Literature: history and criticism Books

Trade Review“Elegantly written, Main Street and Empire is of the utmost importance to the reconceptualization of American exceptionalism within a transnational geography. This book is certain to exert a major influence on accounts of global American modernity for many years to come.” -- Donald E. Pease * founding director of the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth *"The most incisive analysis available about representational discourses of small towns U.S.A. From classic texts to corporate advertising, Poll reveals a small town imaginary shaping an age of globalization." -- Evan Watkins * author of Class Degrees *"Using broad cultural analysis, Poll investigates the centrality of the small town, as represented in literature, to the cultural imagination of the US. An impressive, multifaceted exploration of the small town as a symbol. Readers with some background in literary theory will find this book most compelling. Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Small Town as Modern Nation Form1. Sacred Islands in Modernity: The Prehistory of the Dominant Small Town2. An Unfinished Revolution: "The Revolt from the Village" Reconsidered3. Mapping the Modern Small Town: A Circular Imaginary4. A New Machine in the Small-Town Garden: Periodizing an Automodernity5. The Formation of a U.S. Fascist Aesthetics; or, Welcome to Main Street6. Staging and Archiving the Nation: Pedagogical Theater, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and U.S. Imperialism7. "One Happy World": The Postmodern Small Town and the Small-Town Postmodern8. Global Belonging: The Small Town as the World's HomeAfterword: The Global VillageNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisMissionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature explores the notion that missionaries, often perceived as only evangelically motivated in the British imperial project, were also spurred on by cosmopolitan ideals. Winter Jade Werner makes this surprising connection in order to write against standard understandings of missionary work as well as typical understandings of cosmopolitanism as a deeply secular project.Missionary Cosmopolitanism identifies the nineteenth-century novel as thematically and formally attuned to the tension between missionaries'' cosmopolitan values and the moral impoverishment of their imperialist and expansionist practices. Werner''s chapters interact with canonical works such as Charlotte Brontë''s Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens''s Bleak House, along with lesser-known works by Robert Southey and Sydney Owenson. Ultimately, Missionary Cosmopolitanism demonstrates tha

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Book SynopsisPregnant Fictions explores the complex role of pregnancy in early modern tale-telling and considers how stories of childbirth were used to rethink gendered truths at a key moment in the history of ideas.

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Book SynopsisOffers an accessible introduction to the extensive fictional writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Providing comprehensive coverage of his short stories, novels and plays, this book examines the close links between the ideas and themes in his fiction and those put forward in his formal philosophical works.Trade Review"A richly detailed and highly accessible journey through Sartre's fiction which offers a productive introduction to the central tenets of Sartre's literary work. Cox's clear passion for his subject translates into a consistently readable and expressively lucid exploration of Sartre's themes and techniques." - Dr B.C.W Stephens, University of Bristol, UKSartre and Fiction does something almost unique which is to reveal the extent to which Sartre's fictional writings are an integral part of his overall intellectual vision. -- Existential AnalysisTable of Contents1. Sartre's Writing; 2. Sartre's Existentialism; 3. Sartre's Short Stories; The Wall; The Room; Erostratus; Intimacy; The Childhood of Leader; 4. Sartre's Novels; Nausea; Roads to Freedom; The Age of Reason; The Reprieve; Iron in the Soul; 5. Sartre's Plays; The Flies; In Camera (No Exit); Men Without Shadows; The Respectable Prostitute; Dirty Hands (Crime Passionel); The Devil and the Good Lord (Lucifer and the Lord); Kean, or Disorder and Genius; Nekrassov, A Farce in Eight Scenes; Condemned of Altona (Altona, Lower Wins); The Trojan Women; Further Reading; Index.

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Book SynopsisA resource for those who want to learn about Manga, as well as for anybody teaching a course on the subject. It contains essays that address the manga industry on an international scale, the different genres, formats and artists, as well the fans themselves.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Section One: The Industry; The History of Manga - Jean-Marie Bouissou; Manga in Asia - John A. Lent; Manga in Europe - Paul M. Malone; Understanding Manga Merchandising: An Australian Case; Study - Jason Bainbridge and Craig Norris; Shakespeare as Manga - Emma Hayley; Globalizing from Japan to Hong Kong and Beyond - Wendy Siuyi; Wong; Manga and the Critics - Toni Johnson-Woods; Section Two: The Genres & Formats & Artists; Overview of Manga Genres - Mio Bryce and Jason Davis; Ryori Manga - Lorie Brau; Shojo Manga at Home and Abroad - Jennifer Prough; Beautiful Boys in Japanese Women's Comics - Mark McClelland; Meanings of Manga - Neil Cohn; The Aesthetics of Manga - Christopher Couch; Visual Representations and Manga - Craig Norris; A Look at Takahashi Rumiko, Watase Yu, Shinohara; Chie, Hikawa Kyoko, Itsuki Natsumi - Mio Bryce; Osamu Tezuka and Family: Early Pioneers of Manga - Wendy; Goldberg; Miuchi Suzue and Intertextuality - Rebecca Suter; Miyasaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Manga into Anime and Its Reception - Marc Hairston; Section Three: The Fans; Fandom in Germany, Italy and France - Bouissou, Pellitteri and Dolle-Weinkauff; Scanlation - James Rampant; American Otaku and the Search for the Authentic Text - Stacy Rue; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisPeter Childs is Professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Gloucestershire. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in 2004.Trade Review‘In Modernist Literature: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Childs has performed the laudable feat of combining a comprehensive contextual account of the first three decades of the twentieth century with precise and clear readings of a refreshingly broad range of modernist works. This book is to be recommended for its boldness in bringing together writers and texts both familiar and less often read and taught. Throughout, Childs' signature qualities of lucidity, assurance and an eye for the telling detail shine through. This is a book that will enlighten students, have tutors sighing with relief, and offer an engaging introduction for the general reader too.' -- Peter Morey, Reader in English Literature, University of East London, UKReviewed in English Text Construction Vol. 4:2.Table of ContentsTimeline; 1. Introduction: before the 1900s; 2. 1900s; 3. 1910s; 4. 1920s; 5. Conclusion: Late Modernism; Further Reading; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisJacques Rancière taught at the University of Paris VIII, France,from 1969 to 2000, occupying the Chair of Aesthetics and Politics from 1990 until his retirement. Steven Corcoran is a writer and translator living in Berlin. He has edited and/or translated several works by Jacques Rancière, including Dissensus (Continuum, 2010), and two works by Alain Badiou, Polemics (Verso, 2006) and Conditions (Continuum, 2008).Trade Review‘[The author] seeks—through several intricate, close readings—to reinterpret the poet as one whose complexity lent light and lightness to a civilization deprived of spiritual and monarchic anchors.'—Choice MagazineTable of ContentsForeword; 1. The Foam of Verse; i. The White Preoccupation; 2. The Poetics of Mystery; i. The Terms of Mystery; ii. The Scene of Dream; iii. From Nothingness to Nothing; iv. Method of Fiction; v. The Fan's Poem; 3. Hymns of the Spiritual Chorus; i. The Religion of the Century; ii. Two Theses on Divinity; iii. The Poet and the Worker; iv. Musical Religion; v. Wagner the God: Poem, Music and Politics; 4. The Duty of the Book; i. The Poem as Thought: A Secular History; ii. Music, Dance, Poem: The Circle of 'Mimesis'; iii. The Authentic Page; Selection of Texts; Index.

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Book SynopsisExplores the work of art through Proust's masterpiece, "A La Recherche du Temps Purdu". The author approaches the narrative of Proust's masterpiece, as the apprenticeship of a man of letters. His concern is to come to a deeper understanding of the book and of art itself by tracing the network of signs laid in the text.Table of ContentsTranslator's Note; Preface to the Complete Text; Preface to the 1972 Edition; Works by Proust; Part I: The Signs; 1. The Types of Signs; 2. Signs and Truth; 3. Apprenticeship; 4. Essence and the Signs of Art; 5. Secondary Role of Memory; 6. Series and Group; 7. Pluralism in the System of Signs; Conclusion to Part I: The Image of Thought; Part II: The Literary Machine; 8. Antilogos; 9. Cells and Vessels; 10. Levels of the Search; 11. The Three Machines; 12. Style; Conclusion to Part II: Presence and Function of Madness: The Spider; Notes.

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Book SynopsisThis work is part of the "Continuum Contemporaries" series giving readers accessible and informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential contemporary novels. It contains a biography of the novelist and a full-length study of the novel.Trade ReviewThe following notice appeared in Time Out (London) on January 30, 2001: Study Aids Get Chic Concerned about keeping up at the book club? Stuck for something to say when dinner party talk turns to Zadie Smith? Or no time to read Captain Corelli's Mandolin before the movie comes out? Never fear, cool new study aids are here in the form of Continuum Contemporaries - The Novel Approach, a series of handy readers' guides to contemporary fiction. Launching in September, with further waves in January and May 2002, they're much slicker than the frumpy cheat-aids of yore, including everything from website links to review buzz, and deliberately featuring new novels such as Bridget Jones's Diary, The Shipping News, Trainspotting, and even the Harry Potter books."A brilliant idea--short, perceptive books which tell you what you need to know about some of the most vibrant and challenging writing around today--a bit like having a reading group in your pocket."--Ian Rankin"The series comes as near to squaring various circles - popular / academic, 'good read' / 'classic Lit', novel / film of the book as any I know. And at best it goes a fair way towards reshuffling those categories and redrawing the boundaries. With the first volume, I was relieved. After two or three, I was hooked. The books are invaluable for gathering out-of-the-way or ephemeral comment from TV and radio interviews and the web as well as from literary reviews. Refreshingly upfront and up-to-date... Given the space, there are remarkably balanced film/novel comparisons of the most well-known examples... An important feature is the fully referenced bibliographies, including reviews and copious website addresses - the latter ranging from fanzines and authors' and publishers' own sites to academic discussion lists and online journals. In method as in subject matter, these guides move freely on the interface between print culture and multimedia. Highly finished and pleasantly handleable as books in their own right, they gesture accommodatingly to both words and worlds beyond. Taking the series as a whole, it also confirms two things: that narrative nowadays is generically highly hybrid and increasingly cross-media; and that an understanding of the processes of writing and reading 'contemporary classic' (or at least 'currently famous') fiction cannot be separated - yet must be distinguished - from the processes of making and marketing books and films." -- The Times Higher Education Supplement, May 31, 2002"An impressive entry into the field of Reader's Guides, (The Continuum Contemporaries), are valuable on two levels: for the individual reader who wants to enhance his understanding, and for the book discussion group leader it's like stumbling on a gold mine of useful information. In the hundreds of books we've discussed, this series stands alone as the most in-depth, challenging, and comprehensive Reader's Guides offered. They leave no stone unturned and turn up some you'd never have imagined. These slim volumes begin with a study of the author, moves to an analysis of the book itself, the issues and sub themes, comparative literature, the reception of the novel, some questions, a bibliography and recommended reading, and more. I would buy anything in this series again: it's that good." --SeniorNet.org/books"...a brilliant and succinct analysis of this many-faceted book....an ideal tool for those teaching modern literature...will send the reader back to the novel with his understanding and enjoyment enhanced." --K Beresford, Amazon.com, 11/4/01"...for the individual reader...it's like taking a Master Class; and for the book discussion group leader it's like stumbling on a gold mine of useful information....the most in-depth, challenging, and comprehensive Reader's Guide offered." --Ginny AndersTable of ContentsBiography of the novelist; analysis of the novel; reviews of the novel; the novel's standing today (TV, film, prizes, etc); further reading, discussion questions, websites.

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Book SynopsisFocusing on what it means to study English in higher education, this book guides students through key aspects of English Studies including major topics and approaches, subject-specific study skills and assessment, including seminar presentations, assignments, and exams.Trade Review"The Essential Guide to English Studies has an ambitious and challenging target - to introduce concisely what it is really like to study contemporary University English. I think it hits that target in ways which will be really helpful for any student thinking about doing an English degree. If you want to get a good grasp of the practical, material and intellectual conditions of reading degree-level English, I recommend reading it before going to University and then returning to it while there." - Chris Hopkins, Professor of English Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, UK "[a] well-thought out idea, identifying a need for a kind of book which does not currently exist, one which concentrates on introducing the practices of degree-level English. I thought the proposal showed a very good, down-to-earth sense of what a student might need to know. It would provide valuable support for English students... first year HE students would certainly find it useful", Chris Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam (author of u/g textbook - Thinking about Texts) * Blurb from reviewer *"should offer students a clear and orderly account of what skills will be required when undertaking a degree in English, and introduce some key concepts and tools which will be helpful for study. The author has the teaching experience and publishing record to speak authoritatively on these matters." Professor Robert White, University of Western Australia * Blurb from reviewer *Table of ContentsPart I: What, How, Where and Why?: A student's introduction; 1. What is English in Higher Education?; 2. How is HE English different from your studies so far?; 3. Where is English in the Curriculum?: English and other Subjects; 4. Why English Studies?; Part II: Developing Advanced Study Skills; 5. Reading; 6. Research; 7. Writing; 8. Note-taking, lectures, and revision; Part III: Making the grade: Handling Assessment; 9. Seminars/Presentations; 10. Close Textual Analysis; 11. Assignments; 12. Conclusion: Using the Examples of English Language and Creative Writing; Further Reading and Resources; Glossary; Index.

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Book Synopsis"The Great Gatsby" (1925) is a classic of modern American literature and is often seen as the quintessential novel of 'the jazz age'. This guide sets "The Great Gatsby" in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure. It includes points for discussion and suggestions for further study.Trade ReviewReview of student guide to Heart of Darkness by Nicholas Tredell: 'lively, scholarly and accessible' - The Year's Work in English Studies * Blurb from reviewer *Table of Contents1. Contexts; 2. Language, Style and Form; 3. Reading The Great Gatsby; 4. Critical Reception and Publishing History; 5. Adaptation, interpretation and influence; 6. Guide to Further Reading; Index.

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Book SynopsisHelene Cixous is among the most influential and original literary critics and feminist thinkers. This volume features a collection of pages from her writing notebooks, offering an insight into her radical thought and work. It ranges across the spectrum of Cixous' writing, including the concept of ecriture feminine.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Pages from Hélène Cixous's writing notebooks 'Magnetizing the world': an interview with Hélène Cixous Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisRoland Barthes (1915-1980) was a major French writer, literary theorist and critic of French culture and society. His classic works include Mythologies and Camera Lucida. This work in the Barthes canon offers a discussion of the language of literary criticism.Trade Review"'A remarkable account' Fredric Jameson 'Barthes outlines some key concerns: plurality of meanings; analysis, based on linguistics, of the structures of possible meanings; the idea of a science of literature; and the dynamics of reading... a lively and accessible statement of an important modern critical position that is worth reading.' Library Journal"Table of ContentsForeword; Preface to English-language edition; Criticism and Truth; Part I; Part II; Part III; Notes; Background notes Index.

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Book SynopsisA unique piece of practical criticism, a comprehensive ""poetics"" of a genre that has not attracted a great deal of attention, at least not on this level. It is a reader's and student's guide that reaches beyond issues of individual texts and historical traditions to essential features of the form.Trade ReviewIt will surely encourage readers to develop their ability to appreciate literary texts and to practice analytical and systematic reading. This is a valuable addition to literary studies." — Journal of Irish Studies

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Book SynopsisThe sinister “jungle” - that ill-defined and amorphous place where civilization has no foothold and survival is always in doubt - is the terrifying setting for countless works of the imagination. In Jungle Fever, Charlotte Rogers goes deep into five books that first defined the jungle as a violent and maddening place.Trade Reviewa stunningly erudite and insightful critical and historical interdisciplinary analysis"" - Hispania""Jungle Fever takes us on a fascinating excursion into the colonial and postcolonial tropics where we find Conrad and Malraux in the company of Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Luis Borges, and Wilson Harris - with many surprises lurking along the way."" - Vera Kutzinski, author of Against the American Grain""Jungle Fever isolates, in the novelistic subgenre of the jungle book, a deep strand involving disease, which is at the source of its creative impulse, and where these adventure novels carry out a compelling critique of modern imperialism. Cutting across the English, Latin American, and French traditions this book is a model of the comparative approach."" - Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature, Yale University, and author of Myth and Archive

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Book SynopsisThe series is performing an important service by providing fully annotated editions of Tudor humanists and playwrights in the original Tudor English, with glossaries and listing of textual variants and doubtful readings. COMPARATIVE DRAMA`A first-rate edition that substantially advances the cause of scholarship.' COMPARATIVE DRAMAFirst complete and fully annotated collection of John Heywood's plays in the original language. It makes possible a reevaluation ofhis remarkable achievement as actor-playwright and an appreciation of his lively contribution to the English language. In all their experimental variety the comedies are seen to have the stamp of an idiosyncratic, theatricalintelligence coupled with a surprising seriousness and Heywood emerges as a resourceful apologist for traditional Catholic doctrine in a time of Reformation. In arguing for a new chronology, the editors suggest that Henry VIII'sservant and entertainer was capable of refreshing irreverence and political daring. Contents: Witty and Witles, Johan Johan, The Pardoner and theFrere, The Foure PP, A Play of Love, The Play of the Wether. Notes.Appendices: Verses from a lost Play of Reason, Translation of .RICHARD AXTON is a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and University lecturer in English. PETER HAPPÉis the former Principal of Barton PeverilSixth-Form College.Trade ReviewD.S. Brewer's thoughtful series...takes into account, synthesizes and develops the various facts and theories advanced about particular plays over the last few decades. The introduction and notes are full, informative... This edition contributes valuably to the reassessment of a crucial period. REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIESPerhaps the most significant playwright of the early Tudor court...a splendid feat of scholarship that sets each play in its literary and historical contexts...helpful comments on staging possibilities... From this admirable edition one gains a real sense of the richness and diversity of court culture in the period. BRITISH STUDIES A first-rate edition that substantially advances the cause of scholarship. Cumulatively, the series is performing an important service by providing us with fully annotated editions of Tudor humanists and playwrights in the original Tudor English, with glossaries and listing of textual variants and doubtful readings. * COMPARATIVE DRAMA *Table of ContentsIntroduction - life and works; the plays; staging; sources; context; "Witty and Witless"; "Johan Johan"; "The Pardoner and the Frere"; "The Foure PP"; "A Play of Love"; "The Play of the Wether".

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Book SynopsisMargaret of Oingt was born around 1240 into a noble family in the French Beaujolais region, and became prioress of the Carthusian charterhouse of Poletains; visionary and mystic, her writings are intelligent and humorous. Includedhere are the Page of Meditations, on sin and salvation; the Mirror, a vision of Christ; the Life of the Virgin Saint Beatrice of Ornacieux, an exemplary text; and letters and stories, including comments on her problems as prioress. They are translated from the Latin and Francoprovencal with an introduction, notes, and interpretative essay. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is Chair, Department of French and Italian, and Professorof French, at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Book SynopsisEnglish devotional poets of 17c set in a wider European and Catholic context.This book offers a comprehensive account of the literary and theological background to English devotional poetry of the seventeenth century, concentrating on four major poets, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan and Crashaw. It challenges both Protestant poetics and postmodernism, the prevailing critical approaches to Renaissance literature: by reading the poetry in the light of continental Catholic devotional literature and theology, the author demonstrates that religious poetry in seventeenth-century England was not rigidly or exclusively Protestant in its doctrinal and liturgical orientation. He argues that poetic genres and devices that have been ascribed to strict Reformation influence are equally prominent in the Catholic poetry of Spain and France; he also shows that postmodernist anxiety about subjective identity and the capacity of language for signification is in fact a concern of such landmark Christian thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas, and appears in devotional poetry in the Christian tradition. Professor R.V. YOUNGteaches at North Carolina State University.Trade ReviewHighly intelligent and passionately written book. JOURNAL OF ENGLISH & GERMANIC PHILOLOGY Will send readers back with increased understanding to English devotional poetry. LITERATURE AND THEOLOGY Judicious, finely discriminating, and broadly informed by interdisciplinary excursions into theology and art. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEWS A welcome addition to scholarship. MLR A vigorous revision of the seventeenth-century religious lyric, and makes stimulating reading. An innovative and scholarly study that is likely to redraw the map for reading the seventeenth-century religious lyric. YEAR'S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES The best general book on England's great devotional poets [to be published] since the 1950's. * RELIGION & LITERATURE *Table of ContentsThe presence of grace in 17th-century poetry; meditation and sacrament in 17th-century poetry; biblical poetics in the 17th century.

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