Empire of magic

Empire of Magic offers a genesis and genealogy for medieval romance and the King Arthur legend through the history of Europe's encounters with the East in crusades, travel, missionizing, and empire formation. It also produces definitions of "race" and "nation" for the medieval period and posits t...

Globalectics

A masterful writer working in many genres, Ngugi wa Thiong'o entered the East African literary scene in 1962 with the performance of his first major play, The Black Hermit, at the National Theatre in Uganda. In 1977 he was imprisoned after his most controversial work, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Mar...

Timaeus in paradise

Tracing the influence and impact of Plato’s Timaeus—and its major themes, creation and beauty—through the centuriesMore than two thousand years after it was written, Plato’s Timaeus continues to fascinate and intrigue its readers. In Timaeus in Paradise, Piero Boitani traces the abiding legacy of...

Powers of reading

A historical, literary, and philosophical study that transforms our understanding of reading"Peter Szendy offers a subtle, persuasive, and unprecedented account of the time of reading and its scene of address, one that is as archaic as it is contemporary. When we read, are we listening to a voice...

Close reading for the twenty-first century

A user’s guide to the fundamental practice of literary studies, providing context, examples, and practical exercises Close reading—making an argument based in close attention to a text—is the foundation of literary studies. This book offers a guide to close reading, treating it as a skill that ca...

Classicism and other phobias

A provocative case for why immortalizing Greek and Roman culture as “classical” marginalizes and devalues Black lifeGreek and Roman antiquity has been enshrined in disciplines and curricula at all levels of education, perpetuating what the historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock has called “...

The dynastic drama of beowulf

A strikingly original approach to Beowulf, linking its structure to the dynastic life-cycle.The original audience of Beowulf was steeped in ancient Scandinavian royal legend. But for modern readers of the poem, these traditions are frustratingly obscure and confusing. This book argues that Beowul...

A companion to chimamanda ngozi adichie

A critical examination of the engaging voice and multiple stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on war, feminism, art, ideology, hair, complex human identities and the challenges of multicultural existence.Easily the leading and most engaging voice of her era and generation, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi...

Colette

The final volume of Julia Kristeva’s trilogy on “female genius,” Colette interlaces commentary on the life and work of the notorious French novelist who made it possible for women to write erotic literature.

Aquatic environments

Insights into the rich tradition of Latin American literature set in aquatic environments.

Teaching writing as journey, not destination

This volume collects essays by P.L. Thomas, examining enduring questions for writing teachers, such as grammar instruction, student choice, citation, plagiarism, grading, and the five-paragraph essay. It reflects Thomas's journey and experiences in teaching writing across various educational levels.

An alaṅkāra reader

Classical Indian poetics prized the skillful use of alaṅkāras, or “ornaments”—literary figures of speech. An Alaṅkāra Reader is a groundbreaking panoramic overview of this tradition, presenting extensive and accessible translations of key works.

Teaching english language learners in secondary subject matter classes

This book aids secondary teachers and administrators working with ELLs, offering insights from various perspectives and concrete strategies. The 2nd edition includes new chapters on ELLs' prior educational experiences, lesson planning, and effective instructional and assessment strategies.

Hydropoetics

A study of human-water-power relationships in Eastern European cultures: an important contribution to the vibrant field of blue humanities.

Practicing and placing imaginaries

What does Imagination do? How does it affect our reality and the places we experience? Answers from sociology, philosophy, literary and cultural studies.

Letting grief speak

Letting Grief Speak is a creative writing craft book on the art of telling our hardest stories.

The melville effect

Charting how a vast variety of writers, filmmakers, and artists channel Herman Melville, Joseph Allen Boone offers new insights into the author, his works, and his many legacies.

The textual townsman

In this innovative and interdisciplinary book, Thomas Gaubatz offers a fresh approach to understanding the literature of the Tokugawa townspeople.

Black arts, black muslims

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, prominent figures in the Black Arts Movement (BAM) converted to Islam and took new names. Poets such as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Muhammad Touré, and Marvin X incorporated Islamic words and expressions, references to the Qur’an, and Arabic script, as we...

The souths in her

Nicole M. Morris Johnson analyzes the intertwined relationship between movement and writing in the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Dianne McIntyre, Maryse Condé, and Ntozake Shange, among others, showing how unexpected encounters with unfamiliar traditions and creative visions of m...

American literature's war on crime

Theodore Martin offers a groundbreaking account of the ways that reading habits and crime politics intersected in the age of mass incarceration.

Exploring fields of the ineffable in literary anthropology

Maja Nazaruk explores Vincent Crapanzano’s poetic anthropology, focusing on themes like otherness, the body, and trauma. She highlights his use of literary slippage to convey cultural indeterminacy, linking his work to broader debates in literary and philosophical thought.

The stories we bring back

In this wide-ranging and characteristically fearless exchange, Margaret Atwood sits down in Athens with poet and philosopher Haris Vlavianos to reflect on myth, politics, mortality, and the creative imagination.

The myths that made america

Myths play a vital role in the process of American »nation building«. On the basis of a critical analysis of central American myths this textbook offers an introduction to the field of American (Culture) Studies.

Four chinese ells

This book helps K-12 teachers understand the school experiences of Chinese English Language Learners by documenting their transitions into American schools. It highlights their diverse backgrounds and schooling experiences, offering insights for better support. The book is also useful for teacher...

Lyric logic

Bringing together modern poetry’s aesthetic experimentation and modern philosophy’s attention to the problem of induction, Lyric Logic argues that poems use logical form as literary form.

The late wanderings of du fu

A close reading of Du Fu's poems as he confronts the brilliance and collapse of the Tang dynasty and transformed all he experienced into poetry.

Explorations in digital interculturality

An exploration of digital intercultural practices that deepens our understanding of digital interculturality, offering insights from various disciplinary perspectives.

Essays on world literature

The Man Booker International–winning author of Broken April and The Siege, Albania’s most renowned novelist, and perennial Nobel Prize contender Ismail Kadare explores three giants of world literature—Aeschylus, Dante, and Shakespeare—through the lens of resisting totalitarianism. In isolationist...

The man of the crowd

How four American cities shaped Poe's life and writingsEdgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) changed residences about once a year throughout his life. Driven by a desire for literary success and the pressures of supporting his family, Poe sought work in American magazines, living in the cities that produce...

To the victor, the potatoes!

Newly available in English, a magisterial work by one of the world's most esteemed Marxist literary critics.

On seamus heaney

A vivid and original account of one of Ireland’s greatest poets by an acclaimed Irish historian and literary biographerThe most important Irish poet of the postwar era, Seamus Heaney rose to prominence as his native Northern Ireland descended into sectarian violence. A national figure at a time w...

Émigrés

The fascinating history of French words that have entered the English language and the fertile but fraught relationship between English- and French-speaking cultures across the worldEnglish has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French words and phrases—s...

Fate of the flesh

This book argues that in the seventeenth century the ancient hope for the physical resurrection of the body and its flesh began an unexpected second life as critical theory, challenging the notion of an autonomous self and driving early modern avant-garde poetry.

Shakespeare and biography

Theory for beginners

Theory for Beginners explores how philosophy and theory draw on children’s literature while also coming to resemble such in their strategies for cultivating the child and/or the beginner. Topics include the Philosophy for Children (P4C) movement, graphic guides such as Freud for Beginners, and ch...

Black women as cultural readers

Writing backwards

Writing Backwards explores what the dominance of historical fiction in the contemporary canon reveals about American literary culture.

Re-forming world literature

The groundbreaking essays gathered in this volume argue that global paradigms of world literature, often referencing the major metropolitan centers of cultural and literary production, do not always accommodate voices from the margins and writing within minority genres such as the short story. Ka...

On mary wollstonecraft's a vindication of the rights of woman

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) made a pioneering and durably influential argument for women’s equality. Drawing on extensive experience teaching and writing about Wollstonecraft, Susan J. Wolfson provides fresh perspectives both for first-time readers and those ...

Reading style

A professor, critic, and insatiable reader, Jenny Davidson investigates the passions that drive us to fall in love with certain sentences over others and the larger implications of our relationship with writing style. At once playful and serious, immersive and analytic, her book shows how style e...

At the mercy of their clothes

In much of modern fiction, it is the clothes that make the character. Garments embody personal and national histories. They convey wealth, status, aspiration, and morality (or a lack thereof). They suggest where characters have been and where they might be headed, as well as whether or not they a...

Joseph conrad’s texts and intertexts

A collection of studies that examine various aspects of Joseph Conrad’s literary art, with the organizing ideas being textuality and intertextuality