This collection represents some of the best recent critical writing on Edmund Spenser, a major Renaissance English poet. The essays cover the whole of Spensers work, from early literary experiments such as The Shepeardes Calendar, to his unfinished crowning work,The Fairie Queene. The introduction provides an overview of critical responses to Spenser, setting his work and the debates which it has generated in their perspective contexts: new historicist, post-structural, psychoanalytic and feminist. His study also covers the critical responses of leading British, Irish and American scholars.

Over the last thirty years, feminist, postcolonial and queer theorists have interrogated the ways in which sexuality is conceptualized and constructed, specifically with the intention of deconstructing essentialist notions of sexuality and identity formation. Yet, while recent theoretical interventions have re-situated sexuality as a historical and social category--allowing us to see how ideas about sexuality are linked to forms of power and other hegemonic categories of identity and subjectivity like class, race, gender and nationality--sexuality remains a contentious subject. In critically examining the plural representations of sexuality in contemporary literature, this book has a distinctly global emphasis, containing essays that interrogate sexuality in the work of not only a number of mainstream American and British writers but also less well-known writers from New Zealand and Canada. All of the chapters owe primary intellectual and theoretical debts to three broad and overlapping domains of critical scholarship and practice: feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies. As the first critical collection of essays to consider the representation of sexuality across such a wide variety of contemporary writing, Sexuality and Contemporary Literature analytically foregrounds insights into the historical and current arrangements of sexuality that contemporary literature provides, while also inviting the reader to imagine other possibilities for the future that literary texts open up. Sexuality and Contemporary Literature is an important book for literary and cultural studies collections.

"On the whole, the volume reads like a cohesive book ... and maintains a high standard of scholarship throughout. Investigators of Russian literary demonism in the future will surely want to consult this excellent work." . The Russian Review

..". this collection displays a degree of mutual collaboration, as well as a consistently high quality, that surpasses that of most collections of essays ... it has much to praise and little to fault." . Slavic Review

"It will become a valuable reference for undergraduates and postgraduates in the Slavic and Comparative Literature fields." . Australian and East European Studies

"The scholarly excellence of individual contributions and the high standard that marks the constituent articles without exception ... this volume is well thought out in conception and every effort appears to have been made by the editor to give it methodological cohesion. No doubt will it become a valuable reference for undergraduates and postgraduates in Slavic and Comparative Literature fields." . Australian Slavonic and East European Studies

Merezhkovsky's bold claim that "all Russian literature is, to a certain degree, a struggle with the temptation of demonism" is undoubtedly justified. And yet, despite its evident centrality to Russian culture, the unique and fascinating phenomenon of Russian literary demonism has so far received little critical attention. This substantial collection fills the gap. A comprehensive analytical introduction by the editor is follwed by a series of fourteen essays, written by eminent scholars in their fields. The first part explores the main shaping contexts of literary demonism: the Russian Orthodox and folk tradition, the demonization of historical figures, and views of art as intrinsically demonic. The second part traces the development of a literary tradition of demonism in the works of authors ranging from Pushkin and Lermontov, Gogol and Dostoevsky, through to the poets and prose writers of modernism (including Blok, Akhmatova, Bely, Sologub, Rozanov, Zamiatin), and through to the end of the 20th century.

Pamela Davidson is Professor of Russian Literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College, London.

Born to a tobacco farmer in rural North Carolina, Kaye Gibbons found her literary voice by speaking through the strong southern women who inhabit her novels. While concentrating on the places and people she knows well, Gibbons has managed to speak for people who struggle to find their own place, wherever they are, and her books have reached a worldwide audience. Whether for students assigned to read "Ellen Foster" or for lovers of literature, this companion--the first and only book-length study of its kind--provides insights and interpretations that will help readers enjoy and better appreciate the novels of Kaye Gibbons.

Beginning with a biographical chapter, this companion shows how Gibbons's own life came to shape her fiction. Her place in and contributions to the genre of the southern novel are considered, and readers are taken through each of her six novels, starting with the highly acclaimed "Ellen Foster" (1987) and concluding with "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon" (1998). For each work, lucid analyses of plot, character development, theme, and style are provided, along with an alternate critical perspective. The select bibliography includes reviews and further information on biographical and critical sources.

Wherever vampires existed in the imaginations of different peoples, they adapted themselves to the customs of the local culture. As a result, vampire lore is extremely diverse. So too, representations of the vampire in creative works have been marked by much originality. In "The Vampyre" (1819), John Polidori introduced Lord Ruthven and established the vampire craze of the 19th century that resulted in a flood of German vampire poetry, French vampire drama, and British vampire fiction. This tradition culminated in Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897), which fixed the character of the Transylvanian nobleman as the archetypal vampire firmly in the public imagination. Numerous films drew from Stoker's novel to varying degrees, with each emphasizing different elements of his vampire character. And more recent writers have created works in which vampirism is used to explore contemporary social concerns.

The contributors to this volume discuss representations of the vampire in fiction, folklore, film, and popular culture. The first section includes chapters on Stoker and his works, with attention to such figures as Oscar Wilde and Edvard Munch. The second section explores the vampire in film and popular culture from Bela Lugosi to "Blacula." The volume then looks at such modern writers as Anne Rice and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro who have adapted the vampire legend to meet their artistic needs. A final section studies contemporary issues, such as vampirism as a metaphor for AIDS in ""Killing Zoe."

Digital Humanities is rapidly evolving as a significant approach to/method of teaching, learning and research across the humanities. This is a first-stop book for people interested in getting to grips with digital humanities whether as a student or a professor. The book offers a practical guide to the area as well as offering reflection on the main objectives and processes, including: Accessible introductions of the basics of Digital Humanities through to more complex ideas A wide range of topics from feminist Digital Humanities, digital journal publishing, gaming, text encoding, project management and pedagogy Contextualised case studies Resources for starting Digital Humanities such as links, training materials and exercises Doing Digital Humanities looks at the practicalities of how digital research and creation can enhance both learning and research and offers an approachable way into this complex, yet essential topic.

A Companion to Virginia Woolf is a thorough examination of her life, work, and multiple contexts in 33 essays written by leading scholars in the field. * Contains insightful and provocative new scholarship and sketches out new directions for future research * Approaches Woolf s writing from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, including modernism, post-colonialism, queer theory, animal studies, digital humanities, and the law * Explores the multiple trajectories Woolf s work travels around the world, from the Bloomsbury Group, and the Hogarth Press to India and Latin America * Situates Woolf studies at the vanguard of contemporary literature scholarship and the new modernist studies

This collection of essays addresses the question of lucidity as a thematic in literature and film but also as a quality of both expression and insight in literary criticism and critical thought more generally. The essays offer treatments of lucidity in itself and in relation to its opposites, forms of obscurity and darkness. They offer attention to problems of philosophical thought and reason, to questions of literary and poetic form, and of photographic and filmic contemplation. Ranging from engagements with early modern writing through to more recent material the contributions focus in particular on nineteenth- and twentieth-century French prose and poetry, the field which has been the predominant focus of Alison Finch's critical writing. They are written as tributes to the distinctively lucid insights of her work and to the breadth and clarity of its intellectual engagement.

Co-winner of the Robert Colby Scholarly Book Prize for 2009

When Lord Byron identified the periodical industry as the "Literary Lower Empire," he registered the cultural clout that periodicals had accumulated by positioning themselves as both the predominant purveyors of scientific, economic, and social information and the arbiters of literary and artistic taste. "British Periodicals and Romantic Identity "explores how periodicals such as the "Edinburgh," "Blackwood's," and the "Westminster" became the repositories and creators of "public opinion." In addition, Schoenfield examines how particular figures, both inside and outside the editorial apparatus of the reviews and magazines, negotiated this public and rapidly professionalized space. Ranging from Lord Byron, whose self-identification as lord and poet anticipated his public image in the periodicals, to William Hazlitt, equally journalist and subject of the reviews, this engaging study explores both canonical figures and canon makers in the periodicals and positions them as a centralizing force in the consolidation of Romantic print culture.

The 1840s, 50s, and 60s: three decades during which the British feminist movement saw some of its most intense activity of the nineteenth-century, and readers find some of the most monstrous, troubling representations of women by male writers in all of literary history. In Fixing Patriarchy, Donald E. Hall suggests that feminism at mid-century posed intertwined social, economic, political and psychological threats to patriarchy. Hall explores the metamorphic nature of Victorian definitions of masculinity and femininity through an analysis of male authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Thackeray, Hughes, Collins, and Trollope in dialogue with Victorian feminists and other women writers.

Synthesizing historical research with pertinent queer, feminist, post-structuralist, and materialist theories, Hall locates both startling admissions of moral fallibility and violent strategies of retrenchment and containment of this perceived threat to the male social body. Fixing Patriarchytraces parallels among Victorian discourses of religion, science, economics, and aesthetics, as it explores a cultural dynamic of un-fixedness and heightened desires for fixity.

"The Life of Daniel Defoe" examines the entire range of Defoe's writing in the context of what is known about his life and opinions.
A critical study of the writing of Daniel Defoe.
Features extended and detailed commentaries on Defoe's political and religious journalism, as well as on his narrative fictions.
Places emphasis on Defoe's distinctive style and rhetoric.

"Moving Beyond Boundaries" makes a major contribution to our understanding of under-represented literatures by expanding our knowledge about the issues, experiences, and concerns of black women writing in different communities and in a wide range of geographic contexts. It is unique in the fact that it focuses, not only on African-American women's literature, but on black women's writing from around the world.

Covering writers from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe, and such well-known authors as Zora Neale Hurston, Nadine Gordimer, and bell hooks, Moving Beyond Boundaries contains both creative and critical writings.

Volume one includes personal reflections, short stories, and essays as well as a large selection of poetry from women from all around the world.

The history of African American performance and theatre is a topic that few scholars have closely studied or discussed as a critical part of American culture. In this fascinating interdisciplinary volume, David Krasner reveals such a history to be a tremendously rich one, focusing particularly on the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the 20th century. The fields of history, black literary theory, cultural studies, performance studies and postcolonial theory are utilized in an examination of several major productions. In addition, Krasner looks at the aesthetic significance of African American performers on the American stage and the meaning of the technique entitled "cakewalking." Investigating expressions of protest within the theatre, Krasner reveals that this period was replete with moments of resistance to racism, parodies of the minstrel tradition, and double consciousness on the part of performers. An enlightening work which unveils new information about its subject, Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre offers insights into African American artistry during an era of racism and conflict.

Drawing from an eclectic mix of scholars from the US, UK, and Australia, "Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture" examines the persistence of medieval themes, characters, and situations in a variety of media from reality television to Virginia Woolf, Arthurian film to Disney animation, Shrek to historical fantasy. Each essay demonstrates that the Middle Ages are not relegated to a static past but continue to fashion a vital presence in contemporary popular culture, changing our assumptions about the flow of history and the creation of the present.

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This fascinating title, first published in 1922, presents a detailed overview of the life and works of Shakespeare. Alden first considers Shakespeare's Elizabethan context, alongside exploring the Classical and Italian foundations, political theories, concepts and theatrical trends that influenced his works. Next, a comprehensive biography provides insight into Shakespeare's probable education, relationships and contemporaries. The final sections are devoted to the genres into which Shakespeare's works have been categorised, with full analyses of and backgrounds to the poems, histories, comedies and tragedies. An important study, this title will be of particular value to students in need of a comprehensive overview of Shakespeare's life and works, as well as the more general inquisitive reader.

Asian America has produced numerous short-story writers in the 20th century. Some emerged after World War II, yet most of these writers have flourished since 1980. The first reference of its kind, this volume includes alphabetically arranged entries for 49 nationally and internationally acclaimed Asian American writers of short fiction. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a survey of the writer's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. Writers include Frank Chin, Sui Sin Far, Shirely Geok-lin Lim, Toshio Mori, and Bharati Mukherjee. An introductory essay provides a close examination of the Asian American short story, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.