Essays exploring the ways in which Dickens' vision is both so much of its time, and yet has so much resonance for today. The scale of the 2012 bicentenary celebrations of Dickens's birth is testimony to his status as one of the most globally popular literary authors the world has ever seen. Yet Dickens has also become associated in the public imagination with a particular version of the Victorian past and with respectability. His continued cultural prominence and the "brand recognition" achieved by his image and images suggest that his vision reaches out beyond the Victorianperiod. Yet what is the relationship between Dickens and the modern world? Do his works offer a consoling version of the past or are they attuned to that state of uncertainty and instability we associate with the nebulous but resonant concept of modernity? This volume positions Dickens as both a literary and a cultural icon with a complex relationship to the cultural landscape in his own period and since. It seeks to demonstrate that oppositions which have pervaded approaches to Dickens - Victorian vs modern, artist vs entertainer, culture vs commerce - are false, by exploring the diversity and multiplicity of Dickens's textual and extra-textual lives. A specially commissioned Afterword by Florian Schweizer, Director of the Dickens 2012 celebrations, offers a fascinating insight into the shaping of this year-long public programme of commemoration of Dickens. Like the volume as a whole, it asks us toconsider the nature of our connection with "this quintessentially Victorian writer" and what it is about Dickens that still appeals to people around the world. Professor Juliet John holds the Hildred Carlile Chair of English Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London. Contributors: Jay Clayton, Holly Furneaux, John Drew, Michaela Mahlberg, Juliet John, Michael Hollington, Joss Marsh, Carrie Sickmann, Kim Edwardes Keates, DominicRainsford, Florian Schweizer

The question of ethics has dominated recent developments within the humanities. This volume brings together the most recent theories of ethics and reading and applies them to a wide variety of literary texts. Ethical and literary issues explored by the contributors include biography, sensibility, national identity, feminism, postcolonialism, religion, subjectivity and stylistics. Literary authors and philosophers/theorists discussed range from Shakespeare and Mary Shelley to Michele Roberts and Salman Rushdie, and from Kant and Coleridge to Derrida and Levinas.

Literature in English: How and Why is an accessible guide for students. It deals with the fundamental concepts of literary form and genre; the history of English-language literature from the medieval period to the present; relations between the study of literature and other disciplines; literary theory; researching a topic; and writing a paper. This new edition contains a brand new chapter which takes literary theory to another level, using it to link literature to the issues that concern us most, whether in our own lives or in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The book has also been fully updated throughout, with significant additions to the introduction and further reading sections. Overall, Literature in English: * Grounds the study of literature throughout by referencing a selection of well-known novels, plays and poems * Examines the central questions that readers ask when confronting literary texts, and shows how these make literary theory meaningful and necessary * Links British, American and postcolonial literature into a coherent whole * Discusses film as literature and provides the basic conceptual tools needed to study film within a literature-course framework * Places particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity by examining the connections between the study of literature and other disciplines * Links literary theory to current global challenges, placing special emphasis on new and evolving approaches such as ecocriticism, new materialism and the spatial turn * Provides extensive guidance on further reading. Written in a clear and engaging style, this is an essential guide for literature students around the world.

The question of ethics has dominated recent developments within the humanities. This volume brings together the most recent theories of ethics and reading and applies them to a wide variety of literary texts. Ethical and literary issues explored by the contributors include biography, sensibility, national identity, feminism, postcolonialism, religion, subjectivity and stylistics. Literary authors and philosophers/theorists discussed range from Shakespeare and Mary Shelley to Michele Roberts and Salman Rushdie, and from Kant and Coleridge to Derrida and Levinas.

Literature in English: How and Why is an accessible guide for students. It deals with the fundamental concepts of literary form and genre; the history of English-language literature from the medieval period to the present; relations between the study of literature and other disciplines; literary theory; researching a topic; and writing a paper. This new edition contains a brand new chapter which takes literary theory to another level, using it to link literature to the issues that concern us most, whether in our own lives or in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The book has also been fully updated throughout, with significant additions to the introduction and further reading sections. Overall, Literature in English: * Grounds the study of literature throughout by referencing a selection of well-known novels, plays and poems * Examines the central questions that readers ask when confronting literary texts, and shows how these make literary theory meaningful and necessary * Links British, American and postcolonial literature into a coherent whole * Discusses film as literature and provides the basic conceptual tools needed to study film within a literature-course framework * Places particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity by examining the connections between the study of literature and other disciplines * Links literary theory to current global challenges, placing special emphasis on new and evolving approaches such as ecocriticism, new materialism and the spatial turn * Provides extensive guidance on further reading. Written in a clear and engaging style, this is an essential guide for literature students around the world.

The current resurgence of ethics in the beleaguered humanities reflects an increasing anxiety about the value and utility of critical/philosophical debate in the wake of poststructuralism. This book addresses this 'return to ethics' in relation to a wide variety of theories and texts. It covers substantial areas of ethical debate, particularly in relation to queer politics, biography, history, postmodernism, atrocity literature, utilitarianism, pedagogy and the philosophy of science. Theorists discussed in the volume include Rorty, Heidegger, Levinas, Mill, Lyotard, Leavis, Kuhn, Davidson, Nussbaum and Freud.