Literary theory Books
Wooden Books Literary Devices
Book SynopsisWhat is the difference between literal and figurative writing? Is there really a secret set of tricks used by top authors to make their writing even better? Why not use these tricks all the time? This excellent little book, by English literature and creative writing tutor Amy Jones, provides a vital introduction to the essential literary devices used by writers for thousands of years to engage and charm their readers, and better describe their worlds in words. 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.
£8.18
The Squeeze Press Story and Structure: A Complete Guide
Book SynopsisStory and Structure tells the untold story of how story works. Using just six primary symbols, author Leon Conrad outlines eighteen story structures and shows how they all optimally solve the problems which give rise to them. The book also demonstrates the much wider application of story, presenting new insights into story as a dynamic force of life, allowing the reader to access more harmony and flow in their life. Writers, storytellers, creative writing teachers, folklorists, narrative therapists, anthropologists, poets, and readers interested in how story works will all find this book useful and informative. Rethink your idea of story.Trade Review"It's brilliant. I am on my third read through and haven't made any notes. It is informing my thinking and changing it." - Phil McDermott, Founder, The Story Emporium. "Beats Joseph Campbell at his own game." - Simon Heywood, University of Derby. "Genius approach ... Does for story what Foucault did for history." - Alexander Tsigkas, Democritus University of Thrace.
£26.96
Holland House Books This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin: A
Book SynopsisPart memoir, part biography, part book about creative writing and what really makes a novel, and also a brave book about failure, This Is Not A Book About Charles Darwin is unique and compelling.
£9.49
CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD How to Read a Poem: A practical guide which will
Book SynopsisMalcolm Hebron writes with one aim in mind: to help you read, understand and appreciate poetry. The English language has an extraordinarily rich stock of poems to its credit, from the epic Beowulf, written perhaps as early as the eighth century, to the poetry of Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and the many other fine writers working today. This slim volume is packed with good advice on how to get the most of great poems, whether old or new. Look for the surprising words, for example – that’s one good tip. They will help you understand what the poet is trying to say. And look for the conflict in a poem – there’s always some kind of central tension or opposition in great poetry. “Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry,” observed W.B. Yeats. This book explains, too, those puzzling technical terms used to describe the tricks poets use, like enjambment, and shows how they use them to brilliant effect. Here are explained too the mysteries of rhythm, sound, meter and poetic imagery, amidst a wide variety of wonderful examples of great poetry, from Thomas Hardy to W.H. Auden. After reading this short book, you will approach any poem you read with fresh eyes.
£9.49
Macat International Limited An Analysis of William James's The Principles of
Book SynopsisThe impact of William James’s 1890 The Principles of Psychology is such that he is commonly known as the father of his subject. Though psychology itself is a very different discipline in the 21st-century, James’s influence continues to be felt – both within the field and beyond. At base, Principles was designed to be a textbook for what was then an emerging field: a summary and explanation of what was known at that point in time. As its continuing influence shows, though, it became far more – a success due in part to the strength of James’s analytical skills and creative thinking. On the one hand, James was a masterful analyst, able to break down what was known in psychology, to trace how it fitted together, and, crucially, to point out the gaps in psychologists’ knowledge. Beyond that, though, he was a creative thinker, who looked at things from different angles and proposed inventive solutions and hypotheses. Among his best known was an entirely new theory of emotion (the James-Lange theory), and the influential notion of the “stream of consciousness” – the latter of which has influenced generations of psychologists and artists alike.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was William James? What does Principles of Psychology Say? Why does Principles of Psychology Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited
£8.58
Macat International Limited An Analysis of Albert Bandura's Aggression: A
Book SynopsisAlbert Bandura is the most cited living psychologist, and is regularly named as one of the most influential figures ever to have worked in his field. Much of his reputation stems from the theories and experiments described in his 1973 study Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis – a book that is both a classic of psychological study and a masterclass in the analytical skills central to good critical thinking. Bandura’s central contention is that much human learning is fundamentally social. As children imitate the behavior of those around them, and as their behaviors are reinforced by modelling, they entrench cognitive functions that more or less become part of their core personalities. The experiments that Bandura designed in order to prove his contentions with regard to learned aggressive tendencies show the powers of critical thinking analysis and evaluation at their best. Having set up a play environment for children in which they could be exposed to aggressive behavior (inflicted on a bobo doll), he was able to systematically examine their responses and learned behaviors, working out their functions and understanding the relationships between different aspects of behavior that combined to form a whole. Carefully evaluating at each stage the different extent to which children’s own aggressive behavior was affected by and modelled on what they saw. Bandura produced results that revolutionized psychology’s whole approach to human learning and behavior.Table of ContentsWays In to the Text Who is Albert Bandura? What does Agression Say? Why does Agression Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited
£8.58
Macat International Limited An Analysis of Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance
Book SynopsisWhat is a self? Greenblatt argues that the 16th century saw the awakening of modern self-consciousness, the ability to fashion an identity out of the culture and politics of one’s society. In a series of brilliant readings, Greenblatt shows how identity is constructed in the work of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser and other Renaissance writers. A classic piece of literary criticism, and the origins of the New Historicist school of thought, Renaissance Self-Fashioning remains a critical and challenging text for readers of Renaissance literature.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Stephen Greenblatt? What does Renaissance Self-Fashioning Say? Why does Renaissance Self-Fashioning Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited
£8.58
For Beginners Literary Theory for Beginners
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Marxism, Pragmatism, and Postmetaphysics: From Finding to Making
Book SynopsisFrom Finding to Making offers the first detailed discussion of the relationship between Marxism and pragmatism. These two philosophies of praxis are not incompatible, and an analysis of their relation helps one to better understand both. Establishing a transatlantic theoretical dialogue, this book discusses similarities and differences between these philosophies. It is an interdisciplinary study that brings together philosophy, American and European intellectual history, and literary studies. Schulenberg’s book shows that if we seek to continue the unfinished project of establishing a genuinely postmetaphysical culture, the attempt to elucidate the dialectics of Marxism and pragmatism is a good starting point. The book offers detailed discussions of Sidney Hook, Georg Lukács, Theodor W. Adorno, Fredric Jameson, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and Jacques Rancière. Table of Contents1. Introduction.- 2. Early Encounters: Sidney Hook, Richard J. Bernstein, and George Novak.- 3. Resuscitating Georg Lukács: Form, Metaphysics, and the Idea of a New Realism.- 4. “Kunst hat soviel Chance wie die Form”: Theodor W. Adorno and the Idea of a Poeticized Culture.- 5. “This morning I read as angels read”: Self-Creation, Aesthetics, and the Crisis of Black Politics in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Dark Princess.- 6. Marxism, Pragmatism, and Narrative.- 7. Marxism, Pragmatism, and Postcritique.- 8. From Finding to Making: Jacques Rancière, Richard Rorty, and the Antifoundationalist Story of Progress.- 9. Stories of Emancipation and the Idea of Creative Praxis: Karl Marx and John Dewey.- 10. Conclusion.
£58.49
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Legibility: An Antifascist Poetics
Book SynopsisThis Pivot book provides a wide-ranging and diverse commentary on issues of legibility (and illegibility) around poetry, antifascist pacifist activism, environmentalism and the language of protest. A timely meditation from poet John Kinsella, the book focuses on participation in protest, demonstration and intervention on behalf of human rights activism, and writing and acting peacefully but persistently against tyranny. The book also examines how we make records and what we do with them, how we might use poetry to act or enact and/or to discuss such necessities and events. A book about community, human and animal rights and the way poetry can be used as a peaceful and decisive means of intervention in moment of public social and environmental crisis. Ultimately, it is a poetics against fascism with a focus on the well-being of the biosphere and all it contains. Table of Contents1. A Pacifist Antifa Poetics.- 2. Handwriting Protest.- 3. Marks.- 4. Privilege, Property, Opprobrium.- 5. Modes of Protest.- 6. Legibility of Journal Extracts January 2020 — followed by extracts from handwritten journal.- 7. Micro and Macro Aggressions and Social Contracts.- 8. Versions of Mallarmé.- 9. Against Competition/Against Winning... and Consequence Theory.- 10. Note in Journal Extracts 2017-2020 — followed by extracts from handwritten journals.- 11. Palestine and Israel.- 12. On Injustice. On peace. On Justice. On Peace....- 13. Pandemic/s.- 14. Choice and Whose Rights We Are Talking About? Cruelty and Animal Rights... Justice, Genetics and Consensus.- 15. Empathy, Not ‘Property’.- 16. ‘Conclusion’.
£41.24
Springer International Publishing AG Object Studies: Introductions to Material Culture
Book SynopsisObject Studies: Introductions to Material Culture is a textbook that introduces students to an interdisciplinary approach to material cultural study. This text helps reveal how everyday objects from pens and coffee cups to our most cherished keepsakes help define our collective histories and personal narratives. Object Studies is organized around accessible and engaging chapters on objects with “model essays” that present original projects designed to engage students with a series of concepts and research activities. Each will demonstrate a key methodology tied to specific learning outcomes, but all chapters will be intertwined in their attention to the project of developing the core skills of “object studies”: careful viewing, writing detailed descriptions, setting out and testing research hypotheses, and telling stories through material artifacts. Aimed towards undergraduate students taking courses in material culture as well as postgraduate students embarking on independent research projects these chapter “studies” are practically oriented and demonstrate research projects that can be undertaken either in a course or even through personal study. Chapters in Object Studies conclude with research questions, suggestions on methodology, and a discursive bibliography designed to help students pursue their own projects based on these examples.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Personal Objects.- Chapter 2: Objects and Local History.- Chapter 3: A History of the World in Coffee Cups.- Chapter 4: Collecting Things: The Psychology of Accumulation, from Museums to Hoarders.- Chapter 5: The Things We Read.- Chapter 6: Consuming Objects.- Chapter 7: Thinking with Things.
£23.74
Palgrave Macmillan Fake News in Contemporary Science and Politics
Book Synopsis
£37.99
Bloomsbury Publishing USA Pub
Book SynopsisPhilip Howell is Professor in Historical Geography at the University of Cambridge, UK.
£11.82
Bloomsbury Publishing USA Island
Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Darwin called the Galápagos archipelago a little world within itself, unaffected by humans and set on its own evolutionary path strange, diverse, and unique. Islands are repositories of unique cultures and ways of living, seed banks built up in relative isolation. Island is an archipelago of ideas, drawing from research and first-hand experience living, working, and traveling to islands as far afield as Madeira and Cape Verde, Orkney and Svalbard, the Aran Islands and the Gulf Islands, Hong Kong and Manhattan. Islands have long been viewed as both paradise and prison we project onto them our deepest desires for freedom and escape, but also our greatest fears of forced isolation. This book asks: what can islands teach us about living sustainably, being alone or coexisting with others, coping with uncertainty, and making do?Island explores t
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Mask
Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.From the theater mask and masquerade to the masked criminal and the rise of facial recognition software, masks have long performed as an instrument for the protection and concealment of identity. Even as they conceal and protect, masks as faces are an extension of the self. At the same time, they are a part of material culture: what are masks made of? What traces do they leave behind? Acknowledging that that mask-wearing has become increasingly weaponized and politicized, Sharrona Pearl looks at the politics of the mask, exploring how identity itself is read on this object.By exploring who we do (and do not) seek to protect through different forms of masking, Sharrona Pearl's long history of masks helps us to better understand what it is we value. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing USA Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account
Book Synopsis
£18.45
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Lawn
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing USA Writing During the Apocalypse
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£17.09
Broadview Press Ltd Set in Authority
Book SynopsisIn 1906, two years after the appearance of her best-known novel, The Imperialist, Duncan published its darker twin, an Anglo-Indian novel which returns to political themes but with a deeper and more clinical irony than in her previous work. Set in Authority is about illusions: the imperial illusions of those who rule and are ruled; the illusions of families about their members; the illusions of men and women about each other. The setting moves between the political drawing rooms of London and the English station at Pilaghur in the province of Ghoom, where the murder of a native by an English soldier changes the lives of a cast of ruthlessly observed characters.Duncan, who grew up in Ontario, led a remarkably varied life, working as a political correspondent (writing for the Washington Post, the Toronto Globe and the Montreal Star) and living in India for over twenty years. She is increasingly being regarded as deserving of a place among the first rank of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novelists; the re-publication of Set in Authority will do nothing to dispel that view.Trade Review“This valuable edition locates Duncan’s novel about the Anglo-Indian community at the height of the British Empire in its socio-political, historical context—one that foregrounds Duncan’s frank and insightful evocation of the imperialist project in this and other novels.” — Sukeshi Kamra, Chair, English Dept., Okanagan University CollegeTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionSet in AuthorityNotesAppendix I: ViceroysAppendix II: Contemporary Reviews of Set in AuthorityA Note on the TextVariants in the 1906 New York EditionSara Jeanette Duncan: A Brief Chronology
£27.86
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC More Posthuman Glossary
Book SynopsisThe notion of the posthuman continues to both intrigue and confuse, not least because of the huge number of ideas, theories and figures associated with this term. More Posthuman Glossary provides a way in to the dizzying array of posthuman concepts, providing vivid accounts of emerging terms. It is much more than a series of definitions, however, in that it seeks to imagine and predict what new terms might come into being as this exciting field continues to expand. A follow-up volume to the brilliant interventions of Posthuman Glossary (2018), this book extends and elaborates on that work, particularly focusing on concepts of race, indigeneity and new ideas in radical ecology. It also includes new and emerging voices within the new humanities and multiple modes of communicating ideas.This is an indispensible glossary for those who are exploring what the non-human, inhuman and posthuman might mean in the 21st century.Trade ReviewMore Posthuman Glossary provides a significant set of framework concepts and topics that navigate through the abundance of innovative methodological tools generated by posthumanist practices, and enables ways to think with the complex conditions of the world. * Felicity Colman, Professor of Media Arts, University of the Arts, London, UK *How are we to navigate the world today? The editors of More Posthuman Glossary adopt the Stengerian strategy of forming relays. The question is no longer whether to render explicit or clarify what would remain implicit. It is about “consolidating just a little more”, always a little more with every new entry in the glossary. Encore! * Andrej Radman, Assistant Professor of Architecture Philosophy and Theory, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands *Table of ContentsContributors Preface, Donna Haraway Introduction, Rosi Braidotti, Emily Jones and Goda Klumbyte Glossary Acting as country, Daryle Rigney Agrarian (Post-)Humanities, Sophie von Redecker Algoritmic governmentality, Antoinette Rouvroy and Goda Klumbyte Art and Bioethics, Sarah Boers Collaborative Politics, Simone Bignall Collapse, Christopher F. Julien Composting, Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton Convergences, Rosi Braidotti, Emily Jones and Goda Klumbyte Cosmic Artisan, Kay Sidebottom Crip Theory, Kelly Fritsch Critical Posthuman Theory, Rosi Braidotti and Emily Jones (De)constructing Risk, Helene Kazan Defamiliarisation, Helen Palmer Dissappearance, Rick Dolphijn and Trixie Tsang The Distributed University, Sarah Nuttall and Rosi Braidotti EcoLaw, Margaret Davies Emergent Ecologies, Eben Kirksey Empathy Beyond the Human, Danielle Sands Endomaterialities, Celia Roberts Existential Posthumanism: A Manifesto, Francesca Ferrando Ex-colonialism, Simone Bignall Feminism and oceans, Gina Heathcote Fermentation, Olga Goriunova Geoengineering, Holly Jean Buck Geontopower, Elizabeth Povinelli Humus Economicus, Janna Holmstedt Hydrofeminism, Astrida Neimanis Internet of Trees, Jennifer Gabrys Intragenerational Justice and Care, Christina Fredengren Linguistic Incompossibility, Ruth Clemens Low Trophic Theory, Cecilia Åsberg and Marietta Radomska Manus Island and Manus Prison Theory, Omid Tofighian with Behrouz Boochani The Meltionary,Melt (Loren Britton and Isabel Paehr) Nauru Imprisoned Exiles Collective, Elahe Zivardar, also known as Ellie Shakiba (with Mehran Ghadiri) New Materialist Informatics, Goda Klumbyte and Claude Draude Norms, Fleur Johns Ontologised Plasticity, Zakkiyah Iman Jackson Organoids: arts, ethics, technology, Sarah Boers Parasitology, Rick Dolphijn Pattern Discrimination, Clemens Apprich Petroculture, Josephine Taylor Postcolonial and decolonial computing, Paula Chakravartty and Mara Mills Postcolonial Drone Scholarship, Sabiha Allouche Posthuman Agency, Simone Bignall Posthuman Care, Rosi Braidotti and Goda Klumbyte Posthuman Data, Jannice Käll Posthuman Feminist Aesthetics, Nina Lykke Posthuman International Law and Outer Space, Emily Jones and Rosi Braidotti Post-humanitarian law, Matilda Arvidsson Posthuman Nursing, Jamie B. Smith Posthuman Publics, Fiona Hillary Posthumanism and Design, Laura Forlano Proxy Reasoning, Olga Goriunova Queer Death Studies, Marietta Radomska and Nina Lykke Racialising Assemblages, Ezekiel Dixon-Román Relational Sovereignty, Simone Bignall Rights of Nature, Emily Jones Side-channel Attack, Matthew Fuller Surface Orientations, Nishat Awan Surrogacy, Sophie Lewis Swarm warfare, Lauren Wilcox Syndemic, Joni Adamson and Steven Hartman Toxic Embodiment, Cecilia Åsberg Transcorporiality II: Covid-19 and Climate Change, Stacy Alaimo Transjectivity, Christine Daigle Undead, Julieta Aranda and Eben Kirksey Vibrant Death, Nina Lykke Viral, Filipa Ramos Weird, Gry Ulstein Cumulative Bibliography
£19.79
Columbia University Press Notes to Literature
Book SynopsisNotes to Literature is a collection of the great social theorist Theodor W. Adorno’s essays on such writers as Mann, Bloch, Goethe, and Benjamin, as well as his reflections on a variety of subjects. This edition presents this classic work in full in a single volume, with a new introduction by Paul Kottman.Trade ReviewAdorno’s Notes to Literature . . . sets an inimitable, always exhilarating standard. A volume of Adorno’s essays is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature. -- Susan SontagEccentric, brilliant, unreadably readable, aphoristic and gnomic in the extreme, Adorno’s Notes to Literature stand by themselves as essays of genius. They are not simply criticism, they are literature. -- Edward SaidThe most accessible works in Adorno’s canon, these short essays on literary and cultural subjects in reality touch on most of the major philosophical preoccupations of his life's work: ranging from figures like Beckett or Thomas Mann, Balzac or Dickens, Bloch or Lukacs to movements like surrealism and existentialism, they show what a dialectical analysis of poetic texts can yield as well as making some fundamental statements about the status of the intellectual and the political, social and historical function of art. In what must be the acid test for any translator, Shierry Weber Nicholsen expertly and reliably navigates the syntactical reefs. -- Fredric JamesonNotes to Literature is not only an important document of Adorno's interest in art and aesthetics, but it is also a groundbreaking examination of literature in general. -- Alexander García Düttmann, author of Philosophy of ExaggerationAnyone who wants to understand Adorno’s philosophy must return to the judgments rendered about literature within these pages. -- Paul Kottman, author of Love as Human FreedomTable of ContentsIntroduction to the Combined Edition, by Paul A. KottmanVolume 1Translator’s Preface, by Shierry Weber NicholsenEditorial Remarks from the German Edition, by Rolf TiedemannPart I1. The Essay as Form2. On Epic Naiveté3. The Position of the Narrator in the Contemporary Novel4. On Lyric Poetry and Society5. In Memory of Eichendorff6. Heine the Wound7. Looking Back on Surrealism8. Punctuation Marks9. The Artist as DeputyPart II10. On the Final Scene of Faust11. Reading Balzac12. Valéry’s Deviations13. Short Commentaries on Proust14. Words from Abroad15. Ernst Bloch’s Spuren16. Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács’ Realism in Our Time17. Trying to Understand EndgameVolume 2Translator’s Preface, by Shierry Weber NicholsenEditorial Remarks from the German Edition, by Rolf TiedemannPart III18. Titles: Paraphrases on Lessing19. Toward a Portrait of Thomas Mann20. Bibliographical Musings21. On an Imaginary Feuilleton22. Morals and Criminality: On the Eleventh Volume of the Works of Karl Kraus23. The Curious Realist: On Siegfried Kracauer24. Commitment25. Presuppositions: On the Occasion of a Reading by Hans G. Helms26. Parataxis: On Hölderlin’s Late PoetryPart IV27. On the Classicism of Goethe’s Iphigenie28. On Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop: A Lecture29. Stefan George30. Charmed Language: On the Poetry of Rudolf Borchardt31. The Handle, the Pot, and Early Experience: Ui, haww’ ich gesacht32. Introduction to Benjamin’s Schriften33. Benjamin the Letter Writer34. An Open Letter to Rolf Hochhuth35. Is Art Lighthearted?NotesIndex
£29.75
Indiana University Press The Essential Peirce Volume 2
Book SynopsisPresents 29 texts, beginning with "Immortality in the Light of Synechism", in which the author proposes synechism, tendency to regard everything as continuous, as a key advance over the 3 'isms' materialism, idealism, and dualism, and ending with the author's unfinished investigations of the relative merits of different kinds of reasoning.
£25.19
University of Nebraska Press Narrative across Media
Book SynopsisNarratology has been conceived from its earliest days as a project that transcends disciplines and media. The essays gathered here address the question of how narrative migrates, mutates, and creates meaning as it is expressed across various media.Dividing the inquiry into five areas: face-to-face narrative, still pictures, moving pictures, music, and digital media, Narrative across Media investigates how the intrinsic properties of the supporting medium shape the form of narrative and affect the narrative experience. Unlike other interdisciplinary approaches to narrative studies, all of which have tended to concentrate on narrative across language-supported fields, this unique collection provides a much-needed analysis of how narrative operates when expressed through visual, gestural, electronic, and musical means. In doing so, the collection redefines the act of storytelling. Although the fields of media and narrative studies have been invigorated by a variety of theorTrade Review"Sporting essays by leading specialists in narratology and media studies, this volume is an absolute must for all interested in narrative genres in different media and in state of the art narrative theory."-Monika Fludernik, University of Freiburg, Germany -- Monika Fludernik "The accessable language and shared emphasis on 'the place of narrative in a comprehensive discourse theory' ensure that all readers will follow the fresh insights and penetrating observations."-Michigan Historical Review The Michigan Historical Review "Comprised largely of essays by scholars who teach narrative theory and media studies at universities in Scandinavia and the United States, [Narratives across Media] is significant among other reasons for the potentially useful contribution it makes to the ongoing paradigmatic debate about what a narrative actually is and about what it means to say that a particular medium is narrating (rather than doing something else). Broadly generalized, its explicit and implicit definition of narrative has two main components, from which it then draws two important implications for the fields of narratology and media studies."-Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
£26.59
Louisiana State University Press Approximate Gestures
Book SynopsisArgues that the writing of Percival Everett compels readers to retrain their thinking habits and to value uncertainty. Stewart maintains that Everett's fiction challenges its interpreters to question their assumptions, consider the spaces in between categories, and embrace the potential of a larger, more uncertain world.
£37.50
Fordham University Press Giving an Account of Oneself
Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to lead an ethical life under vexed social and linguistic conditions? In her first extended study of moral philosophy, Judith Butler offers a provocative outline for a new ethical practice -one responsive to the need for critical autonomy yet grounded in the opacity of the human subject.Trade Review"A powerful exploration of the intersection of identity and responsibility, Giving an Account of Oneself shows us Judith Butler at her best, in dialogue with some of the other foremost thinkers of our age: Adorno, Foucault, Levinas, and Laplanche. Confronting the problem of identities that emerge only in relation to social and moral norms they may seek to contest, she proposes a rethinking of responsibility in relation to the limits of self-understanding that make us human." -- -Jonathan Culler Cornell University "A brave book by a courageous thinker." -- -Hayden White University of California and Stanford University "In stunningly original interpretations of Adorno and Levinas, ...Judith Butler compellingly demonstrates that questions of ethics cannot avoid addressing the moral self's complicity with violence. By laying out the premises of a creative rereading, this study proves that the discussion of these two authors and their future legacy has, in a sense, barely begun. Butler writes in a truly Spinozistic spirit, mobilizing the greatest forces and joys of philosophical intelligence to counteract and redirect the cruelest and most destructive of human passions. Brilliantly argued and beautifully written, Giving an Account of Oneself is destined to become a classic, a must read for philosophers and students of present-day culture and politics alike." -- -Hent de Vries The Johns Hopkins University "In a time when moral certitude is used to justify the worst violence, Butler's nuanced reworking of what it means to be ethically responsible to ourselves and to others is welcome indeed." -- -Drucilla Cornell Rutgers University
£23.39
Fordham University Press The Hawthorn Archive Letters from the Utopian
Book SynopsisCreatively explores the utopian elements found in a variety of resistive and defiant activity in the past and in the present, with a focus on the Black Radical Tradition.Trade Review"The Hawthorne Archive is the 'Where's Waldo?' of theoretical treasure hunts. Avery Gordon's not-so-imaginary archive is a multi-media jig-saw puzzle, a plurivocal mystery story, an epistemic chameleon of present tenses, shimmering hints, fragmentary indices, and stumbling stones that keep moving. This is a curatorial masterpiece whose 'utopian margins' are as imperfectly futuristic, fleeting, and incommensurable as history itself." -- --Patricia J. Williams James L. Dohr Professor of Law, Columbia University School of Law "The Hawthorne Archive offers an expansive theory of utopia in the form of a literary experiment. In this beautiful assemblage of the thoughts and deeds of vagabonds, anarchists, fugitives, deserters, idlers, radicals, storytellers, and artists, Avery Gordon, the keeper of the archive, creates an innovative and dazzling account of global efforts to live and create the "what might be." The Hawthorne Archive opens a path for thinking through an extended engagement with the documents and ephemera of utopian thought, which is defined broadly as a standpoint for living in the here and now that refuses the brutal dispositions of racial capitalism. It is a serial work whose iterations of radical and anarchist thought unfold in a speculative engagement and imaginative encounter with historical documents, social movements, novels, visual art, film and photography, and the ephemera of refusal. This archive of letters, essays, dialogues, images and documents becomes a collective utterance of the struggle to create another world inside this one. The Hawthorne Archive is an exercise in run-away thought; it is a blues, a manifesto, a love letter, and a freedom dream." -- -Saidiya Hartman Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave RouteTable of ContentsIntroduction I. the scandal of the qualitative difference II. a means of preparation III. the exile of our longing IV. perception of the subjectivity of the so-called object List of Images and Items Acknowledgments Notes
£31.50
Johns Hopkins University Press The Lyric Theory Reader
Book SynopsisDesigned for students, teachers, scholars, poets, and readers with a general interest in poetics, this book presents an intellectual history of the theory of lyric reading that has circulated both within and beyond the classroom, wherever poetry is taught, read, discussed, and debated today.Trade ReviewThe thesis of The Lyric Theory Reader-that the very existence of the genre is more a critical extrapolation than anything solid and real-may seem to be itself a kind of critical conceit, but only because the argument serves the Reader exceptionally well as a cogent frame for taking stock of a diversity of approaches. Accordingly, the Reader would seem especially useful as a primer for up and coming scholars... Overall, the Reader should be considered essential in the formation of a thoughtful scholar of poetry and its criticism. -- Peter Fields Rocky Mountain ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments General Introduction Part I. How Does Lyric Become a Genre?Section 1. Genre TheorySection 2. Models of LyricPart I. Twentieth-Century Lyric ReadersSection 3. Anglo- American New Criticism Section 4. Structuralist Reading Section 5. Post- Structuralist ReadingSection 6. Frankfurt School and AfterSection 7. Phenomenologies of Lyric ReadingPart III. Lyric DeparturesSection 8. Avant- garde Anti-lyricism Section 9. Lyric and Sexual Difference Section 10. Comparative Lyric Contributors Source Acknowledgments Index of Authors and Works
£40.95
Johns Hopkins University Press The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book fills a gap. Finally, someone who has been entrusted with the evaluation, acquisition, and use of digital objects has summarized his tasks from a technical perspective in a well-thought-out text and backed up theory . . . [Owens] manages to guide the readers in an understandable and clear way through unfamiliar terrain. The book is therefore recommended to all beginners in this area, but also "old hands" will recognize many of their own experiences or maybe learn something else.—Dr. Kai Naumann, ArchivarTrevor Owens has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking book . . . Owens provides important guidance on taking a step back to gain perspective on what one is trying to accomplish with the preservation of a digital object or collection. That is, to see preservation not merely as a technological process to be applied to all objects, but as a craft to be applied as appropriate in the context of particular digital collections and their archival purpose.—Larry Weimer, Head of Archival Processing, New York Historical Society, Metropolitan ArchivistThe Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation is a thoughtful, well-written, and extremely readable book. Owens draws from many cultures and disciplines to illustrate and define how we have preserved and will continue to preserve digital information.—Sharmila Bhatia, Mid-Atlantic ArchivistAnyone looking for an approachable introduction to digital preservation, or a new perspective on persistent digital quandaries, will find something useful in this book.—Archival IssuesA thoughtful guide that will launch a thousand preservation projects. It will inspire many historians not only to approach their sources in productive new ways, but also to better appreciate the sophisticated contributions of those who tend the archives on which we depend. It is highly recommended.—American Historical ReviewAnyone looking for an approachable introduction to digital preservation, or a new perspective on persistent digital quandaries, will find something useful in this book.—Carli Lowe, San José State University, Archival IssuesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Beyond Digital Hype and Digital AnxietyChapter 1. Preservation's Divergent LineagesChapter 2. Understanding Digital ObjectsChapter 3. Challenges and Opportunities of Digital PreservationChapter 4. The Craft of Digital PreservationChapter 5. Preservation Intent and Collection DevelopmentChapter 6. Managing Copies and FormatsChapter 7. Arranging and Describing Digital ObjectsChapter 8. Enabling Multimodal Access and Use Chapter 9. Tools for Looking ForwardNotesBibliography Index
£27.45
Duke University Press The Politics of Vibration
Book SynopsisIn The Politics of Vibration Marcus Boon explores music as a material practice of vibration. Focusing on the work of three contemporary musicians-Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Swedish drone composer and philosopher Catherine Christer Hennix, and Houston-based hip-hop musician DJ Screw-Boon outlines how music constructs a vibrational space of individual and collective transformation. Contributing to a new interdisciplinary field of vibration studies, he understands vibration as a mathematical and a physical concept, as a religious or ontological force, and as a psychological determinant of subjectivity. Boon contends that music, as a shaping of vibration, needs to be recognized as a cosmopolitical practice-in the sense introduced by Isabelle Stengers-in which what music is within a society depends on what kinds of access to vibration are permitted, and to whom. This politics of vibration constitutes the hidden ontology of contemporary music because the organization of vibration shapes individual music scenes as well as the ethical choices that participants in these scenes make about how they want to live in the world.Trade Review"The boldest aspect of Boon's argument . . . is his move to the level of ontology—to the nature of being or reality itself. For him music's social and racial significance operates not at the level of social codes or experience, but as an intervention in how reality itself is organised: 'music does tell us something about being.' His framework certainly allows a place for aspects of music-making that usually get screened out of modern criticism: its religious power, its role in many cultures' sense of the world's structure. . . ." -- Dan Barrow * The Wire *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Music as a Cosmopolitical Practice 1 1. Lord’s House, Nobody’s House: Pandit Pran Nath and Music as Sadhana 29 2. The Drone of the Real: The Sound-Works of Catherine Christer Hennix 75 3. Music and the Continuum 125 4. Slowed and Throwed: DJ Screw and the Decolonization of Time 179 Coda. July 2, 2020 227 Acknowledgments 231 Notes 235 Bibliography 255 Index 269
£18.89
Duke University Press How We Write Now
Book SynopsisIn How We Write Now Jennifer C. Nash examines how Black feminists use beautiful writing to allow writers and readers to stay close to the field’s central object and preoccupation: loss. She demonstrates how contemporary Black feminist writers and theorists such as Jesmyn Ward, Elizabeth Alexander, Christina Sharpe, and Natasha Trethewey mobilize their prose to ask readers to feel, undo, and reassemble themselves. These intimate invitations are more than a set of tools for decoding the social world; Black feminist prose becomes a mode of living and feeling, dreaming and being, and a distinctly affective project that treats loss as not only paradigmatic of Black life but also an aesthetic question. Through her own beautiful writing, Nash shows how Black feminism offers itself as a companion to readers to chart their own lives with and in loss, from devastating personal losses to organizing around the movement for Black lives. Charting her own losses, Nash reminds us that eve
£17.99
Cornell University Press The Novel Experience
£16.96
Stanford University Press Badiou by Badiou
Book SynopsisAn accessible introduction to Badiou's key ideas In this short and accessible book, the French philosopher Alain Badiou provides readers with a unique introduction to his system of thought, summed up in the trilogy of Being and Event, Logics of Worlds, and The Immanence of Truths. Taking the form of an interview and two talks and keeping in mind a broad audience without any prior knowledge of his work, the book touches upon the central concepts and major preoccupations of Badiou's philosophy: fundamental ontology, mathematics, politics, poetry, and love. Well-chosen examples illuminate his thinking in regards to being and universality, worlds and singularity, and the infinite and the absolute, among other topics. A veritable tour de force of pedagogical clarity, this new student-friendly work is perhaps the single best general introduction to the work of this prolific and committed thinker. If, for Badiou, the task of philosophy consists in thinking through the truths of our time, the texts collected in this small volume could not be timelier.Trade Review"Badiou by Badiou synthesizes Badiou's key ideas with a personal touch, inviting readers into his presentation of what philosophy is and his highly original way of philosophizing. Badiou is brilliant at making anyone want to engage with philosophical questions."—Emily Apter, author of Unexceptional Politics"This book captures the latest developments in Alain Badiou's thought, while providing an excellent introduction for new readers. Badiou by Badiou, his most legible work, is a riveting tour of the domains of art, love, politics, and science."—Héctor Hoyos, author of Things with a History"Badiou proves himself again to be, like Socrates, a corrupter of the youth. With this clear entry point into his metaphysical project, Badiou demonstrates the dangerously transformative character of philosophy."—Jodi Dean, author of Comrade"As the 21st century shapes up to be all about ends, Badiou challenges us to think ab novo. This latest installment of his firebrand philosophy will ignite youth even among those who think its time has passed."—Joan Copjec, author of Imagine There's No WomanTable of ContentsPart One: Event, Truths, Subject Part Two: Philosophy Between Mathematics and Poetry Part Three: Ontology and Mathematics
£15.29
University of Calgary Press The American Western in Canadian Literature
Book SynopsisThe Western, with its stoic cowboys and quickhanded gunslingers, is an instantly recognizable American genre that has achieved worldwide success. Cultures around the world have embraced but also adapted and critiqued the Western as part of their own national literatures, reinterpreting and expanding the genre in curious ways. Canadian Westerns are almost always in conversation with their American cousins, influenced by their tropes and traditions, responding to their politics, and repurposing their structures to create a national literary tradition. The American Western in Canadian Literature examines over a century of the development of the Canadian Western as it responds to the American Western, to evolving literary trends, and to regional, national, and international change. Beginning with Indigenous perspectives on the genre, it moves from early manifestations of the Western in Christian narratives of personal and national growth, and its controversial pulp-fictional popularity in the 1940s, to its postmodern and contemporary critiques, pushing the boundary of the Western to include Northerns, Northwesterns, and post-Westerns in literature, film, and wider cultural imagery. The American Western in Canadian Literature is more than a simple history. It uses genre theory to comment on historical perspectives on nation and region. It includes overviews of Indigenous and settler-colonial critiques of the Western, challenging persistent attitudes to Indigenous people and their traditional territories that are endemic to the genre. It illuminates the way that the Canadian Western enshrines, hagiographies, and ultimately desacralizes aspects of Canadian life, from car culture to extractive industries to assumptions about a Canadian moral high ground. This is a comprehensive, highly readable, and fascinating study of an underexamined genre.Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Signposts and Scales Chapter 1 Scaling and Spacing the Genre: Transnationalism, Nationalism, and Regionalism Chapter 2 Tom King's John Wayne: Indigenous Perspectives on the Western Chapter 3 The Northwestern Cross: Christianity and Transnationalism in Early Canadian Westerns Chapter 4 From Law to Outlaw: The Second World War, Westerns, and the '40s Pulps Chapter 5 CanLit's Postmodern Westerns: Ghosts and the Cowgirl Riding Off into the Sunrise Chapter 6 Degeneration Through Violence: Contemporary Historical Westerns and Posthuman Horsemen Conclusion: Mining the Western in the 21st Century Bibliography
£26.96
Columbia University Press Dark Ecology
Book SynopsisTimothy Morton explores the foundations of the ecological crisis to reestablish our ties to nonhuman beings and rediscover playfulness and joy. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think.Trade ReviewIn often witty and humorous language, Timothy Morton provides a kind of affective atlas for the human era. The book calls for scholars to recognize the structures of entwinement between (the human) species and ecological phenomena and to develop modes of thought for accommodating them. -- Kate Marshall, University of Notre DameDark Ecology is a brave, brilliant interrogation of the presumptions that have driven our approach to the ecological and environmental challenges of our era. Anyone who is willing to ride the rollercoaster of ideas on which Morton takes us will reach the end brimming with new conceptual and intellectual energies with which to face up to our present limits and failures and to shape an alive and joyful future. -- Imre Szeman, University of AlbertaMorton is a master of philosophical enigma. In Dark Ecology he treats us to an obscure ecognosis, the essentially unsolvable riddle of ecological being. Prepare to be endarkened! -- Michael Marder, author of The Philosopher's Plant and PyropoliticsMorton commands readers' attention with his free-form style.... [Dark Ecology] extends his previous work to offer a seismically different vision of the future of ecology and humankind. * Publishers Weekly *With touches of humor, bits of information drawn from literature (ancient Latin and Greek), and plenty of philosophy, Morton takes readers on a strongly philosophical and semantic tour of 'the darkness and light' of human interrelatedness with the biosphere. * Choice *A playful, poetic parsing of our era's environmental crisis. * Rice Magazine *A rewarding hike. * Library Journal *Timothy Morton's new work by turns fascinates, mystifies, stuns, confuses, and excites...Readers who seek new vocabularies for thinking about the Anthropocene and the vexed relation between human society and biological life will find a lot to work with. * British Society for Literature and Science *[A] radical vision of what ecological thought can be. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Morton’s provocative book urges the reader to braid, to twist, or to play cat’s cradle with its looping logic. * Critical Inquiry *Morton disrupts the customary assumption that industrialization is the root cause of ecological crisis, such crisis being already contained in the agrilogistic drawing of a sharp boundary between human and nonhuman worlds. -- Charlene Elsby * The Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsBeginning After the EndThe First ThreadThe Second ThreadThe Third ThreadEnding Before the BeginningNotesIndex
£18.00
Whitechapel Gallery Translation
Book SynopsisSophie Williamson is Programme Curator: Exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre, London. She has written for frieze, Art Monthly and Aesthetica, and was the first recipient of the Gasworks Curatorial Fellowship in 2016 as well as completing a research residency at SOMA, Mexico City, through which she built a body of research on cultural translation and molecular curation.
£15.26
Cornell University Press The Ethics of Narrative
Book SynopsisThe second volume of The Ethics of Narrative completes the project of bringing together nearly all of Hayden White''s uncollected essays from the last two decades of his life, including articles, essays, and previously unpublished lectures. As in the first volume, volume 2 features White''s trenchant articulations of his influential theories, as well as his explorations of a wide range of ideas and authors at the frontiers of critical theory, literature, and historical studies. These include the concept of utopia in history, modernism and postmodernism, constructivism, the conceptualization of historical periods such as the Sixties and the Enlightenment, the representation of the Holocaust in scholarly and literary writing, as well as essays on Frank Kermode, Saul Friedländer, and Krzysztof Pomian.
£21.59
Taylor & Francis Jacques Derrida
Book SynopsisThere are few figures more important in literary and critical theory than Jacques Derrida. Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's enormously influential texts, covering such topics as: deconstruction, text and difference; literature and freedom; law, justice and the 'democracy to come'; drugs, secrets and gifts. Nicholas Royle's unique book, written in an innovative and original style, is an outstanding introduction to the methods and significance of Jacques Derrida.Trade Review'Royle has the admirable gift of rendering the most difficult material accessible to students ... he can make it exciting to them, inspiring them to read more.' - Critical and Cultural TheoryTable of ContentsSeries Editor's Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Why Derrida? 2. Key ideas 3. Deconstruction the earthquake 4. Be free 5. Supplement 6. Text 7. Difference 8. The most interesting thing in the world 9. Monsters 10. My Secret Life 11. Poetry Break 12. After Derrida Further Reading Works Cited Index
£24.51
Harvard University Press The Novel
Book SynopsisThe 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Encompassing a range of genres, it is geographically and culturally boundless and influenced by great novelists working in other languages. Michael Schmidt, choosing as his travel companions not critics or theorists but other novelists, does full justice to its complexity.Trade ReviewGiven the fluidity with which [Schmidt] ranges across the canon (as well as quite a bit beyond it), one is tempted to say that he carries English literature inside his head as if it were a single poem, except that there are sections in The Novel on the major Continental influences, too—the French, the Russians, Cervantes, Kafka—so it isn’t only English. If anyone’s up for the job, it would seem to be him… Take a breath, clear the week, turn off the WiFi, and throw yourself in… The book, at its heart, is a long conversation about craft. The terms of discourse aren’t the classroom shibboleths of plot, character, and theme, but language, form, and address. Here is where we feel the force of Schmidt’s experience as an editor and a publisher as well as a novelist… Like no other art, not poetry or music on the one hand, not photography or movies on the other, [a novel] joins the self to the world, puts the self in the world, does the deep dive of interiority and surveils the social scope… [Novels] are also exceptionally good at representing subjectivity, at making us feel what it’s like to inhabit a character’s mind. Film and television, for all their glories as narrative and visual media, have still not gotten very far in that respect, nor is it easy to see how they might… Schmidt reminds us what’s at stake, for novels and their intercourse with selves. The Novel isn’t just a marvelous account of what the form can do; it is also a record, in the figure who appears in its pages, of what it can do to us. The book is a biography in that sense, too. Its protagonist is Schmidt himself, a single reader singularly reading. -- William Deresiewicz * The Atlantic *[Schmidt] reads so intelligently and writes so pungently… Schmidt’s achievement: a herculean literary labor, carried off with swashbuckling style and critical aggression. -- John Sutherland * New York Times Book Review *If you want your books a bit quieter and more extensive chronologically, then do try poet Michael Schmidt’s 700-year history of the novel, The Novel: A Biography, which covers the rise and relevance of the novel and its community of booklovers in a delightful tale, not at all twice-told, that reminds us of exactly why we read. -- Brenda Wineapple * Wall Street Journal *A wonderful, opinionated and encyclopedic book that threatens to drive you to a lifetime of rereading books you thought you knew and discovering books you know you don’t. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *The Novel: A Biography is a marvel of sustained attention, responsiveness, tolerance and intelligence… It is Schmidt’s triumph that one reads on and on without being bored or annoyed by his keen generosity. Any young person hot for literature would be wise to take this fat, though never obese, volume as an all-in-one course in how and what to read. Then, rather than spend three years picking up the opinions of current academics, the apprentice novelist can learn a foreign language or two, listen, look and then go on his or her travels, wheeling this book as vade mecum. -- Frederic Raphael * Literary Review *In recent years, while the bookish among us were bracing ourselves for the bookless future, stowing our chapbooks and dog-eared novellas in secret underground bunkers, the poet and scholar Michael Schmidt was writing a profile of the novel. The feat itself is uplifting. Bulky without being dense or opaque, The Novel: A Biography belongs on the shelf near Ian Watt’s lucid The Rise of the Novel and Jane Smiley’s livelier user manual, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. Taking as his guide The March of Literature, Ford Madox Ford’s classic tour through the pleasures of serious reading, Schmidt steers clear of the canon wars and their farcical reenactments. He doesn’t settle the question of whether Middlemarch makes us better people. He isn’t worried about ‘trigger warnings.’ And he doesn’t care that a Stanford professor is actively not reading books. Instead, with humor and keen insight, he gives us the story of the novel as told by practitioners of the form. The book is meant for ordinary readers, whose interest is not the death of theory or the rise of program fiction, but what Schmidt calls, in a memorable line, ‘our hunger for experience transformed.’ -- Drew Calvert * Los Angeles Review of Books *The Novel is one of the most important works of both literary history and criticism to be published in the last decade… The reason Schmidt’s book is so effective and important has to do with its approach, its scope, and its artistry, which all come together to produce a book of such varied usefulness, such compact wisdom, that it’ll take a lot more than a few reviews to fully understand its brilliant contribution to literary study… Here, collected in one place, we have the largest repository of the greatest novelists’ opinions and views on other novelists. It would take the rest of us going through countless letters and essays and interviews with all these writers to achieve such a feat. Schmidt has done us all a great, great favor… Maybe the most complete history of the novel in English ever produced… [A] multitudinous achievement… Schmidt [is] an uncannily astute critic… Schmidt’s masterpiece… Schmidt’s writing is a triumph of critical acumen and aesthetic elegance… [The Novel] is a monumental achievement, in its historical importance and its stylistic beauty… It is, itself, a work of art, just as vital and remarkable as the many works it chronicles. -- Jonathan Russell Clark * The Millions *Rare in contemporary literary criticism is the scholar who betrays a love for literature… How refreshing, then, to encounter in Michael Schmidt’s The Novel: A Biography not a theory of the novel, but a life. And what a life it is… Schmidt arranges his examination both chronologically and thematically, taking into account the influences and developments that have shaped the novel for hundreds of years. The Novel is at once encyclopedia, history, and ‘biography.’ …[Schmidt’s] lyrical prose weaves together literary analysis, biography, and cultural criticism… Another delightful aspect of The Novel consists of the surprising and insightful connections Schmidt finds among writers… The Novel is more revelatory (and interesting) than a merely chronological account would be. -- Karen Swallow Prior * Books & Culture *[Schmidt] is a wonderful and penetrating critic, lucid and insightful about a dizzying range of novelists. -- Nick Romeo * Daily Beast *Show[s] how much is to be gained by the application of unfettered intelligence to the study of literature… Schmidt seems to have read every novel ever published in English… This is as sensitive an appreciation of Fielding’s style (all those essayistic addresses to the reader that introduce each of the eighteen books of Tom Jones) as any I’ve ever read. And what Schmidt does for Fielding he does equally well for Ford Madox Ford, Mary Shelley, and (by my count) about 347 others… [Schmidt’s] sensibilities are wholly to be trusted. -- Stephen Akewy * Open Letters Monthly *I was left breathless at Michael Schmidt’s erudition and voracious appetite for reading. -- Alexander Lucie-Smith * The Tablet *[Schmidt] has written what claims to be a ‘biography’ of the novel. It isn’t. It’s something much more peculiar and interesting… Illuminating and fascinating. And because the book makes no pretense to objectivity, the prose is engaging and witty… [A] marvelous book… If there is a future for encyclopedic books ‘after’ the internet, this is a model of how it should be done. -- Robert Eaglestone * Times Higher Education *The title and the length of Michael Schmidt’s book promise something more than an annotated chronology. This is not a rise of, nor an aspects of, nor even a theory of, the novel, but a nuanced account of the development of an innovative form… Schmidt’s preferences are strong and warm. He admires a range of authors from Thomas Love Peacock and Walter Scott to Anthony Burgess and Peter Carey… The Novel: A Biography incidentally provides the material for one to make a personal re-reading list. -- Lindsay Duguid * Times Literary Supplement *[Schmidt] prove[s] his wide-ranging reading tastes, his ability to weave a colorful literary tapestry and his conviction that the novel is irrepressible. * Kirkus Reviews *If focusing on the events surrounding one novel isn’t enough, or is too much, Michael Schmidt offers an eclectic variety in The Novel: A Biography. At 1,160 pages, this hefty volume features 350 novelists from Canada, Australia, Africa, Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the Caribbean and covers 700 years of storytelling. But Schmidt does something different: while the book is arranged chronologically, the chapters are theme-based (e.g., ‘The Human Comedy,’ ‘Teller and Tale,’ ‘Sex and Sensibility’) and follow no specific outline, blending author biographies, interviews, reviews, and criticism into fluid narratives… This is a compelling edition for writers and other readers alike; a portrayal that is aligned with Edwin Muir’s belief that the ‘only thing which can tell us about the novel is the novel.’ -- Annalisa Pesek * Library Journal *I toast a certainty—the long and fruitful life of poet, critic, and scholar Michael Schmidt’s book, The Novel: A Biography. Readers for generations will listen through Schmidt’s ear to thrilling conversations, novelist to novelist, and walk guided by Schmidt through these 1200 pages of his joyful and wise understanding. -- Stanley MossMichael Schmidt is one of literature’s most ambitious champions, riding out against the naysayers, the indifferent, and the purse holders, determined to enlarge readers’ vision and rouse us all to pay attention. Were it not for his rich and adventurous catalogue of publications at Carcanet Press, and the efforts of a few other brave spirits at other small presses (such as Bloodaxe Books) the landscape of poetry in the U.K. would be depopulated, if not desolate. He has now turned his prodigious energies to telling the story of the novel’s transformation through time: a Bildungsroman of the genre from a persevering and unappeasable lover. -- Marina Warner
£30.56
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Philosophy of Literature
Book SynopsisBy exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works.Trade Review"The image Lamarque offers is an extremely attractive one, and it reminds us of why this is such an exciting and important field. The Philosophy of Literature is a smart, original, and erudite book, and it deserves to be widely read. Philosophers of literature will not be able to live without it." (John Gibson, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol 68, 2010) "Peter Lamarque's splendid and informative book, The Philosophy of Literature ... is brimful with insights into the nature of literature, and into the debates between philosophers interested in literature, and I cannot imagine anyone failing to learn from it." (Simon Blackburn, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 50, 2010) "[Lamarque] is always admirably clear and the rich use of literary sources in this work to illustrate the philosophical arguments also makes the book generally compelling reading. From this viewpoint, the work deserves a wide readership and may be highly recommended not just to others working at the cutting edge in this field, but also to students at all levels of university study and research and to the general educated reader." (David Carr, Analysis Reviews Vol 69, Number 3, July 2009) "In its entirety, Lamarque’s book is a comprehensive study which is admirably sensitive to literary art. His philosophical analyses and the clarifying interplay between the philosophy of literature and literary criticism have significance not only to philosophers but literary critics, too. Beyond this, Lamarque has the gift of treating complicated and subtle philosophical theories in a lucid and intelligible way… [B]esides introducing the central issues in the philosophy of literature the book also gives an extensive historical survey on the topics, which will make it very useful for teaching. Philosophy of Literature is a work which advances strong theses and simultaneously pays respect to opposing views. Whether or not the reader agrees with the main conclusions of the work, Lamarque’s lucid arguments are nourishment for the brain." (Philosophy & Literature, vol 33, 2009) "Lamarque presents a thoughtfully measured approach to a potentially overwhelming topic." (CHOICE, March 2009) "Appropriately for a book that presents itself as an introduction to the field, Lamarque gives a historical overview of various sub-topics in the philosophy of literature as well as supplementary readings for each chapter." (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, March 2009) "An excellent introduction to the philosophy of literature or as an additional text for aesthetics or literature modules." (Times Higher Education Supplement)Table of ContentsPreface vii Acknowledgements xi 1 Art 1 2 Literature 29 3 Authors 84 4 Practice 132 5 Fiction 174 6 Truth 220 7 Value 255 Bibliography 297 Index 314
£27.50
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Silence
Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. What is silence? In a series of short meditations, novelist and playwright John Biguenet considers silence as a servant of power, as a lie, as a punishment, as the voice of God, as a terrorist’s final weapon, as a luxury good, as the reason for torture—in short, as an object we both do and do not recognize. Concluding with the prospects for its future in a world burgeoning with noise, Biguenet asks whether we should desire or fear silence—or if it is even ours to choose. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewWhen I realized I was making notes on memorable passages in Silence several times a page, I knew I’d found the book I’ve been needing to read. John Biguenet’s extended meditation on silence is provocative, witty, moving, and truly golden. * Valerie Martin, Orange Prize-winning novelist and author, most recently, of The Ghost of the Mary Celeste *One virtue of silence is that it enables us to contemplate a work like John Biguenet’s ever-fascinating new book. One virtue of his book—one of many—is that it does not go overboard in treating silence as a virtue. * Garret Keizer, author of The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want *Taking us from the ancient world to Houston's Rothko Chapel to outer space, John Biguenet gives us a surprisingly boisterous tour of silence, stillness, and calm. Biguenet takes a space that looks at first glance like it is empty, as if it were, actually, defined by its emptiness, and he fills it with his erudition, his wisdom, his warmth, and his wit. We are lucky to spend this time rapt at his feet, to take all of this in. * Jessa Crispin, editor-in-chief Booklust and author of The Dead Ladies Project *What makes [Silence] stand out is the way this silence retreats, fails to materialize as such. The book unfolds as a failed or botched detective story: the search for silence, for a state that defies the human. Written in the form of a memoir or notes to and from one self to others… [Silence] ends as [Biguenet] leafs through a National Geographic, reads an article on noise pollution at sea and its catastrophic effects on the social life of whales. ‘What is the future of silence,’ he asks? ‘More lonely whales,’ he fears. It’s enough to make you never want to speak again. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Biguenet examines how we define silence, how we seek silence, how we sell silence, and how silence relates to things such as reading, the stage, secrets, and even dolls. He talks about how true silence is virtually unachievable in the modern world and how people become disoriented in pure silence. ... At the end of Silence, Biguenet contemplates the future. As he writes amidst noise and commotion, the "hum" of the modern world as he describes it, he read a National Geographic article about whales and how passing ships disrupt their ability to communicate with one another. Their ‘silence’ is broken. Thus, we are left to consider how silence or lack thereof impacts not only us but the entire ecosystem around us. It's a poignant reminder that in the modern world, with its hectic pace and ever present noise, sometimes what we most need is the one thing we can't seem to get. * Frank Valish, Under the Radar *Object Lessons’ describes themselves as ‘short, beautiful books,’ and to that, I'll say, amen. … [I]t is in this simplicity that we find insight and even beauty. … Silence by John Biguenet … explores whether it's possible — or indeed if we would want — to experience true ‘silence.’ … If you read enough ‘Object Lessons’ books, you'll fill your head with plenty of trivia to amaze and annoy your friends and loved ones — caution recommended on pontificating on the objects surrounding you. More importantly, though, in the tradition of McPhee's Oranges, they inspire us to take a second look at parts of the everyday that we've taken for granted. These are not so much lessons about the objects themselves, but opportunities for self-reflection and storytelling. They remind us that we are surrounded by a wondrous world, as long as we care to look. * Chicago Tribune *Biguenet goes on to deal with our responses to tragedy, terror and crime, the relationship of children with toys and pets, Freud's views on the uncanny, gender roles in asking of questions and giving of advice … and many other facets as he shows how silence is an integral part of our lives, even in ways we could have never imagined. * Business Standard, India *We inevitably fall into a sense of wonder in the first pages of the book. * T24 *Table of ContentsI What Is Silence? II Selling Silence Seeking Silence Silence Versus Solitude Voluntary Silences III The Representation of Silence Silent Reading Silence on Stage The Unspeakable IV The Silenced Moment The Silence of Dolls Silencing Silence and Secrets V The Future of Silence
£9.49
Verso Books Sexuality in the Field of Vision
Book SynopsisA pivotal work in the history of feminism and a groundbreaking intervention into film theory, Sexuality in the Field of Vision is a brilliantly original exploration of the interface between feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and film theoryTrade ReviewFormidably intelligent, eloquent, and knowledgeable. * City Limits *Jacqueline Rose has no peer among critics of her generation. The brilliance of her literary insight, the lucidity of her prose, and the subtlety of her analyses are simply breathtaking. -- Edward Said
£9.49
Taylor & Francis Ltd An Introduction to Literature Criticism and
Book SynopsisLively, original and highly readable, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at The Beginning' and concluding with The End', chapters range from the familiar, such as Character', Narrative' and The Author', to the more unusual, such as Secrets', Pleasure' and Ghosts'. Now in its sixth edition, Bennett and Royle's classic textbook successfully illuminates complex ideas by engaging directly with literary works, so that a reading of Jane Eyre opens up ways of thinking about racial difference, for example, while Chaucer, Monty Python and Hilary Mantel are all invoked in a discussion of literature and laughter.The sixth edition has been revised and updated throughout. In addition, four new chapters Literature', Loss', Human' and Migrant' engage with exciting recent developments in literary studies. As well as fully up-to-date further reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book contains a coTrade ReviewPraise for previous editions:‘This is a book which students in every introductory course on criticism and theory would benefit from having.’ Derek Attridge, University of York‘[Bennett and Royle have] cracked the problem of how to be introductory and sophisticated, accessible but not patronising.’ Peter Buse, English Subject Centre Newsletter‘Sparkling, enthusiastic and admirably well-informed.’ Hélène Cixous‘The best introduction to literary studies on the market.’ Jonathan Culler, Cornell University‘This excellent book is very well written and an outstanding introduction to literary studies. An extremely stimulating introduction.’ Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway College, University of London‘Fresh, surprising, never boring, and engagingly humorous, while remaining intellectually serious and challenging . . . This is a terrific book, and I’m very glad that it exists.’ Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California‘An exceptional book. It is completely different from anything else currently available, refreshing, extremely well written and original in so many ways . . . It is quite the best introductory book that I have ever come across.’ Philip Martin, Sheffield Hallam University‘By far the best introduction we have, bar none. This unmatched book is for everyone: from those beginning literary study, through advanced students, and up to teachers; even those who, like me, have been pro- fessing literature for years and years.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California‘All the chapters in the volume are illuminating, informative and original.’ Robert Mills, King’s College London‘I don’t know of any book that could, or does, compete with this one. It is irreplaceable.’ Richard Rand, University of Alabama‘Bennett and Royle have written a pathbreaking work’ Alan Shima, University of Gävle‘It is by far the best and most readable of all such introductions that I know of’ Hayden White, University of California at Santa Cruz‘The most un-boring, unnerving, unpretentious textbook I’ve ever come across.’ Elizabeth Wright, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsAlternative Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsHow to Read This BookTrigger Warning and Spoiler Alert The Beginning Literature Readers and Reading The Author The Text and the World The Uncanny Monuments Narrative Character Voice Figures and Tropes Creative Writing Feelings Loss Laughter The Tragic Wounds History Me Eco Animals Human Ghosts Body Moving Pictures Sexual Difference God Ideology Love Desire Queer Suspense Racial Difference Migrant The Colony Mutant The Performative Secrets Pleasure War The End GlossaryA Note on Texts UsedLiterary Works DiscussedBibliography of Critical and Theoretical WorksIndex
£109.25
Ugly Duckling Presse The Semblable: Is a World Without Violence
Book Synopsis
£9.50
New Directions Publishing Corporation The Poetry of Thought
Book SynopsisA profound vision of the inseparability of Western philosophy and its living languageTrade Review"No one now writing on literature can match Steiner as polymath and polyglot, and few can equal the verve and eloquence of his writing." -- Robvert Alter - The Washington Post "Illumination and attractively undogmatic" -- The New Yorker
£12.34
Edinburgh University Press The Edinburgh Companion to D. H. Lawrence and the
Book SynopsisOffers the most comprehensive assessment yet of Lawrence?s relationship with the arts Places Lawrence in the context of the latest developments in fields including life writing, posthumanism, queer theory, and technology studiesConsiders Lawrence''s continued reception in other people''s art, and the nature of his relevance todayThis book includes twenty-eight innovative chapters by specialists from across the arts, reassessing Lawrence?s relationship to aesthetic categories and specific art forms in their historical and critical contexts. A new picture of Lawrence as an artist emerges, expanding from traditional areas of enquiry in prose and poetry into the fields of drama, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, dance, historiography, life writing and queer aesthetics. The Companion presents original research on topics such as Lawrence?s politics in his art, his representations of technology, his practice of revising and rewriting, and the relationship between his criticism and creation of prose, poetry and painting. This interdisciplinary Companion also makes a strong case for Lawrence?s continuing relevance and aesthetic power, as represented by case studies of his afterlives in biofiction, cinema, musical settings and portraiture.
£35.99
HarperCollins Publishers The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
£6.99
Oxford University Press Lyric and Liberalism in the Age of American
Book SynopsisLyric and Liberalism in the Age of American Empire re-examines the work of Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Amiri Baraka, John Ashbery, and Jorie Graham, changing our understanding of their writing and the field of post-war American poetry.
£72.20
Oxford University Press Reading Novels During the Covid19 Pandemic
Book SynopsisDrawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book provides a snapshot of a phenomenal moment in modern history - showing what novels people turned to during the pandemic, how people experienced time during this period, and whether they chose to fill it with reading.Trade ReviewThis brilliantly written and meticulously researched book makes a major new contribution to literary studies. It demonstrates the value and importance of sociological approaches to reading in expanding the methods of the discipline and enabling new evidence-based insights into how lay readers read. It combines this with a sensitivity to text and temporality, narrative and nuance, that surely cannot but be approved of by even the most stalwart defenders of traditional literary critical methods. * Sarah Dillon, Professor of Literature and the Public Humanities, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge *How did the pandemic change our relationship to books? This eagerly awaited study does a deep dive into the role of literature in a time of crisis, looking closely at what and how people read in 2020 and 2021 as well as the times and places in which they picked up a book. The results are fascinating, revealing, and often unexpected * Rita Felski, University of Virginia *Did anyone actually spend the pandemic reading Proust? Find out in this intimate and revealing account of all the ways books kept us company during a time of almost unbearable isolation * Matthew Rubery, Queen Mary University of London *This is an extremely important book, mixing literary theory with qualitative and quantitive data in an innovative way in order to understand how and what we read during the pandemic, and what this means. It provides a vital insight into the life of literature during a crisis * Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway University of London *Overall, the book is a very timely contribution to discussions surrounding the seismic cultural and societal shifts triggered-or merely made visible-by the pandemic. The authors are well aware that their sample can shed light only on a slice of the reading public, but through their in-depth interviews and careful curation of the responses, we are treated to fascinating insights about readers and reading during the pandemic. Readers of the monograph will certainly think back to their own pandemic reading practices (and perhaps glance at their pandemic reading diaries?) as they peruse the pages of this tome. * Corinna Norrick-Rühl, University of Münster, Germany *Table of ContentsThe Readers Introduction 1: Time and What to Do in It 2: Plague Literature and the Question of Allegory 3: The Novel of Confinement 4: Old Books in New Times 5: Reading Outdoors 6: Reading Summer in Summer 2020 7: Reading the Romance 8: Reading About Race 9: Long Reads Appendix: The Surveys
£76.00
