Birthday Books
Adaptation
A Theory of Adaptation
Author: Linda Hutcheon
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2013
Description: Persuasive and illuminating, 'A Theory of Adaptation' is a bold rethinking of how adaptation works across all media and genres that may put an end to the age-old question of whether the book was better than the movie, or the opera, or the theme park.
american
Tropic of Orange
Author: Karen Tei Yamashita
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Year: 2017
Description: "Fiercely satirical. . . . Yamashita presents [an] intricate plot with mordant wit." —New York Times Book Review "A stunner. . . . An exquisite mystery novel. But this is a novel of dystopia and apocalypse; the mystery concerns the tragic flaws of human nature." —Library Journal (starred review) "Brilliant. . . . An ingenious interpretation of social woes." —Booklist (starred review) "Yamashita handles her eccentrics and the setting of their adventures with panache. David Foster Wallace meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez." —Publishers Weekly Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway. Hemmed in by wildfires, it's a symphony conducted from an overpass, grandiose, comic, and as diverse as the city itself. Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.
The New York Trilogy
Author: Paul Aster
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Year: 2015
Description: Experience the wonder of the written word from some of the greatest writers of the modern age, with Faber Modern Classics.
CInema
A Theory of Adaptation
Author: Linda Hutcheon
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2013
Description: Persuasive and illuminating, 'A Theory of Adaptation' is a bold rethinking of how adaptation works across all media and genres that may put an end to the age-old question of whether the book was better than the movie, or the opera, or the theme park.
Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction
Author: Guy Austin
Publisher: Machester University Press
Year: 2008
Description: Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
comedy
In Loving Memory of Mary Mort
Author: Oscar and Archie
Publisher: Cod Liver Theatre
Year: 2023
Description:
Craft
A Short Story Writer's Companion
Author: Tom Bailey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2001
Description: Ideal for anyone interested in writing short stories or for introductory courses in fiction writing, A Short Story Writer's Companion is a highly accessible guide to the craft of creating short fiction. Written in an engaging style, this book enables beginning writers to recognize what works in writing short stories, what doesn't, and why. Part One of A Short Story Writer's Companion discusses fictional truth and significant detail, helping students of the form to make good sense of the often taught creative writing maxim, "Show, don't tell!" Part Two delves into the elements of fiction: character, point of view, plot, setting and time, metaphor, and voice. The author uses specific examples from a variety of widely anthologized short stories to demonstrate how each component functions as a part of the whole and offers advice on the techniques of using each of the elements successfully. Part Three closely examines the fiction-writing process and helps guide writers who may never have written a short story before through drafting, revising, and polishing short stories of their own.
The Stuff of Fiction : Advice on Craft
Author: Douglas Bauer
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Year: 2006
Description: In this book, prizewinning novelist and popular creative writing instructor Douglas Bauer (The Book of Famous Iowans) shares the secrets of his trade. Talent, as Bauer acknowledges, is the most crucial element for a writer and cannot be taught. But without a regular habit of work, and a perseverance of effort, no amount of talent can come forward and be recognized. His lively and candid essays on subjects critical to the fiction writer’ s success demystify the essential elements of fiction writing, how they work, and work together. Bauer’ s focus is on the building blocks of successful fiction: dialogue (the intimate relationship between characters talking and the eavesdropping reader), characters (the virtues of creating fictional characters that are both splendidly flawed and sympathetic), and dramatic events (ways to create moments that produce an emotional and psychological impact). There are also chapters on crafting effective openings and memorable closings of stories and on the vital presence of sentiment in fiction versus the ruinous effect of sentimentality. By assuming the point of view of someone at the task, engaged with the work, inside the effort to bring an invented world to life, The Stuff of Fiction speaks to writers of all ages in a pleasurable yet practical voice. Douglas Bauer is the author of three novels, Dexterity, The Very Air, and The Book of Famous Iowans, and one book of nonfiction, Prairie City, Iowa. He is also a core faculty member with the MFA Program at Bennington College and has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Massachusetts Artists Foundation grant, and two Harvard Danforth Excellence in Teaching Citations.
Burning Down the House : Essays on Fiction
Author: Charles Baxter
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Year: 2008
Description: What happens to American fiction in a time when villains are deprived of their villainy; when our consumer culture insists on happy endings? Did Richard Nixon start a trend of dysfunctional narration that is now rife throughout fiction? In Burning Down the House, Baxter delves into the social and political circumstances that influence today's "urgent issues of storytelling.".
The Art of Subtext : Beyond Plot
Author: Charles Baxter
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Year: 2007
Description: Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. He explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details and how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed.
The Paris Review Interviews
Author: Philip Gourevitch (ed)
Publisher: Canongate
Year: 2007
Description: A compilation of interviews from the premier literary magazine includes conversations with some of the world's leading authors, poets, novelists, playwrights, and memoirists, including William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Graham Greene, James Baldwin, Stephen King, and Eudora Welty.
The Art of Fiction
Author: David Lodge
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1992
Description: This classic guide, from the renowned novelist and professor, has helped transform generations of aspiring writers into masterful writers—and will continue to do so for many years to come. John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves : The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Author: Lynne Truss
Publisher: Profile
Year: 2003
Description: We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.
Illuminations
Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Fontana Press
Year: 1992
Description: From the author of Ecstasty, a novel of a girl who triumphed against impossible odds to become the most extraordinary woman of the Middle Ages. Hildegard von Bingen—Benedictine abbess, healer, composer, saint—experienced mystic visions from a very young age. Offered by her noble family to the Church at the age of eight, she lived for years in forced silence. But through the study of books and herbs, through music and the kinship of her sisters, Hildegard found her way from a life of submission to a calling that celebrated the divine glories all around us. In this brilliantly researched and insightful novel, Mary Sharratt offers a deeply moving portrait of a woman willing to risk everything for what she believed, a triumphant exploration of the life she might well have lived. “Sharratt brings one of the most famous and enigmatic women of the Middle Ages to vibrant life in this tour de force, which will captivate the reader from the very first page.” —Sharon Kay Penman, New York Times–bestselling author of The Land Beyond the Sea “One could not anticipate this majesty and drama…Illuminations is riveting, following von Bingen through…to emerge as one of the significant voices of the 12th century…Unforgettable.” —January Magazine “Gripping…Like Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, [Illuminations] is primarily about relationships forged under pressure.”—Publishers Weekly “Masterful.”—Saint Paul Pioneer Press
The Seven Basic Plots : Why We Tell
Author: Christopher Booker
Publisher: Continuum
Year: 2004
Description: This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.
The Literature Machine : Essays
Author: Italo Calvino
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1997
Description:
Narrative Perspective in Fiction : A Phenomenological Mediation of Reader, Text, and World
Author: Daniel Frank Chamberlain
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 1990
Description: Daniel Chamberlain examines the nature of narrative perspective in a manner that does not presuppose a passive definition of perception. Rather, he considers perspective as a medium through which the potential meanings of texts are disclosed and through which to share the vital experience of narrative from today's familiar and culturally distant worlds. The book is divided into two parts. The first part address narrative perspective within a theoretical framework. Chamberlain uses this in order to consider narrative perspective as an integral part of the more general process of perception that mediates language and the experience of texts. Perception is here understood as an active recreation of the world at every moment; as an opening through which one's self-awareness and awareness of the world are correlated. By considering narrative perspective in terms of perception, equal importance is given to its temporal and spatial aspects. The dialectic of time and space inevitably comes to bear on narrative perspective through the techniques, strategies, and medium of a text's transmission. Part one concludes with an examination of contemporary definitions of narrative perspective and with the presentation of an alternative approach to its study. The second part offers a reading of two texts, each of which clearly presents the major issues facing this inquiry. The narrative perspective of each is considered as occupying a degree of similarity and difference within the dialectic of time and space. Each perspective is, in turn, correlated to the prevalent medium of discourse within its cultural milieu.
The Art of Fiction : Notes on Craft for Young Writers
Author: John Gardner
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1991
Description: This classic guide, from the renowned novelist and professor, has helped transform generations of aspiring writers into masterful writers—and will continue to do so for many years to come. John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here.
Alone With All That Could Happen : Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About The Craft of Fiction Writing
Author: David Jauss
Publisher: Writer's Digest Books
Year: 2008
Description: In a satisfying story or novel, all of the pieces seem to fit together so effortlessly, so seamlessly, that it's easy to find yourself wondering, "How on earth did the author do this?" The answer is simple: He sat alone at his desk, considered an array of options, and made smart, careful choices. &break;&break;In Alone With All That Could Happen, award-winning author and respected creative writing professor David Jauss addresses overlooked or commonly misunderstood aspects of fiction writing, offering practical information and advice that will help you make smart creative and technical decisions about such topics as: &break;&break; writing prose whose syntax and rhythm create a "soundtrack" for the story it tells&break; choosing the right point of view to create the appropriate degree of "distance" between your characters and the reader &break; writing valid and convincing epiphanies&break; harnessing the power of contradiction in the creative process &break;&break;In one thought-provoking essay after another, Jauss sorts through unique fiction-writing conundrums, including how to create those exquisite intersections between truth and fabrication that make all great works of fiction so much more resonant and powerful than fiction that follows the generic "write what you know" approach that's so often preached.
Criticism
Illuminations
Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Fontana Press
Year: 1992
Description: From the author of Ecstasty, a novel of a girl who triumphed against impossible odds to become the most extraordinary woman of the Middle Ages. Hildegard von Bingen—Benedictine abbess, healer, composer, saint—experienced mystic visions from a very young age. Offered by her noble family to the Church at the age of eight, she lived for years in forced silence. But through the study of books and herbs, through music and the kinship of her sisters, Hildegard found her way from a life of submission to a calling that celebrated the divine glories all around us. In this brilliantly researched and insightful novel, Mary Sharratt offers a deeply moving portrait of a woman willing to risk everything for what she believed, a triumphant exploration of the life she might well have lived. “Sharratt brings one of the most famous and enigmatic women of the Middle Ages to vibrant life in this tour de force, which will captivate the reader from the very first page.” —Sharon Kay Penman, New York Times–bestselling author of The Land Beyond the Sea “One could not anticipate this majesty and drama…Illuminations is riveting, following von Bingen through…to emerge as one of the significant voices of the 12th century…Unforgettable.” —January Magazine “Gripping…Like Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, [Illuminations] is primarily about relationships forged under pressure.”—Publishers Weekly “Masterful.”—Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Early Modern
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Longman
Year: 1995
Description: Between 1450 and 1750 thousands of people – most of them women – were accused, prosecuted and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The witch-hunt was not a single event; it comprised thousands of individual prosecutions, each shaped by the religious and social dimensions of the particular area as well as political and legal factors. Brian Levack sorts through the proliferation of theories to provide a coherent introduction to the subject, as well as contributing to the scholarly debate. The book: Examines why witchcraft prosecutions took place, how many trials and victims there were, and why witch-hunting eventually came to an end. Explores the beliefs of both educated and illiterate people regarding witchcraft. Uses regional and local studies to give a more detailed analysis of the chronological and geographical distribution of witch-trials. Emphasises the legal context of witchcraft prosecutions. Illuminates the social, economic and political history of early modern Europe, and in particular the position of women within it. In this fully updated third edition of his exceptional study, Levack incorporates the vast amount of literature that has emerged since the last edition. He substantially extends his consideration of the decline of the witch-hunt and goes further in his exploration of witch-hunting after the trials, especially in contemporary Africa. New illustrations vividly depict beliefs about witchcraft in early modern Europe.
The Reformation World
Author: Andrew Pettegree
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Description: The most ambitious one-volume survey of the Reformation yet, this book is beautifully illustrated throughout. The strength of this work is its breadth and originality, covering the Church, art, Calvinism and Luther.
The European Witch-Hunt
Author: Julian Goodare
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2016
Description: The European Witch-Hunt seeks to explain why thousands of people, mostly lower-class women, were deliberately tortured and killed in the name of religion and morality during three centuries of intermittent witch-hunting throughout Europe and North America. Combining perspectives from history, sociology, psychology and other disciplines, this book provides a comprehensive account of witch-hunting in early modern Europe. Julian Goodare sets out an original interpretation of witch-hunting as an episode of ideologically-driven persecution by the ‘godly state’ in the era of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Full weight is also given to the context of village social relationships, and there is a detailed analysis of gender issues. Witch-hunting was a legal operation, and the courts’ rationale for interrogation under torture is explained. Panicking local elites, rather than central governments, were at the forefront of witch-hunting. Further chapters explore folk beliefs about legendary witches, and intellectuals’ beliefs about a secret conspiracy of witches in league with the Devil. Witch-hunting eventually declined when the ideological pressure to combat the Devil’s allies slackened. A final chapter sets witch-hunting in the context of other episodes of modern persecution. This book is the ideal resource for students exploring the history of witch-hunting. Its level of detail and use of social theory also make it important for scholars and researchers.
Feminism
The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf : Modernism
Author: Jane Goldman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 1998
Description: Jane Goldman offers a revisionary, feminist reading of Woolf's work. Focusing on Woolf's engagement with the artistic theories of her time, Goldman analyzes Woolf's fascination with the Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1920 and the solar eclipse of 1927 by linking her response to a much wider literary and cultural context. Illustrated with color pictures, this book will appeal not only to scholars working on Woolf, but also to students of modernism, art history, and women's studies.
France
Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction
Author: Guy Austin
Publisher: Machester University Press
Year: 2008
Description: Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
Global Modernisms
Nightwood
Author: Djuna Barnes
Publisher: Faber
Year: 2001
Description: The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece-- one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era. "Nightwood," Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" ("TLS"). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna-- a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction-- there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person-- a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, "Nightwood" still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in1936.
Voyage in the Dark
Author: Jean Rhys
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2000
Description: Anna Morgan, a teenage girl performing in the chorus at theaters in small English towns, tries to find happiness with Walter Jeffries, who eventually abandons her.
Romance in Marseille
Author: Claude McKay
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2020
Description: The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time. A Penguin Classic A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice/Staff Pick Vulture's Ten Best Books of 2020 pick Buried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.
History
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Longman
Year: 1995
Description: Between 1450 and 1750 thousands of people – most of them women – were accused, prosecuted and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The witch-hunt was not a single event; it comprised thousands of individual prosecutions, each shaped by the religious and social dimensions of the particular area as well as political and legal factors. Brian Levack sorts through the proliferation of theories to provide a coherent introduction to the subject, as well as contributing to the scholarly debate. The book: Examines why witchcraft prosecutions took place, how many trials and victims there were, and why witch-hunting eventually came to an end. Explores the beliefs of both educated and illiterate people regarding witchcraft. Uses regional and local studies to give a more detailed analysis of the chronological and geographical distribution of witch-trials. Emphasises the legal context of witchcraft prosecutions. Illuminates the social, economic and political history of early modern Europe, and in particular the position of women within it. In this fully updated third edition of his exceptional study, Levack incorporates the vast amount of literature that has emerged since the last edition. He substantially extends his consideration of the decline of the witch-hunt and goes further in his exploration of witch-hunting after the trials, especially in contemporary Africa. New illustrations vividly depict beliefs about witchcraft in early modern Europe.
The Reformation World
Author: Andrew Pettegree
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Description: The most ambitious one-volume survey of the Reformation yet, this book is beautifully illustrated throughout. The strength of this work is its breadth and originality, covering the Church, art, Calvinism and Luther.
The European Witch-Hunt
Author: Julian Goodare
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2016
Description: The European Witch-Hunt seeks to explain why thousands of people, mostly lower-class women, were deliberately tortured and killed in the name of religion and morality during three centuries of intermittent witch-hunting throughout Europe and North America. Combining perspectives from history, sociology, psychology and other disciplines, this book provides a comprehensive account of witch-hunting in early modern Europe. Julian Goodare sets out an original interpretation of witch-hunting as an episode of ideologically-driven persecution by the ‘godly state’ in the era of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Full weight is also given to the context of village social relationships, and there is a detailed analysis of gender issues. Witch-hunting was a legal operation, and the courts’ rationale for interrogation under torture is explained. Panicking local elites, rather than central governments, were at the forefront of witch-hunting. Further chapters explore folk beliefs about legendary witches, and intellectuals’ beliefs about a secret conspiracy of witches in league with the Devil. Witch-hunting eventually declined when the ideological pressure to combat the Devil’s allies slackened. A final chapter sets witch-hunting in the context of other episodes of modern persecution. This book is the ideal resource for students exploring the history of witch-hunting. Its level of detail and use of social theory also make it important for scholars and researchers.
History of Art
Modern Art, 1851-1929 : Capitalism and Representation
Author: Richard R. Brettell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1999
Description: In a bold new look at the Modern Art era, Brettell explores the works of such artists as Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, and Dali--as well as lesser-known figures--in relation to expansion, colonialism, national and internationalism, and the rise of the museum. 140 illustrations, 75 in color.
The Shock of the New : Art and the Century of Change
Author: Robert Hughes
Publisher: Thames and Hudson
Year: 1991
Description: "The shock of the New combines style, wit, pertinent anecdote, critical poise and scholarship to provide an exhilarating history of a century of art that has puzzled, threatened and outraged its detractors - and captivated its admirers. Robert Hughes has written a major new chapter which not only brings us into the present with the story of the art that was modern, but confronts that art with a powerful challenge for its future."--BOOK COVER.
Imagism
The Verse Revolutionaries: Ezra Pound, H.D. and The Imagists
Author: Helen Carr
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Year: 2009
Description: Poets.
Modernism
Nightwood
Author: Djuna Barnes
Publisher: Faber
Year: 2001
Description: The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece-- one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era. "Nightwood," Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" ("TLS"). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna-- a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction-- there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person-- a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, "Nightwood" still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in1936.
Voyage in the Dark
Author: Jean Rhys
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2000
Description: Anna Morgan, a teenage girl performing in the chorus at theaters in small English towns, tries to find happiness with Walter Jeffries, who eventually abandons her.
Modernism : An Anthology of Sources and Documents
Author: Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Jane Goldman
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Year: 1998
Description: This anthology provides a guide to the Modernist movement in literature. Covering intellectual concerns of the period 1850-1940, it draws on contemporary essays, reviews, articles and manifestos of the political and aesthetic avant-garde.
Modern Art, 1851-1929 : Capitalism and Representation
Author: Richard R. Brettell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1999
Description: In a bold new look at the Modern Art era, Brettell explores the works of such artists as Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, and Dali--as well as lesser-known figures--in relation to expansion, colonialism, national and internationalism, and the rise of the museum. 140 illustrations, 75 in color.
The Shock of the New : Art and the Century of Change
Author: Robert Hughes
Publisher: Thames and Hudson
Year: 1991
Description: "The shock of the New combines style, wit, pertinent anecdote, critical poise and scholarship to provide an exhilarating history of a century of art that has puzzled, threatened and outraged its detractors - and captivated its admirers. Robert Hughes has written a major new chapter which not only brings us into the present with the story of the art that was modern, but confronts that art with a powerful challenge for its future."--BOOK COVER.
The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf : Modernism
Author: Jane Goldman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 1998
Description: Jane Goldman offers a revisionary, feminist reading of Woolf's work. Focusing on Woolf's engagement with the artistic theories of her time, Goldman analyzes Woolf's fascination with the Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1920 and the solar eclipse of 1927 by linking her response to a much wider literary and cultural context. Illustrated with color pictures, this book will appeal not only to scholars working on Woolf, but also to students of modernism, art history, and women's studies.
Imagist Poetry
Author: Peter Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2001
Description: Imagism was a brief, complex yet influential poetic movement of the early 1900s, a time of reaction against late nineteenth-century poetry which Ezra Pound, one of the key imagist poets, described as ‘a doughy mess of third-hand Keats, Wordsworth ... half-melted, lumpy’. In contrast, imagist poetry, although riddled with conflicting definitions, was broadly characterized by brevity, precision, purity of texture and concentration of meaning: as Pound stated, it should ‘use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something ... it does not use images as ornaments. The image itself is the speech’. It was this freshness and directness of approach which means that, as Peter Jones says in his invaluable Introduction, ‘imagistic ideas still lie at the centre of our poetic practice’.
The Verse Revolutionaries: Ezra Pound, H.D. and The Imagists
Author: Helen Carr
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Year: 2009
Description: Poets.
Selected Poems
Author: Langston Hughes
Publisher: Knopf
Year: 1959
Description: One hundred and fifty-six poems, grouped by theme, are accompanied by drawings, oils, and watercolors by the poet
Complete Poems of Hart Crane
Author: Hart Crane
Publisher: Liveright
Year: 2000
Description: Featuring a new introduction by Harold Bloom, this volume chronicles the life works of a poet who has suffered much misunderstanding and neglect despite displaying a superb poetic style, idiosyncratic, yet central to American tradition.
The Crying of Lot 49
Author: Thomas Pynchon
Publisher: Pan Books
Year: 1979
Description: Oedipa Maas finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy.
Philosophy
Narrative Perspective in Fiction : A Phenomenological Mediation of Reader, Text, and World
Author: Daniel Frank Chamberlain
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 1990
Description: Daniel Chamberlain examines the nature of narrative perspective in a manner that does not presuppose a passive definition of perception. Rather, he considers perspective as a medium through which the potential meanings of texts are disclosed and through which to share the vital experience of narrative from today's familiar and culturally distant worlds. The book is divided into two parts. The first part address narrative perspective within a theoretical framework. Chamberlain uses this in order to consider narrative perspective as an integral part of the more general process of perception that mediates language and the experience of texts. Perception is here understood as an active recreation of the world at every moment; as an opening through which one's self-awareness and awareness of the world are correlated. By considering narrative perspective in terms of perception, equal importance is given to its temporal and spatial aspects. The dialectic of time and space inevitably comes to bear on narrative perspective through the techniques, strategies, and medium of a text's transmission. Part one concludes with an examination of contemporary definitions of narrative perspective and with the presentation of an alternative approach to its study. The second part offers a reading of two texts, each of which clearly presents the major issues facing this inquiry. The narrative perspective of each is considered as occupying a degree of similarity and difference within the dialectic of time and space. Each perspective is, in turn, correlated to the prevalent medium of discourse within its cultural milieu.
play
In Loving Memory of Mary Mort
Author: Oscar and Archie
Publisher: Cod Liver Theatre
Year: 2023
Description:
Post-colonialism
Romance in Marseille
Author: Claude McKay
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2020
Description: The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time. A Penguin Classic A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice/Staff Pick Vulture's Ten Best Books of 2020 pick Buried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.
Reformation
The Reformation World
Author: Andrew Pettegree
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Description: The most ambitious one-volume survey of the Reformation yet, this book is beautifully illustrated throughout. The strength of this work is its breadth and originality, covering the Church, art, Calvinism and Luther.
urban
Tropic of Orange
Author: Karen Tei Yamashita
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Year: 2017
Description: "Fiercely satirical. . . . Yamashita presents [an] intricate plot with mordant wit." —New York Times Book Review "A stunner. . . . An exquisite mystery novel. But this is a novel of dystopia and apocalypse; the mystery concerns the tragic flaws of human nature." —Library Journal (starred review) "Brilliant. . . . An ingenious interpretation of social woes." —Booklist (starred review) "Yamashita handles her eccentrics and the setting of their adventures with panache. David Foster Wallace meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez." —Publishers Weekly Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway. Hemmed in by wildfires, it's a symphony conducted from an overpass, grandiose, comic, and as diverse as the city itself. Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.
The New York Trilogy
Author: Paul Aster
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Year: 2015
Description: Experience the wonder of the written word from some of the greatest writers of the modern age, with Faber Modern Classics.
Vorticism
Imagist Poetry
Author: Peter Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2001
Description: Imagism was a brief, complex yet influential poetic movement of the early 1900s, a time of reaction against late nineteenth-century poetry which Ezra Pound, one of the key imagist poets, described as ‘a doughy mess of third-hand Keats, Wordsworth ... half-melted, lumpy’. In contrast, imagist poetry, although riddled with conflicting definitions, was broadly characterized by brevity, precision, purity of texture and concentration of meaning: as Pound stated, it should ‘use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something ... it does not use images as ornaments. The image itself is the speech’. It was this freshness and directness of approach which means that, as Peter Jones says in his invaluable Introduction, ‘imagistic ideas still lie at the centre of our poetic practice’.
The Verse Revolutionaries: Ezra Pound, H.D. and The Imagists
Author: Helen Carr
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Year: 2009
Description: Poets.
Witchcraft
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Longman
Year: 1995
Description: Between 1450 and 1750 thousands of people – most of them women – were accused, prosecuted and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The witch-hunt was not a single event; it comprised thousands of individual prosecutions, each shaped by the religious and social dimensions of the particular area as well as political and legal factors. Brian Levack sorts through the proliferation of theories to provide a coherent introduction to the subject, as well as contributing to the scholarly debate. The book: Examines why witchcraft prosecutions took place, how many trials and victims there were, and why witch-hunting eventually came to an end. Explores the beliefs of both educated and illiterate people regarding witchcraft. Uses regional and local studies to give a more detailed analysis of the chronological and geographical distribution of witch-trials. Emphasises the legal context of witchcraft prosecutions. Illuminates the social, economic and political history of early modern Europe, and in particular the position of women within it. In this fully updated third edition of his exceptional study, Levack incorporates the vast amount of literature that has emerged since the last edition. He substantially extends his consideration of the decline of the witch-hunt and goes further in his exploration of witch-hunting after the trials, especially in contemporary Africa. New illustrations vividly depict beliefs about witchcraft in early modern Europe.
The Reformation World
Author: Andrew Pettegree
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2000
Description: The most ambitious one-volume survey of the Reformation yet, this book is beautifully illustrated throughout. The strength of this work is its breadth and originality, covering the Church, art, Calvinism and Luther.
The European Witch-Hunt
Author: Julian Goodare
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2016
Description: The European Witch-Hunt seeks to explain why thousands of people, mostly lower-class women, were deliberately tortured and killed in the name of religion and morality during three centuries of intermittent witch-hunting throughout Europe and North America. Combining perspectives from history, sociology, psychology and other disciplines, this book provides a comprehensive account of witch-hunting in early modern Europe. Julian Goodare sets out an original interpretation of witch-hunting as an episode of ideologically-driven persecution by the ‘godly state’ in the era of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Full weight is also given to the context of village social relationships, and there is a detailed analysis of gender issues. Witch-hunting was a legal operation, and the courts’ rationale for interrogation under torture is explained. Panicking local elites, rather than central governments, were at the forefront of witch-hunting. Further chapters explore folk beliefs about legendary witches, and intellectuals’ beliefs about a secret conspiracy of witches in league with the Devil. Witch-hunting eventually declined when the ideological pressure to combat the Devil’s allies slackened. A final chapter sets witch-hunting in the context of other episodes of modern persecution. This book is the ideal resource for students exploring the history of witch-hunting. Its level of detail and use of social theory also make it important for scholars and researchers.