Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction examines the genre of science fiction as its own form of critical theory and argues that it proves crucial to understanding the human in the postmodern era. Featuring chapters on novels, films, and anime, Gerald Alva Miller, Jr.'s scholarship intervenes in a diverse array of theoretical schools, including gender theory, psychoanalysis, political theory, and posthumanism. Through its engagement with different kinds of texts, this study represents a new way of approaching both science fiction and critical theory, and it uses both to question what it means to be human in the digital era.

Ubiquitous triple consciousness frameworks address the limitations of W.E.B Du Bois' seminal double consciousness concept by emphasizing a third gendered lens, a definite consciousness that legitimizes the rich complexities of the black American female experience. In The Affirmative Discomforts of Black Female Authorship: Rethinking Triple Consciousness in Contemporary American Culture, the author rethinks this methodology by examining an interesting assemblage of contemporary black female authors (Roxane Gay, Beyonce and Issa Rae) across four disciplines (history, literature, music and television) whose contemporary multimedia works are engaging with a third lens the author conceptualizes as rupture. This rupture, a simultaneous embrace and rejection of racial and gendered experiences that are affirmative but also contradictory, unsettling and ultimately unresolved, problematizes hegemonic notions of identity and boldly moves towards a potential shift, a shift on the cusp of profound rethinking and reimagination.

The figure of the intellectual looms large in modern history, and yet his or her social place has always been full of ambiguity and ironies. Between Utopia and Dystopia is a study of the movement that created the identity of the universal intellectual: Erasmian humanism. Focusing on the writings of Erasmus and Thomas More, Hanan Yoran argues that, in contrast to other groups of humanists, Erasmus and the circle gathered around him generated the social space the Erasmian Republic of Letters that allowed them a considerable measure of independence. The identity of the autonomous intellectual enabled the Erasmian humanists to criticize established customs and institutions and to elaborate a reform program for Christendom. At the same time, however, the very notion of the universal intellectual presented a problem for the discourse of Erasmian humanism itself. It distanced the Erasmian humanists from concrete public activity and, as such, clashed with their commitment to the ideal of an active life. Furthermore, citizenship in the Republic of Letters threatened to lock the Erasmian humanists into a disembodied intellectual sphere, thus undermining their convictions concerning intellectual activity and the production of knowledge. Between Utopia and Dystopia will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Renaissance humanism, early modern intellectual and cultural history, and political thought. It also has much to contribute to debates over the identity, social place, and historical role of intellectuals."

This volume proposes new ways of understanding the historical semantics of the relationship between humans and nature in South America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The authors in this volume use the notion of asymmetry to discuss the representations of and forms of knowledge about nature circulating in, and about, colonial and postcolonial South America. They argue that the production of knowledge about the American natural space widened the power gap between the Europeans colonizers and the local population. This gap, therefore, rests on what we call 'asymmetric ecologies': Eurocentric epistemic orders excluded forms of indigenous, mestizo, and Creole knowledge about nature. By looking at literary as well as non-literary sources, such as natural histories, travel narratives, encyclopaedias or medical writing, the essays in this volume trace the origins of new theoretical paradigms (ecocriticism, biopolitics, transarea studies, etc.), and examine the regional cultural, identity, and epistemic conflicts that undercut the Eurocentric narrative of enlightened modernity.

The first book length study on the aesthetic and artistic power of William Butler Yeats, this book demonstrates the centrality in his work of the concept that art might shape life, from his earliest assay to the great poems and plays of his last years.

Communal Feminisms explores identity and exile from three different perspectives: theory, interviews, and imaginative literature. The first part of this book describes and defines exile within identity; the second part delivers ten interviews and examines the socio-historical construction of exile through feminine Chicano literature and Chilean literature created and circulated during the Pinochet regime; and the third part contains a collection of unpublished, original works from each author interviewed. Including the interviews and creative works in both English and Spanish, Dr. Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs emphasizes the need to publish bilingual works, without alienating English readers. This uniquely crafted collection will appeal to scholars across disciplines.

Amidst continuing debates about the literary canon, Literature, Culture and Society poses a revealing question--if academics find it valuable and stimulating to discuss texts ranging from Genesis to Bladerunner in their leisure time, why do they act as if this is sacrosanct in their formal work? In this well- argued and refreshing discussion of the history and importance of literary criticism, Milner embraces a reality that many in the academy still fear, that cultural studies is alive, and it's here to stay.

Andrew Milner begins with an introduction to the field of cultural studies and its parent disciplines of English literature and sociology. He reviews the defining terms and the theoretical traditions in a manner that is sophisticated but accessible. He discusses just how and why cultural studies evolved, and what it has to offer our appraisal of all texts, be they old or new, print or film. Milner eschews both cultural populism and literary elitism in favor of a criticism that is more concerned with value than with exclusion. The author concludes this significant and insightful book with a demonstration of his theories, tying together a group of narratives ranging from Paradise Lost to the latest Frankenstein films. Literature, Culture and Society cogently examines the question of scholarship and forcefully demonstrates that rigorous academic inquiry need not be reserved for dust-covered texts alone.

"Figures of Exile is an excellent volume of essays carefully curated by Daniela Omlor and Eduardo Tasis that pays a long overdue homage to the late Nigel Dennis, one of the most important Hispanists of his generation. It does so brilliantly by bringing together a group of talented international scholars - the majority of whom can be considered as Professor Dennis's disciples - who each offer original and illuminating perspectives on a variety of topics and authors related to the Spanish Republican exile, a field for which Nigel Dennis was an inescapable point of reference." (Javier Letran, University of St Andrews) Figures of Exile contributes to the ongoing dialogue in the field of exile studies and aims to refamiliarise a wider readership with the Spanish exile of 1939. It provides new perspectives on the work of canonical figures of this exile, such as Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Jose Bergamin, Pedro Salinas, Francisco Ayala, Emilio Prados, Federico Garcia Lorca or Maria Zambrano, and brings to the fore the work of less-studied figures like Jose Diaz Fernandez, Juan David Garcia Baca, Ernesto Guerra da Cal, Nuria Pares, Maria Luisa Elio, Maria Teresa Leon and Tomas Segovia. Rather than being disparate, this broad scope, which ranges from first generation to second generation exiles, from Galicia to Andalusia, from philosophers to poets, is testament to the wide-ranging impact of the Spanish Republican exile.

The volume "The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme: Key Aspects and Recent Developments" responds to the growing interest in the scientific study of the Memory of the World Programme (MoW) and its core concept of documentary heritage, which has received little attention from scholarship so far. This sixth publication in the Heritage Studies Series provides a first collection of differing approaches (including reflected reports, essays, research contributions, and theoretical reflections) for the study of the MoW Programme, offering a basis for follow-up activities. The volume, edited by Ray Edmondson, Lothar Jordan and Anca Claudia Prodan, brings together 21 scholars from around the globe to present aspects deemed crucial for understanding MoW, its development, relevance and potential. The aim is to encourage academic research on MoW and to enhance the understanding of its potential and place within Heritage Studies and beyond.

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Each year brings a glut of new memoirs, ranging from works by former teachers and celebrity has-beens to disillusioned soldiers and bestselling novelists. In addition to becoming bestsellers in their own right, memoirs have become a popular object of inquiry in the academy and a mainstay in most MFA workshops. Courses in what is now called life-writing study memoir alongside personal essays, diaries, and autobiographies. Memoir: An Introduction proffers a concise history of the genre (and its many subgenres) while taking readers through the various techniques, themes, and debates that have come to characterize the ubiquitous literary form. Its fictional origins are traced to eighteenth-century British novels like Robinson Crusoe and Tom Jones; its early American roots are examined in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and eighteenth-century captivity narratives; and its ethical conundrums are considered with analyses of the imbroglios brought on by the questionable claims in Rigoberta Menchu's I, Rigoberta, and more notoriously, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Alongside these more traditional literary forms, Couser expands the discussion of memoir to include film with what he calls "documemoir" (exemplified in Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect), and graphic narratives like Art Spiegleman's Maus. In sum, Memoir: An Introduction provides a succinct and comprehensive survey to today's most popular form of life-writing.

This book focuses on reinterpreting mythical China from the perspective of the cultural theory of big tradition. It is divided into two parts: the first explains the theoretical development and features of the Chinese version of big tradition, identifying the differences between the Eastern and Western cultural traditions (big tradition and great tradition). The second part then reinterprets the core values and mythical ideas of Chinese civilization and traditional culture from the perspective of big tradition. Moving beyond the small tradition of text centrism and using new methods and materials, the book reveals the original meaning and the cultural coding function of big tradition during the preliterate period. Drawing on integrated evidence from literature handed down from ancient times, oral and intangible cultural heritage, tangible culture, cross-cultures, image culture and unearthed documents, the book interprets Chinese cultural traditions and spiritual values from local, archaeological, experiential and survival perspectives, to help readers better understand the mythical codes and genes of early Chinese culture.

This book aims to demonstrate the multiplicity of configurations of the individual in modern Chinese literature through analyzing several classic texts written by Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun, Lao She, and Mu Shiying. It attempts to refresh our understanding of the history of modern Chinese literature and indirectly responds to the controversial issue of "individual rights" (or "human rights") in present-day China, showing that in modern Chinese literature, various configurations of the individual imply political possibilities that are not only irreconcilable with each other, but irreducible to the determination of the modern discourse of "individualism" introduced by the West. A groundbreaking work, it will give valuable context to political scientists and other scholars seeking to understand what "China" means in the 21st century.

While previous collections of Emerson essays have tended to be a sort of 'stock-taking' or 'retrospective' look at Emerson scholarship, the present collection follows a more 'prospective' trajectory for Emerson studies based on the recent increase in global perspectives in nearly all fields of humanistic studies. The present collection is divided into four main sections: "Emerson, Europe, and Beyond;" "Emerson and Science;" "Emerson Thinking;" "and "Emerson and Activism." The first category emphasizes the global perspective in Emerson's literary and cultural relations, followed closely by two other "transnational" categories - Emerson's relations in the international arenas of science and philosophy - and concluding with the final category, which addresses the end purpose of Emerson's project: fully realized human beings whose actions, directly and indirectly, help to create a society in which individuals are free to develop their capacities fully. Transnational and global perspectives are becoming more recognized and more commonplace in the academy and the world at large. Evidence for such developing perspectives is not hard to find: national and international conferences, new books, and the increasing university courses and programs in World Literature, all reflect a move toward viewing Emerson and literature in general from broader, more inclusive perspectives. The first four categories that follow - "Emerson, Europe, and Beyond" - gives us seven perspectives on Emerson's international influence, ranging from Stephen L. Tanner's gem-like essay on English Traits, to Steve Adisasmito-Smith's trail-blazing Hindu scholarship, to Jan Stievermann's explication of Emerson's vision of "an American World Literature." In the "Emerson and Science" section, four essays range from Michael P. Branch's examination of Emerson's early lectures on natural science, to Branka Arsic's explorations of science from a broad Emersonian view, to David M. Robinson's and Laura Walls' very specific essays on Emerson's encounters with the cutting-edge science of his mature period. In "Emerson Thinking," five scholars examine Emerson's broad thought, which gives evidence of philosophical influence from all times and places through suck topics as human subjectivity and its expression, while George J. Stack and Mary DiMaria examine Emerson's philosophical similarities to and disparities from the French foundational thinkers of the Postmodern theory revolution in literary studies. Finally, in the "Emerson and Activism" section, David S. Reynolds, Len Gougeon, and T. Gregory Garvey examine Emersonian and Transcendental influences on the abolition movement, and Eduardo Cadava expands activism to include more recent "economic oppression and colonialist and racist exclusions," which ultimately can be seen as part of a worldwide post-colonial literary movement and an awareness of the dark side of globalism. All of these essays to a greater or lesser degree are concerned with influences of literature and thought that are cycled through the individual, the culture, and the global community.

After 9/11, the world felt the "shock and awe" of the War on Terror. But that war also exploded inside novels, films, comics, and gaming. Danel Olson investigates why the paranormal, ghostly, and conspiratorial entered such media between 2002-2022, and how this Gothic presence connects to the most recent theories on PTSD. Set in New York/Gotham, Afghanistan, Iraq, and CIA black sites, the traumatic and weird works interrogated here ask how killing affects the killers. The protagonists probed are artillery, infantry, and armored-cavalry soldiers; military intelligence; the Air Force; counter-terrorism officers of the NYPD, NCIS, FBI, and CIA; and even the ultimate crime-fighting vigilante, Batman.

The female authors highlighted in this monograph represent a special breed of science writer, women who not only synthesized the science of their day (often drawing upon their own direct experience in the laboratory, field, classroom, and/or public lecture hall), but used their works to simultaneously educate, entertain, and, in many cases, evangelize. Women played a central role in the popularization of science in the 19th century, as penning such works (written for an audience of other women and children) was considered proper "women's work." Many of these writers excelled in a particular literary technique known as the "familiar format," in which science is described in the form of a conversation between characters, especially women and children. However, the biological sciences were considered more "feminine" than the natural sciences (such as astronomy and physics), hence the number of geological "conversations" was limited. This, in turn, makes the few that were completed all the more crucial to analyze.

This book attempts to deconstruct certain key clusters of Chinese characters and words, centering on themes such as war and peace, kith and kin, male and female, rites and rituals, pleasure and leisure to make them yield fascinating tales about Chinese culture and history in which these words are embedded and which they at the same time encapsulate. The Chinese language, Chinese history and culture are presented as one long woven bolt of silk (for which China has historically been noted), with the written language conceived as the warp while the history and culture the weft. In this process of linguistic exploration, the book shows in what ways the Chinese written language may be said to be unique as well as to reveal, amongst other things, certain aspects of: * ancient Chinese religion, cosmology, philosophy, political theory, law, medicine, astronomy, physics, geography; * their grasp, on the part of the ancient Chinese people, of human reproduction, biology and physiology, psychology, biochemistry, even neurology of the brain; * what constitutes Chinese identity, the core values of Chinese culture, the essential glue holding their society together; * their daily existence, such as their food and drink, the houses they lived in, the furniture they used, their chief modes of transportation, etc. A fascinating look at Chinese language and culture.

This volume will give readers insight into how genres are characterised by the patterns of frequency and distribution of linguistic features across a number of European languages. The material presented in this book will also stimulate further corpus-based contrastive research including more languages, more genres and different types of corpora. This is the first special issue of the Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics, a publication that addresses the interface between the two disciplines and offers a platform to scholars who combine both methodologies to present rigorous and interdisciplinary findings about language in real use. Corpus linguistics and Pragmatics have traditionally represented two paths of scientific thought, parallel but often mutually exclusive and excluding. Corpus Linguistics can offer a meticulous methodology based on mathematics and statistics, while Pragmatics is characterized by its effort in the interpretation of intended meaning in real language.

This book presents Yi Hwang (1501-1570)-better known by his pen name, Toegye-Korea's most eminent Confucian philosopher. It is a pioneering study of Toegye's moral and religious thought that discusses his holistic ideas and experiences as a scholar, thinker, and spiritual practitioner. This study includes Toegye's major texts, essays, letters, and biographies. Edward Chung explains key concepts, original quotations, annotated notes, and thought-provoking comments to bring this monumental thinker and his work to life. Chung also considers comparative and interreligious perspectives and their contemporary relevance. By offering groundbreaking insights into Neo-Confucianism, this book sheds fresh light on the breadth and depth of Toegye's ethics and spirituality, and is an important source for scholars and students in Korean and Confucian studies and comparative philosophy and religion.

Want to impress the hot stranger at the bar who asks for your take on Infinite Jest? Dying to shut up the blowhard in front of you who's pontificating on Cormac McCarthy's "recurring road narratives"? Having difficulty keeping Francine Prose and Annie Proulx straight?

For all those overwhelmed readers who need to get a firm grip on the relentless onslaught of must-read books to stay on top of the inevitable conversations that swirl around them, Lauren Leto's Judging a Book by Its Lover is manna from literary heaven A hilarious send-up of--and inspired homage to--the passionate and peculiar world of book culture, this guide to literary debate leaves no reader or author unscathed, at once adoring and skewering everyone from Jonathan Franzen to Ayn Rand to Dostoyevsky and the people who read them.