Fictional character is an ontologically ambivalent category - at once a formal construct and a quasi-person - which lies at the heart of the life of textual fictions of all kinds. Character and Person explores that ambivalence by investigating not only the kinds of thing that character is but how it works to engage readers and the range of typologies through which it has been constructed in very different periods, media, and genres. John Frow seeks to explore the ways in which character is person-like, and through that the question of what it means to be a social person. His focus is thus on the interaction between its two major categories, and its method involves a constant play back and forth between them: from philosophical theories of face to an account of the mask in the New Comedy; from an exploration of medieval beliefs about the body's existence in the afterlife to a reading of Dante's Purgatorio; from the history of humoral medicine to the figure of the melancholic in Jacobean drama; and from Proust and Pessoa to cognitive science. What develops from this methodological commitment to fusing the categories of character and person is an extended analysis of the schemata that underpin each of them in their distinct but mutually constitutive spheres of operation

This second edition of John Frow s "Genre" offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the area. Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture, but it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. Understanding genre as a dynamic process rather than a set of stable rules, this book explores:

• the relation of simple to complex genres
• the history of literary genre in theory
• the generic organisation of implied meanings
• the structuring of interpretation by genre
• the uses of genre in teaching.

John Frow s lucid exploration of this fascinating concept has become essential reading for students of literary and cultural studies, and the second edition expands on the original to take account of recent debates in genre theory and the emergence of digital genres."

This second edition of John Frow s "Genre" offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the area. Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture, but it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. Understanding genre as a dynamic process rather than a set of stable rules, this book explores:

• the relation of simple to complex genres
• the history of literary genre in theory
• the generic organisation of implied meanings
• the structuring of interpretation by genre
• the uses of genre in teaching.

John Frow s lucid exploration of this fascinating concept has become essential reading for students of literary and cultural studies, and the second edition expands on the original to take account of recent debates in genre theory and the emergence of digital genres."

"Interpretation" is a term that encompasses both the most esoteric and the most fundamental activities of our lives, from analyzing medical images to the million ways we perceive other people's actions. Today, we also leave interpretation to the likes of web cookies, social media algorithms, and automated markets. But as John Frow shows in this thoughtfully argued book, there is much yet to do in clarifying how we understand the social organization of interpretation. On Interpretive Conflict delves into four case studies where sharply different sets of values come into play--gun control, anti-Semitism, the religious force of images, and climate change. In each case, Frow lays out the way these controversies unfold within interpretive regimes that establish what counts as an interpretable object and the protocols of evidence and proof that should govern it. Whether applied to a Shakespeare play or a Supreme Court case, interpretation, he argues, is at once rule-governed and inherently conflictual. Ambitious and provocative, On Interpretive Conflict will attract readers from across the humanities and beyond.

"A genuine one-stop reference point for the many, many differing strands of cultural analysis. This isn't just one contender among many for the title of 'best multidisciplinary overview'; this is a true heavyweight." - Matt Hills, Cardiff University "An achievement and a delight - both compelling and useful." - Beverley Skeggs, Goldsmiths, University of London With the 'cultural turn', the concept of culture has assumed enormous importance in our understanding of the interrelations between social, political and economic structures, patterns of everyday interaction, and systems of meaning-making. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis, the leading figures in their fields explore the implications of this paradigm shift. Part I looks at the major disciplines of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences, asking how they have been reshaped by the cultural turn and how they have elaborated distinctive new objects of knowledge. Parts II and III examine the questions arising from a practice of analysis in which the researcher is drawn reflexively into the object of study and in which methodological frameworks are rarely given in advance. Addressed to academics and advanced students in all fields of the social sciences and humanities, The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis is at once a synthesis of advances in the field, with a comprehensive coverage of the scholarly literature, and a collection of original and provocative essays by some of the brightest intellectuals of our time.

Fictional character is an ontologically ambivalent category - at once a formal construct and a quasi-person - which lies at the heart of the life of textual fictions of all kinds. Character and Person explores that ambivalence by investigating not only the kinds of thing that character is but how it works to engage readers and the range of typologies through which it has been constructed in very different periods, media, and genres. John Frow seeks to explore the ways in which character is person-like, and through that the question of what it means to be a social person. His focus is thus on the interaction between its two major categories, and its method involves a constant play back and forth between them: from philosophical theories of face to an account of the mask in the New Comedy; from an exploration of medieval beliefs about the body's existence in the afterlife to a reading of Dante's Purgatorio; from the history of humoral medicine to the figure of the melancholic in Jacobean drama; and from Proust and Pessoa to cognitive science. What develops from this methodological commitment to fusing the categories of character and person is an extended analysis of the schemata that underpin each of them in their distinct but mutually constitutive spheres of operation.

This work is a set of four linked essays on the cultural systems of postmodernity. Rather than taking modernity and postmodernity as real historical epochs, however, it understands them as strategies for organizing time and social order by means of a "nostalgic" division within them. Each essay explores a particular dimension of this organization of time, especially in relation to the anxieties and the possibilities created by the commodification of culture. The central essay, "Gift and Commodity", studies two areas in which the speed of commodification has increased markedly in recent years: that of the person, and that of information. Using a mix of anthropological, legal, economic, and historical materials, it investigates the privatization of the commons in information by way of such things as the development of markets in human DNA, the trade in human organs, and the creation of property rights in "personality". "What Was Postmodernism?" analyzes the structured anxiety about the commodification of culture that is called "postmodern theory". A further essay explores tourism as a figure of modernity, and a final essay on memory explores the phenomena of "recovered memory" and of

Accounting for Tastes is the most systematic and substantial study of Australian cultural tastes, preferences and activities ever published. While based on the findings of a survey, the book also includes transcripts from interviews where respondents talk freely about what governs their tastes and preferences in home furnishings, music, books, sports, television programs, and art. It is a book that makes a substantial contribution to the empirical and policy-oriented social inquiry into questions of cultural practices and preferences.

This is a major critique of the important new discipline of cultural studies. Cultural studies has generally organized itself around the opposition of high to low culture, but through careful readings of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Stuart Hall, and Ernesto Laclau, John Frow undermines this assumption. He argues for a much-needed reorientation of cultural studies - starting from a revitalized and `poststructuralist' account of social class, and a recognition of the complexity of the category of culture.

Time and Commodity Culture is a detailed and theoretically sophisticated account of the cultural systems of postmodernity. Through a series of four linked essays on postmodern theory, on tourism, on gift exchange and commodity exchange, and on the social organization of memory it explores some of the implications of the commodification of culture for the contemporary and postmodern world.

What is a literary text? What does it mean to read a text? Who are "we" who read? How does the meaning of a text change in relation to the context in which it is read? What authority does an author have over the reception of a text? How does our gender, class, or ethnicity shape our understanding of texts? The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory delves into these and the many other questions that arise when we read and write, exploring with an innovative approach and an unprecedented variety of perspectives what literary theory means. Led by Editor in Chief John Frow and Associate Editors Mark Byron, Pelagia Goulimari, Sean Pryor, and Julie Rak, the Encyclopedia illustrates the problems, the concepts, and the methodologies that arise when we discuss literary criticism. Around 180 full-length essays written by international experts discuss the theoretical categories and formal structures; the institutions that support the production, dissemination, interpretation, and valuation of literary texts; the identities of the real and textual persons who interact in the study of texts; and the systematic methodologies of literary interpretation and understanding. Ranging from ancient criticism-Greek and Latin, Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Biblical-to contemporary issues, including digital humanities, ecocriticism, queer studies, and Indigenous traditions, the Encyclopedia offers the most comprehensive analysis currently available of literary theory in all its many dimensions.