"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

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.

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.

Bringing together an international and diverse group of scholars, Tuning in to the neo-avant-garde offers the first in-depth study of the radio medium's significance as a site of artistic experimentation for the literary neo-avant-garde in the postwar period. Covering radio works from the 1950s until the 2010s, the collection charts how artists across the UK, Europe and North America continued as well as reacted to the legacies of the historical avant-garde and modernism, operating within different national broadcasting contexts, by placing radio in an intermedial dialogue with prose, poetry, theatre, music and film. In doing so, the volume explores a wide variety of acoustic genres - radio play, feature, electroacoustic music, radiophonic poem, radio opera - to show that the medium deserves to occupy a more central place than it currently does in studies of literature, (inter)media(lity) and the (neo-)avant-garde. -- .

This book investigates the ways in which Charles Dickens's mature fiction, prison novels of the twentieth century, and prison films narrate the prison. To begin with, this study illustrates how fictional narratives occasionally depart from the realities of prison life, and interprets these narrations of the prison against the foil of historical analyses of the experience of imprisonment in Britain and America. Second, this book addresses the significance of prison metaphors in novels and films, and uses them as starting points for new interpretations of the narratives of its corpus. Finally, this study investigates the ideological underpinnings of prison narratives by addressing the question of whether they generate cultural understandings of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the prison. While Dickens's mature fiction primarily represents the prison experience in terms of the unjust suffering of many sympathetic inmates, prison narratives of the twentieth century tend to focus on one newcomer who is sent to prison because he committed a trivial crime and then suffers under a brutal system. And while the fate of this unique character is represented as being terrible and unjust, the attitude towards the mass of ordinary prisoners is complicit with the common view that 'real' criminals have to be imprisoned. Such prison narratives invite us to sympathize with the quasi-innocent prisoner-hero but do not allow us to empathize with the 'deviant' rest of the prison population and thus implicitly sanction the existence of prisons. These delimitations are linked to wider cultural demarcations: the newcomer is typically a member of the white, male, and heterosexual middle class, and has to go through a process of symbolic 'feminization' in prison that threatens his masculinity (violent and sadistic guards, 'homosexual' rapes and time in the 'hole' normally play an important role). The ill-treatment of this prisoner-hero is then usually countered by means of his escape so that the manliness of our hero and, by extension, the phallic power of the white middle class are restored. Such narratives do not address the actual situation in British and American prisons. Rather, they primarily present us with stories about the unjust victimization of 'innocent' members of the white and heterosexual middle class, and they additionally code coloured and homosexual inmates as 'real' criminals who belong where they are. Furthermore, Dickens's mature fiction focuses on 'negative' metaphors of imprisonment that describe the prison as a tomb, a cage, or in terms of hell. By means of these metaphors, which highlight the inmates' agony, Dickens condemns the prison system as such. Twentieth-century narratives, on the other hand, only critique discipline-based institutions but argue in favour of rehabilitative penal styles. More specifically, they describe the former by using 'negative' metaphors and the latter through positive ones that invite us to see the prison as a womb, a matrix of spiritual rebirth, a catalyst of intense friendship or as an 'academy'. Prison narratives of the twentieth century suggest that society primarily needs such reformative prisons for coloured and homosexual inmates.

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.

We all know the colonial and stereotypical images of the African continent and of the people living there. Especially older comics such as The Adventures of Tintin or Mickey Mouse have taken up the image of the “untamed” continent with its “wild” inhabitants. Moreover, modern superhero comics mirror the western view of Africa.

What about the African point of view, though? The true African comic?

The editors of this catalogue present a wide range of African comics: superhero and underground comics as well as comics with propaganda content or an educational focus.

Australian poetry is popularly conceived as a tradition founded by the wry, secular and stoic strains of its late-nineteenth-century bush balladeers Adam Lindsay Gordon, Henry Lawson and 'Banjo' Paterson, consolidated into a land-based 'vigour' in publications such as the Bulletin. Yet this popular conception relies on not actually consulting the poetry itself, which for well over one hundred and fifty years has been cerebral, introspective, feminine and highly - even experimentally - religious. Western Christian mystics and Western Christian mystical poets of the classical world, Middle Ages and modern era have been sources of inspiration, influence and correspondence for Australian poets since the writings of Charles Harpur (1813-1868), but there have also been ongoing debates as to how mysticism might be defined, whom its true exemplars might be, and whether poets should be considered mystical authorities. This book dedicates whole chapters to five Australian Christian mystical poets: Ada Cambridge (1864-1926), John Shaw Neilson (1872-1943), Francis Webb (1925-1973), Judith Wright (1915-2000) and Kevin Hart (1954 - ), with additional contextual chapters on their contemporaries and new approaches by Aboriginal poets since the early 1990s. Scholars and students are increasingly disregarding the popular 'bush' facade and reading Australian poetry in terms of the sacred, the philosophical, the contemplative and the transcendent. At a national level this can be traced back to the post-war and 1970s generations of poets and readers who rejected the safe old bush myths for a more relentless interrogation of Australian origins, environments and metaphysics. Yet internationally, as among the general Australian public, the very idea of an Australian Christian mystical poetry seems incongruous with a metaphysically weak bush tradition which asks very little of them. This book casts Australian poetry in a new light by showing how Australian Christian mystical poetics can be found in every era of Australian letters, how literary hostilities towards women poets, eroticism and contemplation served to stifle a critical appreciation of mystical poetics until recent decades, and how in the twentieth century one Australian Christian mystical poet began to influence another and share their appreciations of Dante, Donne, Traherne, Blake, Wordsworth, Bronte, Rossetti, Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot and Lowell. Despite parallel international works on British, American and European Christian mystical poets, there has never been a book-length exploration of Australian Christian mystical poets or poetics. This study draws upon eight years of research to not only consider debates around Christian mysticism during the lives of its selected poets, but to also frame its argument in terms of the twenty-first-century Christian mysticism scholarship of Kevin Hart, Amy Hollywood, Ursula King and Bernard McGinn's seminal multi-volume history of Western Christian mysticism, The Presence of God. Simultaneously, Australian literary criticism of the relevant eras as well as in the present are explicitly engaged throughout. This book is a rigorous work of original scholarship which will significantly impact future discussions on the possibilities of Australian literature.

Set in the French countryside of George Sand's childhood and narrated in the unique voice of a Berrichon peasant, La Petite Fadette is a beloved 1848 novel about identical twin brothers and Fadette, the mysterious waif with whom they both fall in love. The brothers, Landry and Sylvinet, belong to a highly respected farm family. When young Landry meets Fadette, whose very name suggests that she is a witch, he is captivated by the girl despite her lowly status and disreputable family. Sylvinet soon follows suit. Fadette's relationship with the twins defies the patriarchal norms of French society as well as the expectations of the village, resulting in a tale of love, courage, and clever strategy winning out over superstition and prejudice. Often regarded as a simple country tale, Sand's novel is layered with meaning, including subtle nods to the burgeoning desire for political and sexual equality in nineteenth-century France. This thoughtful critical translation by Gretchen van Slyke brings the complexity of the original story to life. Her introduction explores the autobiographical and political dimensions of the novel, and her translation preserves the rustic charm and archaic flavor of Sand's language. An invaluable contribution to French literary studies and nineteenth-century literature studies, this new edition ensures that La Petite Fadette will be read by generations to come.

If novelist Paul Mark Scott (1920-1978) has secured a niche in English literature, it is on the merits of his Raj Quartet and its sequel, Staying On, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1977. Yet by the time he had published The Jewel in the Crown in 1966, he had supported his family on his writing for six years, worked as a literary advisor for several publishers, routinely written book reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and Country Life, and published eight novels. Scott's literary reputation was already considerable when, at the age of 44, he embarked on The Raj Quartet that would take up the last fourteen years of his life-a masterpiece that reinterpreted the major events of his generation and challenged his contemporaries to face the legacy of their past. Beginning in 1964, Scott negotiated with the Harry Ransom Research Center at The University of Texas-Austin for the purchase of his manuscripts. Later, when he was teaching creative writing at the University of Tulsa in 1976, he arranged to sell his letters to the archives at McFarlin Library. Many years after his death, David Higham Associates (the literary agency for which Scott worked from 1950-1960 and which acted as Scott's own agent until his death in 1978) sold archival materials to the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas-Austin. Only a limited amount of material from McFarlin's Paul Scott Collection has been published to date. The David Higham Collection has not been systematically used until now. Together, the Tulsa and Austin Collections involve many thousands of Scott's professional and personal letters, to a large degree untapped by scholars of literature. In this two-volume collection, Janis Haswell makes available to the reading public for the first time several hundred letters from the Tulsa and Austin archives, as well as dozens of private letters to daughters Carol and Sally Scott. Scott's letters never disappoint. They are intriguing, well-penned and (in most cases) well-preserved in carbon form by Scott himself. They explore in depth and detail available nowhere else his view of the themes and structure of his novels; his experience and views of India; his dealings with publishers, agents, critics, readers, and writer friends (the likes of Muriel Spark, Gabriel Fielding, M. M. Kaye); his role as an agent and influential reviewer of fiction; his trials in supporting himself and family as a freelancer; his experience as a teacher in the United States; and his love and loyalty to family and friends.

How was the concept of 'personality' perceived in (late-imperial) China? Re-constructing the main features describing the individual, this volume, firmly based in textual sources, is a reflection on personality and its attributes in China. It discusses terms that express the propensity, inclinations, predispositions, and temperament of subjects, departing from the descriptions that represent one's and the other's self, as well as terms that describe or label a person's main qualities or defects. As judgments contribute to formulate the image of ourselves and others, when talking of personality not only individual characters (biological traits, cultural basis, innate and acquired traits and habits) are looked into, but also social values and collective mentality, as well as individual and group subjectivity.

If anything is certain in human existence, it is the exit. Before the universal yet radically singular event of death, however, history leaves its mark on us by determining which exits are possible, necessary or desirable. This collection of essays, which celebrates the achievement of the Swedish Africanist and postcolonial scholar Raoul Granqvist, deal with the broad theme of exit - in the form of exile, displacement, suicide, endings and, indeed, beginnings. After all, "In my end is my beginning" (T.S. Eliot). Childhood as exit rite in contemporary African literature (Camara Laye's "L'Enfant Noir "and Ishmael Beah's "Long Way Gone"); the Cameroonian director Jean Pierre Bekolo's controversial film "Les Saignantes"; an early play by Wole Soyinka; Ghana during the First World War; Zakes Mda's "Cion"; proto-nationalist writing on the Gold Coast; passing in Zoe Wicomb's "Playing in the Light"; the exile of South African and Caribbean writers; translation theory in the global South; public representations of Africans in north-east Bavaria; oral poetry in rural England; Fred Wah's Swedish-Chinese background in twentieth-century Canada; Toni Morrison's "Beloved" and infanticide; the open endings of the poetry of Paul Muldoon; the suicide of Virginia Woolf; the viability of global environmental policies - these are some of the topics that this book, in defiance of neat disciplinary boundaries, addresses. The closing section, "Voicing the Exit," transcends the academic format with its evocative literary representations of the experience of exit (in Tanzania, Uganda, Ukrainian Canada and elsewhere).

This bundle consists of the following books: Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Textbook Level 2, 2nd edition (9781138101135) Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Workbook Level 2, 2nd edition (9781138101166) Modern Mandarin Chinese is a two-year undergraduate course for students with no prior background in Chinese study. Designed to build a strong foundation in both the spoken and written language, it develops all the basic skills such as pronunciation, character writing, word use, and structures, while placing a strong emphasis on the development of communicative skills. The complete course consists of the following books: Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Textbook Level 1 Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Workbook Level 1 Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Textbook Level 2 Modern Mandarin Chinese: The Routledge Course Workbook Level 2 Each level of the course consists of a textbook and workbook in simplified Chinese. A free companion website provides all the audio for the course with a broad range of interactive exercises and additional resources for students' self-study, along with a comprehensive instructor's guide with teaching tips, assessment and homework material, and a full answer key. Retaining its focus on communicative skills and the long-term retention of characters, the text is now presented in simplified characters and pinyin from the outset with a gradual and phased removal of pinyin as specific characters are introduced and learnt. This unique approach allows students to benefit from the support of pinyin in the initial stages as they begin speaking while ensuring they are guided and supported towards reading only in characters.