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Wit and Wisdom for Teachers: 930 Quotes to Motivate and Inspire
by John BlaydesNationally acclaimed speaker and educator John Blaydes complies nuggets of wit and wisdom to motivate and inspire his fellow educators. The Educator&’s Book of Quotes is a comprehensive resource for quotes relating to education and leadership, organized by sixteen themes for easy access and reference, including: The Art of TeachingBalancing the Time CrunchPrinciples and PrincipalsCreating a Culture of ExcellenceInspirational LeadershipEducation is KeyContaining hundreds of inspirational quotes for teachers in all stages of their career, The Educator&’s Book of Quotes is a must have.
The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen
by Max Morris'Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.' Letter to Fanny KnightThis entertaining collection gathers together Jane Austen’s wisest and wittiest quotations. The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen is a book full of sense and sensibility that’s sure to delight all lovers of this great British writer’s uniquely humorous and perceptive style.
Wit and Wisdom of the Italian Renaissance
by Charles SperoniThis is the first ample collection of facetiae, or witty tales, from the Italian Renaissance to be published in English. Witty and wise anecdotes had been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans in the form of apothegms, but not until the Renaissance did the true facetia acquire an independent life and popularity, and begin to spread rapidly throughout Italy and beyond the Alps. The publication of Poggio Bracciolini's Liberfacetiarum was largely responsible for this vogue: his collection met with tremendous success and resulted in the assembly of numerous other collection of facetiae. The facetia, which has some affinities with the longer, more carefully elaborated novella, is a brief narrative, varying in length from a few lines to two or three pages, whose main purpose it to entertain an excite laughter, and often concludes with a piece of pungent repartee. Both the facetia and the novella have often been censured for licentiousness, but most of them have a healthy moral, or at least a shrewd bit of psychology to impart. Above all, the facetia, like the novella, adds a new dimension to the overall, complex picture of the Renaissance. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.
The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare
by Max Morris'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' HamletThis entertaining collection gathers together William Shakespeare’s wisest and wittiest quotations. The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare proves that brevity is the soul of wit and is sure to delight all lovers of the Bard’s uniquely perceptive and influential works.
The Wit In The Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt
by Anthony HoldenHe was born in the year Dr Johnson died, and died in the year A.E. Houseman and Conan Doyle were born. The 75 years of Leigh Hunt's life uniquely span two distinct eras of English life and literature. A major player in the Romantic movement, the intimate and first publisher of Keats and Shelley, friend of Byron, Hazlitt and Lamb, Hunt lived on to become an elder statesman of Victorianism, the friend and chamption of Tennyson and Dickens, awarded a sate pension by Queen Victoria. Jailed in his twenties for insulting the Prince of Wales, Hunt ended his long, productive life vainly seeking the Poet Laureatship with fawning poems to Victoria. A tirelessly prolific poet, essayist, editor and critic, he has been described as having no rival in the history of English criticism. Yet Hunt's remarkable life story has never been fully told.Anthony Holden's deeply researched and vibrantly written biography gives full due to this minor poet - but major influence on his great Romantic contempories.
The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations
by Diane Purkiss'Diane Purkiss ... insists on taking witches seriously. Her refusal to write witch-believers off as unenlightened has produced some richly intelligent meditations on their -- and our -- world.' - The Observer'An invigorating and challenging book ... sets many hares running.' - The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales
by Sheldon CashdanIn The Witch Must Die, Sheldon Cashdan explores how fairy tales help children deal with psychological conflicts by projecting their own internal struggles between good and evil onto the battles enacted by the characters in the stories. Not since Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment has the underlying significance of fantasy and fairy tales been so insightfully and entertainingly mined.
Witchcraft, Exorcism and the Politics of Possession in a Seventeenth-Century Convent: 'How Sister Ursula was once Bewiched and Sister Margaret Twice' (The\early Modern Englishwoman 1500-1750 Ser.)
by Nicky HallettPresenting a remarkable set of previously unpublished papers, this book concerns the bewitchment, possession and exorcism of two seventeenth-century nuns living in exile in an English convent in the Spanish Netherlands. The two women left behind an extensive set of personal writing that reveals unprecedented detail about their devotional lives and spiritual states before, during and after exorcism. Unlike other similar cases, here the women write for themselves; for the first time in 350 years this book allows their voices - and their silences - to resound in all their vibrancy. An extensive introduction discusses the politics of piety and possession at a time when exorcism had become increasingly contentious, amidst conflicting claims for rival church reform. The book includes both autobiographical and biographical material, written by the nuns and about them, and casting new light on processes of female self-writing at just the time when the 'modern subject' is often said to have emerged.
Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth
by Garry WillsIn Witches and Jesuits, Wills focuses on a single document to open up a window on an entire society. He begins with a simple question: If Macbeth is such a great tragedy, why do performances of it so often fail? After all, the stage history of Macbeth is so riddled with disasters that it has created a legendary curse on the drama. Superstitious actors try to evade the curse by referring to Macbeth only as "the Scottish play," but production after production continues to soar in its opening scenes, only to sputter towards anticlimax in the later acts. By critical consensus there seems to have been only one entirely successful modern performance of the play, Laurence Olivier's in 1955, and even Olivier twisted his ankle on opening night. But Olivier's ankle notwithstanding, Wills maintains that the fault lies not in Shakespeare's play, but in our selves. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the vivid intrigue and drama of Jacobean England, Wills restores Macbeth's suspenseful tension by returning it to the context of its own time, recreating the burning theological and political crises of Shakespeare's era. He reveals how deeply Macbeth's original 1606 audiences would have been affected by the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when a small cell of Jesuits came within a hairbreadth of successfully blowing up not only the King, but the Prince his heir, and all members of the court and Parliament. Wills likens their shock to that endured by Americans following Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. Furthermore, Wills documents, the Jesuits were widely believed to be acting in the service of the Devil, and so pervasive was the fear of witches that just two years before Macbeth's first performance, King James I added to the witchcraft laws a decree of death for those who procured "the skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person--to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment." We see that the treason and necromancy in Macbeth were more than the imaginings of a gifted playwright--they were dramatizations of very real and potent threats to the realm. In this new light, Macbeth is transformed. Wills presents a drama that is more than a well-scripted story of a murderer getting his just penalty, it is the struggle for the soul of a nation. The death of a King becomes a truly apocalyptic event, and Malcolm, the slain King's son, attains the status of a man defying cosmic evil. The guilt of Lady Macbeth takes on the Faustian aspect of one who has singed her hands in hell. The witches on the heath, shrugged off as mere symbols of Macbeth's inner guilt and ambition by twentieth century interpreters, emerge as independent agents of the occult with their own (or their Master's) terrifying agendas. Restoring the theological politics and supernatural elements that modern directors have shied away from, Wills points the way towards a Macbeth that will finally escape the theatrical curse on "the Scottish play." Rich in insight and a joy to read, Witches and Jesuits is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination by one of our foremost writers, essential reading for anyone who loves the language.
Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English
by Jonathan RéeAn ambitious new history of philosophy in English that broadens the canon to include many lesser-known figures Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote that “philosophy should be written like poetry.” But philosophy has often been presented more prosaically as a long trudge through canonical authors and great works. But what, Jonathan Rée asks, if we instead saw the history of philosophy as a haphazard series of unmapped forest paths, a mass of individual stories showing endurance, inventiveness, bewilderment, anxiety, impatience, and good humor? Here, Jonathan Rée brilliantly retells this history, covering such figures as Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Mill, James, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Sartre. But he also includes authors not usually associated with philosophy, such as William Hazlitt, George Eliot, Darwin, and W. H. Auden. Above all, he uncovers dozens of unremembered figures—puritans, revolutionaries, pantheists, feminists, nihilists, socialists, and scientists—who were passionate and active readers of philosophy, and often authors themselves. Breaking away from high-altitude narratives, he shows how philosophy finds its way into ordinary lives, enriching and transforming them in unexpected ways.
With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics
by Susan E. Kirtley, Antero Garcia and Peter E. CarlsonContributions by Bart Beaty, Jenny Blenk, Ben Bolling, Peter E. Carlson, Johnathan Flowers, Antero Garcia, Dale Jacobs, Ebony Flowers Kalir, James Kelley, Susan E. Kirtley, Frederik Byrn Køhlert, John A. Lent, Leah Misemer, Johnny Parker II, Nick Sousanis, Aimee Valentine, and Benjamin J. Villarreal More and more educators are using comics in the classroom. As such, this edited volume sets out the stakes, definitions, and exemplars of recent comics pedagogy, from K-12 contexts to higher education instruction to ongoing communities of scholars working outside of the academy. Building upon interdisciplinary approaches to teaching comics and teaching with comics, this book brings together diverse voices to share key theories and research on comics pedagogy. By gathering scholars, creators, and educators across various fields and in K-12 as well as university settings, editors Susan E. Kirtley, Antero Garcia, and Peter E. Carlson significantly expand scholarship. This valuable resource offers both critical pieces and engaging interviews with key comics professionals who reflect on their own teaching experience and on considerations of the benefits of creating comics in education. Included are interviews with acclaimed comics writers Lynda Barry, Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and David Walker, as well as essays spanning from studying the use of superhero comics in the classroom to the ways comics can enrich and empower young readers. The inclusion of creators, scholars, and teachers leads to perspectives that make this volume unlike any other currently available. These voices echo the diverse needs of the many stakeholders invested in using comics in education today.
With Her Machete in Her Hand: Reading Chicana Lesbians
by Catrióna Rueda EsquibelWith the 1981 publication of the groundbreaking anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa ushered in an era of Chicana lesbian writing. <P><P>But while these two writers have achieved iconic status, observers of the Chicana/o experience have been slow to perceive the existence of a whole community--lesbian and straight, male as well as female--who write about the Chicana lesbian experience. To create a first full map of that community, this book explores a wide range of plays, novels, and short stories by Chicana/o authors that depict lesbian characters or lesbian desire. <P> Catrióna Rueda Esquibel starts from the premise that Chicana/o communities, theories, and feminisms cannot be fully understood without taking account of the perspectives and experiences of Chicana lesbians. To open up these perspectives, she engages in close readings of works centered around the following themes: La Llorona, the Aztec Princess, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, girlhood friendships, rural communities and history, and Chicana activism. Her investigation broadens the community of Chicana lesbian writers well beyond Moraga and Anzaldúa, while it also demonstrates that the histories of Chicana lesbians have had to be written in works of fiction because these women have been marginalized and excluded in canonical writings on Chicano life and experience.
With Literacy and Justice for All: Rethinking the Social in Language and Education (Language, Culture, and Teaching Series)
by Carole EdelskyThe third edition of With Literacy and Justice for All: Rethinking the Social in Language and Education continues to document Carole Edelsky's long involvement with socially critical, holistic approaches to the everyday problems and possibilities facing teachers of language and literacy. This book helps education professionals understand the educational/societal situations they are dealing with, and literacy instruction and second language learning in particular contexts. Edelsky does not offer simplistic pedagogical formulas, but rather, progressively works through differences and tensions in the discourses and practices of sociolinguistics, bilingual education, whole language, and critical pedagogy--fields whose practitioners and advocates too often work in isolation from each other and, at times, at cross purposes. In this edition, what Edelsky means by rethinking is improving and extending her own views, while at the same time demonstrating that such rethinking always occurs in the light of history. The volume includes a completely new Introduction and two entirely new chapters: one on reconceptualizing literacy learning as second language learning, and another on taking a historical view of responses to standardized testing. Throughout, in updating the volume, Edelsky uses a variety of structural styles to note contrasts in her views across time and to make the distinction clear between the original material and the current additions. This edition is a rare example of a scholarly owning-up to changes in thinking, and a much needed demonstration of the historically grounded nature of knowledge. As a whole, the third edition emphasizes recursiveness and questioning within a deliberately political framework.
With Love and Squalor: 13 Writers Respond to the Work of J. D. Salinger
by Kip Kotzen Thomas BellerReading The Catcher in the Rye has become a rite of passage for young Americans, landing the book on bestseller lists (and banned book lists) each year, even though it was published a half century ago. What is it about J. D. Salinger and his body of work that has left such a lasting mark on American fiction? And who better to answer that question than the current generation of writers? Here are fourteen of the most vital voices in the contemporary American fiction scene pulling no punches in response to a writer who continues to beguile, charm, fascinate, and frustrate generations of readers. Contributors Walter Kirn, Ren Steinke, Charles D'Ambrosio, Emma Forrest, Aleksander Hemon, Lucinda Rosenfeld, Amy Sohn, John McNally, Karen E. Bender, Thomas Beller, Benjamin Anastas, Aimee Bender, Joel Stein, and Jane Mendelsohn turn themselves inside out as they discuss their personal reactions to reading Salinger classics--not only The Catcher in the Rye but also Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters, and the short stories--and explore, with begrudging gratitude, how Salinger helped to form the deepest reaches of their literary imaginations.
With Pen in Hand: The Healing Power of Writing
by Henriette Anne KlauserIn moments of grief or loss, we often turn to the written word to say what cannot be said aloud. Indeed, directing sadness, rage, or confusion at the page can be tremendously cathartic and liberating. As we express our deepest feelings without reserve in poetry or prose, we feel the power of our words begin to draw out some of the pain in our hearts and replace it with hope. But fears about writing honestly and self-criticism can stand in the way of making use of this powerful therapeutic tool. With Pen in Hand is an inspirational and practical guide to breaking through these roadblocks and to helping one "write to heal. " Outlining writing techniques that are best for working through pain and for privately collecting raw emotions--"Writing a Letter of Goodbye," "Interviewing Your Body," "Rapid-Writing," and more--Henriette Klauser shares stories and tips that will help readers gain comfort from what they commit to paper. For the accomplished writer and non-writer alike, With Pen in Hand will help one make use of the kind of expression that in the aftermath of a crisis or loss, can make one whole again.
With the Beatles
by Lewis LaphamHalfway between the summer of love and the Tet offensive, the Beatles went to India to study with the Maharishi--and Lewis Lapham, esteemed Harper's editor and award-winning writer, was there. WITH THE BEATLES is a remarkable book of cultural commentary on that seminal '60s moment.The ashram in Rishikesh, India was the ultimate '60s scene: the Beatles, Donovan, Mia Farrow, a stray Beach Boy and other '60s icons gathered along the shores of the Ganges--amidst paisley and incense and flowers and guitars--to meditate at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The February 1968 gathering received such frenzied, world-wide attention that it is still considered a significant, early encounter between Western pop culture and the mystical East. And Lewis Lapham was the only journalist allowed inside.And what went on inside the compound has long been the subject of wild speculation and rampant rumor. The Beatles said they wrote some of their greatest songs there . . . and yet they also came away bitterly disillusioned. In WITH THE BEATLES, Lewis Lapham finally tells the whole story.
With the Witnesses: Poetry, Compassion, and Claimed Experience
by Dale TracyWhile trauma theory has been adopted by contemporary literary and cultural studies as an ethical way to study depictions of suffering, there is a risk that its present use could cause more harm than good. By emphasizing inaccessible histories, unspeakable suffering, and unconscious witnessing, trauma theory may lead readers to claim others’ suffering through empathic identification. In With the Witnesses, Dale Tracy argues that poetry offers an alternative approach to engage with not only suffering in art but suffering in general. Examining the strategies of witness poetry, Tracy interrogates and reformulates the dominant models of trauma studies in which readers take over the witnessing position by identifying with the speaker as a witness, thus becoming witnesses themselves. If the purpose of reading such poetry is to contribute new witnesses to a chain, what is the distinct role of a reader? How does this role differ from the speaker of a poem’s role? Tracy proposes that metonymy – a logic of nearness rather than likeness – is compassion’s formal manifestation. Analyzing poetry that emphasizes the contiguity of metonymy over the substitution of metaphor, she attends to the positions into which witnessing speakers invite readers. Poems that respond to diverse national and transnational contexts of atrocity, conflict, and marginalization guide With the Witnesses toward a compassionate response to suffering that involves feeling with – not as – another. Following each poem as a unique theory of compassion, With the Witnesses demonstrates that poems hold suffering signed as art, not claimable traces of suffering.
Within the Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present
by Angelyn MitchellWithin the Circle is the first anthology to present the entire spectrum of twentieth-century African American literary and cultural criticism. It begins with the Harlem Renaissance, continues through civil rights, the Black Arts Movement, and on into contemporary debates of poststructuralist and black feminist theory. Drawing on a quote from Frederick Douglass for the title of this book, Angelyn Mitchell explains in her introduction the importance for those "within the circle" of African American literature to examine their own works and to engage this critical canon.The essays in this collection--many of which are not widely available today--either initiated or gave critical definition to specific periods or movements of African American literature. They address issues such as integration, separatism, political action, black nationalism, Afrocentricity, black feminism, as well as the role of art, the artist, the critic, and the audience. With selections from Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Barbara Smith, Alice Walker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and many others, this definitive collection provides a dynamic model of the cultural, ideological, historical, and aesthetic considerations in African American literature and literary criticism.A major contribution to the study of African American literature, this volume will serve as a foundation for future work by students and scholars. Its importance will be recognized by all those interested in modern literary theory as well as general readers concerned with the African American experience.Selections by (partial list): Houston A. Baker, Jr., James Baldwin, Sterling Brown, Barbara Christian, W. E. B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, LeRoi Jones, Sarah Webster Fabio, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. Lawrence Hogue, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, Deborah E. McDowell, Toni Morrison, J. Saunders Redding, George Schuyler, Barbara Smith, Valerie Smith, Hortense J. Spillers, Robert B. Stepto, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Mary Helen Washington, Richard Wright
Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media
by Pamela NewkirkWinner of the National Press Club Prize for Media CriticismUnmasks race-related conflicts in the newsrooms and the push for more equitable coverage of racial minorities Thirty years ago, the Kerner Commission Report made national headlines by exposing the consistently biased coverage afforded African Americans in the mainstream media. While the report acted as a much ballyhooed wake-up call, the problems it identified have stubbornly persisted, despite the infusion of black and other racial minority journalists into the newsroom. In Within the Veil, Pamela Newkirk unmasks the ways in which race continues to influence reportage, both overtly and covertly. Newkirk charts a series of race-related conflicts at news organizations across the country, illustrating how African American journalists have influenced and been denied influence to the content, presentation, and very nature of news. Through anecdotes culled from interviews with over 100 broadcast and print journalists, Newkirk exposes the trials and triumphs of African American journalists as they struggle in pursuit of more equitable coverage of racial minorities. She illuminates the agonizing dilemmas they face when writing stories critical of blacks, stories which force them to choose between journalistic integrity, their own advancement, and the almost certain enmity of the black community. Within the Veil is a gripping front-line report on the continuing battle to integrate America's newsrooms and news coverage.Companion website: http://www.nyupress.nyu.edu/authors/veil.html
Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools (North American Religions #24)
by Leslie Beth RibovichReframes religion’s role in twentieth-century American public educationThe processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in public schools. Likewise, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case is seen as the dawn of school racial equality. Yet, these two major twentieth-century American educational movements are often perceived as having no bearing on one another.Without a Prayer redefines secularization and desegregation as intrinsically linked. Using New York City as a window into a national story, the volume argues that these rulings failed to successfully remove religion from public schools, because it was worked into the foundation of the public education structure, especially how public schools treated race and moral formation. Moreover, even public schools that were not legally segregated nonetheless remained racially segregated in part because public schools rooted moral lessons in an invented tradition—Judeo-Christianity—and in whiteness.The book illuminates how both secularization and desegregation took the form of inculcating students into white Christian norms as part of their project of shaping them into citizens. Schools and religious and civic constituents worked together to promote programs such as juvenile delinquency prevention, moral and spiritual values curricula, and racial integration advocacy. At the same time, religiously and racially diverse community members drew on, resisted, and reimagined public school morality.Drawing on research from a number of archival repositories, newspaper and legal databases, and visual and material culture, Without a Prayer shows how religion and racial discrimination were woven into the very fabric of public schools, continuing to inform public education’s everyday practices even after the Supreme Court rulings.
Without Apology: Andrea Dworkin's Art And Politics
by Cindy JenefskyThis is the first-ever book-length analysis of Dworkins feminist politics and the first critical analysis to examine her controversial political ideas in light of the literary dimensions of her prose. Cindy Jenefsky, with Ann Russo, looks at Dworkin’s major nonfiction works including Woman Hating, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and Intercourse
Without God: Michel Houellebecq and Materialist Horror
by Louis BettyMichel Houellebecq is France’s most famous and controversial living novelist. Since his first novel in 1994, Houellebecq’s work has been called pornographic, racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and vulgar. His caricature appeared on the cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, the day that Islamist militants killed twelve people in an attack on their offices and also the day that his most recent novel, Soumission—the story of France in 2022 under a Muslim president—appeared in bookstores. Without God uses religion as a lens to examine how Houellebecq gives voice to the underside of the progressive ethos that has animated French and Western social, political, and religious thought since the 1960s.Focusing on Houellebecq’s complicated relationship with religion, Louis Betty shows that the novelist, who is at best agnostic, “is a deeply and unavoidably religious writer.” In exploring the religious, theological, and philosophical aspects of Houellebecq’s work, Betty situates the author within the broader context of a French and Anglo-American history of ideas—ideas such as utopian socialism, the sociology of secularization, and quantum physics. Materialism, Betty contends, is the true destroyer of human intimacy and spirituality in Houellebecq’s work; the prevailing worldview it conveys is one of nihilism and hedonism in a postmodern, post-Christian Europe. In Betty’s analysis, “materialist horror” emerges as a philosophical and aesthetic concept that describes and amplifies contemporary moral and social decadence in Houellebecq’s fiction.
The Witlings and the Woman Hater (Pickering Women's Classics)
by Geoffrey M SillThis edition contains two of Frances Burney's comedies: "The Witlings", (1778-80) which satirizes the bluestockings; and "The Woman Hater" (1800-02), which explores social pretension and gender conflict.
Witness Literature in Byzantium: Narrating Slaves, Prisoners, and Refugees (New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture)
by Adam J. GoldwynThis book analyzes Byzantine examples of witness literature, a genre that focuses on eyewitness accounts written by slaves, prisoners, refugees, and other victims of historical atrocity. It focuses on such episodes in three nonfictional texts – John Kaminiates’ Capture of Thessaloniki (904), Eustathios of Thessaloniki’s Capture of Thessaloniki (1186), and Niketas Choniates’ History (ca. 1204–17) – and the three extant twelfth-century Komnenian novels to consider how the authors’ positions as both eyewitness and victim require an interpretive method that distinguishes witness literature from other kinds of writing about the past. Drawing on theoretical developments in the fields of Holocaust and Genocide Studies (such as Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer and Michel Foucault’s biopolitics) and comparisons with modern examples (Elie Wiesel’s Night and Primo Levi’s If This is a Man), Witness Literature emphasizes the affective, subjective, and experiential in medieval Greek historical writing.
The Witness Of Poetry (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures #38)
by Czeslaw MiloszCzeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature, reflects upon poetry's testimony to the events of our tumultuous time. From the special perspectives of "my corner of Europe," a classical and Catholic education, a serious encounter with Marxism, and a life marked by journeys and exiles, Milosz has developed a sensibility at once warm and detached, flooded with specific memory yet never hermetic or provincial. Milosz addresses many of the major problems of contemporary poetry, beginning with the pessimism and negativism prompted by reductionist interpretations of man's animal origins. He examines the tendency of poets since Mallarmé to isolate themselves from society, and stresses the need for the poet to make himself part of the great human family. One chapter is devoted to the tension between classicism and realism; Milosz believes poetry should be "a passionate pursuit of the real." In "Ruins and Poetry" he looks at poems constructed from the wreckage of a civilization, specifically that of Poland after the horrors of World War II. Finally, he expresses optimism for the world, based on a hoped-for better understanding of the lessons of modern science, on the emerging recognition of humanity's oneness, and on mankind's growing awareness of its own history.