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This book traces the emergence and development of Literature and
the Bible as a field of scholarship, presenting key critical essays
alongside more recent criticism that explores new directions. The
Western literary tradition has a long and complex relationship with
the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Authors draw on the Bible in
numerous ways and for different reasons, and there is also the
myriad of subconscious ways through which the biblical text enters
literary culture. Biblical stories, characters, motifs and
references permeate the whole of the literary tradition. In the
last thirty years there has been a growth of critical interest in
this relationship. In Literature and the Bible: A Reader the
editors bring together a selection of the key critical and
theoretical materials from this time, providing a comprehensive
resource for students and scholars. Each chapter contains: * An
introduction from the editors, contextualising the material within
and alerting readers to some of the historic debates that feed into
the extracts chosen * A set of previously published extracts of
substantial length, offering greater contextualisation and allowing
the Reader to be used flexibly * Lists of further reading,
providing readers with a wide variety of other sources and
perspectives. Designed to be used alongside the Bible and selected
literary texts, this book is essential reading for anyone studying
Literature and the Bible in undergraduate English, Religion and
Theology degrees.
This book traces the emergence and development of Literature and
the Bible as a field of scholarship, presenting key critical essays
alongside more recent criticism that explores new directions. The
Western literary tradition has a long and complex relationship with
the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Authors draw on the Bible in
numerous ways and for different reasons, and there is also the
myriad of subconscious ways through which the biblical text enters
literary culture. Biblical stories, characters, motifs and
references permeate the whole of the literary tradition. In the
last thirty years there has been a growth of critical interest in
this relationship. In Literature and the Bible: A Reader the
editors bring together a selection of the key critical and
theoretical materials from this time, providing a comprehensive
resource for students and scholars. Each chapter contains: * An
introduction from the editors, contextualising the material within
and alerting readers to some of the historic debates that feed into
the extracts chosen * A set of previously published extracts of
substantial length, offering greater contextualisation and allowing
the Reader to be used flexibly * Lists of further reading,
providing readers with a wide variety of other sources and
perspectives. Designed to be used alongside the Bible and selected
literary texts, this book is essential reading for anyone studying
Literature and the Bible in undergraduate English, Religion and
Theology degrees.
A collection of essays that perceive Updike's America through the
eyes of Western and Eastern European readers and scholars,
contributing to Updike scholarship while demonstrating his
resonance across the Atlantic. From the publication in 1958 of his
first book, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, the
American writer John Updike attracted an international readership.
His books have been translated into twenty-three languages. He had
a strong following in the United Kingdom, where his books were
routinely reviewed in all the leading national newspapers. In
Germany, France, Italy, and other countries too, his books were
discussed in major publications. Although Updike died in 2009,
interest in his writing remains strong among European scholars.
They are active in the John Updike Society and on the John Updike
Review (which began publishing in 2011). During the past four
decades, several Europeans have influenced the study of Updike
worldwide. No recent volume, however, collects diverse European
views on his oeuvre. The current book fills that void, presenting
essays that perceive Updike's renditions of America through the
eyes of scholar-readers from both Western and Eastern Europe.
Contributors: Kasia Boddy, Teresa Botelho, Biljana Dojcinovic,
Brian Duffy, Karin Ikas, Ulla Kriebernegg, Sylvie Mathe, Judie
Newman, Sue Norton, Andrew Tate, Aristi Trendel, Eva-Sabine
Zehelein. Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia
University. Sue Norton is a Lecturer in English at the Dublin
Institute of Technology.
This book is the first full-length study of Douglas Coupland, one
of the twenty-first century's most innovative and influential
novelists. The study explores the prolific first decade and a half
of Coupland's career, from Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture (1991) to JPod (2006), a period in which he published ten
novels and four significant volumes of non-fiction. Emerging in the
last decade of the twentieth century - amidst the absurd
contradictions of instantaneous global communication and acute
poverty - Coupland's novels, short stories, essays and visual art
have intervened in specifically contemporary debates regarding
authenticity, artifice and art. This book explores Coupland's
response, in ground-breaking novels such as Microserfs, Girlfriend
in a Coma and Miss Wyoming, to some of the most pressing issues of
our times. Designed for students, researchers and general readers
alike, the study is structured around thematically focused chapters
that consider Coupland's engagement with narrative, consumer
culture, space, religion and ideas of the future. -- .
Visions of post-apocalyptic worlds have proved to be irresistible
for many 21st-century writers, from literary novelists to fantasy
and young adult writers. Exploring a wide range of texts, from the
works of Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Tom Perrotta and Emily
St. John Mandel to young adult novels such as Suzanne Collins's The
Hunger Games series, this is the first critical introduction to
contemporary apocalyptic fiction. Exploring the cultural and
political contexts of these writings and their echoes in popular
media, Apocalyptic Fiction also examines how contemporary
apocalyptic texts looks back to earlier writings by the likes of
Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells and J.G. Ballard. Apocalyptic Fiction
includes an annotated guide to secondary readings, making this an
essential guide for students of contemporary fiction at all levels.
The New Atheist Novel is the first study of a major new genre of
contemporary fiction. It examines how Richard Dawkins's so-called
'New Atheism' movement has caught the imagination of four eminent
modern novelists: Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and
Philip Pullman. For McEwan and his contemporaries, the contemporary
novel represents a new front in the ideological war against
religion, religious fundamentalism and, after 9/11, religious
terror: the novel apparently stands for everything freedom,
individuality, rationality and even a secular experience of the
transcendental that religion seeks to overthrow. In this book,
Bradley and Tate offer a genealogy of the New Atheist Novel: where
it comes from, what needs it serves and, most importantly, where it
may go in the future. What is it? How does it dramatise the war
between belief and non-belief? To what extent does it represent a
genuine ideological alternative to the religious imaginary or does
it merely repeat it in secularised form? This fascinating study
offers an incisive critique of this contemporary testament of
literary belief and unbelief.
How does contemporary fiction engage with the claims and ideas of
Christian theology? Can 'secular fictions' accommodate transcendent
experiences or encounters with the divine? Does belief continue to
influence the shape of fiction in any meaningful way? This study
argues against the idea that the 'postmodern condition' of late
twentieth and early twenty-first century culture has undermined the
close and creative association between religious practice and
literature. It suggests that the novel, as a major narrative genre
of contemporary western culture, has become an increasingly vital,
dynamic and problematic space for engaging with the sacred.Tate
examines the work of more than a dozen contemporary Anglo-American
novelists, including John Updike, Douglas Coupland, John Irving,
Michele Roberts, Don DeLillo and Jim Crace. He shows how the
'sacred turn' in western culture is manifested within the novel
from the 1980s to the present, paying particular attention to
representations of such theological ideas as the miraculous, the
heretical, the apocalyptic and the messianic.
Visions of post-apocalyptic worlds have proved to be irresistible
for many 21st-century writers, from literary novelists to fantasy
and young adult writers. Exploring a wide range of texts, from the
works of Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Tom Perrotta and Emily
St. John Mandel to young adult novels such as Suzanne Collins's The
Hunger Games series, this is the first critical introduction to
contemporary apocalyptic fiction. Exploring the cultural and
political contexts of these writings and their echoes in popular
media, Apocalyptic Fiction also examines how contemporary
apocalyptic texts looks back to earlier writings by the likes of
Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells and J.G. Ballard. Apocalyptic Fiction
includes an annotated guide to secondary readings, making this an
essential guide for students of contemporary fiction at all levels.
This book is the first full-length study of Douglas Coupland, one
of the twenty-first century's most innovative and influential
novelists. The study explores the prolific first decade and a half
of Coupland's career, from Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture (1991) to JPod (2006), a period in which he published ten
novels and four significant volumes of non-fiction. Emerging in the
last decade of the twentieth century - amidst the absurd
contradictions of instantaneous global communication and acute
poverty - Coupland's novels, short stories, essays and visual art
have intervened in specifically contemporary debates regarding
authenticity, artifice and art. This book explores Coupland's
response, in ground-breaking novels such as Microserfs, Girlfriend
in a Coma and Miss Wyoming, to some of the most pressing issues of
our times. Designed for students, researchers and general readers
alike, the study is structured around thematically focused chapters
that consider Coupland's engagement with narrative, consumer
culture, space, religion and ideas of the future. -- .
This book provides a detailed exploration of the spiritual and
religious contexts and subtexts of contemporary fiction. How does
contemporary fiction engage with the claims and ideas of Christian
theology? Can 'secular fictions' accommodate transcendent
experiences or encounters with the divine? Does belief continue to
influence the shape of fiction in any meaningful way? This study
argues against the idea that the 'postmodern condition' of late
twentieth and early twenty-first century culture has undermined the
close and creative association between religious practice and
literature. It suggests that the novel, as a major narrative genre
of contemporary western culture, has become an increasingly vital,
dynamic and problematic space for engaging with the sacred. Tate
examines the work of more than a dozen contemporary Anglo-American
novelists, including John Updike, Douglas Coupland, John Irving,
Michele Roberts, Don DeLillo and Jim Crace. He shows how the
'sacred turn' in western culture is manifested within the novel
from the 1980s to the present, paying particular attention to
representations of such theological ideas as the miraculous, the
heretical, the apocalyptic and the messianic.
The New Atheist Novel is the first study of a major new genre of
contemporary fiction. It examines how Richard Dawkins's so-called
New Atheism' movement has caught the imagination of four eminent
modern novelists: Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and
Philip Pullman. For McEwan and his contemporaries, the contemporary
novel represents a new front in the ideological war against
religion, religious fundamentalism and, after 9/11, religious
terror: the novel apparently stands for everything freedom,
individuality, rationality and even a secular experience of the
transcendental that religion seeks to overthrow. In this book,
Bradley and Tate offer a genealogy of the New Atheist Novel: where
it comes from, what needs it serves and, most importantly, where it
may go in the future. What is it? How does it dramatise the war
between belief and non-belief? To what extent does it represent a
genuine ideological alternative to the religious imaginary or does
it merely repeat it in secularised form? This fascinating study
offers an incisive critique of this contemporary testament of
literary belief and unbelief.
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