The Catholic literary revival in America refers both to the impact of the modern resurgence in European Catholic thought and letters upon the American Church between 1920 and 1960, and to efforts by American Catholic educational and literary leaders to induce a similar flowering of Catholic life and culture in their own country. Arnold Sparr examines those areas of Catholic thought and culture that most concerned educated American Catholics, critics, and cultural leaders between 1920 and 1960: the renaissance in Catholic literary, theological, philosophical, and social thought; its application to modern economic, social, and intellectual problems; and the growth and development of the twentieth century Catholic novel. He contends that the movement had both intellectual and organizational aspects. It represented not only an awakening of American Catholics to their modern intellectual and cultural heritage, but a movement by a self-conscious American Catholic cultural community to realize its own share of modern Catholic thinkers, writers, and poets. Sparr maintains that American Catholic intellectual and cultural life between 1920 and 1960 was driven by three forces: to promote the intellectual standing of American Catholicism, to defend the Catholic faith and its adherents from detractors, and to redeem what was seen as a drifting and fragmented secular culture. He divides the book into three sections, each corresponding to separate phases of the American Catholic literary revival. "Organization and Development, 1920-1935" treats the socio-cultural antecedents of the revival and the self-conscious attempts of the revival's early Jesuit leaders to build a Catholic intellectual presencein America. Part two, "Transformation, 1935-1955," addresses the shift in Catholic revivalist thought from the confrontational literary-philosophical postures of the 1920s and early 1930s to more positive understandings of Catholic faith and practice. Finally, "Dissolution, the 1950s and After" chronicles the eclipse of the revival, resulting from a reactivation of the Catholic intellectualism issues, increasing concerns about professionalism within Catholic academia, and liberal Catholic association of the revival with so-called "ghetto culture." Parts one and two conclude with chapters on the American Catholic novel; the search for the Great American Catholic novel, an important element of the revival, provides an organization framework through which to summarize and assess major trends in the larger cultural movement. This new work will interest scholars and students of American Catholicism, the Catholic church in the 20th century, and cultural and religious historians.

Against a backdrop of contemporary social and sexual concerns, and potent fears surrounding the moral and physical 'degeneration' of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century society, "'The Cruel Madness of Love'" explores a critical period in the developing relationship between syphilis and insanity. General paralysis of the insane (GPI), the most commonly diagnosed of the neurosyphilitic disorders, has been devastating both in terms of its severity and incidence. Using the rich laboratory and asylum records of lowland Scotland as a case study, Gayle Davis examines the evolution of GPI as a disease category from a variety of perspectives: social, medical, and pathological. Through exploring case notes and the impact of new diagnostic techniques and therapies, such as the Wassermann Test and Malarial Therapy, the reader gains a unique insight into both patients and practitioners. Significant insights are gained into the socio-sexual background and medical experience of patients, as well as the clinical ideas and judgmental behaviour of the practitioners confronting this disease. "'The Cruel Madness of Love'" will be of interest to anyone wishing to explore the historical relationship between sexuality, morality and disease. Gayle Davis is a Wellcome Trust University Award Holder at the University of Edinburgh. She has published on various aspects of the social history of medicine and sexuality in twentieth-century Britain, and is undertaking a Wellcome-funded research project on the history of infertility in Scotland. She is reviews editor for History of Psychiatry.

In the summer of 1996 the first international conference was held on the medieval chronicle, a genre which until then had received but scant attention from historians or specialists in literary history or art history. There are several reasons why the chronicle is particularly suited as the topic of an international conference. In the first place there is its ubiquity: all over Europe and throughout the Middle Ages chronicles were written, both in Latin and in the vernacular, and not only in Europe but also in the countries neighbouring on it, like those of the Arabic world. Secondly, all chronicles raise such questions as by whom, for whom, or for what purpose were they written, how do they reconstruct the past, what determined the choice of verse or prose, or what kind of literary influences are discernable in them. Finally, many chronicles have been beautifully illuminated, and the relation between text and image leads to a wholly different set of questions. It is the aim of the present volume to provide a representative survey of the on-going research in the field of chronicle studies, illustrated by examples from specific chronicles from a wide variety of countries, periods and cultural backgrounds.

This book is a collection of my various writings over the past sixty years (1950 - 2010). The book features a number of essays ranging in topics from various pleas for action/outrage concerning inaction, to the philosophical, to the humorous. The second section of the book is a collection of my poems. Section three consists of two short stories. Section four is a collection of "Eight Word Wisdoms." These are bits of wisdom expressed in eight word sayings, which I have found to be thought-provoking or profound in their implications. The book is designed to be of interest especially to the scientific-minded skeptic/atheist, or freethinker, as well as those seeking to lead a more active or purposeful, and thereby more meaningful life.

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive syntactical picture of Singapore Mandarin and discusses the distinguishing characteristics of the Chinese language and especially Singapore Mandarin. As a variety of Mandarin Chinese, Singapore Mandarin is characterised by syntactic rules taking precedence over morphological rules. The first volume provides an overview of the grammar of Singapore Mandarin and argues that word order and functional words are specifically important in the study of Singapore Mandarin. It also explains the properties and functions of the nine grammatical components, including phrase types, word classes, sentences, subjects and predicates, predicates and objects, predicates and complements, attributes and adverbials, complex predicate phrases and prepositions and prepositional phrases. The second volume describes expressions of number, quantity, time and place and composite sentences, covering seven types of compound sentences, eight types of complex sentences and connective words with a focus on conjunctions. The concluding part of the study explores the characteristics of Singapore Mandarin grammar compared with Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua) and issues of language standardisation. With rich and authentic language examples, the book will serve as a must read for learners and teachers of Mandarin Chinese and linguistics scholars interested in global Chinese and especially Singapore Mandarin.

The author accounts for South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy from a rhetorical perspective. Based on an exhaustive analysis of hundreds of public statements made by South Africa's leaders from 1985 to the present, Moriarty shows how key constructions of the political scene paved the way for negotiations, elections, and national reconciliation. These rhetorical changes moved South Africa out of the realm of violent conflict and into one of rhetorical conflict, a democratic space in which the country could resolve its problems at the negotiating table and in the ballot box.

The pervading theme of this book is the construction and allocation of identity, especially through images and imagery. The essays analyse how the dominant social discourses and imageries construct identity or assign subject positions in relation to the categories of race, nation, region, gender and language. The volume is designed to inform the study of those categories in cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, literary studies, philosophy and history. Its coverage is geographically global, multidisciplinary, and theoretically eclectic, but also accessible. The authors include both established and rising scholars from historical, literary, media, gender and cultural studies. This innovative collection will appeal to all those who are interested in the mechanisms of constructing and evolving personal and group identities, in past and present.

"Greek Tragedy" sets ancient tragedy into its original theatrical, political and ritual context and applies modern critical approaches to understanding why tragedy continues to interest modern audiences.
An engaging introduction to Greek tragedy, its history, and its reception in the contemporary world with suggested readings for further study
Examines tragedy's relationship to democracy, religion, and myth
Explores contemporary approaches to scholarship, including structuralist, psychoanalytic, and feminist theory
Provides a thorough examination of contemporary performance practices
Includes detailed readings of selected plays

Originally published over 100 years ago, Roughing It was Mark Twain's second major work after the success of his 1869 travel book, Innocents Abroad. This time Twain travels through the wild west of America. With relentless good humor, Twain tells of his misfortunes during the quest to strike it rich by prospecting in the silver mines. Wonderfully entertaining, Twain successfully finds humor in spite of his mishaps while also giving the reader insight into that time and place of American history. Marvelously illustrated with numerous pictures.

Essays by a founder of the Borderland Foundation in East-Central Europe explore the meanings of community in a fractured world. How do we build civil society? How does a society repair itself after violence? How do we live in a world with others different from ourselves? These questions lie at the heart of Krzysztof Czyzewski's writing and his work with Fundacja Pogranicze, the Borderland Foundation, at the border of Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus. Writing from the heartland of Europe's violence and creativity, Czyzewski seeks to explain how we can relate better to each other and to our diverse communities. Building on examples of places and people in East-Central Europe, Czyzewski's essays offer readers concepts such as the invisible bridge, the nejmar (the bridge-builder), and the xenopolis (the city of others), which create community throughout the world. The three sections of the book-concepts, places, and practices-show how this cultural work bridges the divide between concepts and practices and offers a new map of Europe. Ultimately, Czyzewski hopes we can all move toward xenopolis, toward the understanding that others are, in fact, ourselves. This book offers an introduction to Czyzewski's work, with framing essays by specialists in Central and East European history.

The curiosity with which Europeans approached the New World was reflected in the writings of Italian historians, missionaries, travelers, and explorers, who described with fascination the customs of the peoples they encountered in their travels. In this study Stefania Buccini examines the representation of the Americas in Italian literature during the Age of the Enlightenment.

She begins by analyzing the motivations and circumstances behind the emergence of the myth of the "noble savage." Eighteenth-century Italy had a strong orientation toward the more "advanced" American societies of the Incas and the Aztecs, and these pre-Columbian civilizations became the preferred myth, dissociated from any notion of wildness and easily compatible with illuministic canons of progress. However, a new America--revolutionary and democratic, animated by noble principles of liberty and equality--was soon formed, onto which the old Europe projected its dreams of renewal. As the New World came to be associated with the English colonies, Benjamin Franklin, scientist, writer of political and moral works, and founder of the new republic, gained the stature of an illuministic myth in Italy.Buccini finds that the myths of the old and new Americas meshed and created a more complex image of the New World for the Italians.

Terry Castle's recent study of masquerade follows Bakhtin's analysis of the carnivalesque to conclude that, for women, masquerade offered exciting possibilities for social and sexual freedom. Castle's interpretation conforms to the fears expressed by male writers during the period--Addison, Steele, and Fielding all insisted that masquerade allowed women to usurp the privileges of men. Female authors, however, often mistrusted these claims, perceiving that masquerade's apparent freedoms were frequently nothing more than sophisticated forms of oppression.

Catherine Craft-Fairchild's work provides a useful corrective to Castle's treatment of masquerade. She argues that, in fictions by Aphra Behn, Mary Davys, Eliza Haywood, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Frances Burney, masquerade is double-sided. It is represented in some cases as a disempowering capitulation to patriarchal strictures that posit female subordination. Often within the same text, however, masquerade is also depicted as an empowering defiance of the dominant norms for female behavior. Heroines who attempt to separate themselves from the image of womanhood they consciously construct escape victimization. In both cases, masquerade is the condition of femininity: gender in the woman's novel is constructed rather than essential.

Craft-Fairchild examines the guises in which womanhood appears, analyzing the ways in which women writers both construct and deconstruct eighteenth-century cultural conceptions of femininity. She offers a careful and engaging textual analysis of both canonical and noncanonical eighteenth-century texts, thereby setting lesser-read fictions into a critical dialogue with more widely known novels. Detailed readings are informed throughout by the ideas of current feminist theorists, including Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Mary Ann Doane, and Kaja Silverman. Instead of assuming that fictions about women were based on biological fact, Craft-Fairchild stresses the opposite: the domestic novel itself constructs the domestic woman.

Many of the authors in this collection have never been assembled together before. They represent both black and white voices, of different cultural backgrounds, from the beginnings of American history through the Dawn of the Harlem Renaissance.

Until the late 1960s, the traditional American literary canon was segregated. Moreover, writings of widely anthologized authors rarely touched on race. Not until the 1980s did studies begin to reflect the multicultural diversity of the United States. Ironically, while mainstream anthologies became more inclusive and integrated, Afro-American literature collections concentrated on black authors excluded from the traditional Anglo-American canon.

From Bondage to Liberation attempts a literary and cultural bridge across the racial divide. This book represents new and important views, through the lens of Faith Berry's narratives, of such well-known figures as Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, and many others. It presents an unflinching, multifaceted examination of the literary history of race relations in the United States, and thereby gives us a better understanding of where we have come from spiritually, socially, and economically -- and where we may be going.

Our fear of the world ending, like our fear of the dark, is ancient, deep-seated and perennial. It crosses boundaries of space and time, recurs in all human communities and finds expression in every aspect of cultural production - from pre-historic cave paintings to high-tech computer games. This volume examines historical and imaginary scenarios of apocalypse, the depiction of its likely triggers, and imagined landscapes in the aftermath of global destruction. Its discussion moves effortlessly from classic novels including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, to blockbuster films such as Blade Runner, Armageddon and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Lisboa also takes into account religious doctrine, scientific research and the visual arts to create a penetrating, multi-disciplinary study that provides profound insight into one of Western culture's most fascinating and enduring preoccupations.

In 1993, Liz Tilberis had it all. Hired as editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar, she had moved to America with her husband and two small children and presided aver the dazzling relaunch of the magazine, instantly becoming one of the most prominent figures in international media and fashion circles. Then, all at once, the rug was pulled out from under her. On the eve of her holiday party, whose guests included fashion designers such as Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein, Tilberis was diagnosed with third-stage ovarian cancer.

Nearly four years later, Tilberis is alive and well -- a survivor. In No Time to Die, she gives us an extraordinary account of her career in high fashion, as well as the remarkable story of her battle with cancer. From her first job as an assistant at British Vogue to her big break -- crossing the Atlantic to revitalize Harper's Bazaar -- Tilberis brings to life nearly thirty years at the heart of one of the world's hottest industries. And when illness struck just as she'd achieved her greatest triumph, the same exuberance and audacity that had fueled her brilliant career helped her beat the odds. Tilberis believes her cancer was caused by the fertility drugs she took years ago -- and that she survived only because she sought out a promising but risky experimental treatment.

With its fascinating inside look at the fashion world and gripping medical drama, No Time to Die is a mesmerizing read.

This book reads messianic expectation as the defining characteristic of German culture in the first decades of the twentieth century. It has long been accepted that the Expressionist movement in Germany was infused with a thoroughly messianic strain. Here, with unprecedented detail and focus, that strain is traced through the work of four important Expressionist playwrights: Ernst Barlach, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller and Franz Werfel. Moreover, these dramatists are brought into new and sustained dialogues with the theorists and philosophers of messianism who were their contemporaries: Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen, Gershom Scholem. In arguing, for example, that concepts like Bloch's utopian self-encounter ("Selbstbegegnung") and Benjamin's messianic now-time ("Jetztzeit") reappear as the framework for Expressionism's staging of collective redemption in a new age, Anderson forges a previously underappreciated link in the study of Central European thought in the early twentieth century.