Considerations of writing about war, in war, because of war, and against war, in a wide range of texts from the middle ages onwards. War was the first subject of literature; at times, war has been its only subject. In this volume, the contributors reflect on the uneasy yet symbiotic relations of war and writing, from medieval to modern literature. War writing emerges in multiple forms, celebratory and critical, awed and disgusted; the rhetoric of inexpressibility fights its own battle with the urgent necessity of representation, record and recognition. This is shown to be true even to the present day: whether mimetic or metaphorical, literature that concerns itself overtly or covertly with the real pressures of war continues to speak to issues of pressing significance, and to provide some clues to the intricateentwinement of war with contemporary life. Particular topics addressed include writings of and about the Crusades and battles during the Hundred Years War; Shakespeare's "Casus Belly"; Auden's "Journal of an Airman"; and War and Peace. Ian Patterson is a poet, critic and translator. He teaches English at Queens' College, Cambridge. Laura Ashe is Associate Professor of English and a Tutorial Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Contributors: Joanna Bellis, Catherine A.M. Clarke, Mary A. Favret, Rachel Galvin, James Purdon, Mark Rawlinson, Susanna A. Throop, Katie L. Walter, Carol Watts, Tom F. Wright, Andrew Zurcher.

Charles Sheeler was the stark poet of the machine age. Photographer of the Ford Motor Company and founder of the painting movement Precisionism, he is remembered as a promoter of - and apologist for - the industrialised capitalist ethic. This major new rethink of one of the key figures of American modernism argues that Sheeler's true relationship to progress was in fact highly negative, his 'precisionism' both skewed and imprecise. Covering the entire oeuvre from photography to painting and drawing attention to the inconsistencies, curiosities and 'puzzles' embedded in Sheeler's work, Rawlinson reveals a profound critique of the processes of rationalisation and the conditions of modernity. The book argues finally for a re-evaluation of Sheeler's often dismissed late work which, it suggests, may only be understood through a radical shift in our understanding of the work of this prominent figure.

The First World War (1914-1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war."First World War Plays" draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted war in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, historical revisionism and repercussions in a divided Ireland. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain, Ireland and the United States.Plays from the period, like "Night Watches" by Allan Monkhouse (1916), "My Eyes Have Seen" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and "Tunnel Trench" by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in "Post Mortem" by Noel Coward (1930, performed 1944) and "Oh What A Lovely War" by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works "The Accrington Pals" by Peter Whelan (1982) and "The Steward of Christendom" by Sebastian Barry (1995).Accompanied by a general introduction by editor Mark Rawlinson, "First World War Plays" is an ideal anthology for students, with brief commentaries on each play and its unique treatment of the First World War.

Pat Barker has established herself as one of the leading British political and historical novelists of the generation growing up in the wake of the Second World War. This book provides students with an introduction to her work, placing the fiction in clear historical, critical and theoretical contexts. Including a timeline of key dates and an interview with the author, Rawlinson both establishes the cultural importance of Barker's work and provides an overview of its academic and critical reception.

Riffs, revisions, knockoffs, and homages: artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha's famous photo-conceptual small books. In the 1960s and 1970s, the artist Ed Ruscha created a series of small photo-conceptual artist's books, among them Twentysix Gas Stations, Various Small Fires, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Real Estate Opportunities, and A Few Palm Trees. Featuring mundane subjects photographed prosaically, with idiosyncratically deadpan titles, these "small books" were sought after, collected, and loved by Ruscha's fans and fellow artists. Over the past thirty years, close to 100 other small books that appropriated or paid homage to Ruscha's have appeared throughout the world. This book collects ninety-one of these projects, showcasing the cover and sample layouts from each along with a description of the work. It also includes selections from Ruscha's books and an appendix listing all known Ruscha book tributes. These small books revisit, imitate, honor, and parody Ruscha in form, content, and title. Some rephotograph his subjects: Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Forty Years Later. Some offer a humorous variation: Various Unbaked Cookies (which concludes, as did Ruscha's Various Small Fires, with a glass of milk), Twentynine Palms (twenty-nine photographs of palm-readers' signs). Some say something different: None of the Buildings on Sunset Strip. Some reach for a connection with Ruscha himself: 17 Parked Cars in Various Parking Lots Along Pacific Coast Highway Between My House and Ed Ruscha's. With his books, Ruscha expanded the artist's field of permissible subjects, approaches, and methods. With VARIOUS SMALL BOOKS, various artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha and extend the legacy of his books.

The First World War (1914-1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war."First World War Plays" draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.Plays from the period, like "Night Watches" by Allan Monkhouse (1916), "Mine Eyes Have Seen" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and "Tunnel Trench" by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in "Post Mortem" by Noel Coward (1930, performed 1944) and "Oh What A Lovely War" by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works "The Accrington Pals" by Peter Whelan (1982) and "Sea and Land and Sky "by Abigail Docherty (2010).Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.

Visual culture - art, advertising, architecture, cinema, television, cartography, video, the internet, and images of science - has shaped American national identity more than that of any other country. Covering the period from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the book explores how visual culture has at once transformed and consolidated the image of the United States. American Visual Culture presents both an analysis of the diversity of American visual media and a critical introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture. Thematic chapters - on American urban and rural landscapes, icons, popular culture, art and photography, as well as on crime, anxiety and sex - describe the cultural, intellectual and historical context. Throughout, these themes are discussed in conjunction with clear and concise explanations of key visual theories and methodologies.

British Writing of the Second World War investigates representations of violence and the relationship of imaginative literature to propaganda and politics. A wide-ranging survey of familiar and forgotten wartime writers, it focuses in greatest detail on the Blitz, military aviation, North Africa, war aims, POWs and the Holocaust. The book theorizes the role of culture in the prosecution of war, gives a richly-textured historical account of contemporary responses to Britains Second World War, and provides a substantial bibliographical resource for future research.

Visual culture - art, advertising, architecture, cinema, television, cartography, video, the internet, and images of science - has shaped American national identity more than that of any other country. Covering the period from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the book explores how visual culture has at once transformed and consolidated the image of the United States.
"American Visual Culture" presents both an analysis of the diversity of American visual media and a critical introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture.
Thematic chapters - on American urban and rural landscapes, icons, popular culture, art and photography, as well as on crime, anxiety and sex - describe the cultural, intellectual and historical context. Throughout, these themes are discussed in conjunction with clear and concise explanations of key visual theories and methodologies.