- Table View
- List View
The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin
by William LoganWilliam Logan has been called both the "preeminent poet-critic of his generation" and the "most hated man in American poetry." For more than a quarter century, in the keen-witted and bare-knuckled reviews that have graced the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement (London), and other journals, William Logan has delivered razor-sharp assessments of poets present and past. Logan, whom James Wolcott of Vanity Fair has praised as being "the best poetry critic in America," vividly assays the most memorable and most damning features of a poet's work. While his occasionally harsh judgments have raised some eyebrows and caused their share of controversy (a number of poets have offered to do him bodily harm), his readings offer the fresh and provocative perspectives of a passionate and uncompromising critic, unafraid to separate the tin from the gold.The longer essays in The Undiscovered Country explore a variety of poets who have shaped and shadowed contemporary verse, measuring the critical and textual traditions of Shakespeare's sonnets, Whitman's use of the American vernacular, the mystery of Marianne Moore, and Milton's invention of personality, as well as offering a thorough reconsideration of Robert Lowell and a groundbreaking analysis of Sylvia Plath's relationship to her father.Logan's unsparing "verse chronicles" present a survey of the successes and failures of contemporary verse. Neither a poet's tepid use of language nor lackadaisical ideas nor indulgence in grotesque sentimentality escapes this critic's eye. While railing against the blandness of much of today's poetry (and the critics who trumpet mediocre work), Logan also celebrates Paul Muldoon's high comedy, Anne Carson's quirky originality, Seamus Heaney's backward glances, Czeslaw Milosz's indictment of Polish poetry, and much more.Praise for Logan's previous works:Desperate Measures (2002)"When it comes to separating the serious from the fraudulent, the ambitious from the complacent, Logan has consistently shown us what is wheat and what is chaff.... The criticism we remember is neither savage nor mandarin.... There is no one in his generation more likely to write it than William Logan."—Adam Kirsch, Oxford AmericanReputations of the Tongue (1999)"Is there today a more stringent, caring reader of American poetry than William Logan? Reputations of the Tongue may, at moments, read harshly. But this edge is one of deeply considered and concerned authority. A poet-critic engages closely with his masters, with his peers, with those whom he regards as falling short. This collection is an adventure of sensibility."—George Steiner"William Logan's critical bedevilments-as well as his celebrations-are indispensable."—Bill Marx, Boston GlobeAll the Rage (1998)"William Logan's reviews are malpractice suits."—Dennis O'Driscoll, Verse"William Logan is the best practical critic around."—Christian Wiman, Poetry
The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante
by Teodolinda BaroliniAccepting Dante's prophetic truth claims on their own terms, Teodolinda Barolini proposes a "detheologized" reading as a global new approach to the Divine Comedy. Not aimed at excising theological concerns from Dante, this approach instead attempts to break out of the hermeneutic guidelines that Dante structured into his poem and that have resulted in theologized readings whose outcomes have been overdetermined by the poet. By detheologizing, the reader can emerge from this poet's hall of mirrors and discover the narrative techniques that enabled Dante to forge a true fiction. Foregrounding the formal exigencies that Dante masked as ideology, Barolini moves from the problems of beginning to those of closure, focusing always on the narrative journey. Her investigation--which treats such topics as the visionary and the poet, the One and the many, narrative and time--reveals some of the transgressive paths trodden by a master of mimesis, some of the ways in which Dante's poetic adventuring is indeed, according to his own lights, Ulyssean.
Undoing Apartheid (Critical South)
by Premesh LaluPost-apartheid South Africa still struggles to overcome the past, not just because the material conditions of apartheid linger but because the intellectual conditions it created have not been thoroughly dismantled. The system of &‘petty apartheid&’, which controlled the minutia of everyday life, became a means of dragooning human beings into adapting to increasingly mechanized forms of life that stifle desire and creative endeavour. As a result, apartheid is incessantly repeated in the struggle to move beyond it. In Undoing Apartheid, Premesh Lalu argues that only an aesthetic education can lead to a future beyond apartheid. To find ways to escape the vicious cycle, he traces the patterns created by three theatrical works by William Kentridge, Jane Taylor, and the Handspring Puppet Company – Faustus in Africa, Woyzeck on the Highveld, and Ubu and the Truth Commission – which coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid. Through the analysis of these works, Lalu uncovers the roots of modern thinking about race and affirms the need to revitalize a post-apartheid reconciliation endowed with truth – if only to keep alive the rhyme of hope and history.
Undoing Babel: The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series)
by Tristan MajorThe Tower of Babel narrative is one of the most memorable accounts of the Bible, and its interpretative potential has produced a vast array of literary adaptations. Undoing Babel is the first extensive examination of the development of the Babel narrative amongst Anglo-Saxon authors from late antiquity to the eleventh century. Tristan Major’s illuminating and original insight into Anglo-Latin and Old English works, including the writings of Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, Ælfric, and Wulfstan, reveals the cultural ideologies and anxieties that transformed the Babel narrative. In doing so, Major argues that these Babel narratives provide a basis for understanding the world’s ethnic and linguistic diversity as well as a theological stimulus to evangelize non-Christian and non-European people. Undoing Babel highlights the depth of literary innovation in this period and disproves any notion of a single Anglo-Saxon reception of biblical sources.
Undoing the Digital: Sociomaterialism and Literacy Education (Literacies)
by Cathy Burnett Guy MerchantUndoing the Digital challenges common ways of understanding digital technology and its relationships to literacy and literacy education. The book explores how a sociomaterial perspective can provide an alternative analysis of literacy in the context of digital communication. Introducing a series of conceptual tools and examples, the book examines digital communication as an emergent interweaving of social, material and semiotic resources. The perspective invites literacy research to focus more on the relations associated with the process of making meaning: the new collaborations, stories, conceptualisations, directions, and intentions that take shape in, and also help to shape, the contemporary mediascape. Drawing on studies conducted in a variety of contexts, this book is key reading for all advanced students and researchers of literacy and digital media within Education, Applied Linguistics and Media/Communication Studies.
Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature As Feminist Space
by Stacy AlaimoFrom "Mother Earth" to "Mother Nature," women have for centuries been associated with nature. Feminists, troubled by the way in which such representations show women controlled by powerful natural forces and confined to domestic space, have sought to distance themselves from nature. In Undomesticated Ground, Stacy Alaimo issues a bold call to reclaim nature as a feminist space. Her analysis of a remarkable range of feminist writings-as well as of popular journalism, visual arts, television, and film-powerfully demonstrates that nature has been and continues to be an essential concept for feminist theory and practice. Alaimo urges feminist theorists to rethink the concept of nature by probing the vastly different meanings that it carries. She discusses its significance for Americans engaged in social and political struggles from, for example, the "Indian Wars" of the early nineteenth century, to the birth control movement in the 1920s, to contemporary battles against racism and heterosexism. Reading works by Catherine Sedgwick, Mary Austin, Emma Goldman, Nella Larson, Donna Haraway, Toni Morrison, and others, Alaimo finds that some of these writers strategically invoke nature for feminist purposes while others cast nature as a postmodern agent of resistance in the service of both environmentalism and the women's movement. By examining the importance of nature within literary and political texts, this book greatly expands the parameters of the nature writing genre and establishes nature as a crucial site for the cultural work of feminism.
The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care
by Anne BoyerThe Undying explores the experience of illness as mediated by digital screens, weaving in ancient Roman dream diarists, cancer hoaxers and fetishists, cancer vloggers, corporate lies, John Donne, pro-pain "dolorists," the ecological costs of chemotherapy, and the many little murders of capitalism.
Unearthing The Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett
by Marta McDowell&“Blooming with photos, illustrations, and botanical paintings, McDowell&’s gorgeous book opens an ivy-covered door to new information about one of the world&’s most famous authors.&”—Angelica Shirley Carpenter, editor of In the GardenNew York Times bestselling author Marta McDowell has revealed the way that plants have stirred some of our most cherished authors, including Beatrix Potter, Emily Dickinson, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. In her latest, she shares a moving account of how gardening deeply inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett, the author of the beloved children's classic The Secret Garden. In Unearthing The Secret Garden, McDowell delves into the professional and gardening life of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Complementing her fascinating account with charming period photographs and illustrations, McDowell paints an unforgettable portrait of a great artist and reminds us why The Secret Garden continues to touch readers after more than a century. This deeply moving and gift-worthy book is a must-read for fans of The Secret Garden and anyone who loves the story behind the story.
Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe
by Valerie Clayman PyeWhat can the Globe Theatre tell us about performing Shakespeare? Unearthing Shakespeare is the first book to consider what the Globe, today’s replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, can contribute to a practical understanding of Shakespeare’s plays. Valerie Clayman Pye reconsiders the material evidence of Early Modern theatre-making, presenting clear, accessible discussions of historical theatre practice; stages and staging; and the relationship between actor and audience. She relays this into a series of training exercises for actors at all levels. From "Shakesball" and "Telescoping" to Elliptical Energy Training and The Radiating Box, this is a rich set of resources for anyone looking to tackle Shakespeare with authenticity and confidence.
Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe
by Valerie Clayman PyeWhat can the Globe Theatre tell us about performing Shakespeare?Unearthing Shakespeare is the first book to consider what the Globe, today’s replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, can contribute to a practical understanding of Shakespeare’s plays. Valerie Clayman Pye reconsiders the material evidence of Early Modern theatre-making, presenting clear, accessible discussions of historical theatre practice; stages and staging; and the relationship between actor and audience. She relays this into a series of training exercises for actors at all levels.From "Shakesball" and "Telescoping" to Elliptical Energy Training and The Radiating Box, this is a rich set of resources for anyone looking to tackle Shakespeare with authenticity and confidence.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yi Jing (I Ching) and Related Texts (Translations from the Asian Classics)
by Edward L. ShaughnessyIn recent years, three ancient manuscripts relating to the Yi jing (I Ching), or Classic of Changes, have been discovered. The earliest—the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi—dates to about 300 B.C.E. and shows evidence of the text's original circulation. The Guicang, or Returning to Be Stored, reflects another ancient Chinese divination tradition based on hexagrams similar to those of the Yi jing. In 1993, two manuscripts were found in a third-century B.C.E. tomb at Wangjiatai that contain almost exact parallels to the Guicang's early quotations, supplying new information on the performance of early Chinese divination. Finally, the Fuyang Zhou Yi was excavated from the tomb of Xia Hou Zao, lord of Ruyin, who died in 165 B.C.E. Each line of this classic is followed by one or more generic prognostications similar to phrases found in the Yi jing, indicating exciting new ways the text was produced and used in the interpretation of divinations. Unearthing the Changes details the discovery and significance of the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi, the Wangjiatai Guicang, and the Fuyang Zhou Yi, including full translations of the texts and additional evidence constructing a new narrative of the Yi jing's writing and transmission in the first millennium B.C.E. An introduction situates the role of archaeology in the modern attempt to understand the Classic of Changes. By showing how the text emerged out of a popular tradition of divination, these newly unearthed manuscripts reveal an important religious dimension to its evolution.
Unearthing the Past to Forge the Future: Colin Mackenzie, the Early Colonial State, and the Comprehensive Survey of India
by Tobias WolffhardtFor much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British East India Company consolidated its rule over India, evolving from a trading venture to a colonial administrative force. Yet its territorial gains far outpaced its understanding of the region and the people who lived there, and its desperate efforts to gain knowledge of the area led to the 1815 appointment of army officer Colin Mackenzie as the first Surveyor General of India. This volume carefully reconstructs the life and career of Mackenzie, showing how the massive survey of India that he undertook became one of the most spectacular and wide-ranging knowledge production initiatives in British colonial history.
Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe and Milton
by Leah MarcusUnediting the Renaissance is a path-breaking and timely look at the issues of the textual editing of Renaissance works. Both erudite and accessible, it will be a fascinating and provocative read for any Renaissance student or scholar. Leah Marcus argues that `bad' versions of Renaissance texts such as Shakespeare's First Folio should not be viewed as mutilated copies of originals, but rather reputable alternatives encoding differences in ideology, cultural meaning and other elements of performance. Marcus focuses on key Renaissance works- Dr Faustus, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet and poems by Milton, Donne and Herrick - to re-exmaine how editorial intervention shapes the texts which are widely accepted as `definitive'. Examining the cultural attitudes, fears and influences which influence textual editors, from the seveteenth century to the present day, Marcus sheds new light on a previously unexamined aspect of Renaissance studies. A lively critique of current theoretical practices, Unediting the Renaissance will shift the ways in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries are edited and read.
Unending Design: The Forms of Postmodern Poetry
by Joseph M. ConteDrawing on the work of contemporary American poets from Ashbery to Zukofsky, Joseph M. Conte elaborates an innovative typology of postmodern poetic forms. In Conte's view, looking at recent poetry in terms of the complementary methods of seriality and proceduralism offers a rewarding alternative to the familiar analytic dichotomy of "open" and "closed" forms.
Unequal Englishes
by Ruanni TupasUnequal Englishes challenges the widely held assumption that languages and linguistic varieties are equal, and explores the various ways we can understand, examine and transform inequalities of Englishes. Written by engaging and well-known scholars of language, education and politics, the chapters in the volume offer a wide range of perspectives on the complex but interwoven relationships between inequalities and Englishes, with an expansive geopolitical trajectory which includes the Philippines, Cuba, China, Canada, India, Malaysia, the United States, Singapore and South Korea. Their specific social and ideological contexts of analyses are wide-ranging, including textbooks and classrooms; teachers, would-be teachers and students; call centers; linguistic landscapes; stories, narratives and jokes. The volume mobilizes the notion of unequal Englishes as one way to understand the global spread of English today.
UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary (Post*45)
by Sarah BrouilletteA case study of one of the most important global institutions of cultural policy formation, UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary demonstrates the relationship between such policymaking and transformations in the economy. Focusing on UNESCO's use of books, Sarah Brouillette identifies three phases in the agency's history and explores the literary and cultural programming of each. In the immediate postwar period, healthy economies made possible the funding of an infrastructure in support of a liberal cosmopolitanism and the spread of capitalist democracy. In the decolonizing 1960s and '70s, illiteracy and lack of access to literature were lamented as a "book hunger" in the developing world, and reading was touted as a universal humanizing value to argue for a more balanced communications industry and copyright regime. Most recently, literature has become instrumental in city and nation branding that drive tourism and the heritage industry. Today, the agency largely treats high literature as a commercially self-sustaining product for wealthy aging publics, and fundamental policy reform to address the uneven relations that characterize global intellectual property creation is off the table. UNESCO's literary programming is in this way highly suggestive. A trajectory that might appear to be one of triumphant success—literary tourism and festival programming can be quite lucrative for some people—is also, under a different light, a story of decline.
Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction
by Ida Yoshinaga Sean Guynes Gerry CanavanEssays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse communities devise new survival strategies for a tough millennium.The explosion in speculative/science fiction (SF) across different media from the late twentieth century to the present has compelled those in the field of SF studies to rethink the community&’s identity, orientation, and stakes. In this edited collection, more than forty writers, critics, game designers, scholars, and activists explore core SF texts, with an eye toward a future in which corporations dominate both the means of production and the means of distribution and governments rely on powerful surveillance and carceral technologies. The essays, international in scope, demonstrate the diversity of SF through a balance of popular mass-market novels, comics, films, games, TV shows, creepypastas, and more niche works. SF works explored range from Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, 2084: The End of the World by Boualem Sansal, Terra Nullius by Claire Coleman, Watchmen and X-Men comics, and the Marvel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, to the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin, and the Wormwood trilogy by Tade Thompson. In an era in which ecological disaster and global pandemics regularly expose and intensify deep political-economic inequalities, what futures has SF anticipated? What survival strategies has it provided us? Can it help us to deal with, and grow beyond, the inequalities and injustices of our times? Unlike other books of speculative/science fiction criticism, Uneven Futures uses a think piece format to make its critical insights engaging to a wide audience. The essays inspire visions of better possible futures—drawing on feminist, queer, and global speculative engagements with Indigenous, Latinx, and Afro- and African futurisms—while imparting important lessons for political organizing in the present.Contributors: Ben Abraham, Emmet Asher-Perrin, Brent Ryan Bellamy, Gerry Canavan, Andrew Ferguson, Fabio Fernandes, Dexter Gabriel, M. Elizabeth Ginway, Sean Guynes, Ouissal Harize, David M. Higgins, Veronica Hollinger, Allanah Hunt, Nicola Hunte, Nathaniel Isaacson, Ayana Jamieson, Darshana Jayemanne, Gwyneth Jones, Brendan Keogh, Sami Ahmad Khan, Cameron Kunzelman, Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, Isiah Lavender III, Caryn Lesuma, Karen Lord, Sarah Marrs, Farah Mendlesohn, Cathryn Merla-Watson, Hugh Charles O&’Connell, B. Pladek, John Rieder, Lysa Rivera, Kim Stanley Robinson, Steven Shaviro, Rebekah Sheldon, Alison Sperling, Alfredo Suppia, Bogi Takács, Taryne Jade Taylor, Sherryl Vint, Kirin Wachter-Grene, Ida Yoshinaga.
The Unexamined Orwell (Literary Modernism)
by John RoddenThe year 1984 is just a memory, but the catchwords of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four still routinely pepper public discussions of topics ranging from government surveillance and privacy invasion to language corruption and bureaucratese. Orwell’s work pervades the cultural imagination, while others of his literary generation are long forgotten. Exploring this astonishing afterlife has become the scholarly vocation of John Rodden, who is now the leading authority on the reception, impact, and reinvention of George Orwell—the man and writer—as well as of “Orwell” the cultural icon and historical talisman. In The Unexamined Orwell, Rodden delves into dimensions of Orwell’s life and legacy that have escaped the critical glare. Rodden discusses how several leading American intellectuals have earned the title of Orwell’s “successor,” including Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, Irving Howe, Christopher Hitchens, and John Lukacs. He then turns to Germany and focuses on the role and relevance of Nineteen Eighty-Four in the now-defunct communist nation of East Germany. Rodden also addresses myths that have grown up around Orwell’s life, including his “more than half-legendary” encounter with Ernest Hemingway in liberated Paris in March 1945, and analyzes literary issues such as his utopian sensibility and his prose style. Finally, Rodden poses the endlessly debated question, “What Would George Orwell Do?,” and speculates about how the prophet of Nineteen Eighty-Four would have reacted to world events. In so doing, Rodden shows how our responses to this question reveal much about our culture’s ongoing need to reappropriate “Orwell. ”
Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse, and the Impolitic
by Emily ApterA new vision of politics “below the radar”One way to grasp the nature of politics is to understand the key terms in which it is discussed. Unexceptional Politics develops a political vocabulary drawn from a wide range of media (political fiction, art, film, and TV), highlighting the scams, imbroglios, information trafficking, brinkmanship, and parliamentary procedures that obstruct and block progressive politics. The book reviews and renews modes of thinking about micropolitics that counter notions of the “state of exception” embedded in theories of the “political” from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmitt. Emily Apter develops a critical model of politics behind the scenes, a politics that operates outside the norms of classical political theory. She focuses on micropolitics, defined as small events, happening in series, that often pass unnoticed yet disturb and interfere with the institutional structures of capitalist parliamentary systems, even as they secure their reproduction and longevity. Apter’s experimental glossary is arranged under headings that look at the apparently incidental, immaterial, and increasingly virtual practices of politicking: “obstruction,” “obstinacy,” “psychopolitics,” “managed life,” “serial politics.” Such terms frame an argument for taking stock of the realization that we really do not know what politics is, where it begins and ends, or how its micro-events should be described.
The Unexpected Dante: Perspectives on the Divine Comedy
by Lucia Alma Wolf Francesco Ciabattoni Bernardo Piciché Kristina M. Olson Sylvia Rodgers AlbroDante Alighieri’s long poem The Divine Comedy has been one of the foundational texts of European literature for over 700 years. Yet many mysteries still remain about the symbolism of this richly layered literary work, which has been interpreted in many different ways over the centuries. The Unexpected Dante brings together five leading scholars who offer fresh perspectives on the meanings and reception of The Divine Comedy. Some investigate Dante’s intentions by exploring the poem’s esoteric allusions to topics ranging from musical instruments to Roman law. Others examine the poem’s long afterlife and reception in the United States, with chapters showcasing new discoveries about Nicolaus de Laurentii’s 1481 edition of Commedia and the creative contemporary adaptations that have relocated Dante’s visions of heaven and hell to urban American settings. This study also includes a guide that showcases selected treasures from the extensive Dante collections at the Library of Congress, illustrating the depth and variety of The Divine Comedy’s global influence. The Unexpected Dante is thus a boon to both Dante scholars and aficionados of this literary masterpiece. Published by Bucknell University Press in association with the Library of Congress. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
The Unexpected Evolution of Language
by Justin Cord HayesThis book is awesome awful!Did you know that "awful" first originated as a compliment? How about the fact that it was perfectly fine for someone to defecate in their living room? Or that at one time a bully was actually a sweetheart?You may think that these things sound outlandish, but hundreds of years ago, the words "awful," "defecate," and "bully" meant something entirely different than what we know today. The Unexpected Evolution of Language reveals the origins of 208 everyday terms and the interesting stories behind their shift in meaning.Arranged in alphabetical order, you will enjoy uncovering the backstories to terms like:Awful - worthy of respect or fear; inspiring aweBimbo - slang for a stupid, inconsequential manDefecate - to purify; cleanseInvest - to clothe; to dressNice - foolish; stupidRelay - hunting term meaning fresh pack of houndsFrom "aftermath" and "sophisticated" to "empty" and "prestige," you will aboslutely love seeing just what kind of damage time has done to the English language.
The Unexpected Evolution of Language: Discover the Surprising Etymology of Everyday Words
by Justin Cord HayesThis book is awesome awful!Did you know that "awful" first originated as a compliment? How about the fact that it was perfectly fine for someone to defecate in their living room? Or that at one time a bully was actually a sweetheart?You may think that these things sound outlandish, but hundreds of years ago, the words "awful," "defecate," and "bully" meant something entirely different than what we know today. The Unexpected Evolution of Language reveals the origins of 208 everyday terms and the interesting stories behind their shift in meaning.Arranged in alphabetical order, you will enjoy uncovering the backstories to terms like:Awful - worthy of respect or fear; inspiring aweBimbo - slang for a stupid, inconsequential manDefecate - to purify; cleanseInvest - to clothe; to dressNice - foolish; stupidRelay - hunting term meaning fresh pack of houndsFrom "aftermath" and "sophisticated" to "empty" and "prestige," you will aboslutely love seeing just what kind of damage time has done to the English language.
The Unexpected Evolution of Language
by Justin Cord HayesThis book isawesomeawful! Did you know that "awful" first originated as a compliment? How about the fact that it was perfectly fine for someone to defecate in their living room? Or that at one time a bully was actually a sweetheart? You may think that these things sound outlandish, but hundreds of years ago, the words "awful," "defecate," and "bully" meant something entirely different than what we know today. The Unexpected Evolution of Languagereveals the origins of 208 everyday terms and the interesting stories behind their shift in meaning. Arranged in alphabetical order, you will enjoy uncovering the backstories to terms like: Awful- worthy of respect or fear; inspiring awe Bimbo- slang for a stupid, inconsequential man Defecate- to purify; cleanse Invest- to clothe; to dress Nice- foolish; stupid Relay- hunting term meaning fresh pack of hounds From "aftermath" and "sophisticated" to "empty" and "prestige," you will aboslutely love seeing just what kind of damage time has done to the English language.
The Unexpected in Oral History: Case Studies of Surprising Interviews (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)
by Ricardo Santhiago Miriam HermetoHow is an oral historian to react when the unexpected emerges, whether in field research or interview analysis? Answers tend to be scattered throughout the scholarly literature or confined to backstage conversations. This book brings the unexpected to the center of the scene and promotes a collective reflection about ways of dealing with uneasy encounters, surprises, and interviews that seem to have gone off the rails. The contributors come from a dozen countries, especially Brazil, where a classic piece about a “great liar” paved the way for this discussion. Rather than eccentric descriptions of unusual situations, these chapters evoke a dense web of reflections about dialogue, the production of oral sources, and the complexities of personal narratives. Theoretically informed but written in an engaging language, the book presents readers with fascinating case studies of the eruptions of the unexpected that occur in oral history research.
The Unfamiliar Shelley (The Nineteenth Century Series)
by Timothy WebbStimulated by new editions of Shelley's writings and the evidence of notebooks, the editors have assembled an outstanding group of international Shelley scholars to work through the implications of recent advances in scholarship. With particular attention to texts that have been neglected or underestimated, the contributors consider many important aspects of Shelley's prolific and remarkably diverse output, including the verse letter, plays, prose essays, satire, pamphlets, political verse, romance, prefaces, translations from the Greek, prose style, artistic representations, fragments and early writings. Revaluations of Shelley's youthful works, often criticized for their over-exuberance, pay dividends as they reveal Shelley's early maturation as a writer and also shed light on his later achievement. Taken as a whole, the collection makes evident that Shelley's reputation has been based largely on surprisingly imperfect and incomplete edited publications, driven by Victorian taste and culture. A writer very different from the one we thought we knew emerges from these essays, which are sure to inspire more reappraisals of Shelley's work.