In Mexico, the confluence of the 1992 Quincentennial commemoration of Columbus's voyages and the neo-liberal "sexenio," or presidency, of Carlos Salinas de Gortari spurred artistic creations that capture the decade like no other source does. In the 1990s, Mexican artists produced an inordinate number of works that revise and rewrite the events of the sixteenth-century conquest and colonization. These works and their relationship to, indeed their mirroring of, the intellectual and cultural atmosphere in Mexico during the Salinas presidency are of paramount importance if we are to understand the subtle but deep shifts within Mexico's national identity that took place at the end of the last century.

Throughout the twentieth century, the post-revolutionary Mexican State had used "mestizaje" as a symbol of national unity and social integration. By the end of the millennium, however, Mexico had gone from a PRI-dominated, economically protectionist nation to a more democratic, economically globalizing one. More importantly, the homogenizing, mestizophile national identity that pervaded Mexico throughout the past century had given way to official admission of Mexico's ethnic and linguistic diversity--or 'pluriculture' according to President Salinas's 1992 constitutional revision.

This book is the first interdisciplinary study of literary, cinematic, and graphic images of Mexican national identity in the 1980s and '90s. Discussing, in depth, writings, films, and cartoons from a vast array of contemporary sources, Carrie C. Chorba creates a social history of this important shift.

This book explores stylistic techniques that interweave different viewpoints in Modernist fiction. Consciousness was a central concern of the Modernist novel and there has been a strong critical interest in the techniques of its presentation. Critics are aware of the Modernist practice of refracting narratives through the consciousness of numerous characters, but while narratologists as well as stylisticians have studied the linguistic indices of narrative viewpoint, the linguistic mechanics of shifts across different characters' minds or across character's and narrator's voices have remained unexplored. This book offers the first stylistic analysis of the linguistic evidence and shows that the implications of such practices far exceed the attempt to simply juxtapose different characters' viewpoints and thereby interpret the narrative world through different perspectives; rather than simply co-existing in the tissue of the narrative, the viewpoints of D.H. Lawrence's and Virginia Woolf's characters are interconnected in dialogue that occurs at the interstices of viewpoint shifts. This is significant because it impacts on the very discourse of the novel itself as a genre, i.e. its dialogicity. James Joyce's rendering of consciousness intersects the voices of character and narrator, and this in turn implicates the reader in the construction of meaning. The identification of dialogic techniques in the presentation of consciousness serves to question a long accepted belief that the novel of consciousness is a novel of fragmentation and occlusion. Instead, the dialogic Modernism identified here suggests a more deliberate concern on the part of writers to engage directly with the philosophical questions of self and other that were being explored, in a very different format, by Heidegger, Bergson and Buber.

This study analyzes the pervasive rhetoric of victimhood in European culture since 1968. In a radically fragmented public sphere, individuals perceive themselves as dissociated from all others, while at the same time they feel similar to everyone else. Where genuine solidarity and communality is attenuated, people present themselves as victims to garner media attention, create fragile social bonds, or escape supposed marginalization and oppression. Fatima Naqvi commences with interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, arguing that contemporary discourse continues a trajectory mapped in the early 20th century--in the shadow of Nazism. In a series of paradigmatic readings of Rene Girard, Peter Sloterdijk, Michael Haneke, Anselm Kiefer, Christoph Ransmayr, Friederike Mayrocker, Michel Houellebecq, Giorgio Agamben, and Elfriede Jelinek, she traces the on-going fascination with victimhood and the desire for victim status in the West. She looks at the way in which such cultural anxiety expresses itself; at how victim rhetoric calls itself into question; and, finally, at how it perpetuates itself in the moment that it becomes philosophically ungrounded.

The controversial British writer Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) is increasingly recognized as a major presence in early twentieth-century literature. This series of International Ford Madox Ford Studies was founded to reflect the recent resurgence of interest in him. Each volume is based upon a particular theme or issue; and relates aspects of Ford's work, life, and contacts, to broader concerns of his time. The present book is part of a large-scale reassessment of his roles in literary history. Ford is best-known for his fiction, especially "The Good Soldier," long considered a modernist masterpiece; and "Parade's End," which Anthony Burgess described as 'the finest novel about the First World War'; and Samuel Hynes has called 'the greatest war novel ever written by an Englishman'. In these, as in most of his books, Ford renders and analyses the crucial transformations in modern society and culture. One of the most striking features of his career is his close involvement with so many of the major international literary groupings of his time. In the South-East of England at the "fin-de-siecle," he collaborated for a decade with Joseph Conrad, and befriended Henry James and H. G. Wells. In Edwardian London he founded the "English Review," publishing these writers alongside his new discoveries, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, and Wyndham Lewis. After the war he moved to France, founding the "transatlantic review" in Paris, taking on Hemingway as a sub-editor, discovering another generation of Modernists such as Jean Rhys and Basil Bunting, and publishing them alongside Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Besides his role as contributor and enabler to various versions of Modernism, Ford was also one of its most entertaining chroniclers. This volume includes twelve new essays on Ford's engagement with the literary networks and cultural shifts of his era, by leading experts and younger scholars of Ford and Modernism. Two of the essays are by well-known creative writers: the novelist Colm Toibin, and the novelist and cultural commentator Zinovy Zinik.

A Backward Glance is Edith Wharton's vivid account of both her public and her private life. With richness and delicacy, it describes the sophisticated New York society in which Wharton spent her youth, and chronicles her travels throughout Europe and her literary success as an adult. Beautifully depicted are her friendships with many of the most celebrated artists and writers of her day, including her close friend Henry James.

In his introduction to this edition, Louis Auchincloss calls the writing in A Backward Glance "as firm and crisp and lucid as in the best of her novels." It is a memoir that will charm and fascinate all readers of Wharton's fiction.

This book concerns the significance of the English Channel in British and French literature from the 1780s onwards: a timely subject given the intense debates in progress about the actual and desired relationships between Britain and mainland Europe. The book addresses contemporary authors who use the Channel as a focus for cultural comment, comparing their approaches to those of earlier writers, from Charlotte Smith and Chateaubriand through Hugo and Dickens to historians and travel writers of the 1950s and 1980s.

In Artistic Reconfigurations of Rome Kaspar Thormod examines how visions of Rome manifest themselves in artworks produced by international artists who have stayed at the city's foreign academies. Structured as an alternative guide to Rome, the book represents an interdisciplinary approach to creating a dynamic visual history that brings into view facets of the city's diverse contemporary character. Thormod demonstrates that when artists successfully reconfigure Rome they provide us with visions that, being anchored in a present, undermine the connotations of permanence and immovability that cling to the 'Eternal City' epithet. Looking at the work of these artists, the reader is invited to engage critically with the question: what is Rome today? - or perhaps better: what can Rome be?

James Joyce was one do the most influential modernists of the 20th century - famous for developing the 'stream of consciousness' technique in writing. In a millennial survey, "Ulysses" was voted the most popular novel of the century. The "Preface Books" series approaches the work of Joyce from a particular perspective which, by introducing the writer via a biographical sketch and a survey of his cultural and social context, encourages readers to understand his work in the period it was written. Sydney bolt's A Preface to Joyce provides a fascinating account of one of the greatest twentieth-century writers and will be essential reading for anyone interested in reading the works of Joyce.

Chuvash-born poet Gennady Aygi (1934-2006) is considered the father of late-Soviet avant-garde Russian poetry. This first full-length critical study of his work and poetics in any language brings a new voice into the critical conversation of twentieth-century poetry of witness. It charts the development of Aygi's poetics from his Mayakovsky-inspired verses as a student under the tutelage of Boris Pasternak, to those of a full-fledged poet's poet, drawing equally on the Russian poetic and religious tradition, European literature and philosophy, and Chuvash literature, folk culture, and cosmology. Writing from 1955 until his death in 2006, Aygi bridges the Soviet and post-Soviet, lyrical and avant-garde, personal and political. The transcultural roots and global reach of his work bring together Chuvash, Russian, European, and Volga Tatar languages and traditions to form a truly unique transnational poetics and a model for a new category of Russophone literature.

To many, Edward Said's seminal 1978 work Orientalism is an enduring touchstone, a founding text of the field of postcolonial studies and a book that continues to influence debates in literary and cultural studies, Middle Eastern Studies, anthropology, art history, history and politics. To others, however, Orientalism has serious failings, not least in blaming the wrong people - namely, Orientalists - for the crimes of European imperialism. Debating Orientalism addresses the book's contemporary relevance without lionizing or demonizing its author. Bridging the gap between intellectual history and political engagement, the twelve contributors to this volume interrogate Orientalism's legacy with a view to moving the debate about this text beyond the manichean limitations within which it has all too often been imprisoned. Debating Orientalism seeks to consider Orientalism's implications with a little less feeling, though no less commitment to understanding the value and political effects of engaged scholarship.

Widely recommended, this guide to Conrad offers a vivid and incisive account of his life and literary career, and gives detailed attention to the contexts, themes, problems and paradoxes of his works.

'Longman Preface books are intended to give "modern and authoritative guidance" on the lives and works of the major writers ... Gamini Salgado's A Preface to Lawrence does just that.' Times Educational Supplement D. H. Lawrence, criticised, censored and dismissed in his lifetime, now stands as one of the major imaginative novelists of the early twentieth-century. Clear, vivid and convincing, Gamini Salgado's introduction to the life and works of D H Lawrence, sets the writer firmly in the context of his times and: * outlines his life and intellectual background, and their effect on his writing * looks in detail at many of Lawrence's works, including Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, his shorter fiction, poetry and plays * examines Lawrence as a literary critic * covers important people and places in Lawrence's life and their effect on him Gamini Salgado was formerly Professor of English at Exeter University. His works include a book on Sons and Lovers (Arnold), an anthology of critisism of it (Macmillan) and a number of studies of drama and prose literature.

T. S. Eliot is arguably the most influential poet of the 20th century, and "The Waste Land" one of its most significant poems. This introduction to the life and works of T.S. Eliot sets his writing clearly in the context of his times. Outlining his life and cultural background and their effect on his work, Ronald Tamplin examines his poetry and focuses in detail on three major works: "The Waste Land," "Four Quartets "and the play, "Murder in the Cathedral."

Lively, informed and thorough, this survey of the life and works of Graham Greene opens with a biographical account setting the writer in context of his times and describing and exploring the influences, tensions and contradictions that occur throughout his work. The second half of the book devotes itself to the 'art of Greene' discussing his writing techniques, recurring themes, and imaginative preoccupations. Within this section thorough critical analyses are given of three works: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and the film, The Third Man. The book concludes with a reference section which comprises a gazeteer, a biographical list and a bibliography. Suggestions for further reading and a list of films encourage the student to explore the works of Greene more widely.

Traditional critics of film adaptation generally assumed a) that the written text is better than the film adaptation because the plot is more intricate and the language richer when pictorial images do not intrude; b) that films are better when particularly faithful to the original; c) that authors do not make good script writers and should not sully their imagination by writing film scripts; d) and often that American films lack the complexity of authored texts because they are sourced out of Hollywood. The 'faithfulness' view has by and large disappeared, and intertextuality is now a generally received notion, but the field still lacks studies with a postmodern methodology and lens.Exploring Hollywood feature films as well as small studio productions, Adaptation Theory and Criticism explores the intertextuality of a dozen films through a series of case studies introduced through discussions of postmodern methodology and practice. Providing the reader with informative background on theories of film adaptation as well as carefully articulated postmodern methodology and issues, Gordon Slethaug includes several case studies of major Hollywood productions and small studio films, some of which have been discussed before ("Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York," and "Do the Right Thing") and some that have received lesser consideration ("Six Degrees of Separation, Smoke, Smoke""Signals, Broken Flowers," and various Snow White narratives including "Enchanted, Mirror Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman"). Useful for both film and literary studies students, Adaptation Theory and Criticism cogently combines the existing scholarship and uses previous theories to engage readers to think about the current state of American literature and film.

Considers the Indian periodical press as a key forum for the production of nationalist rhetoric. It argues that between the 1870s and 1910, the press was the place in which the notion of 'the public' circulated and where an expansive middle class, and even larger reading audience, was persuaded into believing it had force.

Gene A. Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. Drama of and about the Holocaust can be staged worldwide, thereby introducing the Shoah to diverse audiences. Moreover, theatre affects audiences emotionally, subliminally, or intellectually (sometimes simultaneously) in a direct way that many other art forms cannot match. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays - some quite well-known, others more obscure - that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis.

This volume is a selection of significant and previously unpublished essays and short stories by the influential critic of German and American literature and popular culture, James A. Snead. The volume contains innovative essays and notes about African American popular culture, literary criticism and five pieces of short fiction. Published posthumously, the volume attests to Snead's unique intellectual commitment to a critical engagement with the interconnections between European and African American cultural formations.

Exploring the relationship between discourses of cultural hybridity and projects for social equality, The Caribbean Postcolonial reveals a far greater diversity of political and aesthetic practices of cultural hybridity than has been generally recognized in postcolonial and cultural studies. It uncovers the logics according to which some forms of hybridity are enshrined and others disavowed in the Caribbean imagination and in the disciplinary imagination of postcolonial studies. Exploring cultural formations ranging from mestizaje and creolization to mulatto and dougla aesthetics, from literature to music, theater, Hosay, and carnival, it examines the sources of the appeal of cultural hybridity for both nationalist and postnationalist agendas. The first book-length study to offer an explicitly comparative account of cultural hybridity in the postcolonial arena, The Caribbean Postcolonial is a forceful argument for historicizing theory. It intervenes in key debates around popular agency and cultural resistance, feminism and cultural nationalism, the relations between postmodernism and postcolonialism, and the status of nationalism in an era of globalization.

Women, Crime and Language examines the relationships between discourses of crime and gender: how women are represented in fiction and reportage, and how they have represented themselves. Frances Gray explores a number of high-profile cases from the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 to the Children's Home scandals of the present day, in which women have been featured as victims, perpetrators or investigators. The author tracks the representation of women through detective stories, plays and novels.

Ford Madox Ford is a major modernist writer, yet many of his works do not conform to our assumptions about modernism. Examining ways in which he, alongside other 'misfit moderns', undermines 'stabilities' we expect from novels and memoirs, this book poses questions about the nature of narrative and the distinction between modernism and modernity.

Joyce's art is an art of idiosyncratic transformation, revision and recycling. More specifically, the work of his art lies in the act of creative transformation: the art of the paste that echoes Ezra Pound's urge to make it new. The essays in this volume examine various modalities of the Joycean aesthetic metamorphosis: be it through the prism of Joyce engaging with other arts and artists, or through the prism of other arts and artists engaging with the Joycean aftermath. We have chosen the essays that best show the range of Joycean engagement with multiple artistic domains in a variety of media. Joyce's art is multiform and protean: influenced by many, it influences many others.

Among the first critical works on Alice Munro's writing, this study of her short fiction is informed by the disciplines of narratology and literary linguistics. Through an examination of Munro's narrative art, Isla Duncan demonstrates a rich understanding of the complex, densely layered, often unsettling stories.