Contents:
General Editor's Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction: What are post-colonial literatures?, Post-colonial literatures and English Studies, Development of post-colonial literatures, Hegemony, Language, Place and displacement, Post-coloniality and theory. 1. Cutting the ground: critical models of post-colonial literatures: National and regional models, Comparisons between two or more regions, The 'Black writing' model, Wider comparative models, Models of hybridity and syncreticity. 2. Re-placing language: textual strategies in post-colonial writing: Abrogation and appropriation, Language and abrogation, A post-colonial linguistic theory: the Creole continuum, The metonymic function of language variance, Strategies of appropriation in post-colonial writing. 3. Re-placing the text: the liberation of post-colonial writing: The imperial moment: control of the means of communication, Colonialism and silence: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds, Colonialism and 'authenticity': V.S Naipaul's The Mimic Men, Radical Otherness and hybridity: Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, Appropriating marginality: Janet Frame's The Edge of the Alphabet, Appropriating the frame of power: R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets. 4. Theory at the crossroads: indigenous theory and post-colonial reading: Indian literary theories, African literary theories, The settler colonies, Caribbean theories. 5. Re-placing theory: post-colonial writing and literary theory: Post-colonial literatures and postmodernism, Post-colonial reconstructions: literature, meaning, value, Post-colonialism as a reading strategy, Re-thinking the Post-colonial. Conclusion: More english than English. Reader's guide. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Louis Althusser's interpretation of Niccolo Machiavelli has never really been studied in any detail as an analysis of political action and intervention. The same is also true for Althusser's notion of aleatory materialism. Instead, these have conventionally been studied from the viewpoint of a philosophical perspective in which politics is excluded. The objective of the present book thus runs against many of the prevailing views on Althusser. Here the emphasis is placed on Althusser's advancement of a theory of materialist politics. The main argument put forward is that, for Althusser, it was essential to reflect on how the conjunctural understanding of history and reality could offer a theoretical starting point for a subversive political strategy.

Rereading Chaucer and Spenser is a much-needed volume that brings together established and early career scholars to provide new critical approaches to the relationship between Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. By reading one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages alongside one of the greatest poets of the English Renaissance, this collection poses questions about poetic authority, influence, and the nature of intertextual relations in a more wide-ranging manner than ever before. With its dual focus on authors from periods often conceived as radically separate, the collection also responds to current interests in periodisation. This approach will engage academics, researchers and students of Medieval and Early Modern culture. -- .

Here is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.

Investigations into the heroic - or not - behaviour of the protagonists of medieval romance. Medieval romances so insistently celebrate the triumphs of heroes and the discomfiture of villains that they discourage recognition of just how morally ambiguous, antisocial or even downright sinister their protagonists can be, and, correspondingly, of just how admirable or impressive their defeated opponents often are. This tension between the heroic and the antiheroic makes a major contribution to the dramatic complexity of medieval romance, but it is not an aspect of the genre that has been frequently discussed up until now. Focusing on fourteen distinct characters and character-types in medieval narrative, this book illustrates the range of different ways in which the imaginative power and appeal of romance-texts often depend on contradictions implicit in the very ideal of heroism. Dr Neil Cartlidge is Lecturer in English at the University of Durham. Contributors: Neil Cartlidge, Penny Eley, David Ashurst, Meg Lamont, Laura Ashe, Judith Weiss, Gareth Griffith, Kate McClune, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Ad Putter, Robert Rouse, Siobhain Bly Calkin, James Wade, Stephanie Vierick Gibbs Kamath

Investigations into the heroic - or not - behaviour of the protagonists of medieval romance. Medieval romances so insistently celebrate the triumphs of heroes and the discomfiture of villains that they discourage recognition of just how morally ambiguous, antisocial or even downright sinister their protagonists can be, and, correspondingly, of just how admirable or impressive their defeated opponents often are. This tension between the heroic and the antiheroic makes a major contribution to the dramatic complexity of medieval romance, but it is not an aspect of the genre that has been frequently discussed up until now. Focusing on fourteen distinct characters and character-types in medieval narrative, this book illustrates the range of different ways in which the imaginative power and appeal of romance-texts often depend on contradictions implicit in the very ideal of heroism. NEIL CARTLIDGE is Professor of English Studies at the University of Durham Contributors: Neil Cartlidge, Penny Eley, David Ashurst, Meg Lamont, Laura Ashe, Judith Weiss, Gareth Griffith, Kate McClune, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Ad Putter, Robert Rouse, Siobhain Bly Calkin, James Wade, Stephanie Vierick Gibbs Kamath

Here is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.

Available in paperback for the first time, Gareth Griffith's book provides a comprehensive critical account of the political ideas of one of the most influential commentators of the 20th century.
With close reference to a range of Shaw's text's, from the Fabian tracts to the plays, Griffith draws out the central theoretical messages of Shaw's engagement with politics. The first part of the book provides an intellectual biography, while at the same time analyzing Shaw's key concerns in relation to his Fabianism, arguments for equality of income and ideas on democracy and education. Part Two looks at those areas which Shaw approached as long-standing historical problems or dramas requiring immediate thought or action: sexual equality, the Irish question, war, fascism and Sovietism.
"The Political Thought of George" "Bernard Shaw" is directed to the general reader as well as to specialists. It will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Shaw's life, his literary and political writings, the development of political thinking in this century or the problems and potential inherent in socialism.

With close reference to a range of Shaw's texts - Fabian tracts to the plays and prefaces - Gareth Griffiths draws out the central theoretical messages of the master intellectual's epic engagement with politics. Shaw's intentions, his methods and the levels of abstraction of his thought are related by Griffiths both to his writings and to the dominant questions and movements of the day.
Part One is an intellectual biography and an account of Shaw's key concerns and of his Fabianism. Part Two looks at areas approached by him as long-standing historical dramas that demanded immediate action, and includes a challenging exposition of his attitude to women in his writings, in society and in contemporary politics.


eBook available with sample pages: 0203210832

Electron microscopy in the biological sciences can be divided into two disciplines. The first, concerned with high resolution detail of particles or periodic structures, is mostly based on sound theoretical principles of physics. The second, by far the larger discipline, is interested in the information obtainable from thin sections. The theoretical back ground to those groups of techniques for preparing and looking at thin sections is often inexact and "loose," for want of a better word. What should be chemistry is often closer to alchemy. This kind of electron microscopy is often enshrined with mystical recipes, handed down from generation to generation. Admittedly, many of the processes involved, such as those required to embed tissue in epoxy resins, involve multiple interconnected steps, which make it difficult to follow the details of anyone of these steps. If all these steps are shrouded in some mystery, however, can one really trust the final image that emerges on the EM screen? When we present the data in some semi quantitative form is there really no better way to do it than to categorize the parameters with ++, +/-, etc? What happens when one labels the sections with antibodies? Does the whole business necess arily need to be more of an "art" than a "science"? Upon reflecting on these problems in 1981, I had the impression that many of the multi-authored textbooks that existed then (and that have appeared since) tended to exacerbate or at least perpetuate this"

Contents:
General Editor's Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction: What are post-colonial literatures?, Post-colonial literatures and English Studies, Development of post-colonial literatures, Hegemony, Language, Place and displacement, Post-coloniality and theory. 1. Cutting the ground: critical models of post-colonial literatures: National and regional models, Comparisons between two or more regions, The 'Black writing' model, Wider comparative models, Models of hybridity and syncreticity. 2. Re-placing language: textual strategies in post-colonial writing: Abrogation and appropriation, Language and abrogation, A post-colonial linguistic theory: the Creole continuum, The metonymic function of language variance, Strategies of appropriation in post-colonial writing. 3. Re-placing the text: the liberation of post-colonial writing: The imperial moment: control of the means of communication, Colonialism and silence: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds, Colonialism and 'authenticity': V.S Naipaul's The Mimic Men, Radical Otherness and hybridity: Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, Appropriating marginality: Janet Frame's The Edge of the Alphabet, Appropriating the frame of power: R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets. 4. Theory at the crossroads: indigenous theory and post-colonial reading: Indian literary theories, African literary theories, The settler colonies, Caribbean theories. 5. Re-placing theory: post-colonial writing and literary theory: Post-colonial literatures and postmodernism, Post-colonial reconstructions: literature, meaning, value, Post-colonialism as a reading strategy, Re-thinking the Post-colonial. Conclusion: More english than English. Reader's guide. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

This book addresses the ways in which a range of representational forms have influenced and helped implement the project of human rights across the world, and seeks to show how public discourses on law and politics grow out of and are influenced by the imaginative representations of human rights. It draws on a multi-disciplinary approach, using historical, literary, anthropological, visual arts, and media studies methods and readings, and covers a wider range of geographic areas than has previously been attempted. A series of specifically-commissioned essays by leading scholars in the field and by emerging young academics show how a multidisciplinary approach can illuminate this central concern.