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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Novels, other prose & writers
Twilight Histories explores the relationship between nostalgia and
the Victorian historical novel, arguing that both responded to the
turbulence brought by accelerating modernisation. Nostalgia began
as a pathological homesickness, its first victims
seventeenth-century soldiers serving abroad. Only gradually did it
become the sentimental memory we understand it as today. In a
striking parallel to nostalgia's origin, the historical novel
emerged in the tumultuous early-years of the nineteenth century, at
a time when the Napoleonic Wars once again set troops on the move,
creating a new wave of homesick soldiers. In the historical novels
of Gaskell, Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot and Hardy, nostalgia offered
a language in which to describe the experience of living through
changing times as a homesickness for history.
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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1954.
The New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield associated
intimately with many members of the Bloomsbury group, but her
literary aesthetics placed her at a distance from the artistic
works of the group. With chapters written by leading international
scholars, Katherine Mansfield and the Bloomsbury Group explores
this conflicted relationship. Bringing together biographical and
critical studies, the book examines Mansfield's relationships -
personal and literary - with such major Modernist figures as
Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and Walter de la Mare as
well as the ways in which her work engaged with and reacted against
Bloomsbury. In this way the book reveals the true extent of
Mansfield's wider influence on 20th-century modernist writing.
Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat is one of the most
recognized writers today. Her debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory,
was an Oprah Book Club selection, and works such as Krik? Krak! and
Brother, I'm Dying have earned her a MacArthur ""genius"" grant and
National Book Award nominations. Yet despite international acclaim
and the relevance of her writings to postcolonial, feminist,
Caribbean, African diaspora, Haitian, literary, and global studies,
Danticat's work has not been the subject of a full-length
interpretive literary analysis until now. In Edwidge Danticat: The
Haitian Diasporic Imaginary, Nadege T. Clitandre offers a
comprehensive analysis of Danticat's exploration of the dialogic
relationship between nation and diaspora. Clitandre argues that
Danticat-moving between novels, short stories, and
essays-articulates a diasporic consciousness that acts as a form of
social, political, and cultural transformation at the local and
global level. Using the echo trope to approach Danticat's
narratives and subjects, Clitandre effectively navigates between
the reality of diaspora and imaginative opportunities that
diasporas produce. Ultimately, Clitandre calls for a reconstitution
of nation through a diasporic imaginary that informs the way people
who have experienced displacement view the world and imagine a more
diverse, interconnected, and just future.
This work analyzes 21st-century realistic speculations of human
extinction: fictions that imagine future worlds without
interventions of as-yet uninvented technology, interplanetary
travel, or other science fiction elements that provide hope for
rescue or long-term survival. Climate change fiction as a genre of
apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic writing usually resists facing the
potentiality of human species extinction, following instead
traditional generic conventions that imagine primitivist
communities of human survivors with the means of escaping the
consequences of global climate change. Yet amidst the ongoing sixth
great extinction, works that problematize survival, provide no
opportunities for social rebirth, and speculate humanity's final
end may address the problem of how to reject the impulse of human
exceptionalism that pervades climate change discourse and
post-apocalyptic fiction. Rather than following the preferences of
the genre, the ecocollapse fictions examined here manifest
apocalypse where the means for a happy ending no longer exists. In
these texts, diminished ecosystems, specters of cannibalism, and
disintegrations of difference and othering render human
self-identity as radically malleable within their confrontations
with the stark materiality of all life. This book is the first
in-depth exploration of contemporary fictions that imagine the
imbrication of human and nonhuman within global species
extinctions. It closely interrogates novels from authors like Peter
Heller, Cormac McCarthy and Yann Martel that reject the impulse of
human exceptionalism to demonstrate what it might be like to go
extinct.
Locating Science Fiction is a ground breaking and potentially
paradigm-shifting book, a major intervention into contemporary
theoretical debates about SF. Academic literary criticism has
tended to locate SF primarily in relation to the older genre of
utopia; fan criticism primarily in relation to fantasy and SF in
other media, especially film and television; popular fiction
studies primarily in relation to other contemporary genres such as
the romance and the thriller. This bold new synthesis relocates SF
in relation to each of these other genres and media and also to the
historical and geographic contexts of its emergence and
development. Locating Science Fiction effects a series of vital
shifts in the way SF theory and criticism has conceptualised its
subject, away from prescriptively abstract dialectics of cognition
and estrangement and towards the empirically grounded understanding
of what is actually a messy amalgam of texts, practices and
artefacts. Inspired by Raymond Williams's cultural materialism,
Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of culture and Franco Moretti's
application of world systems theory to literary studies, Locating
Science Fiction draws on the disciplinary competences of
Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory and
Sociology to produce a powerfully persuasive mode of analysis,
engagement and argument.
This volume highlights the wealth of medieval storytelling and the
fundamental unity of the medieval Mediterranean by combining in a
comprehensive overview popular eastern tales along with their Greek
adaptations and examining Byzantine love tales, both learned and
vernacular, alongside their Persian counterparts and the later
adaptations of Western romances.
Hold on to the feeling of sunshine at the seaside with this
gorgeous romance, perfect for fans of Holly Martin and Jo Thomas.
When Sacha Collins, cafe owner and sundae-maker extraordinaire,
meets Italian archaeologist, Alessandro Salvatore in Rome, she's
grateful to him for being her tour guide. Now he's turned up in the
seaside village where she lives and is setting up a gelateria in
direct competition to her retro Summer Sundaes Cafe. She's only
been running her cafe for two years since taking over from her
father. Until now the only other shops on the boardwalk have been a
wool shop, an antique shop and a second-hand book shop. These have
helped rather than hindered her custom. How will her creative
sundaes made from fresh Jersey ice cream compete with his delicious
Italian gelato? Sacha is worried. Is there enough custom for both
businesses to thrive? Who is behind the strange changes being made
on the boardwalk? And when the oldest resident on the boardwalk is
threatened with eviction can Sacha and Alessandro come together and
find a way of helping her? For a peaceful little boardwalk
overlooking one of the quieter beaches on the island, there's an
awful lot going on and some of it is going to lead to big changes.
Previously published by Georgina Troy as Summer Sundaes. Read what
people are saying about Summer Sundaes on the Boardwalk: 'A
gorgeous beachside setting, divine ice-cream sundaes, and a
scorching summer love story - this book has it all!' Christina
Jones 'I thoroughly enjoyed spending time in this charming,
evocative story. It's a perfect book to enjoy by the pool, in the
sunshine, with a glass of Prosecco!' Kirsty Greenwood 'A
wonderfully warm and sweet summer read' Karen Clarke
Exile is usually defined as the time one lives elsewhere,
involuntarily separated from home. However, exile can also be
conceptualized more broadly as a process already starting at home,
while traveling into exile and/or before arriving in the place of
exile. This volume sheds detailed light on those early stages of
exile. Exil wird gewoehnlich als die Zeit definiert, in der man
unfreiwillig getrennt von der Heimat anderswo lebt. Exil kann aber
weiter gefasst auch als Prozess begriffen werden, der bereits in
der Heimat, unterwegs und/oder vor der Ankunft im Exilland anfangt.
Dieser Band geht den Vorstufen des Exils detailliert nach.
How do we understand memory in the early novel? Departing from
traditional empiricist conceptualizations of remembering, Mind over
Matter uncovers a social model of memory in Enlightenment fiction
that is fluid and evolving - one that has the capacity to alter
personal histories. Memories are not merely imprints of first-hand
experience stored in the mind, but composite stories transacted
through dialogue and reading.Through new readings of works by
Daniel Defoe, Frances Burney, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, and
others, Sarah Eron tracks the fictional qualities of memory as a
force that, much like the Romantic imagination, transposes time and
alters forms. From Crusoe's island and Toby's bowling green to
Evelina's garden and Fanny's east room, memory can alter,
reconstitute, and even overcome the conditions of the physical
environment. Memory shapes the process and outcome of the novel's
imaginative world-making, drafting new realities to better endure
trauma and crises. Bringing together philosophy of mind, formalism,
and narrative theory, Eron highlights how eighteenth-century
novelists explored remembering as a creative and curative force for
literary characters and readers alike. If memory is where we
fictionalize reality, fiction--and especially the novel--is where
the truths of memory can be found.
William Faulkner remains a historian's writer. A distinguished
roster of historians have referenced Faulkner in their published
work. They are drawn to him as a fellow historian, a shaper of
narrative reflections on the meaning of the past; as a
historiographer, a theorist, and dramatist of the fraught
enterprise of doing history; and as a historical figure himself,
especially following his mid-century emergence as a public
intellectual after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This
volume brings together historians and literary scholars to explore
the many facets of Faulkner's relationship to history: the
historical contexts of his novels and stories; his explorations of
the historiographic imagination; his engagement with historical
figures from both the regional and national past; his influence on
professional historians; his pursuit of alternate modes of temporal
awareness; and the histories of print culture that shaped the
production, reception, and criticism of Faulkner's work.
Contributors draw on the history of development in the Mississippi
Valley, the construction of Confederate memory, the history and
curriculum of Harvard University, twentieth-century debates over
police brutality and temperance reform, the history of modern
childhood, and the literary histories of anti-slavery writing and
pulp fiction to illuminate Faulkner's work. Others in the
collection explore the meaning of Faulkner's fiction for such
professional historians as C. Vann Woodward and Albert Bushnell
Hart. In these ways and more, Faulkner and History offers fresh
insights into one of the most persistent and long-recognized
elements of the Mississippian's artistic vision.
Conversations with Colum McCann brings together eighteen interviews
with a world-renowned fiction writer. Ranging from his 1994
literary debut, Fishing the Sloe-Black River, to a new and
unpublished interview conducted in 2016, these interviews represent
the development as well as the continuation of McCann's interests.
The number and length of the later conversations attest to his
star-power. Let the Great World Spin earned him the National Book
Award and promises to become a major motion picture. His most
recent novel, TransAtlantic, has awed readers with its dynamic
yoking of the 1845-46 visit of Frederick Douglass to Ireland, the
1919 first nonstop transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown, and
Senator George Mitchell's 1998 efforts to achieve a peace accord
inNorthern Ireland. An extensive interview by scholar Cecile Maudet
is included here, as is an interview by John Cusatis, who wrote
Understanding Colum McCann, the first extensive critical analysisof
McCann's work. An author who actually enjoys talking about his
work, McCann (b. 1965) offers insights into his method of writing,
what he hopes to achieve, as well the challenge of writing each
novel to go beyond his accomplishments in the novel before. Readers
will note how many of his responses include stories in which
hehimself is the object of the humor and how often his remarks
reveal insights into his character as a man who sees the grittiness
of the urban landscape but never loses faith in the strength of
ordinary people and their capacity to prevail.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1984.
The subject of this timely book is that body of fiction which
speculates in narrative form about the nature of wars likely to
break out in the near or distant future. Although earlier instances
occur, the origins of this mode lie primarily in the late
nineteenth century but writing about future wars continues to this
day with notable fiction on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ranging widely across periods and conflicts real and imagined, and
boasting contributions from the late I. F. Clarke, H. Bruce
Franklin and Patrick Parrinder, Future Wars explores the
fascinating process of interaction between politics and literature,
science fiction and war in a range of classic texts. Individual
essays explore Reagan's 'star wars' project, nuclear fiction,
Martian invasion, and the Pax Americana among other topics. The use
of future war scenarios in military planning dates back to the
nineteenth century. Future Wars concludes with an assessment by an
officer in the U.S. Army of the continuing usefulness of future
wars fiction.
Samuel Beckett's private writings and public work show his deep
interest in the workings of the human mind. Samuel Beckett and
Psychology is an innovative study of the author's engagement with
key concepts in early experimental psychology and rapidly
developing scientific ideas about perception, attention and mental
imagery. Through innovative new readings of Beckett's later
dramatic and prose works, the book reveals the links between his
aesthetic method and the methodologies of experimental psychology
through the 20th century. Covering important later works including
Happy Days, Not I and Footfalls, Samuel Beckett and Psychology
sheds important new light on Beckett's depictions of the workings
of the embodied mind.
Vietnam and Beyond: Tim O'Brien and the Power of Storytelling is a
comprehensive, in-depth study of one of the most thought-provoking
writers of the Vietnam war generation. This volume breaks away from
previous readings of O'Brien's development as a trauma artist and
an outspoken chronicler of the American involvement in Vietnam: its
thematic, rather than chronological, approach contextualizes
O'Brien's work beyond the confines of war literature. The necessary
exploration of O'Brien's recurrent engagement with the conflict in
Vietnam leads to a thorough discussion of the writer's revision of
key American (and western) ideas and concerns: the association
between courage, heroism and masculinity, the celebration of the
pioneering spirit in the frontier narrative, the sense of
superiority in the encounter with foreign civilizations, the
fraught relationship between power and truth, or reality and
imagination, and the attempt and the right to speak about
unspeakable events. All these themes, as Ciocia illustrates,
highlight O'Brien's compelling preoccupation with the role and the
ethical responsibility of the storyteller. With his clear
privileging of 'story-truth' over 'happening-truth', O'Brien makes
a bold, serious investment in the power of fiction, as testified by
his formal experimentations, metanarrative reflections and
sustained meditations on matters such as individual agency, moral
accountability and authenticity. Approached from this fresh
perspective, O'Brien emerges as a figure deserving to find a wider
audience and demanding renewed scholarly attention for his
remarkable achievements as a contemporary mythographer, an acute
observer of the human condition and a sharp critic of American
culture.
This volume brings together candid, revealing interviews with one
of the twentieth century's master prose writers. Vladimir Nabokov
(1899-1977) was a Russian American scientist, poet, translator, and
professor of literature. Critics throughout the world celebrated
him for developing the luminous and enigmatic style which advanced
the boundaries of modern literature more than any author since
James Joyce. In a career that spanned over six decades, he produced
dozens of iconic works, including Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, and his
classic autobiography, Speak, Memory. The twenty-eight interviews
and profiles in this collection weredrawn from Nabokov's numerous
print and broadcast appearances over a period of nineteen years.
Beginning with the controversy surrounding the American publication
of Lolita in 1958, he offers trenchant, witty views on society,
literature, education, the role of the author, and a range of other
topics. He discusses the numerousliterary and symbolic allusions in
his work, his use of parody and satire, as well as analyses of his
own literary influences. Nabokov also provided a detailed portrait
of his life-from his aristocratic childhood in pre-revolutionary
Russia, education at Cambridge, apprenticeship as an emigre writer
in the capitals of Europe, to his decision in 1940 to immigrate to
the United States, where he achieved renown and garnered an
international readership. The interviews in this collection are
essential for seeking aclearer understanding of the life and work
of an author who was pivotal in shaping the landscape of
contemporary fiction.
This book suggests that James Joyce, like Yeats and his fellow
Revivalists, was attracted to the west of Ireland as a place of
authenticity and freedom. It shows how his acute historical
sensibility is reflected in Dubliners, posing new questions about
one of the most enduring collections of short stories ever written.
The answers provided are a fusion of history and literary
criticism, using close readings that balance techniques of realism
and symbolism. The result is an original study that shines new
light on Dubliners and Joyce's later masterpieces.
Authorship's Wake examines the aftermath of the 1960s critique of
the author, epitomized by Roland Barthes's essay, "The Death of the
Author." This critique has given rise to a body of writing that
confounds generic distinctions separating the literary and the
theoretical. Its archive consists of texts by writers who either
directly participated in this critique, as Barthes did, or whose
intellectual formation took place in its immediate aftermath. These
writers include some who are known primarily as theorists (Judith
Butler), others known primarily as novelists (Zadie Smith, David
Foster Wallace), and yet others whose texts are difficult to
categorize (the autofiction of Chris Kraus, Sheila Heti, and Ben
Lerner; the autotheory of Maggie Nelson). These writers share not
only a central motivating question - how to move beyond the
critique of the author-subject - but also a way of answering it: by
writing texts that merge theoretical concerns with literary
discourse. Authorship's Wake traces the responses their work offers
in relation to four themes: communication, intention, agency, and
labor.
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