Literature: history and criticism Books
Alpha Edition Kora in Hell: Improvisations
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£15.46
Lector House Beadle's Dime National Speaker: Embodying Gems Of
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£999.99
Columbia University Press The Book of Affects
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£9.99
Columbia University Press Little Magazine World Form
Book SynopsisLittle magazines made modernism. Little Magazine, World Form shows that their reach and importance extended far beyond Europe and the United States. By investigating the global and transnational itineraries of the little-magazine form, Eric Bulson uncovers a worldwide network that influenced the development of literature and criticism.Trade ReviewAn amazing tour du monde. In 1965, Lionel Trilling wrote an African editor that no magazine "has ever taught me so much about matters I did not know about." This will still be the reaction of the contemporary reader, for whom a familiar literary-historical landscape is suddenly--and globally--lit up with an extraordinary multiplicity of new and henceforth inescapable landmarks. Bulson's remarkable book is an inescapable confrontation in any debates on modernism and world literature alike. -- Fredric Jameson, Duke UniversityThis ground-breaking study is a much needed corrective to the Anglo-American focus of periodical studies. Traversing continents and disciplines, it provides a new critical approach to the history, medium, and politics of the little magazine, demonstrating its vital role in world literary culture. Expansive in scope yet grounded in vivid, nuanced case studies, this beautifully written book promises to transform our understanding of periodicals and of modernism itself. -- Gwen L. Allen, San Francisco State UniversityBulson's book is a game changer. Conceptually and archivally rich, it moves us toward a global history of little magazines from 1900 into our digital age and expands modernism's spatial and temporal boundaries. The dialectic of big and little is on display throughout these pages as Bulson shows how the little magazine both as medium and material object became a world form as much in Africa, Asia and the Americas as in Europe. By emphasizing the material inhibitions of mobility and circulation, untranslatability, and cultural asymmetry, Bulson reveals how the little magazine as a world form challenges currently extant notions of world literature. -- Andreas Huyssen, Columbia UniversityLucid, rigorous, and wide ranging, Eric Bulson's excellent study of the little magazine traces the form's flows and blockages, networks and disconnections. His book sheds valuable new light on the feisty magazines through which the world came to know writers such as Ezra Pound, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, F.T. Marinetti, and Christopher Okigbo. Modernist and postcolonial literatures are shown to be powerfully interwoven in both their formal and material dimensions. -- Jahan Ramazani, University of VirginiaBulson’s important new book Little Magazine, World Form is an account of what the magazine medium has meant to literary communities in very different historical, social, and cultural contexts. -- Sophie Seita * Times Literary Supplement *Little Magazine, World Form is a brilliant book, each page sparkling with multiple insights about modernist magazines. . . . Beautifully written and a joy to read. -- Mark Gaipa * Modernism/modernity *Eric Bulson’s Little Magazine, World Form delivers an exceptionally thorough and noteworthy understanding of how little magazines worked. -- Kevin Baker * Publishing Research Quarterly *A solid contribution to scholarship on little magazines, Little Magazine, World Form revisits and delves into the international nature of this literary genre. -- C. B. Ewing, Cleveland Public Library * Choice *In this fascinating and paradigm-shifting book, Bulson considers the littleness of the modernist magazine on a global scale. * Journal of European Periodical Studies *Little Magazine, World Form is unquestionably an important book for anyone interested in periodical studies and in larger debates about how magazines created—or failed to create—something called global modernism. * Literature & History *Little Magazine, World Form is a major work of scholarship, sure to stand as a lasting contribution. * Comparative Literature *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Little Magazine, Worldwide Network2. Transatlantic Immobility3. In italia, all'estero4. Little Exiled Magazines5. Little Postcolonial Magazines6. Little Wireless MagazinesAfterword: Little Digittle MagazineNotesIndex
£20.90
John Wiley & Sons NationBuilding Propaganda and Literature in
Book SynopsisDominic Thomas is Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
£32.80
MIT Press Ltd Living Books Experiments in the Posthumanities
Book SynopsisReimagining the scholarly book as living and collaborative--not as commodified and essentialized, but in all its dynamic materiality.In this book, Janneke Adema proposes that we reimagine the scholarly book as a living and collaborative project--not as linear, bound, and fixed, but as fluid, remixed, and liquid, a space for experimentation. She presents a series of cutting-edge experiments in arts and humanities book publishing, showcasing the radical new forms that book-based scholarly work might take in the digital age. Adema's proposed alternative futures for the scholarly book go beyond such print-based assumptions as fixity, stability, the single author, originality, and copyright, reaching instead for a dynamic and emergent materiality. Adema suggests ways to unbind the book, describing experiments in scholarly book publishing with new forms of anonymous collaborative authorship, radical open access publishing, and processual, living, and remixed pub
£31.35
Yale University Press The Literary Mafia
Book SynopsisAn investigation into the transformation of publishing in the United States from a field in which Jews were systematically excluded to one in which they became ubiquitousTrade Review“Lambert explores the intertwining of Jewishness, nepotism and publishing through the prism of key literary relationships, including those between editors and authors, professors and protégés, and celebrated writers and their children. He dissects in painstaking detail their letters, diaries, reviews, blurbs and general correspondence from the 1940s until the early millennium.”—Guilia Mille, Times Literary Supplement“Lambert’s conclusion—that today’s culturally disenfranchised groups could glean novel strategies from the triumph of the Jews—is both timely and original in an industry embroiled in a permanent revolution over inclusiveness.”—Paul Goldberg, Jerusalem PostFinalist for the 72nd National Jewish Book Award, American Jewish Studies category“The Literary Mafia is a thorough, unflaggingly intelligent, and original study of Jewish presence in American literary institutions during the twentieth century and after. A pleasure to read.”—Evan Brier, author of A Novel Marketplace“At every turn, The Literary Mafia looks forward by looking backward. Josh Lambert’s shrewd, astringent account of Jews as novelists, critics, editors, and publishers provokes us to envision tomorrow’s news: the wholesale transformation of American letters with a fresh and diverse array of voices.”—Esther Schor, author of Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language“Catnip for anyone fascinated by the intricacies of the publishing world, this subtle and judicious book investigates an insufficiently examined aspect of American Jewish cultural history while posing important questions—about who decides which books get published, and why—that resonate strongly in the present.”—Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life“From the very first page, this book is funnier and more gripping than a book on publishing has any right to be. Anyone interested in America’s intellectual or Jewish history must read this, and anyone looking for an engrossing story should.”—Emily Tamkin, author of Bad Jews
£999.99
Taylor & Francis The Moving Pageant
Book SynopsisThe Moving Pageant is the first annotated anthology of writings on London street life. It comprises nearly one hundred extracts from over two centuries of literary life, including pieces by: * Alexander Pope * Jonathan Swift * Daniel Defoe * Samuel Johnson * Eliza Haywood * Horace Walpole * William Hazlitt * William Wordsworth * Charles Dickens * Flora Tristan * Edgar Allen Poe * Charlotte Bronte * Fyodor Dostoyevsky * Octavia Hill * Beatrice Potter * Henry James * Oscar Wilde * Arnold Bennett * Joseph Conrad * H.G. Wells The volume assembles a rich and varied selection of this abundance of writing, showing London as truly unique in its immensity, and, ultimately, supremely representative of our modern urban world in the making.The Moving Pageant comes complete with a superb editor's introduction, illustrations, and biographical and critical commentaries on each of the writers' Trade Review'Rick Allen teaches English literature and his snipping scissors have picked out page after page of metaphors and rhetorical devices that capture in few words the noise, contrasts, night and day rhythms, and altogether stupendous quantitative sum of London's streets. His selection would be at home on the bookshelf in the spare room or downstairs loo, but must be intended mainly for student reading lists.' - Michael Hebbert, London Journal'This excellent book combines fact and fiction, the indispensable with the unusual, to reveal responses to [London] as varied as the metropolis itself. Superior to the familiar literary anthology, The Moving Pageant provides a systematic and thoughtfully organized perspective on London's history.' - Roy Porter'This superb compilation, while aimed at the academic reader, will be appreciated by anyone interested in the history, not only of London but of England.' - Contemporary Review, September, 1998'A fascinating collection of factual and fictional accounts ... Excellent.' - Sunday Times'An impressive collection of extracts and contemporary illustrations from the period in question This book creates an invaluable short-cut for students of social history and can be recommended without reservation.' - Joan Walpole Reilly, The LecturerTable of ContentsPART I ‘Amusements Serious and Comical’ PART II ‘A Mask of Maniacs’ PART III ‘The Attraction of Repulsion’ PART IV ‘In Darkest England and Some Ways out’
£23.90
Taylor & Francis Ltd Francophone Literatures A Literary and Linguistic
Book SynopsisFrancophone Literatures draws together extracts from novels written in French by writers from Francophone areas outside Europe. These areas include North Africa, Black Africa, the Caribbean and North America.The book includes the following features:* a general introduction, which outlines the rationale and purpose of the book* a literary and a linguistic commentary on each extract included* a separate bibliography accompanying each section* a glossary of linguistic terms.The above features enable students to contextualize the extracts, identify the key literary and linguistic features and political, social, and cultural themes, to embark on further study, and to achieve their own successful text analysis by means of the models provided.Unique in its analysis both of literary and linguistic techniques, Francophone Literatures is essential reading for students of Francophone studies.Trade Review'Ibnlfassi, Hitchcott, Haigh and Chapman do a wonderful job ... its greatest usefulness is likely to be for students studying a course in variants of French who will have here a useful anthology.'
£41.39
Cambridge University Press Shakespeare Survey Volume 62 Close Encounters with Shakespeares Text Shakespeare Survey Series Number 62
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£116.85
Cambridge University Press AngloSaxon England Volume 26
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£67.50
Cambridge University Press The Nets of Modernism Henry James Virginia Woolf James Joyce and Sigmund Freud
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£37.99
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Franklin
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£24.69
Cambridge University Press The Basil Josephine and Gwen Stories The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F Scott Fitzgerald
The Basil Josephine and Gwen Stories The | BookCurl
£119.70
Cambridge University Press Aliens and Englishness in Elizabethan Drama
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£81.00
Alfred A. Knopf Terminator Poems 20082018
Book SynopsisLove, science, and politics collide in this sharp assessment of who we are now, in a generous selection of work by the award-winning poet.The terminator--the line, perpendicular to the equator, that divides night from day--is the organizing concept for this collection, which examines a world where pert, post-apocalyptic / entertainment trades have trod the pocked / planet raw. Kenney's division of light verse from darker poems serves to remind us that what makes us laugh is often dead serious, and what's most serious can be best understood through wordplay, an ironic eye, the cleaving and joining magically effected by metaphor. With grace and candor, Richard Kenney thumbs through our troubles like a precious but scratched collection of vinyl: the nature of emotion's analog, while languages are digital. From Siri, Why Do I Wear a Necktie? to the eternal springing of love (Magnetic swipe to the blinking lock / is me to you), Kenney reminds us that art's the best weapon to
£19.20
Monash University, The Ancora Press From Convict Printers to Book Arcades
£30.59
McGill-Queen's University Press Damned Women
Book SynopsisWhile homosexual men are legion in the history of French literature and criticism, until now no critic writing in French or English has given the same sort of attention to lesbians. Waelti-Walters covers two hundred years of fiction, beginning with the publication of Diderot''s The Nun in 1796 and ending with present-day lesbian writers Jocelyne François, Mireille Best, Hélène de Monferrand, and the authors connected to Geneviève Pastre''s lesbian publishing house. While she deals with renowned authors such as Violette Leduc and Monique Wittig, including their respective literary and personal relationships with Simone de Beauvoir and Hélène Cixous, many of the writers discussed will be unknown to most readers. Their novels vary from the extraordinarily powerful to the utterly trite; by providing the first comprehensive guide to this body of work Waelti-Walters sheds light on French literary and cultural history. Waelti-Walters shows how the lTrade Review"Damned Women is an inspiring and enlightening book, a must for anyone interested in the challenging and intriguing role lesbians play as a symbol through which women, as a gender, are culturally feared, despised, and valued. It is a gripping account of the origin of the lesbian as a literary character in French fiction since Diderot's La Religieuse and analyses brilliantly the mix of cliche, censorship, fascination, and desire that go into the creation of lesbian characters." Nicole Brossard
£81.90
Beacon Press Its Not Magic
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£14.99
Beacon Press Soul Culture
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£24.70
Louisiana State University Press The Reconstruction of Mark Twain
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£28.45
Northwestern University Press Scandinavian Elements of Finnegans Wake
Book SynopsisExamines the significance of Scandinavian history, literature, and languages for the composition of James Joyce's masterwork. The significance of Dounia Bunis Christiani's work lies in her deep historical and cultural analysis.
£62.66
Northwestern University Press The English Novel in the Magazines 17401815
Book SynopsisExplores the popularity of magazines in the nineteenth century and the ways that much of the published fiction of the time appeared serially in these publications. Robert D. Mayo's groundbreaking study was one of the first books to examine the impact of magazines on reading and the dissemination of fiction in nineteenth-century England.
£999.99
Fordham University Press Israel Potter His Fifty Years of Exile
Book SynopsisThis facsimile of Melville's historical novel appears in a paperback classroom edition, with a commentary by Hennig Cohen. "Israel Potter" is the story of a neglected hero of the American Revolution.
£27.20
Fordham University Press Dante For the New Millennium
Book SynopsisThe twenty-five original essays in this remarkable book constitute both a state of the art survey of Dante scholarship and a manifesto for new understandings of one of the world's great poets.Trade Review"These scholars stand as staunch supporters of the constant need to re-evaluate Dante's medieval texts to discover what new word he has for readers that now live in a postmodern context." -- -Jessica Raymond Christianity & Literature "All in all, though, Dante for the New Millennium represents a major achievement. Thematically diverse yet tightly organized, finely edited, oriented both toward past approaches and future directions of research in the field, with-judiciously-separate bibliographies for each section, and a fine general index...the volume richly illustrates the thematic, methodological, and critical diversity of contemporary Anglo-American Dante studies." -- -Simon Gilson Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
£59.25
Fordham University Press For Derrida
Book SynopsisFocuses on Derrida's late work, including passages from the last, as yet unpublished, seminars. This book aims to render Derrida's writings justice. It should be remembered, however, that, according to Derrida himself, every rendering of justice is also a transformative interpretation.Trade Review"Hillis Miller's For Derrida brilliantly explores the labyrinth of Derrida's late phase and what is widely interpreted as deconstruction's so-called 'turn' toward ethics and religion. Miller recaptures the dark dissonance of key and late terms for the reader-destinnerance, the resistance of 'community,' the auto-immunitary, performativity, absolute mourning-then mobilizes them against interpretive doxa many have fallen into after Derrida's death, as 'deconstruction' appears to have entered its own auto-immunitary phase (as Derrida anticipated). For Derrida is, among other things, a corrective or counter-strike 'for Derrida,' a gift and salut, attempting to speak as if for him against various appropriations, effacements, and recuperations. It is a volume only Miller could write, intimately fidel yet uncompromisingly alert to the 'wager' that Derrida's oeuvre staked itself on-a wager, or transformation of premises, which the evolving aporia of 21st century human life bring to heightened focus. This quietly monumental, strangely mirthful, and altogether remarkable volume will likely be an indispensible touchstone for the readers to come, through whom Derrida's 'wager' will likely be decided--beyond the current crop of recuperative claimants and legacy-chasers, philosophical exegetes and competitive mourners, that the late Derrida has left in his wake." -- -Tom Cohen University at Albany, State University of New York "Offers the reader the depth and breadth that only an eminent professor of literature and someone who has been a reader and interlocutor of Derrida for decades could offer." -- -Pleshette DeArmitt University of Memphis "A record of a forty-year friendship marked by profound hospitality on both sides, For Derrida moves, charms, instructs, distinguishes, and stakes out positions. Its discussions of the performative, religion, 'community,' and auto-immunity clarify Derrida's contributions with subtlety and an almost allegorically unassuming style." -- -Haun Saussy Yale University "Hillis Miller is one of the most important literary critics of the past fifty years. Always remarkably lucid, engaging, and accessible, his work has also proved an invaluable guide for students and scholars wishing to understand deconstruction. A classic example of 'late Miller', For Derrida effortlessly links close readings of literary with philosophical works, while also reflecting on the ways in which teletechnology and cyberspace affect and tap into the proceedings. This is a unique and brilliant book, not only for its careful and thought-provoking readings of Derrida's extraordinary oeuvre, but also as a poignant intellectual record of the long and important friendship that Derrida and Miller shared." -- -Nicholas Royle University of Sussex "A classic example of 'late Miller', For Derrida effortlessly links close readings of literary with philosophical works, while also reflecting on the ways in which teletechnology and cyberspace affect and tap into the proceedings. This is a unique and brilliant book, not only for its careful and thought-provoking readings of Derrida's extraordinary oeuvre, but also as a poignant intellectual record of the long and important friendship that Derrida and Miller shared." -- -Nicholas Royle University of Sussex "A profoundly moving achievement-J. Hillis Miller offers those of us who care to read a series of singular responses and testimonies to Jacques Derrida, and everything gathered in that name. Miller is the finest of readers, and the most responsible witness to the legacy of Derrida. In touching with such care on a number of important themes and motifs in the later works of Derrida, Miller touches us all, teaching us what it means to be touched by Derrida, and why Derrida remains-today and to come-of such singular significance." -- -Julian Wolfreys Loughborough University "Throughout this volume, Hillis Miller seeks to respond to the call of the wholly other that Derrida's writing so consistently endeavors to affirm, an other we might try to think via Derrida's several reflections on justice, profession, friendship, literature, singularity, invention, death and mourning-indeed a complexly intertwined set of motifs found at the crossroads between these two important figures. In writing 'for Derrida' (a phrase which itself carries a complex multiple charge), Miller seeks to remake the promise that friendship always is; a promise which, as Derrida himself once observed in recalling his own friendship with de Man, can never know exactly what it is promising. As both Miller and Derrida well understand, in order to remember and mourn the other in all responsibility one must respect the resistances offered by their heterogeneity and difference, and for that matter by the irresistible process of interiorization that occurs with their absolute disappearance. Wandering across the borders of the 'life' and the 'work' in a way that few are able to do, this indispensable series of essays by Miller brilliantly illuminates not only the ideas and arguments found in a vast array of texts, but the ethics of reading Derrida today. " -- -Simon Morgan Wortham Kingston University London
£62.25
Associated University Presses The Practice of Realism Change and Creativity in
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£47.70
The Swedenborg Society In Celebration of Tomas Tranströmer: 2018
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£11.77
Oldcastle Books Ltd Historical Noir
Book SynopsisIt's one of the most successful - and surprising - of phenomena in the entire crime fiction genre: detectives (and protodetectives) solving crimes in earlier eras. There is now an army of historical sleuths operating from the mean streets of Ancient Rome to the Cold War era of the 1950s. And this astonishingly varied offshoot of the...Trade ReviewMost comprehensive, accessible and readable guides to noir crime fiction -- Marcel Berlins * The Times *As one of the leading experts of crime fiction, Barry Forshaw's Historical Noir marks the most recent entry in his Noir series, tracing the history of the sub-genre of crime fiction set in the past * Dark Arts Journal *A very worthy addition to this great series * Crime Squad *The latest in the Pocket Essentials guides to crime writing, Historical Noir, is a useful and entertaining addition to the series -- Paul Burke * Nudge *A lively, wide-ranging and immensely informed history of the genre * Crime Readers Association *
£7.49
Goose Lane Editions The Age of Confession LAge de la confession
Book SynopsisIn this illuminating essay, Neil Bissoondath explores the powerful influence exerted by narrative on the human psyche. Storytelling is a primary activity in the human experience. The stories that we tell ourselves, as well as those we hear from others, help to answer the question of who we are, as individuals, as familial beings, as social beings. On a deeper level, stories are also subtle forms of confession. They reveal our dreams and desires, our fears and fantasies, our hurts and pleasures. Sifting through history, Bissoondath examines how governments, both totalitarian and democratic, have sought to control and to simplify narrative. Novelists, to different and contradictory ends, have used narrative as a sphere of exploration and discovery, where questions are numerous and answers are rare. Fiction, suggests Bissoondath, is a subtle, yet powerful narrative form, unsurpassed in its ability to confirm human complexity and to affirm human existence. Dans cet essai édifiant, Neil Bis
£13.29
Goose Lane Editions Playing the Inside Out Le jeu des apparences 2
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£11.39
Goose Lane Editions The Blind Bookkeeper or Why Homer Must Be Blind
Book SynopsisRich with literary awards and honours, Alberto Manguel extends his literary genius to address and complete a thoughtfully crafted extrapolation on a paper left unfinished by Northrop Frye in 1943. The result is a succinct yet densely multilayered examination of how various readings of Homer throughout the annals of history cast light upon the human tendency towards war rather than peace and asks what roles writing and reading play to bring the world into better equilibrium. Central to this lecture is the concept of re-binding, a word drawn from the Latin roots for the word religion, which Manguel posits is the essential definition of poetry. Homer''s writings, the point of origin of all written verse, are also the first written instance of the binding of imagined, written, and read realities. The semantics of Homer''s name and the literal and figurative ramifications of his blindness are investigated as Manguel builds the scaffold for unveiling our own blindness through our desire to read Homer in our own image. We are left to examine our own assumptions. Comblé de prix littéraires et d''honneurs, Alberto Manguel prête son génie littéraire á l''étude et au parachèvement d''une extrapolation songée que Northrop Frye avait laissée en plan en 1943. Il en résulte une analyse succincte mais en replis serrés des multiples lectures d''Homère léguées par les siècles, qui révèle comment ces interprétations éclairent la propension humaine á la guerre plutôt qu''á la paix, ce qui le mène á s''interroger sur le rôle que jouent l''écriture et la lecture quand il s''agit de créer un monde plus équilibré. La notion de re-lier, un mot dont les racines latines sont les mêmes que le mot religion, est au coeur de cette conférence, et Manguel en fait la définition essentielle de la poésie. Les écrits d''Homère, point d''origine de toute la poésie écrite, fournissent aussi la première occurrence d''un lien entre les réalités imaginées, écrites et lues. La valeur sémantique du nom d''Homère et les répercussions concrètes et figurées de sa cécité font partie des éléments que Manguel scrute pour fonder son évocation de notre aveuglement á nous quand nous insistons pour lire Homère á notre propre image. Nous n''avons plus qu''á remettre nos hypothèses.
£11.39
Liberty Fund Inc Representation of Business in English Literature
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£8.95
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc ThirtyTwo Stories
Book Synopsis America''s most influential literary figure worldwide is familiar to most readers of short fiction through only about a dozen stories. This is because many of Poe's tales depend on knowledge a reader in 1835 or 1845 might have had that a typical reader in 2000 would not. In this extensively annotated and meticulously edited selection of Poe's short fiction, Stuart Levine and Susan F. Levine connect Poe to major literary forces of his era and to the rapidly changing U.S. of the 1830s and 1840s, discussing Shelley, Carlyle, Byron, Emerson, and Hawthorne, as well as the railroad, photography, and the telegraph. In the process, they reveal a Poe immersed in the America of his day--its politics, science, technology, best-selling books, biases, arts, journalism, fads, scandals, and even sexual mores--and render accessible all thirty-two stories included here. The general Introduction, the headnote to each story, and the annotations included in this volume have been extensively reviseTrade Review Thirty-Two Stories appears in an attractive and readable format, with the 1848 'Ultima Thule' daguerrotype of Poe featured prominently on the front cover. Gone are the double-column pages, endnote style, and thematic organization of material that made the 1976 edition clumsy. Instructors and students will not have to battle with an arbitrary conceptual framework, since the stories in the new edition are presented in order of their first publication, and they will find the annotations more accessible at the bottom of the page. The typefaces are larger and bolder and many of the illustrations that graced the 1976 edition have been enlarged. . . . For college instructors and general readers interested in a fully annotated selection of Poe’s tales, attractively presented in a one-volume paperback edition, Thirty-Two Stories is the best thing on the market. --Bruce I. Weiner, The Edgar Allan Poe Review
£13.29
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc ThirtyTwo Stories
Book Synopsis America''s most influential literary figure worldwide is familiar to most readers of short fiction through only about a dozen stories. This is because many of Poe's tales depend on knowledge a reader in 1835 or 1845 might have had that a typical reader in 2000 would not. In this extensively annotated and meticulously edited selection of Poe's short fiction, Stuart Levine and Susan F. Levine connect Poe to major literary forces of his era and to the rapidly changing U.S. of the 1830s and 1840s, discussing Shelley, Carlyle, Byron, Emerson, and Hawthorne, as well as the railroad, photography, and the telegraph. In the process, they reveal a Poe immersed in the America of his day--its politics, science, technology, best-selling books, biases, arts, journalism, fads, scandals, and even sexual mores--and render accessible all thirty-two stories included here. The general Introduction, the headnote to each story, and the annotations included in this volume have been extensively reviseTrade Review Thirty-Two Stories appears in an attractive and readable format, with the 1848 'Ultima Thule' daguerrotype of Poe featured prominently on the front cover. Gone are the double-column pages, endnote style, and thematic organization of material that made the 1976 edition clumsy. Instructors and students will not have to battle with an arbitrary conceptual framework, since the stories in the new edition are presented in order of their first publication, and they will find the annotations more accessible at the bottom of the page. The typefaces are larger and bolder and many of the illustrations that graced the 1976 edition have been enlarged. . . . For college instructors and general readers interested in a fully annotated selection of Poe’s tales, attractively presented in a one-volume paperback edition, Thirty-Two Stories is the best thing on the market. --Bruce I. Weiner, The Edgar Allan Poe Review
£35.09
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
Book Synopsis In annotated texts based on those of the acclaimed Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne, this edition features the two works Sterne produced in the final year of his illness-plagued life: the witty, bawdy, pathetic, and thoughtful A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy; and Continuation of the Bramine''s Journal, Sterne''s correspondence to a twenty-two-year-old married Englishwoman living in India (a Diary, as he put it, of the miserable feelings of a person separated from a Lady for whose Society he languish''d). Together, these mutually illuminating works offer rich insight into their author''s hopes, fears, loves, longings, and philosophy as he prepared to face death and judgment. Excerpts from related texts provide context for understanding the title works in relation to the earlier writings and life of this exuberant yet subtle genius of eighteenth-century English literature. Trade ReviewMelvyn New's and W. G. Day's edition of Sterne's Sentimental Journey is the single best scholarly edition of that quirky but essential text available for student use. The notes are meticulous and hugely informative. The Introduction is lucid and useful, and the supplementary materials, including excerpts from Tristram Shandy and some of Sterne's sermons, provide essential background. --John Richetti, Department of English, University of PennsylvaniaIn terms of the quality and quantity of annotation, as well as the care spent in establishing the authoritative texts, the Hackett edition renders all other competing editions of these two works flimsy and obsolete. --Vincent Carretta, Department of English, University of Maryland. . . [A]n extremely useful student edition. . . . For obvious reasons, this student edition cannot be as copiously annotated as the Florida research edition, but it is generously annotated all the same. Many notes are simply explanatory: what is a 'Desobligeant,' and why is it called that? More interesting, however, are notes in which the editors use their considerable expertise to place some particular word or reference or sentiment expressed in Sterne's text into the broader contexts of his thought. So, for example, they point out numerous instances in which Sterne was recalling phrases from the Bible or earlier literature or in which his late notions echo or revise ideas first expressed years earlier in his own sermons, his correspondence, or Tristam Shandy. They bravely attempt to untangle some of Sterne's expressions which hover uneasily between English and imperfect French; they point out many instances of Sterne's naughty doubles entendres not previously noticed (by this reader). More generally, they place Yorick's remarks and Sterne's thinking in the midst of the culture and customs of their times--the costs of travel, the experiences of other travelers, political considerations, what people were reading, and so on. In the same vein, they provide an appendix which reprints eight longer segments from Sterne's other writings to illustrate some of his characteristic attitudes. All in all, then, this is a very 'teacherly' edition, with able guides providing useful and reliable guidance. (A tip of the hat is due to the publisher as well, for bringing out this edition at a price that a student might actually afford to pay. --Peter M. Briggs, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer
£8.99
University of Alberta Press Challenging Territory
Book SynopsisTrade Review"This book will add significantly to our understanding of one of Canada's most important writers." Kristjana Gunnars"Challenging Territory consists of essays that give various insights into [Margaret Laurence's] fiction as well as her journalistic and political work. The contributions, carefully selected and organised, reflect a wide range of issues, from coloniality and postcoloniality, gender and power, to psychological, cultural, and sociopolitical aspects that affected Margaret Laurence's writing." Angela Spereng, Canadian Literature
£19.79
University of Alberta Press The Literary History of Alberta Volume One
Book SynopsisThis long-awaited, landmark volume chronicles Alberta writing: the writers, their works, and their vigorous and changing landscape. A must for anyone interested in the cultural history of western Canada.Trade Review"Both volumes sit on my desk and sometimes get daily reference. I can say or give no better endorsement to this second volume than to say it made me want to read the books discussed." Gordon Morash, Edmonton Journal"poses a radical challenge to the literary status quo.. The Literary History of Alberta offers tantalizing glimpses into previously unfamiliar prairie literary terrain and provides an initial step in the incorporation of early Native oral, incised, and painted 'texts' into that terrain. Of equal importance, The Literary History of Alberta challenges the hegemony within Canada of the combined literatures of just two other provinces -Ontario and Quebec- which still today often masquerade under the pseudonym of 'The Canadian Literary Tradition.' George Melnyk's book marks a significant contribution to the study and appreciation of the literature of the North American Plains." Pamela Banting, Great Plains Quarterly (U of Nebraska)Table of ContentsIntroduction: Toward a Literary History of Alberta; Writing-on-Stone: The Aboriginal Tradition; Exploration Literature: 1754-1869; Territorial Literature: 1870-1904; Provincial Literature: 1905-1929; Depression and War: 1930-1945; Francophone and Other Literatures: 1820-1945; Early Literary Institutions; Conclusion: Establishing a Canon; Index.
£19.79
University of Alberta Press The Literary History of Alberta Volume One
Book SynopsisAlberta''s contradictory landscape has fired the imaginative energies of writers for centuries. The sweep of the plains, the thrust of the Rockies, and the long roll of the woodlands have left vivid impressions on all of Alberta''s writers--both those who passed through Alberta in search of other horizons and those who made it their home. The Literary History of Alberta surveys writing in and about Alberta from prehistory to the middle of the twentieth century. It includes profiles of dozens of writers (from the earnestly intended to the truly gifted) and their texts (from the commercial to the arcane). It reminds us of long-forgotten names and faces, figures who quietly--or not so quietly--wrote the books that underpin Alberta''s thriving literary culture today. Melnyk also discusses the institutions that have shaped Alberta''s literary culture. The Literary History of Alberta is an essential text for any reader interested in the cultural history of western Canada, and a landmark achiTrade Review"Both volumes sit on my desk and sometimes get daily reference. I can say or give no better endorsement to this second volume than to say it made me want to read the books discussed." Gordon Morash, Edmonton Journal"poses a radical challenge to the literary status quo.. The Literary History of Alberta offers tantalizing glimpses into previously unfamiliar prairie literary terrain and provides an initial step in the incorporation of early Native oral, incised, and painted 'texts' into that terrain. Of equal importance, The Literary History of Alberta challenges the hegemony within Canada of the combined literatures of just two other provinces -Ontario and Quebec- which still today often masquerade under the pseudonym of 'The Canadian Literary Tradition.' George Melnyk's book marks a significant contribution to the study and appreciation of the literature of the North American Plains." Pamela Banting, Great Plains Quarterly (U of Nebraska)Table of ContentsIntroduction: Toward a Literary History of Alberta; Writing-on-Stone: The Aboriginal Tradition; Exploration Literature: 1754-1869; Territorial Literature: 1870-1904; Provincial Literature: 1905-1929; Depression and War: 1930-1945; Francophone and Other Literatures: 1820-1945; Early Literary Institutions; Conclusion: Establishing a Canon; Index.
£30.59
University of Alberta Press The Literary History of Alberta Volume Two
Book SynopsisIn this, the companion to the landmark volume The Literary History of Alberta, Volume One: From Writing-on-Stone to World War Two, George Melnyk examines Alberta literature in the second half of the twentieth century. At last, Melnyk argues, Alberta writers have found their voice--and their accomplishments have been remarkable. The contradictory landscape, the stereotypes of the Indian, the Mountie, and the Cowboy, and the language of the Other, speaking from the margins--these elements all left their impressions on the consciousness of early Alberta. But writers in the last few decades have turned this inheritance to their advantage, to create compelling stories about this place and its people. Today, Melnyk discovers, Alberta writers can appreciate not only this achievement, but also its essential source: the symbolic communication of Writing-on-Stone. The Literary History of Alberta, Volume Two extends the study of Alberta''s cultural history to the present day. It is a vital text fTrade Review"Both volumes sit on my desk and sometimes get daily reference. I can say or give no better endorsement to this second volume than to say it made me want to read the books discussed." Gordon Morash, Edmonton Journal"poses a radical challenge to the literary status quo.. The Literary History of Alberta offers tantalizing glimpses into previously unfamiliar prairie literary terrain and provides an initial step in the incorporation of early Native oral, incised, and painted 'texts' into that terrain. Of equal importance, The Literary History of Alberta challenges the hegemony within Canada of the combined literatures of just two other provinces -Ontario and Quebec- which still today often masquerade under the pseudonym of 'The Canadian Literary Tradition.' George Melnyk's book marks a significant contribution to the study and appreciation of the literature of the North American Plains." Pamela Banting, Great Plains Quarterly (U of Nebraska)
£21.59
University of Alberta Press The Literary History of Alberta Volume Two
Book SynopsisIn this, the companion to the landmark volume The Literary History of Alberta, Volume One: From Writing-on-Stone to WorldWar Two, George Melnyk examines Alberta literature in the second half of the twentieth century. At last, Melnyk argues, Alberta writers have found their voice--and their accomplishments have been remarkable. The contradictory landscape, the stereotypes of the Indian, the Mountie, and the Cowboy, and the language of the Other, speaking from the margins--these elements all left their impressions on the consciousness of early Alberta. But writers in the last few decades have turned this inheritance to their advantage, to create compelling stories about this place and its people. Today, Melnyk discovers, Alberta writers can appreciate not only this achievement, but also its essential source: the symbolic communication of Writing-on-Stone. The Literary History of Alberta, Volume Two extends the study of Alberta''s cultural history to the present day. It is a vital text foTrade Review"Both volumes sit on my desk and sometimes get daily reference. I can say or give no better endorsement to this second volume than to say it made me want to read the books discussed." Gordon Morash, Edmonton Journal"poses a radical challenge to the literary status quo.. The Literary History of Alberta offers tantalizing glimpses into previously unfamiliar prairie literary terrain and provides an initial step in the incorporation of early Native oral, incised, and painted 'texts' into that terrain. Of equal importance, The Literary History of Alberta challenges the hegemony within Canada of the combined literatures of just two other provinces -Ontario and Quebec- which still today often masquerade under the pseudonym of 'The Canadian Literary Tradition.' George Melnyk's book marks a significant contribution to the study and appreciation of the literature of the North American Plains." Pamela Banting, Great Plains Quarterly (U of Nebraska)
£30.59
University of Alberta Press HYDRAS TALE Imagining Disgust cuRRents
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Though the topic may appear marginal and eccentric (the word enters the English language only in the sixteenth century), this book convinces the reader of its importance. Disgust makes beauty and ugliness a matter of morals. Disgust drives the moralization of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This study is far-ranging, informed by the most complex contemporary psychoanalytic and sociological theories, and written in vigorous and direct language." Alphonso Lingis, Professor of Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University"The Hydra's Tale: Imagining Disgust by Robert Rawdon Wilson (Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Alberta) is an informed and informative psychological and philosophical study of the experience of disgust: its origin, effect on human behavior, its use as a survival response, and much, much more. Carefully thought out and deftly written so as to be accessible for both scholars and non-specialist general readers alike, The Hydra's Tale is a truly fascinating and recommended look into a human emotion that most people strive to avoid, but inevitably experience within the context of their personal lives." Midwest Book Review"Wilson.has written an important book on the theory of disgust, the nature of representation and the workings of the human imagination.. Wilson's study of/on the theory of disgust is far from being disgusting. Instead, it is informative, entertaining, engaging, even moving (as one might not expect from a book on theory).. Although he makes demands upon his readers.Wilson's sudden changes in pace, shifting from the rhythms of one world of discourse to another, does not obscure the clarity of the argument.. There are three main movements in the argument: 1) disgust is everywhere, 'roiling' and muck-like, but it also shifts from culture to culture, from one historical period to another; 2) despite the rigid constructions of theory, the human response is metamorphic, always changing from one stage in experience to another; 3) disgust gestates in the imagination which responds to the world, and all its deliquescent sliminess, by creating momentary disgust 'scenarios.'" Aletheia Plankiw, Danforth Review. (See the full review at http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/nonfiction/wilson.htm)"Robert Wilson is Professor Emeritus from the English Department of the University of Alberta. . . Ambitious and provocative, his study of "disgust" is a huge undertaking, the result of an impressive amount of research and consideration. . . . The study is notable for its extraordinary range of references, many of them developed in finely detailed footnotes. Emphasizing the difference between actuality and representation, between first-hand experience of disgust and its representation in art and writing, Wilson proposes five models for its investigation: moral-legal, social constructionist, psychoanalytic, slime-viscosity-dissolution, and transgression. No single model, he suggests, can explain disgust fully and, thereby, there is an appropriate flexibility in his attention to models, writers, and ideas. . . With a cover that uses Moreau's painting of Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra and design details that complement the text, the University of Alberta Press has produced a handsome book." Australian Canadian Studies"The Hydra's Tale: Imagining Disgust is a richly interdisciplinary book that draws upon research from anthropology, cultural studies, literary theory, philosophy, psychology, and sociology in order to analyze, more fully than in prior studies, the metamorphic properties of a single affect, namely, disgust..Not only does Wilson employ the conclusions of several intellectual disciplines to build his argument and help him toward an original conclusion, he also brings to bear the potential of fiction to illustrate and define human experience. A writer of fiction himself, Wilson employs biofictography to place his often highly conceptual argument in a recognizable Lebenswelt; he also uses fiction, fables, parables, and yarns to illustrate the scope of particular problems. The Hydra's Tale is complex in its use of research and in the development of a multilevel argument. It is a provocative study." Brian J. Edwards, (Deakins University), Poetics Today, Vol. 25, No. 3http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak4/fr41/Engel/kulturpoetik/rezensionen.htm KulturPoetik".the different effects disgust and the disgusting have in the actual and symbolic realms are, in turn, at the center of Wilson's inquiry, significantly shaped by the role of the imagination and hence, the cultural fluidity--as opposed to, say, historical stability or even anthropological universality--of the phenomena of disgust." Hans J. Rindisbacher, "A Cultural History of Disgust", KulturPoetik"Robert Rawdon Wilson's study of disgust is handsomely produced, compendious, learned, street-smart. It can be read as a serious meditation on relations between the human sensorium and imagination, an erotic sampler for the middle-aged academic male, or as episodes in the history of the heroic male self - in this case American, middle-class, well educated, far travelled, and intellectually and sensually 'pluralist.' This remarkable book addresses an abundance and an absence: the one attesting to the metamorphic powers of disgust, the other to the lack of effective theorizing about it. Wilson takes disgust to be an unexamined commonplace yet also a version of something close to 'infinite.' It is hence like beauty and imagination in being a favoured residence of presumption and prescription as well as source of some of our most compelling utterances and investigations. Wilson is often as brilliant as he is ambitious in unpacking the 'psycho-visceral and the moral' elements in disgust. He organizes his argument in a deliberately corporeal and transgressive way, refusing to disembody either intellect or imagination, and refusing to suppress a penchant for the rhetorical or referential belch, piss, ejaculation, fart, fidget, grope.. The Hydra's Tale is deep as well as devoutly impure, and I intend to return to its provocations often." Len Findlay, Canadian Literature, Fall 2005, #186
£26.99
University of Alberta Press The Politics of Cultural Mediation
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays explores the contact zones produced by the migrations of two German-born cultural figures: New York Dada poet and artist Else Plötz (1874-1927), better known as Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven; and writer and translator Felix Paul Greve (1879-1948), known in Canada as Frederick Philip Grove. Features contributions by Richard Cavell, Jutta Ernst, Irene Gammel, Paul Hjartarson, Klaus Martens and Paul Morris and includes Morris''s translation of Greve''s Randarabesken Zu Oscar Wilde.Trade Review"Baroness Elsa and Felix Paul Greve were given to gender play, disguise, and challenges to identity that mark them as inevitably avant-garde. Wherever these sometime lovers moved, something hovered in the landscape with them, so that nothing was and will be wholly clear. Is this not, however, their true legacy, to be always slipping away from our and their desiring grasp?" E.D. Blodgett"Documents, such as photographs, facsimiles of correspondence, newspapers, and copies of artwork, enrich the text and round out this distinguished collection." Anne Burke, The Prairie Journal."Artists Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) and Felix Paul Greve (1879-1948) were "cultural migrants" who, moving from German to North American contexts, both mediated and were mediated by social and institutional forces of their different worlds. Six papers, in the words of editors Hjartarson and Kulba (respectively a professor and doctoral fellow in the department of English, U. of Alberta, Canada), "interrogate the contact zone of cultures" as modes of cultural mediation<-->mediation as translation, as migration, and within a social-institutional apparatus. Also included is an essay by Greve on the works of Oscar Wilde, presented in English translation and in its original German." BOOK NEWS Inc."You can see why critics and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have been taking greater interest in the lives of Felix Paul Greve and the baroness. Individually and together, the two of them moved back and forth across borders certainly but also across lines of personal identity, including those related to gender studies, the biggest growth industry in academia the past few years....[The Politics of Cultural Mediation] includes work by Irene Gammel and one of Canada's most dynamic, prolific and wide-ranging literary scholars, Richard Cavell of the University of B.C." George Fetherling, The New Brunswick Reader, article reprinted in The Vancouver Sun"This handsome volume offers a systematic and coherent examination of cultural mediation that draws on contemporary critical theory as well as on the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of the nineteenth century relevant to the two "cultural mediators" on whom it is centred....Paul Hjartarson's account of the socio-historical context in which Grove found himself on coming to Canada and how it manifested itself not only in Grove's novels but also in his personal life is nothing short of a documentary tour de force....This book represents an important expansion of the debate on cultural mediation launched by Klaus Martens in a preceding volume titled Pioneering North America: Mediators of European Literature and Culture. Its significance for postcolonial theory and research goes well beyond the life and works of the figures who constitute its thematic focus." Rosmarin Heidenreich, Canadian Literature 184, Spring 2005"After the useful introduction by the editors elaborating on the concept of cultural mediation by making use of contemporary practitioners such as Salman Rushdie, the book consists of three parts, each of them offering different facets of the act of 'bearing' culture across boundaries and of 'being borne' across cultures. The first and second parts focus on the Baroness and FPG respectively in the context of cultural mediation in Europe and North America, and the third one consists of a key text on cultural mediation by Greve himself....[T]his is a very important and highly readable publication that will revive general interest in the writing of Grove, which still offers a rich field of historical and literary investigation, and especially in the fascinating life and work of the Baroness." University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 1, Winter 2004/5"The most refreshing addition to the complex picture of FPG is, in my eyes, Paul Hjartason's 'Out of the Wastage of All Other Nations', which contextualises the German immigrant's standing and fashioning of a new ethnic identity in the politically unstable, increasingly racist 1920s Manitoba. For his English translation of Greve's crucially self-revealing treatise, 'Randarabesden zu Oscar Wilde' ('Marginalia in Arabesque'), Morris deserves praise, for being modern, yet skillfully faithful to the original spirit. Virtually unavailable for a century, the inclusion and translation of this 1903 document represents this collection's main attraction." Markus M. Müller, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, November 1, 2005
£23.39
University of Alberta Press Gothic Canada
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Canadians have been searching for and discussing cultural identity since Confederation. According to Justin Edwards, our stories and literature might be showing us our greatest fear: perhaps we don't have one. In Gothic Canada, Edwards explores both the search for identity and the haunting spectral elements in Canadian literature. Analyzing literature from the nineteenth century through to the modern fiction of Atwood and Ondaatje, Edwards finds a common thread. 'The thing that Gothic Canadian texts have in common is the question 'who are we?' and a source of fear and anxiety is generated from not being able to answer this question,' says Edwards." -- Lynne Stefanchuk, Prairie Books NOW. "This is another volume in the praiseworthy cuRRents Canadian literature series. Edwards explores the connections between the formation of identity and gothic, through analysis of discourses in Canadian culture." Anne Burke, Prairie Journal Trust, July 22, 2005 "This book could have been called 'Negotiating with the Dead', for it is a literary study of how Canadian narratives of national identity and history are haunted and undermined by stories from the past. ... With his choice of literary texts and films from the nineteenth to the late twentieth century, Edwards offers an overview of crisis nodes in Canada's history, suggesting that a gothic discourse of anxiety and even terror shadows national assertions of 'peace, order and good government.' He emphasises cultural, political, and psychological dimensions of 'northern gothic, Native gothic, diasporic gothic, and the gothic films of David Cronenberg and Lynne Stopkewich." -- Coral Ann Howells, University of Reading, British Journal of Canadian Studies, 19.2Table of ContentsHarry Stallworthy's Life of Adventure; A Young Mountie and Prosecutor; From the Chocolate Trade to Chesterfield Inlet; From a Near-Death Experience to Jasper' Stony Rapids, 1928-30; Bache Peninsula; Searching for Kruger, 1932; Moving to Craig Harbour; Marriage and Honeymoon; The Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935; North to Lake Hazen, Spring 1935; Southern Mountie; Timberlane; Index.
£26.99
University of Alberta Press ReCalling Early Canada
Book SynopsisTrade Review"ReCalling Early Canada positions the act of recall not as simplistic retrieval but rather as a dynamic interaction between past and present. The essays collected in this book aim to look to the past not necessarily to participate in the protect of nation building, but rather to query the methodology, politics and ends of historical engagement; the processes of selection through which certain texts, objects and figures are deemed to be worthy of study; the frames through which we analyze the past; and the provisional characteristics of such frames..ReCalling Early Canada begins with a lengthy and insightful introduction that draws attention to the complexities of the 'politics of recollection' (xvi) upon which this project is based. The editors emphasize the importance of reading the non-canonical together with the canonical in order to challenge the contingencies of value upon which such a distinction is based. They foreground the limitations of the nation as an organizational category by reading Canada as a 'site of conflicting confederacies' located within, and sometimes poised against, the nation as a geopolitical entity (xxiii). The introduction also draws attention to the tendency of the archive to shape how we recall early Canada..[T]he essays collected in ReCalling Early Canada indicate a welcome shift away from the 'colony to nation' paradigm towards a more nuanced engagement with history, place and nation." Heather Milne, TOPIA 15, Spring, 2006."[The editors] have provided a solid body of work that can be analysed from a variety of perspectives." George Melnyk, The Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 87, No. 3, September 2006"[T]he essays cover terrain as varied as Theresa Gowanlock's captivity narrative, the documentation of the Aboriginal 'family' by white photographers, and conflicting national identities as portrayed in French and English fiction. This collection is highly recommended for both undergraduate and graduate collections in academic libraries." Allison Sivak, Canadian Book Review Annual, 2006
£26.99
University of Alberta Press Margaret Laurences Epic Imagination
Book SynopsisMargaret Laurence (1926-1987) instinctively turned to the epic mode to create archetypal narratives of loss, exile, and redemption. This title traces the development of Laurence's voice from its tentative beginnings in her African fiction to its culmination in the Manawaka Cycle.Trade Review"Comeau demolishes the view that Laurence lacked an interesting mind; and makes a strong case for the coherence and continuity of her imaginative, spiritual, stylistic and formal development as a writer. With this interpretation, Comeau makes an important contribution to understanding this major Canadian novelist. Summing Up: Recommended." D.R. McCarthy, Choice, Vol. 44, No. 1, September 2006."[Margaret Laurence's Epic imagination evokes] in masterful fashion both the authority and the largesse of its subject. In this study, Paul Comeau, known for his essays on Willa Cather and several mid-century Canadian authors, traces the steady development of an epic voice in Laurence's work..For twenty years Laurence criticism has consisted of collections of essays on specialized topics; with its sustained original vision and comprehensive reading of all the author's works, this book brings new energy to Laurence studies, and confirms again her status as one of Canada's classic writers." David Stouck, Great Plains Quarterly, Fall 2006."The prime joy of Comeau's critique is that, in his close reading, and placing it within the context of the 'oeuvre,' he points out that the skeleton is the same as that of the other great epics of western civilization, especially the Christian epics and the 'loser' epics of the dispossessed wandering in search of a new home. Comeau focuses on the imagery, the symbolism, the allusions, stressing the writer's absolute control. He makes readers more aware of how Laurence's choices of language, evocation, and action inform her themes." J.M. Bridgeman, Prairie Fire Review of Books, www.prairiefire.ca/reviews/comeau_laurence.html"For Margaret Laurence, the epic aspect of her fiction concerns the fundamental human condition. The epic heroism found in Margaret Laurence¹s work is not the grandeur of larger-than-life sagas but a heroism that is simply life itself the ongoing struggle of character, striving in victory and defeat. Since her death in 1987, Laurence has remained a commanding force in Canadian literature. The Stone Angel and The Diviners rank most highly among her works for their portrayal of heroic female characters struggling to find a sense of place, and identity, in an often hostile world. In Margaret Laurence's Epic Imagination, Paul Comeau argues that such heroism springs from Laurence's abiding perception of the epic dimension in everyday life. In Margaret Laurence's Epic Imagination, author Comeau comprehensively explains how Laurence instinctively turned to the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton for models of the epic mode, which she employed in her own fiction. Comeau traces the development of Laurence's voice from its tentative beginnings in her African fiction to its culmination in the Manawaka Cycle." SirReadaLot (Full review at http://sirreadalot.org/reviews/0083.htm#Comeau)""[Paul Comeau] is particularly well attuned to Laurence's sensibility; indeed, he often seems to breathe with her as he works scrupulously through her works, in effect doing for her what she does for her characters. Just as she orchestrates their disrupted lives into meaningful patterns, so he arranges her varied writing according to the controlling design of a Christian epic, which offers 'a coherent artistic vision, a Commedia dell'Anima of epic depth and proportion.'" Jon Kertzer, University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1, Winter 2007"Margaret Laurence's Epic Imagination by Paul Comeau is the latest in a number of books that have appeared on Margaret Laurence in the last several years, and it forms a valuable addition. ... His comparisons of Laurence's texts to Dante's are frequently insightful and occasionally ingenious. ... Clearly, Laurence's creation of a Canadian epic has inspired Comeau to compose an illuminating study that provides compelling reading for any student, scholar, or admirer of Laurence's writing." Nora Foster Stovel, Canadian Literature 197, Summer 2008.
£26.99
University of Alberta Press Leaving Shadows
Book SynopsisOn our way home, we stopped in Vegreville for one last look at the Pysanka-and, posing in front of it while my dad pulled out his camera, I wanted to cry. Are we doomed? Click. Is this all we are? Click. How do we drag ourselves out from under the shadow of the giant egg? Click. Conceived in a fervent desire for fresher, sexier images of Ukrainian culture in Canada, and concluding with a new reading of enduring cultural stereotypes, Leaving Shadows is the first Canadian book-length monograph on English Ukrainian writing, with substantive analysis of the writing of Myrna Kostash, Andrew Suknaski, George Ryga, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Vera Lysenko, and Maara Haas.Trade Review"Grekul does a close reading of Bloodlines and The Doomed Bridegroom, by Myrna Kostash a self-proclaimed second-generation Ukrainian Canadian, feminist, writer, alumna of the 1960s, who was confronted by Eastern European gender roles..Grekul draws comparisons between Kostash's perspective and that of Kulyk Keefer, (in The Green Library and Honey and Ashes: A Story of a Family), 'the inherent gaps' between history and historiography, that is, historical realities and representations of these realities." Anne Burke, Prairie Journal Trust, February, 2006."This is a wonderful collection of essays by a Ukrainian Canadian about the impact on Canadian culture by the infusion of Ukrainians, as felt both by them and by us..A fascinating introduction to writers of Ukrainian background." Ron MacIsaac, The Lower Island NEWS, April 2006."Through a sweeping survey of under-read and under-appreciated literary works, Grekul methodically lays out her case for the value of Ukrainian-Canadian writing in English. Grekul embarks on a chronological discovery of what she considers to be the best, most informative, and above all most culturally important works from Ukrainian-Canadian authors since 1900. Grekul's obvious strength throughout is the quality of her narrative voice and the organization of her thoughts, something oft-forgotten in 20th- and 21st-century criticism. It is clear that the process of writing Kalyna's Song, Grekul's first novel and nominee for the Books in Canada/Amazon First Novel Award, developed a well-defined and pleasant writing style that has transferred over to her critical work." Ryan Jones, Prairie Fire Review of Books, www.prairiefire.ca/reviews/grekul_literature.html""Grekul's account offers a kind of synthetic treatment that has rarely been provided. She focuses on Lysenko, Maara Haas, George Ryga, Andrew Suknaski, Janice Kulyk Keefer, and Myrna Kostash, but also contextualizes their writings by providing a chapter on the first Anglo-Canadian novels dealing with Ukrainians..The discussion of issues like multiculturalism and contemporary return-to-the-homeland writing is nuanced and bold, and offers new approaches and methods of analysis.. Unfortunately, argues the author, the heavy focus on race in recent discussions around multiculturalism and diversity has obscured the substantial contributions that other ethnic minority writers have made to the issues of assimilation, multiculturalism, and transculturalism; the intersection of ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality; and nationalism, transnationalism, and diaspora. Sensitively written (even when it is iconoclastic in its readings of individual authors), the book provides an excellent historical overview of the Ukrainian-Canadian experience. It should be considered essential reading for anyone dealing with the subject, and can profitably be used as a text for a number of courses, particularly those dealing with ethnicity, national identity, and Canadian literature." Myroslav Shkandrij, Canadian Book Review Annual 2007Table of ContentsUkrainian Canadians: A Study in Assimilation; "Digesting" the "Foreign Mass": Ukrainian Canadians in Three Anglo-Canadian Novels; Re-reading the Female Ethnic Subject: Vera Lysenko's Yellow Boots; Ethnic Revival versus Historical Revision: Ukrainian Canadians and Multiculturalism; "We aren't buying black oxfords": The Ambivalent Politics of Hybridity in Maara Haas's The Street Where I Live; "We laugh, but we are sad": Oral History in George Ryga's A Letter to My Son; "Easter bread and clouds": The Poetry of Andrew Suknaski; From Multiculturalism to Transculturalism: Shifting Paradigms in the Search for Identity; From Canada to Ukraine-and Back: Janice Kulyk Keefer's The Green Library and Honey and Ashes; Between Borders, Beyond Bloodlines: Myrna Kostash's Creative Non-fiction; Monumental Culture and the Future of Ukrainian Canadian Literature; Index.
£26.99
University of Alberta Press Locating the Past Discovering the Present
Book SynopsisComparative, interdisciplinary examination of the production of religious ideas and images over time and place.Trade Review"The book's papers focus on religious ideas, images, practices and articulations which have not been an essential part of the theological discipline and studies of religious life.. Thus, [the book] essentially problematises the centre whilst looking at the context of the margins.. The book's underlying theoretical focus is excellently laid in the introduction, which binds the different chapters together while providing a conceptual discussion of the term, marginality.. Gay and Reimer should be commended for editing a diverse and eye-opening collection, providing critical discussions and probing into connections and influences which had remained largely marginal thus far.. This book is an important intervention in many discourses as well as an original and interesting read." Dana N. Mills, Literature and Theology, [Full review at doi:10.1093/litthe/]"Authors come at the topic of marginality from a number of directions, making use of theories from continental philosophy to historiography. There is explicitly no overarching definition or understanding of 'marginality' as such, meaning that each author grapples with the concept on his/her own terms and in light of his/her own case study. Beyond marginality, authors take up themes that range from subjectivity and agency to memory and orthodoxy. Standout pieces include David Gay's '' 'The Writing on the Wall': Rembrandt, Milton, and Menasseh ben Israel in Ken McMullen's R'' and Eva Maria Räpple's ''The Seductive Serpent.''.... This volume is a good purchase for libraries or institutions." Airen Hall, Syracuse University, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Fall 2011 [doi:10.3138/jrpc.23.3.415]
£30.59
