Voice"Butler gives us a new way to think about the materiality of the body in the discursive performity operative in the materialization of sex. Following a common move in postmodern feminism, Butler sets out to demolish the sex/gender distinction that has formed the mainstay of the de Beauvorian and radical feminism's notion that gender, as a cultural construction, could be critiqued and politicized against the givenness of the body's biological sex. . . .What is new in Bodies That Matter is Butler's attempt to write more directly about race." – Signs"Extending the brilliant style of interrogation that made her 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity a landmark of gender theory/queer theory, Butler here continues to refine our understandings of the complexly performative character of sexuality and gender and to trouble our assumptions about the inherent subversiveness of dissident sexualities. . . . indispensable reading across the wide range of concerns that queer theory is currently addressing." – Artforum"What the implications/limitations of 'sexing' are and how the process works comprise the content of this strikingly perceptive book. . . . Butler has written a most significant and provocative work that addresses issues of immediate social concern." – The Boston Book Review "A brilliant and original analysis." – Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University, USA"...a classic." – Elizabeth GroszTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Part 1: 1. Bodies that Matter 2. The Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary 3. Phantasmatic Identification and the Assumption of Sex 4. Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion Part 2: 5. 'Dangerous Crossing': Willa Cather's Masculine Names 6. Queering, Passing: Nella Larsen Rewrites Psychoanalysis 7. Arguing with the Real 8. Critically Queer. Notes. Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history In his near-contemporary account of classical Greek tragedy, Aristotle examines the dramatic elements of plot, character, language and spectacle that combine to produce pity and fear in the audience, and asks why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process. Taking examples from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the Poetics introduced into literary criticism such central concepts as mimesis (''imitation''), hamartia (''error'') and katharsis (''purification''). Aristotle explains how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals. The Poetics has informed thinking about drama ever since.Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm HeathTable of ContentsTranslated with an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm HeathIntroduction1. Human culture, poetry and the Poetics2. Imitation3. Aristotle's history of poetry4. The analysis of tragedy5. Plot: the basics6. Reversal and recognition7. The best kinds of tragic plot8. The pleasures of tragedy9. The other parts of tragedy10. Tragedy: miscellaneous aspects11. Epic12. Comedy13. Further reading14. Reference conventionsNotes to the IntroductionSynopsis of the PoeticsPOETICSNotes to the translation

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Book SynopsisProfessor John Carey shows how early twentieth-century intellectuals imagined the ''masses'' as semi-human swarms, drugged by popular newspapers and cinema, and ripe for extermination. Exposing the revulsion from common humanity in George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, W. B. Yeats and other canonized writers, he relates this to the cult of the Nietzschean Superman, which found its ultimate exponent in Hitler.Carey''s assault on the founders of modern culture caused consternation throughout the artistic and academic establishments when it was first published in 1992.

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Book SynopsisIn this classic work, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the leading and most influential cultural theorists working today, analyzes the relationship between language, women and culture in both Western and non-Western contexts. Developing an original integration of powerful contemporary methodologies â deconstruction, Marxism and feminism â Spivak turns this new model on major debates in the study of literature and culture, thus ensuring that In Other Worlds has become a valuable tool for studying our own and other worlds of culture. Trade Review'A celebrity in academia . . . [Spivak] creates a stir wherever she goes.' - The New York Times'Always challenging and brilliantly argued, these essays deserve careful thought.' - Journal of Modern Literature'A celebrity in academia . . . [Spivak] creates a stir wherever she goes.' - The New York TimesTable of ContentsForeword by Colin MacCabe. Author’s Note. One: Literature 1. The Letter as Cutting Edge 2. Finding Feminist Readings: Dante-Yeats 3. Unmaking and Making in To the Lighthouse 4. Sex and History in The Prelude (1805): Books Nine to Thirteen 5. Feminism and Critical Theory Two: Into the World 6. Reading the Worlds: Literary Studies in the Eighties 7. Explanation and Culture: Marginalia 8. The Politics of Interpretations 9. French Feminism in an International Frame 10. Scattered Speculations on the Questions of Value Three: Entering the Third World 11. "Draupadi" by Mahasweta Devi 12. Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography 13. "Breast-Giver" by Mahasweta Devi 14. A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman’s Text from the Third World. Notes

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Book SynopsisWhat do we mean when we claim affinity with an object or picture, or say affinities exist between such things? Affinities is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire, or allyship, but has aspects of all. Approaching this subject via discrete examples, this book is first of all about images that have stayed with the author over many years, or grown in significance during months of pandemic isolation, when the visual field had shrunk. Some are historical works by artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Dora Maar, Claude Cahun, Samuel Beckett and Andy Warhol. Others are scientific or vernacular images: sea creatures, migraine auras, astronomical illustrations derived from dreams. Also family photographs, film stills, records of atomic ruin. And contemporary art by Rinko Kawauchi, Susan Hiller and John Stezaker. Written as a series of linked essays, interwoven with a reflection on affinity itself, Affinities is an extraordinary book about the intimate and abstract pleasures of reading and looking.Trade Review‘Brian Dillon is always invigoratingly brilliant. His sentences, his stylistic innovations, the range and potency of his intellectual adventures; he is a true master of the literary arts and a writer I would never hesitate to read, whatever his subject.’ — Max Porter, author of Shy ‘Dillon’s discussion of these photographs forestalls this reading – close attention is one thing. Loving attention, another. And Dillon does love. That shines out from each essay. An affinity can be a relation of significance: of blood, of temporary likeness, of marriage. Dillon notes that the word also once meant a gathering of like-minded people. The images collected together in this book become, in Dillon’s hands, an affinity. And, by looking at them with him, he makes an affinity of us, too. This is key…Dillon’s book is an invitation to look together. It is one of life’s intimate pleasures to attend closely in the company of someone else. Done properly, it opens us to the other’s world.’ — Anil Gomes, Guardian‘Affinities completes a triptych of recent books by Dillon that have been daring and multifarious: textual analysis of everyone from John Donne to Joan Didion giving way to flowing autobiography.’ — Jonathan McAloon, Financial Times‘In this engaging and exhilarating Wunderkammer of a book, he offers us the world — in this case, the visual world — as he experiences it: his way of seeing, and of being, in a web of thrilling, sometimes unexpected, connection.’ — Claire Messud, New York Times‘Affinities is a book of enthrallments. Brian Dillon “performs” and “embodies” that tautology of fascination, its unspeakability. On titans like Julia Margaret Cameron, Claude Cahun, Francesca Woodman and Tacita Dean, Dillon is revelatory. Conceived during the pandemic, Affinities shares the eccentric pain of the moment, the intimate revelations of self-doubt imposed on us all. Affinities is a book after my heart.’ — Moyra Davey, author of Index Cards‘Brian Dillon’s essays match discernment and critical thinking with a sense of pleasure in finding a work of art that speaks to him and lures him into contemplating its mystery and intricacy. His writing is exact and calm; rather than explain he explores, playing what is tentative against what is certain.’ — Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician‘In Affinities, Brian Dillon has woven a sparking electric web of aesthetic attention, an astonishingly deft and slantwise autobiography through the images of others. With this third panel in his brilliant triptych – with Essayism and Suppose a Sentence – Dillon has made himself a quiet apostle of close looking, drawing such intimate connections between such disparate things that he reveals marvel after marvel, and miraculously passes his affinities along to the reader. His project, it seems to me, is a nearly holy one, borne of deep generosity and love for the world.’ — Lauren Groff, author of Matrix‘Brian Dillon’s Affinities eloquently describes the relationships we have – both physical and mental – with works of art. Dillon reflects on the nature of these relationships, the affinities for the selected works, through his research and personal history with them while intermittently allowing us insight into his mediations about the complexity of affinity itself.’ — Hans Ulrich Obrist, author of Ways of Curating‘[Brian Dillon] spins language’s roulette wheel with a finesse and seriousness that recalls the severe yet secretly florid tones of Sontag, Sebald, Benjamin, and other principled foragers in the realm of the buried, the overlooked, the ecstatic. I feel safer in the world, knowing that a diviner as keen-eyed as Brian Dillon is operating the control panel of the sentence.’ — Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Figure it Out‘Brian Dillon set himself firmly in the postmodernist tradition established by European, especially French, critics in the last third of the twentieth century, with its emphasis on close reading and aesthetic autonomy.... His taste in these essays is for the hovering, liminal quality in a wide range of work and personalities.... [F]ascinating and moving.’ — John Banville, Times Literary Supplement ‘This is a deeply personal enterprise but Dillon goes to great lengths to keep at a distance. The collection may amount to a sort-of autobiography but each essay is about the life of the artist or the work itself, not about him. He is careful of his subjects and scrupulous in neither over-interpreting them nor projecting his emotions on to them. Nevertheless, each means something profound to him and each is a pixel that builds into a creative work of his own: a picture of his own aesthetic and the constituent parts of its canon.’ — Michael Prodger, New Statesman‘It is a self-portrait of the critic as, evanescently but beautifully, an artist in his own right.’ — Kevin Power, Irish Times‘[Dillon] succeeds in capturing the resistance of certain images or characters to elucidation. The blurry, the obscure, the fugitive qualities of things are deftly described – from the ‘abstract blurs’ of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs to Claude Cahun’s portraits of herself, a strange duality of play-acting and authenticity.’ — James Cahill, Literary Review

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Book SynopsisMany definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world.Table of ContentsForeword by Frederic JamesonIntroduction1 The field: knowledge in computerized societies2 The problem: legitimation3 The method: language games4 The nature of the social bond: the modern alternative5 The nature of the social bond: the postmodern perspective6 The pragmatics of narrative knowledge7 The pragmatics of scientific knowledge8 The narrative function and the legitimation of knowledge9 Narratives of the legitimation of knowledge10 Delgitimation11 Research and it legitimation through performativity12 Education and its legitimation through performativity13 Postmodern science as the search for instabilities14 Legitimation by paralogyAppendixNotes Index

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Book SynopsisGeorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggest that basic metaphors used in everyday speech not only affect the way we communicate ideas, but actually structure our perceptions and understandings from the beginning.

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Book SynopsisAccessing the huge selection of critical theory can be an intimidating experience. This acclaimed dictionary is an invaluable introduction to the theories and theorists in the field and will prove an authoritative resource for all students.Trade Review'extremely good...Bravo!' Professor Jonathan Culler 'This is an unusual instance of an academic reference book that I do believe doubles quite effectively as a textbook for students and I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone with an interest in theoretical matters, or just in the history of ideas.' Dr Duncan Wu, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisThis guide offers students of literature and culture a refreshingly clear introduction to Butler's crucial ideas, including the formation of identity, subjecthood and gender performativity.Table of ContentsPart 1 Why Butler?; Part 2 Key Ideas; Chapter 1 The subject; Chapter 2 Gender; Chapter 3 Sex; Chapter 4 Language; Chapter 5 The psychePart 3 After Butler;

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Book SynopsisThis Element explores the changing landscape of eBook businesses and cultures in China in the past two decades and examines how disruptive innovation and the platform economy have transformed one of the world's largest book markets.

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Book SynopsisLiterary Criticism from Plato to the Presentprovides a concise and authoritative overview of the development of Western literary criticism and theory from the Classical period to the present day An indispensable and intellectually stimulating introduction to the history of literary criticism and theory Introduces the major movements, figures, and texts of literary criticism Provides historical context and shows the interconnections between various theories An ideal text for all students of literature and criticism Trade Review"Habib aims to offer a concise, authoritative overview of literary criticism and theory in the West via an in-depth examination of its key movements, figures and texts." (Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 February 2011) Table of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. Part I Classical Literary Criticism and Rhetoric. 1 Classical Literary Criticism. Introduction to the Classical Period. Plato (428–ca. 347 BC). Aristotle (384–322 BC). 2 The Traditions of Rhetoric. Greek Rhetoric. Roman Rhetoric. The Subsequent History of Rhetoric: An Overview. The Legacy of Rhetoric. 3 Greek and Latin Criticism During the Roman Empire. Horace (65–8 BC). Longinus (First Century AD). Neo-Platonism. Part II The Medieval Era. 4 The Early Middle Ages. Historical Background. Intellectual and Theological Currents. 5 The Later Middle Ages. Historical Background. Intellectual Currents of the Later Middle Ages. The Traditions of Medieval Criticism. Transitions: Medieval Humanism. Part III The Early Modern Period to the Enlightenment. 6 The Early Modern Period. Historical Background. Intellectual Background. Confronting the Classical Heritage. Defending the Vernacular. Poetics and the Defense of Poetry. Poetic Form and Rhetoric. 7 Neoclassical Literary Criticism. French Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism in England. 8 The Enlightenment. Historical and Intellectual Background. Enlightenment Literary Criticism: Language, Taste, and Imagination. 9 The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Hegel (1770–1831). Part IV Romanticism and the Later Nineteenth Century. 10 Romanticism. Germany. France. England. America. 11 Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Aestheticism. Historical Background: The Later Nineteenth Century. Realism and Naturalism. Symbolism and Aestheticism. 12 The Heterological Thinkers. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860). Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). Henri Bergson (1859–1941). Matthew Arnold (1822–1888). Part V The Twentieth Century: A Brief Introduction. Introduction. 13 From Liberal Humanism to Formalism. The Background of Modernism. The Poetics of Modernism: W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. Formalism. Russian Formalism. The New Criticism. 14 Socially Conscious Criticism of the Earlier Twentieth Century. F. R. Leavis. Marxist and Left-Wing Criticism. The Fundamental Principles of Marxism. Marxist Literary Criticism: A Historical Overview. Early Feminist Criticism: Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. 15 Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism. Phenomenology. Existentialism. Heterology. Structuralism. 16 The Era of Poststructuralism (I): Later Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction. Later Marxist Criticism. Psychoanalysis. Deconstruction. 17 The Era of Poststructuralism (II): Postmodernism, Modern Feminism, Gender Studies. Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929). Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007). Jean-Fran¸cois Lyotard (1924–1998). bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins; b. 1952). Modern Feminism. Gender Studies. 18 The Later Twentieth Century: New Historicism, Reader-Response Theory, Postcolonial Criticism, Cultural Studies. The New Historicism. Reader-Response and Reception Theory. Postcolonial Criticism. Cultural Studies. Epilogue New Directions: Looking Back, Looking Forward. Index.

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Book SynopsisWho are we and how do we define our inner selves? In his last work, Professor Stephen Prickett presents a literary and cultural exploration of our inner selves and how we have created and written about them from the Old Testament to social media. What he finds is that although our secret, inner, sense of self what we feel makes us distinctively us' seems a natural and permanent part of being human, it is in fact surprisingly new. Whilst confessional religious writings, from Augustine to Jane Austen, or even diaries of 20th-century Holocaust victims, have explored inwards as part of a path to self-discovery, our inner space has expanded beyond any possible personal experience. This development has enhanced our capacity not merely to write about what we have never seen, but even to create fantasies and impossible fictions around them.Yet our secret selves can also be a source of terror. The fringes of our inner worlds are often porous, ill-defined and susceptible to frightening formsTrade ReviewSecret Selves is a remarkable book, at once deeply personal and also a reflection on a profession spent with literature and art ... the product of lifetime of reading and teaching, moving with ease across texts and the images of Western art. It is a reflection on the selves whom we think we know well, and the selves in all of us that remain secret. * The Coleridge Bulletin *This is a fascinating book, written with clarity and charm. What is engaging as well as convincing is how Stephen Prickett traces out the visible emergence, usually in literature but also painting and film, of a conception of the interior life, suggesting how we might read evidence of it even in a single word or phrase. An impressive, memorable study that will, aptly, linger in the mind. * Francis O’Gorman, Saintsbury Professor of English Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK, and author of Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History *With a beguiling lightness of touch, Stephen Prickett explores the immense and fascinating landscape of the human mind. His book provokes, challenges and delights in equal measure. It's a joy. * The Rt Revd Dr Christopher Herbert, Visiting Professor in Christian Ethics, University of Surrey, UK *Stephen Prickett's many books on the evolution of the modern European imagination were without fail deeply original, written with wit, clarity and an immense range of reference. This – sadly posthumous – work is no exception. I can think of no other recent book that offers so rich an exploration of how modern people learned to think about their “inner selves,” with examples ranging from children's books to debates on Artificial Intelligence. A brilliant, humane, many-faceted study. * Rowan Williams, former Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Self-Conscious Story 1. Visions, Dreams – and that which hath no Bottom 2. Room On All Three Floors: Dante to Macdonald 3. The Mind has Mountains: Landscape into Psyche 4. From China to Peru: Global Imaginations 5. Children’s Spaces: Adult Fantasies 6. Far Fetched Facts and Further Fictions: Furnishing with Extremes 7. Experience of Self: From Identity to Individuality Conclusion: Know Thyself: Facebook, Cyborgs, and Reincarnation Index

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Book SynopsisWhat makes a character interesting? How do you build a convincing character arc? Does every story have a hero? How many shades of villain are there? How does a writer bring their characters alive? In this timeless little book, teacher Amy Jones describes the secret techniques that writers use to create their characters, along with their archetypes, backstories, motivations, modes of dialogue, habits, hopes, fears, flaws, frustrations ... and eventual resolutions and redemptions.Trade ReviewWooden Books are: "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

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Book SynopsisContemporary cultural style boosts transparency and instantaneity. These are values absorbed from our current economic conditions of "disintermediation": cutting out the middleman. Like Uber, but for art. Immediacy names this style to make sense of what we lose when the contradictions of twenty-first-century capitalism demand that aesthetics negate mediation. Surging realness as an aesthetic program synchs with the economic imperative to intensify circulation when production stagnates. "Flow" is the ultimate twenty-first-century buzzword, but speedy circulation grinds art down to the nub. And the bad news is that political turmoil and social challenges require more mediation. Collective will, inspiring ideas, and deliberate construction are the only way out, but our dominant style forgoes them. Considering original streaming TV, popular literature, artworld trends, and academic theories, Immediacy explains the recent obsession with immersion and today's intolerance of representation, and points to alternative forms in photography, TV, novels, and constructive theory that prioritize distance, impersonality, and big ideas instead.Trade ReviewThis brilliantly written, wild ride of a book is an enthralling, gloves-off critical intervention urgently needed in this moment. -- Jonathan Crary, author of 24/7 and Scorched EarthKornbluh offers a swift -- and much needed -- kick to one of the most insidious symptoms of our time: the demand for the now, the immediately felt, the one-off. Armed with a strong imperative: "Think!" which she reiterates in an uncommonly rich vocabulary and from a variety of perspectives, she succeeds at the very least in holding up this runaway trend. Together with her previous critiques of capitalism, Immediacy establishes Kornbluh as one of the most inventive new voices in the field. -- Joan Copjec, Brown University, author of Read My DesireAnna Kornbluh brilliantly reinvigorates critique for an age drowning under the deluge of self-presentation. Embracing structure over style, representation over personalization, and collectivity over narcissism, she creates a space for thinking -- the necessary space for politics. -- Jodi Dean, author of The Communist HorizonThe sensation of reading Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy is of someone turning on the light in a dark room. Suddenly one beholds a world one had only been stumbling through and can begin, with Kornbluh's help, to trace a whole new set of relations between the disparate phenomena that define contemporary culture. The shocking conceptual clarity and rightness of its dialectical reversal of everything we thought we knew about life lived under conditions of postmodern hyper-mediation should make this book the starting point of future discussions of the nature of the present. -- Mark McGurl, Stanford University, author of Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of AmazonTo the things themselves! Fuck no, that's precisely the problem. In this book on the poetics of social forms, Kornbluh has expertly diagnosed the contemporary yen for immediacy and immanence, presence and reality, the indistinct blurs and liquid flows of seemingly authentic experience. Taking it all as a kind of social pathology, she reads contemporary style through the deterritorializations of hyper capitalism, and the crushing lateness of an economic logic that insists on no alternative for society and no future for the planet. What results is a plea for the labor of mediation, and an insistence on dialectics as the central mechanism of art and culture. -- Alexander R. Galloway, author of Uncomputable: Play and Politics in the Long Digital AgeImmediacy masterfully exposes the common core of many different problems and phenomena that we do not necessarily think of as related. The imperative of immediacy and its suffocating logic are the hallmarks of what Kornbluh calls "too late capitalism". Drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis and art she makes a vivid, passionate, and most compelling case for mediation that creates the much-needed capacity to imaginatively break with the merely given. An extremely precious book that goes far beyond purely academic concerns. -- Alenka Zupancic, author of Let Them RotAnna Kornbluh simply nails it in this fearless, witty, and conceptually powerful indictment of contemporary capitalist culture's desire to annihilate negation-while also "negating the negation" by showing how things might be otherwise. A stunning and unignorable book. -- Sianne Ngai, author of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

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Book SynopsisFrom the birth of crime writing with Wilkie Collins and Dostoevsky, through Conan Doyle to the golden age of crime, with the rise of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, P. D. James brings a lifetime of reading and writing crime fiction to bear on this personal history of the genre. There are chapters on great American crime writers - the likes of Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. James also discusses many of her favourite famous detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Philip Marlowe. P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley, Children of Men and The Murder Room, presents a brief history of detective fiction and explores the literary techniques behind history''s best crime writing.

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world. Long regarded by philosophers as an elusive and mysterious capacity of the human mind, imagination has been the subject of extraordinary ambivalence, described as both dangerous and divine, as merely peripheral to rationality and as essential to all thinking. Drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, literary and cognitive theory as well as the human sciences, this book engages the dramatic conceptual history of imagination together Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1: What is imagination? 2: Imagination in human evolution 3: From divine madness to cognitive power 4: The productive and aesthetic imagination 5: The augmentation of reality 6: Creativity from invention to wonder References and further reading

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1926 in France, Foucault is one of those rare philosophers who has become a cult figure. Over the course of his life he dabbled in drugs, politics, and the Paris SM scene, all whilst striving to understand the deep concepts of identity, knowledge, and power. From aesthetics to the penal system; from madness and civilisation to avant-garde literature, Foucault was happy to reject old models of thinking and replace them with versions that are still widely debated today. A major influence on Queer Theory and gender studies (he was openly gay and died of an AIDS-related illness in 1984), he also wrote on architecture, history, law, medicine, literature, politics, and of course philosophy. In this Very Short Introduction Gary Gutting presents a wide-ranging but non-systematic exploration of some highlights of Foucault''s life and thought. Beginning with a brief biography to set the social and political stage, he then tackles Foucault''s thoughts on literature, in particular the avant-garde scene; his philosophical and historical work; his treatment of knowledge and power in modern society; and his thoughts on sexuality. This new edition includes feminist criticisms of Foucault''s apparently sexist treatment of the Jouy case, as well as a new chapter offering a unified overview of the Collège de France lectures, now a major focus of interest in Foucault. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of Contents1: Lives and works 2: Literature 3: Politics 4: Archaeology 5: Genealogy 6: The masked philosopher 7: Madness 8: Crime and punishment 9: Modern sex 10: Ancient sex 11: Foucault after Foucault Further reading Index

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Book Synopsis''A fascinating journey into our relationship with the physical book...I lost count of the times I exclaimed with delight when I read a nugget of information I hadn''t encountered before'' Val McDermid, The TimesMost of what we say about books is really about the words inside them: the rosy nostalgic glow for childhood reading, the lifetime companionship of a much-loved novel. But books are things as well as words, objects in our lives as well as worlds in our heads. And just as we crack their spines, loosen their leaves and write in their margins, so they disrupt and disorder us in turn. All books are, as Stephen King put it, ''a uniquely portable magic''. Here, Emma Smith shows us why.Portable Magic unfurls an exciting and iconoclastic new story of the book in human hands, exploring when, why and how it acquired its particular hold over us. Gathering together a millennium''s worth of pivotal encounters with volumes big and small, Smith reveals Trade ReviewIf you love books, you'll love Portable Magic -- Val McDermidFor many of us, books are the life we chose without thinking about it too much. Emma Smith's terrifically knowledgeable and thoughtful Portable Magic helps us understand every aspect of what our beloved books stand for. I for one am very grateful. What a delight this book is. -- Lynne TrussIrresistibly fascinating -- John CareyBrilliant... amusing, darkly sobering, and consistently fascinating ... a combination of deep scholarship and down-to-earth wit * Telegraph *Fun, playful, learned and accessible... Smith is herself a magical writer * BBC History Magazine *Smith's genius is to question as well as to value and register every contradiction - to make you, the reader, think without even suspecting that you are ... for communicating complex material in conversational, occasionally irreverent, prose -- Lucasta Miller * The Critic *Joyous ... thrilling ... A brilliantly written account of the book-as-material-object, and the slightly seedy pleasures of "bookhood" -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian (Book of the Week) *Wildly entertaining ... This fascinating, slyly amusing book carries an undertow of personal affection for the curious, rectangular, multileaved objects with which we're so familiar * Sunday Times *Smith's enchanting book sparkles with gems of trivia that often conceal deeper truths about the evolution of reading and publishing. Fascinating, enlightening, funny and touching, this is indeed portable magic * Sydney Morning Herald *Emma Smith's history of the physical book is a thing to cherish ... witty and ingenious ... Smith reads with all her senses alert ... A wise, funny, endearingly personal book -- Peter Conrad * Observer *Anyone who's ever enjoyed the feel or indeed smell of a book should read Emma Smith's delightful and informative Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers -- Lucasta Miller * Spectator Books of the Year *From bullet-stopping Bibles to tomes bound in human skin, Smith's history of books revels in their magic and malignity. It skewers our faith in the written word yet repays it handsomely * Telegraph *

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