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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General
This publication benefited from the support of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame. This collective volume concentrates on the concept of transposition, exploring its potential as a lens through which to examine recent Francophone literary, cinematic, theatrical, musical, and artistic creations that reveal multilingual and multicultural realities. The chapters are composed by leading scholars in French and Francophone Studies who engage in interdisciplinary reflections on the ways transcontinental movement has influenced diverse genres. It begins with the premise that an attentiveness to migration has inspired writers, artists, filmmakers, playwrights and musicians to engage in new forms of translation in their work. Their own diverse backgrounds combine with their awareness of the itineraries of others to have an impact on the innovative languages that emerge in their creative production. These contemporary figures realize that migratory actualities must be transposed into different linguistic and cultural contexts in order to be legible and audible, in order to be perceptible-either for the reader, the listener, or the viewer. The novels, films, plays, works of art and musical pieces that exemplify such transpositions adopt inventive elements that push the limits of formal composition in French. This work is therefore often inspiring as it points in evocative ways toward fluid influences and a plurality of interactions that render impossible any static conception of being or belonging.
A Wildly Funny and Shockingly True Compendium of the Bad Boys (and Girls) of Western Literature Rock stars, rappers, and actors haven't always had a monopoly on misbehaving. There was a time when authors fought with both words and fists, a time when poets were the ones living fast and dying young. This witty, insightful, and wildly entertaining narrative profiles the literary greats who wrote generation-defining classics such as The Great Gatsby and On the Road while living and loving like hedonistic rock icons, who were as likely to go on epic benders as they were to hit the bestseller lists. Literary Rogues turns back the clock to consider these historical (and, in some cases, living) legends, including Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bret Easton Ellis. Brimming with fasci- nating research, Literary Rogues is part nostalgia, part literary analysis, and a wholly raucous celebration of brilliant writers and their occasionally troubled legacies.
There is a new interest among publishers in New York and London in books by writers of African origin. These authors have often grown up or passed their early adult years out of Africa. The Orange Prize for Fiction was awarded in London 2007 to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, and the Caine Prize for African Writing has introduced new writers such as Leila Aboulela, Biyi Bandele and Chimamanda Adichie herself to agents and publishers. This examination of the extraordinary work which has recently appeared is therefore very timely. Migration is a central theme of much African fiction written in English. Here, Brenda Cooper tracks the journeys undertaken by a new generation of African writers, their protagonists and the solid objects that populate their fiction, to depict the material realities of their multiple worlds and languages. The book explores the uses to which the English language is put in order to understand these worlds. It demonstrates how these writers have contested the dominance of colonising metaphors. The writers' challenge is to find an English that can effectively express their many lives, languages and identities. Brenda Cooper is Director of the Centre for African Studies and a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Cape Town.
They say you can't judge a book by its cover--but its title can tell you more than you ever needed to know! Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.
Is a book the same book--or a reader the same reader--the second
time around? The seventeen authors in this witty and poignant
collection of essays all agree on the answer: Never.
Watter idee sal blindes van 'n olifant he? Miskien dink hulle dis 'n muur, 'n pilaar of 'n slang. Dit is di? analogie wat uitgebuit word in hierdie eerste Afrikaanse inleidende handboek tot die literatuurwetenskap. Die letterkunde is immers ook 'n omvattende verskynsel en die algemene literatuurwetenskap 'n veelsydige dissipline. Die letterkunde word dus vanuit verskillende teoretiese hoeke beskou. Moderne teoretiese sienings (bv. New Criticism, Nuwe Historisme en Postkolonialisme) word verduidelik deur 'n klassieke teks, Jan Rabie se Droogte, deurlopend m.b.v. hierdie teoriee te belig. Gerigte vrae oor ander Suid-Afrikaanse kortverhale help verder om hierdie nuwer teoriee vir plaaslike lesers bruikbaar te maak. Daarna word basiese vrae oor die literatuurwetenskap behandel. Die boek is 'n onontbeerlike hulpmiddel vir elke ernstige letterkundestudent en 'n moet vir elke onderwyser en dosent wat op hoogte wil bly met ontwikkelinge in die literatuurstudie.
Why, in the minds of most Americans, are Latinas still thought of as maids, seductresses, and booty-shaking salsa divas? Never has the concept of Latina identity been more relevant. Also, never has there been a new generation of Latinas so ready to say what they mean and even criticize the Latina generation that preceded them. Until now. In "Border-Line Personalities," twenty writers share their poignant and wickedly funny stories about fighting with their mothers, struggling with speaking Spanish, and dealing with the men who've done them wrong, among a myriad of other topics. In the end, each essay encompasses a different point of view, lending credence to the theory that no one can label any one item, idea, or person more Latina than the other. Questions posed to Latinas of all ages in "Border-Line Personalities": Why do many of us often feel more American than Latina? How important is Spanish, really? Do we all really fit under one cultural umbrella? When thinking about having children, do we really have to consider being stay-at-home moms as most of us were raised to believe was law, or can Latinas even consider the possibility of raising children while working? What do we do when we fall in love with someone (male or female) outside our culture?
What secrets lie at the heart of America? Discover the hidden reality behind Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol . . . and America itself. Just as there is only one Dan Brown, there is also only one secrets team that has achieved worldwide bestselling success by exposing the truth beneath Brown's bestselling novels. Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer have gathered together world-class authorities--from scientist Richard Dawkins, noetics expert Lynne McTaggart, and religious scholar Karen Armstrong to journalist Jeff Sharlet (author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at theHeart of American Power), mathematician and science historian Amir Aczel, FBI consultant Michael Barkun, 33 Freemason Arturo de Hoyos, and a host of renowned philosophers, symbologists, code breakers, art historians, writers, thinkers, and experts on the occult--to give readers the essential tools to understand the conspiracies, codes, cutting-edge science, cultural controversies, and suppressed history at the center of The Lost Symbol . . . and the very founding of the United States of America. Which Founding Fathers were members of secret societies? What is the true background of the Ancient Mysteries? Does The Lost Symbol have a hidden religious agenda? What is the actual role of Freemasons in American history? What do the hidden codes embedded in the novel tell us?
The police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn't help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy's back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer's mind....
Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l'amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture's enduring gospel of romance. Basing her delightfully erudite findings on her extensive readings of French literature, as well as memories of her personal experiences in la belle France, Yalom explores the many nuances of love as it has evolved over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. Following along, step-by-step, on her romance-tinged literary detective hunt, the reader discovers how the French invented love, how they have kept it vibrant for more than nine centuries, what is unique in the French love experience, and what is universal.
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults * New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age A riveting, scorching--and hilarious--autobiography by the award-winning author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and Deadline. From trying to impress a member of the girls' softball team (with disastrous dental results) to enduring the humiliation of his high school athletic club initiation (olives and oysters play unforgettable roles), Chris Crutcher's memoir of the tricky road to adulthood is candid, disarming, laugh-out-loud funny, relevant, and never less than riveting. He vividly describes a temper that was always waiting to trip him up even as it sustained him through some of the most memorable mishaps any child has survived. And how did this guy (he lifted his brother's homework through the entire tenth grade) ever become a writer, not to mention the author of fourteen critically acclaimed books for young people? The frontier may be mild, but the book is not. Fans of Tara Westover's Educated, Jack Gantos's Hole in My Life, and Walter Dean Myers's Bad Boy will laugh, will cry, and will remember. "Funny, bittersweet and brutally honest. Readers will clasp this hard-to-put-down book to their hearts even as they laugh sympathetically."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Traditionally, women share their secrets with their hairdressers. But what about their manicurists, masseurs, chi gong teachers, and tattoo artists? In Damage Control, women wax poetic about the experts and gurus who help them love themselves, sharing stories of everything from friendships born in the make-up chair to the utter dismay of a truly horrible haircut. Minnie Driver finally meets a Frenchman who understands her hair . . . and tries to teach her not to hate it. Marian Keyes remembers the blow-dry that pushed her over the edge. Francesca Lia Block tells the ugly story of the plastic surgeon who promised to make her beautiful. Rose McGowan explains why it's harder to be depressed when you're glamorous . . . and shows how it takes a village to transform from mere mortal to movie star. Witty and wise, Damage Control is an intimate, sometimes dark, look at our experiences with the professionals who pluck, prod, and pamper every inch of our bodies--and a reminder why we surrender ourselves to their (hopefully) very capable hands.
In this vivid and deeply felt collection of essays, Ron Hansen talks about his novels, childhood, family, and mentors such as John Gardner. He explores prayer, stigmata, twentieth-century martyrs, and the Eucharist. A profile of his grandfather, a "tough-as-nails, brook-no-guff Colorado rancher," finds a place alongside a wonderfully informative portrait of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. A brilliant reading of a story by Leo Tolstoy follows an appreciation of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Surprisingly intimate, A Stay Against Confusion brings together the literary and religious impulses that inform the life of one of our most gifted fiction writers.
Take a walk on any of the South African university campuses and you will hear the air resonating with the sounds of different languages seamlessly interweaving with each other as students engage in academic work, talk, laughter and play. In 2012 this inspired the University of KwaZulu-Natal Language Board, in partnership with Independent Newspapers, to hold a first-of-its-kind isiZulu-English writing competition. By issuing an invitation to write in an African Language in a way that captures our changing world, it hoped to stimulate 'border crossings' and by so doing, encourage reading and writing in African languages. The panel of expert judges comprised internationally renowned storyteller Dr Gcina Mhlophe, Dr Nakanjani Sibiya, Prof Otty Nxumalo and Dr Gugu Mazibuko. They were overwhelmed by the high standard of the entries, which highlighted the value and power of indigenous languages as a source and expression of identity and pride. The purpose of the competition and of this book is thus to promote bilingualism and, in particular, the development of isiZulu, with the aim of contributing to literature in that language. This collection of short stories, essays and poetry is the result. We hope that readers will read it with the same degree of interest and enjoyment that the judges found in it - and that it will highlight the importance of creating spaces for people to express themselves creatively in their mother tongue, rather than in English alone.
Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta
and her husband Marcal in a small village on the outskirts of The
Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and offices to
which Cipriano delivers his pots and jugs every month. On one such
trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. Unwilling to give
up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls.
Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, and
Cipriano and Marta set to work-until the order is cancelled and the
three have to move from the village into The Center. When
mysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their apartment,
Cipriano and Marcal investigate, and what they find transforms the
family's life. Filled with the depth, humor, and the extraordinary
philosophical richness that marks each of Saramago's novels, The
Cave is one of the essential books of our time.
A Guest at the Feast uncovers the places where politics and poetics meet, where life and fiction overlap, where one can be inside writing and also outside of it. From the melancholy and amusement within the work of the writer John McGahern to an extraordinary essay on his own cancer diagnosis, Toibin delineates the bleakness and strangeness of life and also its richness and its complexity. As he reveals the shades of light and dark in a Venice without tourists and the streets of Buenos Aires riddled with disappearances, we find ourselves considering law and religion in Ireland as well as the intricacies of Marilynne Robinson's fiction. The imprint of the written word on the private self, as Toibin himself remarks, is extraordinarily powerful. In this collection, that power is gloriously alive, illuminating history and literature, politics and power, family and the self. 'Toibin's voice is so powerful and distinct, his descriptions so precise, that a single thread does weave through each of these pieces and does not snap . . . perhaps Ireland's greatest living male writer' Sunday Times 'An unsurprisingly erudite, gracefully written unpicking of the world' Independent
As a socialist monarchist, Jewish Catholic, skeptical mystic, and humorous sage, Roth has never fitted neatly into any one literary or historical category. The essays in this volume, devoted to the Austrian writer Joseph Roth on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death in Paris in 1939, take a fresh look at his apparent contradictions and demonstrate his contemporary relevance as an acute analyst of the relationship between private life and political change.
INVENTING THE MIDDLE AGES The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century In this ground-breaking work, Norman Cantor explains how our current notion of the Middle Ages-with its vivid images of wars, tournaments, plagues, saints and kings, knights and ladies-was born in the twentieth century. The medieval world was not simply excavated through systematic research. It had to be conceptually created: It had to be invented, and this is the story of that invention. Norman Cantor focuses on the lives and works of twenty of the great medievalists of this century, demonstrating how the events of their lives, and their spiritual and emotional outlooks, influenced their interpretations of the Middle Ages. Cantor makes their scholarship an intensely personal and passionate exercise, full of color and controversy, displaying the strong personalities and creative minds that brought new insights about the past. A revolution in academic method, this book is a breakthrough to a new way of teaching the humanities and historiography, to be enjoyed by student and general public alike. It takes an immense body of learning and transmits it so that readers come away fully informed of the essentials of the subject, perceiving the interconnection of medieval civilization with the culture of the twentieth century and having had a good time while doing it! This is a riveting, entertaining, humorous, and learned read, compulsory for anyone concerned about the past and future of Western civilization.
Founded in 1961, Studia Hibernica is devoted to the study of the Irish language and its literature, Irish history and archaeology, Irish folklore and place names, and related subjects. Its aim is to present the research of scholars in these fields of Irish studies and so to bring them within easy reach of each other and the wider public. It endeavours to provide in each issue a proportion of articles, such as surveys of periods or theme in history or literature, which will be of general interest. A long review section is a special feature of the journal and all new publications within its scope are there reviewed by competent authorities.
Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In "Reading Like a Writer," Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers—Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov—and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's "Middlemarch." She looks to John Le Carre for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, "Reading Like a Writer" will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
Hominids have always been obsessed with representing their own bodies. The first "selfies" were prehistoric negative hand images and human stick figures, followed by stone and ceramic representations of the human figure. Thousands of years later, moving via historic art and literature to contemporary social media, the contemporary term "selfie" was self-generated. The book illuminates some "selfies". This collection of critical essays about the fixation on the human self addresses a multi-faceted geographic set of cultures -- the Iberian Peninsula to pre-Columbian America and Hispanic America -- analysing such representations from medical, literal and metaphorical perspectives over centuries. Chapter contributions address the representation of the body itself as subject, in both visual and textual manners, and illuminate attempts at control of the environment, of perception, of behaviour and of actions, by artists and authors. Other chapters address the body as subjected to circumstance, representing the body as affected by factors such as illness, injury, treatment and death. These myriad effects on the body are interpreted through the brushes of painters and the pens of authors for social and/or personal control purposes. The essays reveal critics' insights when "selfies" are examined through a focused "lens" over a breadth of cultures. The result, complex and unique, is that what is viewed -- the visual art and literature under discussion -- becomes a mirror image, indistinguishable from the component viewing apparatus, the "lens".
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