Literary theory Books

Book SynopsisOffers points of entry into Derrida's complex and extensive works. From 'aporia' to 'yes', this dictionary demonstrates that Derrida is not just about philosophy, but also about politics and pop music. It explains why deconstruction matters, and how Derrida can change the way you think.Trade Review"Writing for fans of Dylan, Eastwood, Eminem, and Lou Reed, no less than for readers of Freud, Heidegger, and Nietzsche, Lucy catalogues the ways Derrida has rocked words to their alphabetic core. There is sharpness, wit, and high seriousness in every entry." Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California "Niall Lucy has written a witty, incisive, timely and highly topical dictionary that deftly characterizes the most important entries in Derrida's lexicon. The book is chock full of references to contemporary film, music and politics and spares us the tediousness of trying to formalize ideas whose very idea is that they cannot be formalized. In addition to making for an insightful read and a pleasurable ride, Lucy does a good job of redefining what a “dictionary” is supposed to mean. A saucy, sparkling success." John D. Caputo, Villanova University "Lucy brings and ironic, iconoclastic, and earthy approach to his teask... Entries are cleverly focused so that major terms and concepts get full attention ... Lucy is unpretentious and plain speaking... This is a well worthwhile purchase for the library where Derrida comes as new and rather threatening to students." Reference ReviewsTable of ContentsList of Terms viii List of Abbreviations x Preface xii Dictionary 1 References (Image – Music – Print) 168 Index 174

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Book SynopsisThis is a lively, freshly invited collection of papers by a number of well-known philosophers and other specialists who have focused very pointedly on certain central conceptual puzzles posed by the general practice of interpretation in the arts, literature, history, and the natural and human sciences.Table of Contents1. Introduction: The Philosophy of Interpretation: Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore. 2.Interpretation and Justification: David Novitz. 3.Conventions and Rules in Literature: Stein Haugom Olsen. 4.Relativism and the Interpretation of Texts: Jorg J. E. Gracia. 5.On Changing the Subject: Paul Thom. 6.Interpretation and Intention: The Debate between Hypothetical and Actual Intentionalism: Noël Carroll. 7.Objects of Interpretation: Peter Lamarque. 8.Interpretation and its 'Metaphysical' Entanglements: Michael Krausz. 9.Representation as the Representation of Experience: F. R. Ankersmit. 10.Historical Knowledge as Perspectival and Rational: Remarks on the Annales School's Idea of History: Cecilia Tohaneanu. 11.Interpretation as Historical, Constructivism, and History: Tom Rockmore. 12.Relativism and Interpretive Objectivity: Joseph Margolis

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Book Synopsisaeo Brings Christian theology, creative literature, and literary critical theory into dialogue on the theme of a the enda . aeo Provides an exegesis of novels, plays, and poems by such writers as John Fowles, Julian Barnes, Doris Lessing, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Shakespeare.Trade Review"As the field of literature and theology develops and becomes more sophisticated, so Fiddes is contributing at the cutting edge. His work is genuinely interdisciplinary, and his choice of texts is faultless. He initiates a learned and helpful dialogue with major theologians. I will certainly use this as a textbook in my teaching - it's one I have been looking for, for some time, indeed." David Jasper, Dean of Divinity and Professor of Literature and Theology, Glasgow University "This is a marvellous book which combines a variety of literatures, from the popular to the literary classics and new classics. That Fiddes can move so easily among these is impressive. Also impressive is his command of literary theory and theology, along with scientific theory. I recommend it with absolutely no reservations." Carolyn Jones Medine, Professor of Religious Studies and English, Louisiana State University "This book on eschatology is almost certainly like no other you have read. Through its dialogue between theology and literature it uniquely stimulates theological reflection and offers resources for pastoral care and preaching. It is a remarkable, if sometimes demanding, book, and a rewarding and recommended read." Regent's Reviews "A highly specialized survey of contemporary theology, literature, and critical theory dealing with the perception of endings ... No student of theology or literature should overlook this book." First Things "This book succeeds in finding fresh insights into eschatology at the interface of religion and literature and is a fine achievement. It is not always an easy book to read but is always a worthwhile one." The Baptist Ministers' Journal "In The Promised End, Fiddes offers a unique synthesis of interdisciplinary measures, offering theologically refreshing insights, on the end that is not so much perceived as promised. In the area where religion, literature and science often clash, Fiddes is remarkably clever at pointing out their potential for unification." Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology "Fiddes' clarity regarding the theorists mentioned above, and his wide-ranging knowledge of theological studies are to be commended. However, the impressive aspect of his dialogue is the truly deep and profound grasp of the theological ideas that are shown to be lurking within the literary texts. One comes away with the sense that theological issues can be powerfully demonstrated in the context of literary works, and that even works which may not immediately seem "theological" are in fact pervaded by metaphysical concerns in ways we may not have clearly imagined." Religion and Literature "It is fortunate that Fiddes' literary judgements are as acute as his theological acumen, and for both we are much in his debt." TheologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements. Part I: Facing the End:. 1. The Problem of Closure: John Fowles' the French Lieutenant's Woman and Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot. 2. Theology and Literature - A Dialogue. 3. The End Organizes the Human Story: Frank Kermode. 4. The End Discloses a Desired World: Northrop Frye. 5. Biblical Eschatology and Openness. 6. Closure and Openness in Ending. Part II: Deferment and Hope:. 7. The End Defers Meaning: Jacques Derrida. 8. Death and the Other. 9. Openness and Relativism. 10. The End Opens Hope: Paul Ricoeur. 11. Hope and a Passion for the Possible. 12. Hoping in the Face of Death. Part III: Taking Death Seriously:. 13. A Journey to Nothingness: Shakespeare's King Lear. 14. Human Surplus and Excess. 15. Images of a Desirable and Undesirable World. 16. The Configuring of Time. 17. Looking Upon Death. 18. Death the Last Enemy. 19. Creation from Nothing. Part IV: A Question of Identity:. 20. Resurrection and the Idea of Replication. 21. Problems About Identity. 22. Closing the Gap? A Modified Dualism. 23. The Person and the Finality of Death. 24. Survival and Relationships: Doris Lessing's Memoirs of A Survivor. 25. Corporate Resurrection. 26. The Identity of the Self: Lessing's the Making of the Representative for Planet 8. 27. The Making of the Person. Part V: the Eternal Moment:. 28. The Problem of Fragmentation By Time: T.S. Eliot's 'Ash Wednesday'. 29. The Problem of Isolation in Time: Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. 30. Eliot and the Timeless Moment: the Four Quartets. 31. Eternity as Simultaneity?. 32. The Healing of Time. 33. Woolf and the Symbols of Eternity: to the Lighthouse and Between the Acts. Part VI: Expecting the Unexpected:. 34. Two Parables of Waiting. 35. The Reversal of Expectations. 36. Two Plays of Waiting: Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Endgame. 37. The Futility of Waiting: (A) Waiting for the 'Not Yet'. 38. Waiting For a Possible Future. 39. The Futility of Waiting: (B) A Programmed Future. Part VII: The Arrow of Time:. 40. The One-Way Flight of the Arrow. 41. The Arrow Points Backwards: Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. 42. The Counter-Movement to Evolution. 43. Cycles of Torment and Renewal: Flann O'Brien's the Third Policeman and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. 44. Preservation and Retroaction. 45. The Eternal Dance. Part VIII: A Fuller Presence:. 46. The Desire for Presence. 47. Millennium and Utopia. 48. Fictional Images of Utopia: Aldous Huxley's Island and Ursula Leguin's the Dispossessed. 49. The Postmodern Critique of Full Presence. 50. Absence at the Heart of Existence. 51. Theological Versions of Hidden Presence. 52. The Millennial Hope. Part IX: Our Eternal Dwelling-Place:. 53. Participating in Triune Relationships. 54. Dwelling in Triune Spaces. 55. Particularity and Eschatology. 56. The Eternal City. Index.

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Book SynopsisIn the traditional Chinese symbolic vocabulary, the construction of gender was never far from debates about ritual propriety, desire, and even cosmic harmony. Competing Discourses maps the aesthetic and semantic meanings associated with gender in the Ming-Qing vernacular novel through close readings of five long narratives.

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Book SynopsisThe goal of this volume is to consider the relationship of writing to materiality in China's literary history and to ponder the physical aspects of the production and circulation of writing.

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Book SynopsisHearing across media is the source of innovation in a uniquely African American sphere of art-making and performance, Brent Hayes Edwards writes. He explores this fertile interface through case studies in jazz literature—both writings informed by music and the surprisingly large body of writing by jazz musicians themselves.Trade ReviewBrent Hayes Edwards is the finest literary scholar of his generation—an intellectual and artist of transformative force. His work reshapes the study and the making of world literature and art. -- Fred Moten, University of California, RiversideEpistrophies is a brilliant and essential contribution to the new and vital field of critical jazz studies. In addition to thorough explorations of poetry, liner notes, song titles, autobiography, and the many ways in which words can become musical (and vice versa), Edwards covers key figures from the entire history of jazz. He has provided nuanced readings of poetic writing as well as the multiple levels on which jazz and literature participate in the same aesthetic projects. -- Krin Gabbard, author of Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles MingusThis is an excellent book on an enduring theme of African-American culture, the intimate relationship of music—particularly jazz—and literary practice. Brent Edwards sees this as a two-way relation with many different manifestations rather than as a one-way subordination of black literature to jazz, as is often suggested. No author to my mind has approached this issue as thoroughly and in as nuanced a way as Edwards in what is the culmination of a decade-long project. -- Bernard Gendron, University of Wisconsin–MilwaukeeDazzling…[Edwards] compares the way poets use melody in language to the ways musicians use literary devices in jazz…[A] compellingly original perspective. * Publishers Weekly *This is a brilliant and utterly arresting book that takes a surprisingly uncommon subject and looks at it in a profoundly original way. -- Jeff Simon * Buffalo News *[Edwards] exhibits what I can only call intellectual glamour. He joins syntax and sentiment with élan, demonstrating a charismatic brilliance that persuades in parallel with, as well as through, his argumentation and evidence…Hilarious and trenchant at once, Edwards would be a beguiling writer in any field…He’s that rare academic whose work demands attention outside of experts in the field, without sacrificing tone or complexity. Almost conspicuously, William Empson comes to mind…As an alternative aesthetic history, Epistrophies is immensely satisfying…What makes Epistrophies such a singular work is the vividness and rigor of Edwards’s storytelling. As with Coleman’s Skies of America, there exists a temptation to discuss Epistrophies for what it could have been. Nevertheless, there is brilliance. -- David B. Hobbs * The Nation *Furnish[es] the reader with material that constantly surprises and subverts expectations. -- Jordan Penney * PopMatters *[Edwards] says something surprising and new that no one else has, or can, about two revered musicians [Mary Lou Williams and Cecil Taylor]—a genuine rarity in jazz scholarship…[The] critical and creative impulse to test the boundaries of the ‘sayable’ in both words and music—a ‘ferment at the horizon of articulacy’—is among the book’s guiding threads. In a brilliant chapter on the ‘poetics of transcription,’ Edwards studies the blues poem, a genre that has never found a happy home in either music or literature…Ambitiously, Edwards aims not just to hear, but to read, write, and think across a range of radically different sources. Epistrophies is a book whose individual parts persuade so easily and cohere so elegantly…The gift of Epistrophies is [an] act of renewal, an expansion not just of jazz literature as a category, but of jazz as a method. -- Colin Vanderburg * Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisThe Art of Reading is the first—long overdue—collection of essays by the French classical philologist and humanist Jean Bollack to be published in English. As the scope of the collection shows, Bollack felt equally at home thinking in depth about both the classics of Greek poetry and philosophy and modern, including contemporary, poetry.

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Book SynopsisPresents current thinking on some of the theoretical issues and dilemmas in the conception and writing of literary history, by scholars from Europe, Australia and North America. Topics covered include the role of literary history in new societies and the problem of literary classification.Table of ContentsIntroduction David Perkins Problems of Origin in Modern Literary History Ernst Behler Paul de Man, Modernist Ronald Bush Aristotle and the History of Tragedy Paul A. Cantor Genre Theory, Literary History, and Historical Change Ralph Cohen The Two Histories Alastair Fowler Postmodernism and Literary History John Frow Understanding Alterity: Auslanderliteratur between Relativism and Universalism Ulker Gokberk Transmission Failure Jon Klancher History, Herstory, Theirstory, Ourstory Jerome Mcgann Caliban and His Precursors: The Politics of Literary History and the Third World Michael Valdez Moses Measure and Countermeasure: The Lovejoy-Wellek Debate and Romantic Periodization Mark Parker Literary Classifications: How Have They Been Made? John Perkins Antihistoricism in Benedetto Croce and I. A. Richards John Paul Russo

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Book SynopsisIt is no wonder literary criticism is so sullen. It is too philosophical, too much indebted to the dour Walter Benjamin, wedded to aestheticized helplessness. Lit crit needs new inspirations: the sober cheer of Wallace Stevens; the loving eye of Rembrandt; romance, melodrama, and wit. Let there be more poetry, Paul Bové says, and less cynicism.Trade ReviewAn intellectual feast of the highest order. Bové’s monumental work is both magisterial and personal. He holds himself and others to the highest standards of poetic and critical excellence. And he writes with a strong sense of righteous indignation about the failures of the academy, the deterioration of intellectual integrity, and the decay of the life of the mind in our market-driven time. -- Cornel WestA bracing journey into the mind’s powers, this book is a dynamic invitation to think thought through and to imagine otherwise, an uncompromising feat of inquiry, especially necessary in these sodden times. For anyone who believes close reading or literary criticism is dead, Bové’s pages—especially his heady retrieval of poetic making in ‘The Auroras of Autumn’—bear witness to their indelible presence. -- Colin Dayan, author of In the Belly of Her Ghost and Animal QuintetModern criticism, Paul A. Bové suggests, has fallen in love with the ruins of meaning. We all are tempted by this perspective; who could entirely resist the sorrowful vision of Walter Benjamin’s angel, history piling up as mere debris? But there are alternatives, and this book explores in subtle detail the work of those—notably Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Stevens, and Adorno—who can teach us what some alternatives are. -- Michael Wood, author of On Empson and Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too MuchBové’s thinking has brought him to a fundamental insight about poetry and poetics: reality and its pressures cannot constrain humans’ ability to imagine the criteria required to meet their dreams. At once responsive and inventive, Bové’s book makes the case for the creativity and power of imagination that delights in movement of thought. I have not felt as elated by an intellectual experience since first reading Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. -- Donald E. Pease, author of The New American ExceptionalismAt once a lament for the decline of the humanities and a manifesto on how to save them…Bové‘s summons to his fellow academics and aspiring cultural critics [is] to step out of the long shadow of Benjamin’s melancholy and to come into the light reflected by poetry, comedy, and the essay—a more expansive form of expression. * Boston Globe *Bové’s close readings make for a critical tour de force. This passionate call offers a refreshing contribution to the philosophy of criticism. * Publishers Weekly *Providing a sweeping look at the history of literary criticism, Bové argues that the proper (Aristotelian) goal of the critic is to choose the framing of the poet and essayist, and to learn new humanistic insights from them, instead of simply seeking a reaffirmation of one’s own melancholic mindsets. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisIn this account of how the novel reorients philosophy toward the meaning of existence, Yi-Ping Ong shows that the existentialists discovered a radical way of thinking about the relation between the form of the novel and the nature of self-knowledge, freedom, and the world. At stake are the conditions under which knowledge of existence is possible.Trade ReviewAnyone interested in the debates that have convulsed the study of the novel in recent years should read this book. It does more than any other piece of writing I’ve encountered to clarify the underlying stakes of the arguments about close reading versus distant, analog versus computational, depth versus surface…Ong’s masterful book raises questions that I suspect students of the novel will be grappling with for a long time. -- Michael Clune * Critical Inquiry *The Art of Being is brilliant—a beautifully conceived book that brings existentialist philosophy into creative dialogue with literary texts. Full of original and compelling insights into the philosophical content of the novels examined, the intricate readings are absorbing and show how literature subtly reaches beyond itself into our lives. -- Garry L. Hagberg, Bard CollegeYi-Ping Ong wears her immense learning lightly. Her philosophical and literary analyses are elegant and supremely intelligent, and the range of figures that her book draws together results in some startling constellations. The Art of Being is a model of philosophical criticism. -- Robert Chodat, Boston University

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Book SynopsisJames Dawes defines a new, dynamic American literary genre, which takes as its theme a range of atrocities at home and abroad. This vibrant and modern genre incorporates key debates within the human rights movement in the U.S. and in turn influences the ideas and rhetoric of that discourse.Trade ReviewJames Dawes is one of the founders of the interdiscipline of literature and human rights, with his important That the World May Know and Evil Men. His new book provides a map for traveling the complex paths laid out by the evolving human rights project and by literary artists who represent both rights violations and remedies in their work. The Novel of Human Rights is a landmark. -- Elizabeth Swanson, Babson CollegeHuman rights and literature scholars have worked around the edges of genre issues, but this book establishes an entirely new conceptual framework. It builds the case that the human rights novel is a definable genre, produced by deep and wide social, political, and cultural forces. Dawes’s insightful analysis of individual works and the genre advances our understanding of those forces, why we face the ethical dilemmas we face in contemporary local and global politics, and how we might think our way through these dilemmas to a better future. -- Greg Mullins, Evergreen State CollegeArgues persuasively that one of the places we might still find vibrant and critical human rights is in the contemporary American novel…A welcome example of slow reading, hard thinking and the value of reality-testing in dire political times. * Times Higher Education *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMarvellous Thieves, which draws on hitherto neglected sources, is a brilliant, fluent, and original work of literary scholarship. -- Robert Irwin * Literary Review *Paulo Horta has uncovered a mass of fresh evidence about key figures in the making of the Arabian Nights and communicates his startling findings with a storyteller’s verve, raising many fascinating issues about the interplay of invention, imitation, translation, and plagiarism, and probing the vexed effects of the imperial gaze and the acquisition of local expertise and languages. In Marvellous Thieves, Paulo Horta has written a highly entertaining, attentive, and scholarly work of literary detection. -- Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian NightsThis fine book…cogently probes an influential period in the knotted and at times sordid history of the Arabian Nights, serving as a fine example to those unraveling this promiscuous and forever malleable set of stories. -- Charles Shafaieh * Wall Street Journal *A nimble study of the Arabian Nights and its provenance. -- Anthony Lane * New Yorker *[A] vivid, intellectually lively and revelatory book…The real point about this clever book is that many of the things we think about modernity—let alone postmodernity—have already happened. Postmodernism says that the book is always fluid; no text shows this as clearly as Arabian Nights. There can be no perfect version. It shows that authors are also collaborators, translators, plagiarists, elusive. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *Intelligent and engrossing…The great merit of Horta’s book is that its interest always lies in the story of the story, in mapping out the complex network of the translators, editors and travellers behind the Arabian Nights, in ways that enrich our sense of this remarkable text. -- Shahidha Bari * Times Higher Education *Drawing on resources that include the Vatican Library, [Marvellous Thieves] offers some fascinating revelations about the translation efforts that turned the Arabian Nights—also known as One Thousand and One Nights—into the world’s inheritance…Horta’s book has come out at a time when geopolitical developments give it added poignancy. The election of Donald Trump, the vote for Brexit, and the rise of far­-right parties in Europe have signaled a surging antipathy towards the idea of an interconnected world…In this context, reading Marvellous Thieves is a reminder of the blessings that can come from global commerce and communion. -- Celia Wren * Commonweal *In writing a biography of 200 years of Nights’ translation, with its multiplicity of voices, sources, contexts and prejudices, Horta has breathed life into another great story to emerge from the Thousand and One Nights. -- Clare Dight * The National *A fascinating work of cultural and literary history…An insightful examination of a significant literary work and the fraught complexities of translation. * Kirkus Reviews *In this enchanting work, Horta focuses on the European translations of The Arabian Nights that brought these Middle Eastern tales to a wide western audience…His fascinating search for the origins of The Arabian Nights as it exists today reveals a multitude of storytellers nearly as colorful as Sinbad or Aladdin. * Publishers Weekly *[In] this well-researched and highly engaging work, readers will uncover the origins of the Arabian Nights as it exists today in the West. This work is a major contribution to the study of the complexities inherent in translating such a masterpiece. -- Ali Houissa * Library Journal (starred review) *Horta takes the reader across empires and trade routes to discover the hidden networks of textual transmission which produced the Arabian Nights…Horta's multi-lingual research and his rich narrative style make for exciting reading. -- Sujaan Mukherjee * The Telegraph (Calcutta) *A work of meticulous cultural and literary history…This is a fascinating story of the many voices that narrated, authored, retold, embellished and translated the stories of Scheherazade; it is also an exploration into how stories travel. -- Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta * The Hindu *

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Book SynopsisThis volume fulfills the author''s career-long reflections on radical otherness in literature. J. Hillis Miller investigates otherness through ten nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors: Friedrich Schlegel, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Joseph Conrad, W. B. Yeats, E. M. Forster, Marcel Proust, Paul de Man, and Jacques Derrida. From the exquisite close readings for which he is celebrated, Miller reaps a capacious understanding of otherness--one reachable not through theory but through literature itself. Otherness has wide valence in contemporary literary and cultural studies and is often understood as a misconception by hegemonic groups of subaltern ones. In a pleasing counter to this, Others conceives of otherness as something that inhabits sameness. Instances of the ''''wholly other'''' within the familiar include your sense of self or your beloved, your sense of your culture as such, or your experience of literary, theoretical, and philosopTrade Review"A book by J. Hillis Miller, one of the most influential and productive of American critics of the past four decades, has a special significance: readers familiar with his work want to know how his thinking is developing and look forward to his combination of astute close reading and theoretical awareness. Here, as always, a major strength of Miller's writing is his insightful and sensitive reading of literary works. His theoretical interests are placed at the service of careful literary interpretation, and the reader finds again and again that a work or a passage has been illuminated by his judicious remarks."—Derek Attridge, University of York"One has become spoiled over the decades by J. Hillis Miller's own brand of critical thinking. Like his other books, Others will be read not only by those interested in the particular authors he addresses, but also and especially by anyone interested in the literary enterprise in general. The exemplary quality of the interpretive act that is performed, as well as Miller's lucidity make this book appealing to a very broad audience."—Carol Jacobs, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE Friedrich Schlegel: Catachreses for Chaos 5 CHAPTER TWO: Charles Dickens: The Other's Other in Our Mutual Friend 43 CHAPTER THREE: George Eliot: The Roar on the Other Side of Silence 65 CHAPTER FOUR: Anthony Trollope: Ideology as Other in Marion Fay 83 CHAPTER FIVE: Joseph Conrad: Should We Read Heart of Darkness? 104 CHAPTER SIX: Conrad's Secret 137 CHAPTER SEVEN: W B. Yeats: "The Cold Heaven" 170 CHAPTER EIGHT: E. M. Forster: Just Reading Howards End 183 CHAPTER NINE: Marcel Proust: Lying as a Recherche Tool 206 CHAPTER TEN: Paul de Man as Allergen 219 CHAPTER ELEVEN: Jacques Derrida's Others 259 Coda 276 Index 277

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Book SynopsisUsing principles from the anthropological theory of legal evolution, this book locates the works, which reflect crises in the evolution of Western law in their legal contexts and traces through them the gradual dissociation over the centuries of law and morality.Trade ReviewWinner of the 1998 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa "An incisive and useful study... Theodore Ziolkowski has brought his broad interdisciplinary knowledge and discerning critical skills to [this] wide-ranging study."--Robert Hauptman, World Literature Today "A sweeping and intriguing handbook of law, literature, and history."--Robert F. Barsky, Literary Research/Recherche Litteraire "Informed and original... This challenging and engaging study has much to offer scholars, teachers, and students."--ChoiceTable of ContentsPrefaceCh. 1Introduction3Ch. 2The Birth of Justice from the Spirit of Tragedy20Ch. 3The Ambivalence toward Pagan Law42Ch. 4The Role of Rome63Ch. 5The Disenchantment with Customary Law74Ch. 6The Reception of Roman Law in Germany98Ch. 7European Variations130Ch. 8Law and Equity I144Ch. 9Law and Equity II163Ch. 10The Attractions of Codification187Ch. 11The Modern Crisis of Law215Ch. 12Twentieth-Century Legal Evolutions241Notes273Index315

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Book SynopsisAnatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe.Trade Review"Michaels's absorbing new book swims against the critical stream with a brilliance and originality unmatched this side of Slavoj Zizek."--Henry Staten, Modernism/modernity "[This] book is not scholarship, criticism, or theory. It is a brazen call for the return to ideology."--Lindsay Waters, Chronicle of Higher Education "[W]hat makes this book compelling ... is his central thesis: that the apparent diversity of the marketplace of ideas, as in the marketplace of commodities, conceals fundamental uniformity (so many choices in the cereal aisle, so few in the voting booth)."--Robin J. Sowards, The Minnesota ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: The Blank Page 1 One: Posthistoricism 19 The End of History 19 Political Science Fictions 26 Partez au vert/Go on the green 41 The Shape of the Signifier 51 The End of Theory 66 Two: Prehistoricism 82 rocks 82 and stones 105 and trees 118 Three: Historicism 129 Remembering 129 Reliving 140 Dismembering 149 Forgetting 158 Coda: Empires of the Senseless 169 Notes 183 Index 213

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"How does globalism affect the books we read, and the way we read them? A leading scholar investigates." * New York Times Book Review *"Few scholars active today can claim to have done as much as David Damrosch to shape the discipline of comparative literature in the United States. . . . Damrosch writes with great clarity and care, vividly bringing individual figures and their ideas to life. . . . [He] not only displays the breadth of his own personal canon, but also argues compellingly for the idea that our understanding of a given text is always enhanced by comparing it with other texts, whether or not the pairings are conventional or expected."---Alexander Beecroft, Modern Philology

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Book SynopsisWhat fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? This title examines the role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with religious sentiments, family ties, and national identity intact.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "An intelligent, thought-provoking contribution to the current critical discussion of economics and the novel, this volume examines the 19th-century proliferation of 'portable property'--i.e., objects that are endowed with sentimental value and function as reminders of Englishness abroad--and their elaboration in, and homology to, the realist Victorian novel... With this analysis, Plotz makes a fascinating contribution to the history of the novel, economic literary theory, and postcolonial criticism."--D.K. Kreisel, Choice "Plotz ... offers a richly contextualized reading of the portability of value. As in his previous work, Plotz resists narrow ideological solutions to interpretive problems, and the complexity of his approach to Victorian culture pays off in extremely useful, often surprising readings."--Dianne F. Sadoff and John Kucich, Studies in English Literature "[T]his is a fine and subtle piece of work with something important to say about the ways in which particular kinds of 'English' culture were both constructed and perpetuated by the realist novel in the mid-Victorian period."--Clare Pettitt, Victorian StudiesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations xi Preface: Getting Hold of Portable Property xiii INTRODUCTION: The Global, the Local, and the Portable 1 CHAPTER ONE: Discreet Jewels: Victorian Diamond Narratives and the Problem of Sentimental Value 24 CHAPTER TWO: The First Strawberries in India: Cultural Portability Abroad 45 CHAPTER THREE: Someone Else's Knowledge: Race and Portable Culture in Daniel Deronda 72 CHAPTER FOUR: Locating Lorna Doone: R. D. Blackmore, F. H. Burnett, and the Limits of English Regionalism 93 CHAPTER FIVE: Going Local: Characters and Environments in Thomas Hardy's Wessex 122 CHAPTER SIX: Nowhere and Everywhere: The End of Portability in William Morris's Romances 144 CONCLUSION: Is Portability Portable? 170 Notes 183 Bibliography 235 Index 257

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of the brilliances of this book is to suggest that tact as a mode of thinking can be linked to a type of independence, and imaginative intelligence. . . . [It is] at once provocative and generously open-ended, raising questions about what is at stake in any attempt to read and interpret."---Kirsty Martin, Times Literary Supplement"Learned, beautifully written, and crafted with evident care, Tact is one of those works that, from cover to content, exemplifies the ethos that is its subject." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Russell’sTact is a brilliant and frequently moving study, arguing passionately for the ways in which a greater openness may lead us into richer engagements with our world and doing this by lifting off the film of familiarity that so often obscures from us the canonical writers of the nineteenth century."---Uttara Natarajan, Review in English Studies"[A] joyful and stylish book."---Diane Josefowicz, Victorian Web

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Book SynopsisMany people in Great Britain and the United States can recall elderly relatives who remembered long stretches of verse learned at school decades earlier, yet most of us were never required to recite in class. Heart Beats is the first book to examine how poetry recitation came to assume a central place in past curricular programs, and to investigateTrade ReviewWinner of the 2013 NAVSA Best Book of the Year Award, North American Victorian Studies Association "It's tempting to sentimentalize an era in which poetry--memorized, recited poetry--held so prominent a place in the culture. But its once-substantial role turns out to be a mixed and complicated tale, as thoroughly chronicled [by] Catherine Robson."--Brad Leithauser, NewYorker.com "Catherine Robson's extraordinary book, a feat of imagining as well as of scholarship, explores the memorization and reciting of poems in classrooms across England and America through substantial portions of the last two centuries."--William H. Pritchard, Weekly Standard "I hope that books like Catherine Robson's brilliant Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem will mark a turning point in the history of our discipline. Written with a lightness of touch but a depth of commitment ... lively, fresh and insightful ... thoughtful and meticulous."--Chris Jones, Times Higher Education "Robson develops her arguments with a delicious range of references."--Julie Blake, English in Education "Robson does far more than give us the institutional history of verse memorization, though she does this fascinatingly well. She interrogates what performed memorization means for the study of poetry, reception, and canonization."--James Najarian, European Romantic Review "Heart Beats invites further research, and should have a significant impact on Victorian studies for some time to come."--Kirstie Blair, Tennyson Research Bulletin "[A]bsorbing, amazingly-detailed, and at times startling."--Mike Chasar, Poetry "For a wonderfully dispassionate guide to this debate, there is no better book ... Neither sentimentalist nor cynic, Robson traces the glory days of the memorised poem from the late 18th century to the Second World War."--C. P. Nield, Standpoint "[E]xpansive, imaginative, and consistently provocative work."--Jason R. Rudy, Victorian Studies "[T]he result of [Robson's] meticulousness is hardly modest; on the contrary, Heart Beats is a brilliantly original book that dares to raise riveting, if sometimes unanswerable, questions about long-forgotten children, half-remembered lessons, and the power of the memorized poem."--Angela Sorby, Modern Language QuarterlyTable of ContentsList of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 PART I - THE MEMORIZED POEM IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION 33 PART II - CASE STUDIES 91 Felicia Hemans, "Casabianca" 91 Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" 123 Charles Wolfe, "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna" 191 Afterword 219 Appendixes 235 Notes 243 Works Cited 273 Index 289

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This is an original and challenging book. Nicholson has mastered the complex history of Spenser criticism, and her supple, pointed prose carries its learning easily: Keats’s advice to Shelley, ‘Load every rift with ore’ (which, she points out in a fine passage, reworks Mammon’s to Guyon), might describe her own language. It’s major work, fascinating in its account of Spenser’s readers and acute in its understanding of the poem."---William A. Oram, Modern Language Quarterly"In tapping The Fairie Queene’s history of undisciplined reading, Nicholson has helped to thaw some of the marmoreal frigidity with which twentieth century scholarship not infrequently imbued the poem. (Paradoxically, she has done so without herself sacrificing an iota of rigor.) Spenser himself might well have appreciated the project."---Raphael Magarik, MAKE Magazine

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Sonya Rudikoff Award, Northeast Victorian Studies Association""Winner of the Courage to Dream Book Prize, American Psychoanalytic Association""Christoff writes beautifully and passionately, and her interpretations are fascinating."---Jane O'Grady, Times Higher Education"A fascinating, deeply rewarding study, which helps us think afresh about how the Victorian novel alerts us to our most vital shared experiences."---Fraser Riddell, Victoriographies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of the brilliances of this book is to suggest that tact as a mode of thinking can be linked to a type of independence, and imaginative intelligence. . . . [It is] at once provocative and generously open-ended, raising questions about what is at stake in any attempt to read and interpret."---Kirsty Martin, Times Literary Supplement"Learned, beautifully written, and crafted with evident care, Tact is one of those works that, from cover to content, exemplifies the ethos that is its subject." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Russell’sTact is a brilliant and frequently moving study, arguing passionately for the ways in which a greater openness may lead us into richer engagements with our world and doing this by lifting off the film of familiarity that so often obscures from us the canonical writers of the nineteenth century."---Uttara Natarajan, Review in English Studies"[A] joyful and stylish book."---Diane Josefowicz, Victorian Web

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This is an original and challenging book. Nicholson has mastered the complex history of Spenser criticism, and her supple, pointed prose carries its learning easily: Keats’s advice to Shelley, ‘Load every rift with ore’ (which, she points out in a fine passage, reworks Mammon’s to Guyon), might describe her own language. It’s major work, fascinating in its account of Spenser’s readers and acute in its understanding of the poem."---William A. Oram, Modern Language Quarterly"In tapping The Fairie Queene’s history of undisciplined reading, Nicholson has helped to thaw some of the marmoreal frigidity with which twentieth century scholarship not infrequently imbued the poem. (Paradoxically, she has done so without herself sacrificing an iota of rigor.) Spenser himself might well have appreciated the project."---Raphael Magarik, MAKE Magazine

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This is a compelling read; Rush draws on a plethora of contemporary poetic handbooks, writers’ remarks in letters and poems about their own choices of poetic form and her own superbly microscopic close readings. . . . A subtle, thoughtful and well-supported account of the ideological implications of poetic form."---Peter J. Smith, Times Higher Education

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Spiced with citations of critics past and present, this cogent, necessary book is ideal for students in Victorian surveys because it both covers the field and stretches it out to the global and the decolonizing."---N. Birns, Choice Reviews"[A] provocative and important new book on Victorian fiction."---John O. Jordan, Dickens Quarterly"Written with her trademark combination of sharp-wittedness and bluntness, Elaine Freedgood’s short but ambitious book, Worlds Enough: The Invention of Realism in the Victorian Novel, aims to show that the prevailing understandingof the Victorian novel’s realism is fundamentally wrong and, more important, pernicious in its effects. . . . Elaine Freedgood is an iconoclastic, inventive critic whose work is suffused with moral and political urgency."---Daniel Hack, Modern Philology"What this book is especially good on is the experience of process in the reading of the [Victorian] novel."---Philip Davis, Review of English Studies"Rigorously theoretical, enlivened with an eye for quirks of material, social, and textual meaning, and full of keen perceptions about a wide range of novels. A luminous provocation, it will spark much discussion and debate."---John Kucich, Victorian Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Sonya Rudikoff Award, Northeast Victorian Studies Association""Winner of the Courage to Dream Book Prize, American Psychoanalytic Association""Christoff writes beautifully and passionately, and her interpretations are fascinating."---Jane O'Grady, Times Higher Education"A fascinating, deeply rewarding study, which helps us think afresh about how the Victorian novel alerts us to our most vital shared experiences."---Fraser Riddell, Victoriographies

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Book SynopsisSanford Schwartz situates Modernist poetics in the intellectual ferment of the early twentieth century, which witnessed major developments in philosophy, science, and the arts. Beginning with the works of various philosophers--Bergson, James, Bradley, Nietzsche, and Husserl, among others--he establishes a matrix that brings together not only the prTrade Review"Schwartz explores several oppositions that underlie the thinking of the early modernists, and uses them as a frame for original analysis of individual essays and poems. The result is that many cliches of early literary modernism--Pound's ideogrammic method, Eliot's objective correlative--are refreshed by being placed in a larger context. One of this book's great virtues is that it uncovers the philosophical assumptions behind the new poetry without turning the poetry into philosophy."--A. Walton Litz, Times Literary SupplementTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*CONTENTS, pg. vii*ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, pg. ix*INTRODUCTION, pg. 1*CHAPTER I. "This Invented World": Abstraction and Experience at the Turn of the Century, pg. 12*CHAPTER II. Elements of the New Poetics, pg. 50*CHAPTER III. Ezra Pound: Cultural Memory and the Visionary Imagination, pg. 114*CHAPTER IV. Incarnate Words: Eliot's Early Career, pg. 155*CONCLUSION: The New Criticism and Beyond, pg. 209*NOTES, pg. 216*INDEX, pg. 225

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Book SynopsisA reader may be in" a text as a character is in a novel, but also as one is in a train of thought--both possessing and being possessed by it. This paradox suggests the ambiguities inherent in the concept of audience. In these original essays, a group of international scholars raises fundamental questions about the status--be it rhetorical, semioticTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. v*Preface, pg. vii*Introduction: Varieties Of Audience-Oriented Criticism, pg. 1*Prolegomena To A Theory Of Reading, pg. 46*Reading As Construction, pg. 67*The Reading Of Fictional Texts, pg. 83*Interaction Between Text And Reader, pg. 106*The Readerhood Of Man, pg. 120*Do Readers Make Meaning?, pg. 149*Fiction As Interpretation Interpretation As Fiction, pg. 165*The Dialectic Of Metaphor: An Anthropological Essay On Hermeneutics, pg. 183*Toward A Sociology Of Reading, pg. 205*"What's Hecuba To Us?" The Audience's Experience Of Literary Borrowing, pg. 241*Montaigne's Conception Of Reading In The Context Of Renaissance Poetics And Modern Criticism, pg. 264*Toward A Theory Of Reading In The Visual Arts: Poussin's The Arcadian Shepherds, pg. 293*Exemplary Pornography: Barres, Loyola, And The Novel, pg. 325*Re-Covering "The Purloined Letter": Reading As A Personal Transaction, pg. 350*The Theory And Practice Of Reading Nouveaux Romans: Robbe-Grillet's Topologie D'une Cite Fantdme, pg. 371*Annotated Bibliography Of Audience-Oriented Criticism, pg. 401*Notes On Contributors, pg. 425*Subject Index, pg. 429*Index Of Names, pg. 435

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Book SynopsisTrade Review'One of the great virtues of the book is that it moves us away from self-congratulatory accounts of naive eighteenth-century readers and acknowledges the sophistication of the period’s aesthetic strategies […] There is a real spirit of intellectual generosity, collective endeavour, and dialogue in Le Roman véritable, in keeping with the spirit of the Republic of Letters.''Eighteenth-Century Fiction'J. Herman fait l’hypthèse que la figure de l’enfant trouvé est à comprendre comme métaphore des ‘problèmes fondamentaux qui ont nourris les querelles entre romanciers et critiques dont s’est entourée la vogue du roman-mémoires entre la fin du XVIIe siècle et le debut du XIXe’ […] on voit à quelles passionnantes enquêtes J. Herman nous appelle.'Eighteenth-Century Fiction'[a] compelling new way to read eighteenth-century French fiction by conducting a sort of virtual genetic criticism […] the various chapters in Section II suggest the versatility of Herman’s method and the breadth of his knowledge.'Modern Language ReviewTable of ContentsJan Herman, Introduction générale: ‘ceci n’est pas un roman’I. Les dilemmes du roman1. Mladen Kozul, Le dilemme du roman de Georges May2. Mladen Kozul, Le ‘dilemme du roman’ et la poétique classique3. Jan Herman, Stratégies préfacielles et roman veritableII. Légitimer le roman: l’argument narratifJan Herman, Introduction4. Jan Herman, Le discours devant l’opinion5. Jan Herman, Fictions légitimantes6. Mladen Kozul, Le roman entre orthodoxie et hétérodoxie7. Mladen Kozul, Séduction poétique, séduction amoureuse: du livre au corpsJan Herman, ConclusionIII. Légitimer la fiction: l’argument réflexifNathalie Kremer, Introduction8. Nathalie Kremer, ‘Les charmes de la fiction’: pour une fiction vraisemblable9. Nathalie Kremer, ‘Jamais au spectateur n’offrez rien d’incroyable’: vraisemblance du récit veritable10. Nathalie Kremer, ‘Invraisemblable mais vrai...’: le roman entre vérité et invraisemblance11. Nathalie Kremer, ‘Les incroyables extravagances de la fiction’: le roman invraisemblableNathalie Kremer, ConclusionJan Herman, Conclusions générales: du dilemme du roman au paradoxe de la fiction: roman et mensongeBibliographieIndex

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Discours de l’affecti. Langue et affectii. Langues et émotionsiii. Connaître les émotionsiv. Emotions et cognitionv. Littérature et affect2. Au-delà des passions, et en deçài. L’ère de la passion: le legs du classicismeii. Le tournant du siècle3. Prévost: toute la gamme4. Marivaux: des voies nouvelles5. Crébillon: le jeu des passions6. Sentiment et sensibilité7. Le triomphe du sentiment moralisantAppendice: Eléments de vocabulaireTable 1. Distribution comparée de mots affectifsTable 2. Gamme du vocabulaire affectif dans La Vie de MarianneBibliographieIndex

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Book SynopsisThe restoration of humanism to the radical leftTrade Review'A major intervention into contemporary discussions about the resources of political hope, this volume insists upon the continuing indispensability and, indeed, radicalness of humanism as both a critical philosophy and a moral-political template' -- Neil Lazarus, Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of WarwickTable of ContentsSeries Preface Introduction: Humanism’s Other Story - Timothy Brennan 1. The Rise, Decline and Possible Revival of Socialist Humanism - Barbara Epstein 2. Marxist Humanism after Structuralism and Post-structuralism: The Case for Renewal - Kevin Anderson 3. Postcolonialism is a Humanism - Robert Spencer 4. Queer Theory, Solidarity and Bodies Political - David Alderson Conclusion - David Alderson and Robert Spencer Index

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Book SynopsisThe works of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are widely acclaimed as being among the most original and provocative writings of twentieth-century critical thought, and have become required reading for scholars and students in a range of academic disciplines. This book provides a lucid introduction to Benjamin''s oeuvre through a close and sensitive reading not only of his major studies, but also of some of his less familiar essays and fragments. Gilloch offers an original interpretation of, and fresh insights into, the continuities between Benjamin''s always demanding and seemingly disparate texts. Gilloch''s book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social theory, literary theory, cultural and media studies and urban studies who are seeking a sophisticated yet readable overview of Benjamin''s work. It will also prove rewarding reading for those already well-versed in Benjaminian thought.Trade Review"This is an excellent introduction to Benjamin's thought, written with great clarity and richly located within his biography. Gilloch's focus upon Benjamin's reconstruction of the 'afterlife' of things enables him to reveal new interconnections and interpretive trajectories within Benjamin's themes and texts, whether they be his writings on language, literature, the city, the new media or the Arcades Project. A most welcome addition to Polity's series on contemporary thinkers." David Frisby, University of Glasgow "A fine text to accompany a firsthand reading of Benjamin, such reading is necessary to understand the thinker critiqued here." Library Journal "The book highlights some major motifs of Benjamin's work and will probably be of interest, above all, to students of media and related aspects of social history or theory" Brendan Moran, Philosophy in ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgements viii Abbreviations x Introduction: Benjamin as a Key Contemporary Thinker 1 1 Immanent Criticism and Exemplary Critique 27 2 Allegory and Melancholy 57 3 From Cityscape to Dreamworld 88 4 Paris and the Arcades 113 5 Culture and Critique in Crisis 140 6 Benjamin On-Air, Benjamin on Aura 163 7 Love at Last Sight 198 Conclusion: Towards a Contemporary Constellation 234 Notes 249 Bibliography 289 Index 298

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Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin (1892-1940), one of the most original and perceptive thinkers of the twentieth century, offered a unique insight into the profound impact of the media on modern society. Jaeho Kang s book offers a lucid introduction to Benjamin s theory of the media and its continuing relevance today.Trade Review"In Walter Benjamin and the Media Jaeho Kang strikes a near perfect balance between biographical narrative and theoretical analysis. In doing so, Benjamin�s media critique is fully contextualised removing any notion of obsolescence which may arise from a contemporary reading." LSE Review of Books For too long Walter Benjamin's lapidary texts have merely sparkled in the distance, unintegrated into everyday analyses of media and communications research. Jaeho Kang's fluent and energetic new reading of Benjamin's writings on radio, storytelling, media industries, and urban culture reinvigorates our connection with this great 20th century thinker of cultural change. Kang's beautifully organised book provides us with a welcome toolkit for grasping today's high-speed reconfiguration of our once familiar media landscapes. Nick Couldry, London School of Economics We know of Walter Benjamin in several guises: failed academic, brilliant journalist, messianic writer. But do we really know about Benjamin the media theorist, beyond �Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction�? Jaeho Kang takes us across disciplines along the intensely original intellectual journey that led Benjamin to the media. Brilliant and grave, erudite and luminous, Kang�s book invites us to share Benjamin�s incandescent curiosity. Daniel Dayan, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris "Kang's exploration of the relationship between Banjamin's media theorizing of McLuhan and Baudrillard renders Walter Benjamin and the Media a substantial achievement that is well worth a read."H-Net ReviewsTable of ContentsAbbreviations ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Introducing Dr Benjamin 1 There and Then, Here and Now 1 Figuring Benjamin 5 Configuring Benjamin 15 2 The Crisis of Communication and the Information Industry 24 Introduction 24 Storytelling and the Crisis of the Novel 26 The Newspaper and the Information Industry 38 The Intellectuals in the Age of Mass Media 50 Conclusion 62 3 Radio and Mediated Storytelling 65 Introduction 65 Towards a Critical Sociology of the Audience 68 Radio Model 74 Some Motifs for Media Pedagogy 85 Conclusion 97 4 Art and Politics in the Age of their Technological Reproducibility 100 Introduction 100 Photographic Reproducibility 102 The Media Culture of Distraction 117 Media and Democracy 129 Conclusion 147 5 The Media City: Reading The Arcades Project 150 Introduction 150 Phantasmagorias of Modernity 153 Media Spectacle and Urban Space 168 Tactility of Media Critic 193 Conclusion 198 6 Conclusion: The Actuality of Benjamin’s Media Critique 202 Notes 216 Further Reading 245 Index 251

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Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin (1892-1940), one of the most original and perceptive thinkers of the twentieth century, offered a unique insight into the profound impact of the media on modern society. Jaeho Kang s book offers a lucid introduction to Benjamin s theory of the media and its continuing relevance today.Trade Review"In Walter Benjamin and the Media Jaeho Kang strikes a near perfect balance between biographical narrative and theoretical analysis. In doing so, Benjamin�s media critique is fully contextualised removing any notion of obsolescence which may arise from a contemporary reading." LSE Review of Books For too long Walter Benjamin's lapidary texts have merely sparkled in the distance, unintegrated into everyday analyses of media and communications research. Jaeho Kang's fluent and energetic new reading of Benjamin's writings on radio, storytelling, media industries, and urban culture reinvigorates our connection with this great 20th century thinker of cultural change. Kang's beautifully organised book provides us with a welcome toolkit for grasping today's high-speed reconfiguration of our once familiar media landscapes. Nick Couldry, London School of Economics We know of Walter Benjamin in several guises: failed academic, brilliant journalist, messianic writer. But do we really know about Benjamin the media theorist, beyond �Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction�? Jaeho Kang takes us across disciplines along the intensely original intellectual journey that led Benjamin to the media. Brilliant and grave, erudite and luminous, Kang�s book invites us to share Benjamin�s incandescent curiosity. Daniel Dayan, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris "Kang's exploration of the relationship between Banjamin's media theorizing of McLuhan and Baudrillard renders Walter Benjamin and the Media a substantial achievement that is well worth a read."H-Net ReviewsTable of ContentsAcknowledgements xi 1 Introducing Dr Benjamin 1 There and Then, Here and Now 1 Figuring Benjamin 5 Configuring Benjamin 15 2 The Crisis of Communication and the Information Industry 24 Introduction 24 Storytelling and the Crisis of the Novel 26 The Newspaper and the Information Industry 38 The Intellectuals in the Age of Mass Media 50 Conclusion 62 3 Radio and Mediated Storytelling 65 Introduction 65 Towards a Critical Sociology of the Audience 68 Radio Model 74 Some Motifs for Media Pedagogy 85 Conclusion 97 4 Art and Politics in the Age of their Technological Reproducibility 100 Introduction 100 Photographic Reproducibility 102 The Media Culture of Distraction 117 Media and Democracy 129 Conclusion 147 5 The Media City: Reading The Arcades Project 150 Introduction 150 Phantasmagorias of Modernity 153 Media Spectacle and Urban Space 168 Tactility of Media Critic 193 Conclusion 198 6 Conclusion: The Actuality of Benjamin’s Media Critique 202 Notes 216 Further Reading 245 Index 251

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Book Synopsis* This is a unique testimony to one of the most important literary friendships of our time. Robbe-Grillet, the master of the nouveau roman, considered Barthes, France s greatest postwar literary theorist and critic, as one of his very few true friends.Trade Review"The warmth of friendship between the two is palpable, with some comic teasing: 'Roland speaks quietly,' Robbe-Grillet says. 'I don't speak quietly,' Barthes objects. 'You don't speak quietly,' his friend ripostes, 'but you take the precaution of always having a cigarette between your lips, which, as you know [...] doesn't allow you to shout things out.' The modern literary event-goer wonders melancholically: où sont les Gitanes d'antan?" Steven Poole, The Guardian "The book's arrival in English should be embraced as a challenge to the many reductions of 'French theory' to a mausoleum of movements, -isms, and masterable ideas. A disapporving critic once called Barthes the Pierre Laval to Robbe-Grillet's Marshal Pétain, but this volume shows them to be eels - not quite a pair, not easy to catch, but always electric." Times Literary Supplement "The image of Robbe-Grillet lying in the bath reciting texts by Barthes that he has learned by heart is only one of many unexpected delights of this extremely engaging little book. The dialogue between Barthes and Robbe-Grillet at Cerisy - friendly fencing - teaches much about each of them." Jonathan Culler, Cornell University "Robbe-Grillet describes his friendship with Barthes as a literary love affair without intimacy: 'un certain type de rapport amoureux'. This paradox is traced in its complexity and mystery through the four brief texts of this collection in which the novelist explores the different phases of his relationship with his most eminent critic, laying bare their shared vulnerability and fragility in a way which compels the reader's attention." Christina Howells, University of OxfordTable of ContentsForeword by Olivier Corpet viiWhy I love Barthes, 1978 1Roland Barthes's choice, 1981 51Yet another Roland Barthes, 1995 61I like, I don't like, 1980 77Translator's Notes 81

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Book SynopsisNot exercising as much as you should? Counting your calories in your sleep? Feeling ashamed for not being happier? You may be a victim of the wellness syndrome.Trade Review"In their witty, caustic new book.... Carl Cederström and André Spicer dissect our contemporary infatuation with a cluster of seemingly innocuous concepts – health, happiness, mindfulness, authenticity and positivity – seeking to lay bare the pernicious, individualistic values that underlie them."—William Rees, The TLS "Carl Cederström and André Spicer's brilliantly sardonic anatomy of this 'wellness syndrome' concentrates on the ways in which the pressure to be well operates as a moralising command and obliterates political engagement.... These authors would no doubt agree that there is nothing wrong with being well or wanting to be well. But, as their deeply humane and persuasive book shows, being told to be well is a different matter entirely. A society where wellness is obligatory is a sick one."—Steven Poole, The Guardian "When I read their angry, hilarious book, The Wellness Syndrome, I felt like I was being shaken awake from a dream."—Helen Rumbelow, The Times "The Wellness Syndrome slinks like a submarine beneath the disingenuously placid surface-narratives of contemporary ideology, before torpedoing, with devastating effect, that most pernicious of all neo-liberal doctrines: positiveness."—Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder, C and Satin Island "A fascinating and timely investigation of the modern ideology of 'wellness', with its moralizing insistence that being a good member of society means meditating more, exercising more and using your smartphone to track sleep patterns, your diet and even your sex life. Carl Cederström and André Spicer vividly show how the consumer economy has co-opted health and even happiness itself- and warn that our fixation on wellness is ultimately an anxiety-inducing, isolating and joyless way to live."—Oliver Burkeman, Guardian columnist and author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking "A wonderful piece of work which exposes the wellness ideology for what it is: a stupid and dreadful fantasy of authentic self-mastery. As this timely and entertaining book shows, such fantasies must be nailed.'—Simon Critchley, The New School for Social Research "We all obscurely sense that politics has dramatically shifted. Less involved in the 'body politic' than ever, we are all far more deeply engaged with our own bodies, through medicine, meditation workshops or fitness classes. As this insightful and elegant book shows, this shift marks a dramatic change in our societies as it makes health and happiness the new markers of 'morality' or 'immorality'. Fat people and smokers are now united in their common immorality. Marshalling an impressive array of evidence, this book sheds a much-needed light on the new tyranny exerted by the cultural imperatives of health and happiness."—Eva Illouz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Using a comprehensive set of case studies, Carl Cederström and André Spicer diagnose contemporary capitalism's obsession with 'wellness'. The Wellness Syndrome is a mordantly witty analysis of how ideology works today. It demonstrates that the fixation on health is itself pathological – and that sickness can be liberating."—Mark Fisher, Goldsmiths University "Overall, as an anatomy of modern optimisation culture the book is sharp and laconic, as readers of the authors' excellent previous work, The Wellness Syndrome, will have expected."—The GuardianTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. The Perfect Human2. The Health Bazaar3. The Happiness Doctrine4. The Chosen Life5. Wellness, FarewellConclusionNotes

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Book SynopsisFor more than 30 years and until his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida remained one of the most influential contemporary philosophers. It may be difficult to evaluate what forms his legacy will take in the future but Derrida Now provides some provocative suggestions. Derrida?s often-controversial early reception was based on readings of his complex works, published in journals and collected in books. More recently attention has tended to focus on his later work, which grew out of the seminars that he presented each year in France and the US. The full texts of these seminars are now the subject of a major publication project, to be produced over the next ten years. Derrida Now presents contemporary articles based on or around the study of Derrida. It provides a critical introduction to Derrida?s complex and controversial thought, offers careful analysis of some of his most important concepts, and includes essays that address the major strands of his thought. DeTrade Review"This book gathers the current thinking and perspectives on the work of Jacques Derrida and his treatments on a variety of contemporary issues, including animals, justice and death. Original and rigorous, and yet accessible, these essays also reveal the continued relevance of Derrida�s work in helping us think our present intellectual, cultural and political situations in our day-to-day lives." Nicole Anderson, Macquarie University, Sydney"This volume brings together some of the most knowledgeable, sensitive and attentive readers of Derrida to address a range of issues spanning the apparent divide between "early" and "late" Derrida. Bennington, for instance, is quasi-exemplary in his approach to Derrida's dignity. Royle re-opens and re-illuminates the challenging as well as loving relationship between literature and philosophy. Other questions addressed include the pressing matter of "the animal" throughout Derrida's work."Judith Still, University of Nottingham"This volume brings together some of the leading lights in what can now be called the field of Derrida studies. Phillips does a fine job editing and introducing this volume."ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsEditor’s IntroductionJohn W.P. Phillips1. Transcendental Difference and the Auto-Relation: Critical OverviewJohn W.P. Phillips 2. Derrida’s Dignity Geoffrey Bennington3. Stepping Out with Freud and Derrida: On the Royal Road of Interpretation Roy Sellars4. The Transparent University: Kant, Derrida and a New University Law Graham Allen 5. Does Deconstruction Imply Vegetarianism?Martin McQuillan 6. After Derrida’s Foi et savoir: From Rejection to the (Animal-)Reject for the “Post-Secular”Irving Goh7. Composition Displacement Peggy Kamuf8. Jacques Derrida and the Future of the NovelNicholas Royle9. Derrida, Code Enforcement, and the Question of JusticeHugh J. SilvermanNotes

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Book SynopsisFor more than 30 years and until his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida remained one of the most influential contemporary philosophers. It may be difficult to evaluate what forms his legacy will take in the future but Derrida Now provides some provocative suggestions.Trade Review"This book gathers the current thinking and perspectives on the work of Jacques Derrida and his treatments on a variety of contemporary issues, including animals, justice and death. Original and rigorous, and yet accessible, these essays also reveal the continued relevance of Derrida�s work in helping us think our present intellectual, cultural and political situations in our day-to-day lives." Nicole Anderson, Macquarie University, Sydney"This volume brings together some of the most knowledgeable, sensitive and attentive readers of Derrida to address a range of issues spanning the apparent divide between "early" and "late" Derrida. Bennington, for instance, is quasi-exemplary in his approach to Derrida's dignity. Royle re-opens and re-illuminates the challenging as well as loving relationship between literature and philosophy. Other questions addressed include the pressing matter of "the animal" throughout Derrida's work."Judith Still, University of Nottingham"This volume brings together some of the leading lights in what can now be called the field of Derrida studies. Phillips does a fine job editing and introducing this volume."ChoiceTable of ContentsContentsEditor’s IntroductionJohn W.P. Phillips1. Transcendental Difference and the Auto-Relation: Critical OverviewJohn W.P. Phillips 2. Derrida’s Dignity Geoffrey Bennington3. Stepping Out with Freud and Derrida: On the Royal Road of Interpretation Roy Sellars4. The Transparent University: Kant, Derrida and a New University Law Graham Allen 5. Does Deconstruction Imply Vegetarianism?Martin McQuillan 6. After Derrida’s Foi et savoir: From Rejection to the (Animal-)Reject for the “Post-Secular”Irving Goh7. Composition Displacement Peggy Kamuf8. Jacques Derrida and the Future of the NovelNicholas Royle9. Derrida, Code Enforcement, and the Question of JusticeHugh J. SilvermanNotes

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Book Synopsis* Jacques Ranciere is a leading French philosopher, particularly well known for his work in aesthetics and political philosophy * In this concise and brilliant text, Ranciere presents a thoughtful analysis of the way in which artworks and films represent historical events and those who were involved.Trade Review"As our world seems to continually move from one catastrophe to the next without a credible governing leadership, authors like Rancière... force us to conceive of politics differently." LA Review of Books “The equality of all before the light and the inequality of the little people as the great pass by are both written on the same photographic plate.” With this sentence, Jacques Rancière effectively aligns his conception of aesthetic theory as the always antagonistic distribution of the sensible under the sign of the demand for equality with the invention of photography. It is a beautiful and breathtaking conceit in what is, perhaps, the most beautiful of Rancière’s texts. His accounts here of the figures of history in photography, film, and painting generally - with dazzling accounts of particular works - expand and deepen his aesthetic theory in intriguing ways. Indeed, I cannot imagine a more inviting entrée to Rancière’s thinking about art, history and politics than this little book." J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social ResearchTable of ContentsThe Unforgettable1. In Front of the Camera Lens2. Behind the Window3. The Threshold of the Visible4. In the Face of DisappearanceSenses and Figures of History1. Of Four Senses of History2. History and Representation: Three Poetics of Modernity3. On Three Forms of History PaintingFilms cited

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Book Synopsis* Jacques Ranciere is a leading French philosopher, particularly well known for his work in aesthetics and political philosophy * In this concise and brilliant text, Ranciere presents a thoughtful analysis of the way in which artworks and films represent historical events and those who were involved.Trade Review"As our world seems to continually move from one catastrophe to the next without a credible governing leadership, authors like Rancière... force us to conceive of politics differently." LA Review of Books “The equality of all before the light and the inequality of the little people as the great pass by are both written on the same photographic plate.” With this sentence, Jacques Rancière effectively aligns his conception of aesthetic theory as the always antagonistic distribution of the sensible under the sign of the demand for equality with the invention of photography. It is a beautiful and breathtaking conceit in what is, perhaps, the most beautiful of Rancière’s texts. His accounts here of the figures of history in photography, film, and painting generally - with dazzling accounts of particular works - expand and deepen his aesthetic theory in intriguing ways. Indeed, I cannot imagine a more inviting entrée to Rancière’s thinking about art, history and politics than this little book." J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social ResearchTable of ContentsThe Unforgettable1. In Front of the Camera Lens2. Behind the Window3. The Threshold of the Visible4. In the Face of DisappearanceSenses and Figures of History1. Of Four Senses of History2. History and Representation: Three Poetics of Modernity3. On Three Forms of History PaintingFilms cited

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Book SynopsisA wide-ranging analysis of French literature and immigration, inventing a new category for migrant texts.Trade Review"What makes this book amazingly convincing are the insightful analyses of key literary works, which help illuminate the concept of the "migrant text," and provide in themselves superb examples of contemporary critical readings. The Migrant Text is an original and excellent contribution that should have an extensive readership." - Francois Pare, University of Waterloo

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Book SynopsisRussian Formalism, one of the twentieth century's most important movements in literary criticism, has received far less attention than most of its rivals. Examining Formalism in light of more recent developments in literary theory, Peter Steiner here offers the most comprehensive critique of Formalism to date. Steiner studies the work of the...Trade Review"One of the most advanced, sophisticated, and consistently self-reflective works in literary (meta)theory to date-in some respects akin to Hayden White's influential Metahistory, written with comparable verve and panache."-Review in World Literature Today "We must be grateful to Peter Steiner for having written such a lucid, critical exposition based on a firsthand knowledge of the texts and the commentary on them."-Rene Wellek, Poetics Today "Peter Steiner conducts a crisp, metapoetical analysis of the diverse phenomenon of Russian Formalism in an attempt to identify what united, and unites, the work of scholars such as Viktor Shklovsky, Yury Tynyanov, Roman Jakobson, Boris Eykhenbaum, and Boris Tomashevsky."-Times Literary SupplementTable of Contents1. Who Is Formalism, What Is She?2. The Three Metaphors3. A Synecdoche4. The Developmental Significance of Russian Formalism

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Book SynopsisDrawing on his extensive fieldwork in living oral traditions, Albert Bates Lord here concentrates on the epic singers and their art as manifested in texts or performance.Trade ReviewA welcome publication.... The book contains eleven of his most important previously published articles and two studies which have not been published before.... There is something to be learned from every one of these studies. * Classical Journal *

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Book SynopsisBeginning with Aristotle and the Greeks and ending with semiotics and post-structuralism, Theories of the Theatre is the first comprehensive survey of Western dramatic theory. In this expanded edition the author has updated the book and added a new...Trade ReviewA comprehensive and readable guide that will be the standard work for many years to come. * Times Literary Supplement *Carlson has taken on the monumental task of abstracting the major theoretical statements on the theater from the Greeks to the present. He cogently summarizes the texts, drawing comparisons freely while avoiding evaluation. The book's organization is historical, with national divisions until the 20th century, at which time all countries are considered together within much more finely defined time limits. This is a much needed book. * Choice *The coverage in Theories of the Theatre is remarkable. It is already difficult to imagine seriously undertaking theatre studies without this volume in a prominent place on one's shelf. * Theatre Survey *

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