Editions Rodopi
Enduring resistance; cultural theory after Derrida.
This collection of thirteen essays, five of which are written in French, offers a critical evaluation and rethinking of key concepts in Derrida's work as they pertain to cultural theory. The book is organized around four main topics — maneuvers, societies, images and fictions. The authors, an international set of academics working in the humanities and cultural studies, considers conceptualizations of Otherness, violence, the object of cultural theory, nihilism, alternative ethical and political models to those that dominate cultural theory, mono- and multi-lingualism, culture and art as supplementary practices, economy, and interpretation after Derrida. The introduction and list of essay summaries are dual-language. Unfortunately, the work is not indexed. Price is converted from euros. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Fragile identities; towards a theology of interreligious hospitality.
This study investigates "the dialogical tensive relationship between the faith commitment of religious identity and openness for the religious other," states the author in her introduction. Moyaert (Catholic U. of Louvain, Belgium) addresses the theme in chapters on the theology of religions; religious plurality; a critique of the pluralist model; the cultural-linguistic theory, postliberalism, and religious incommensurability; a theological critique of postliberalism; and interreligious dialogue and hermeneutical openness. Price is converted from euros and subject to fluctuation (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The last good land; Spain in American literature.
This comparative study of the influence of Spain and Spanish literature on American writers examines both popular representations, such as in the works of Ernest Hemingway, and lesser know authors, and discusses interactions with a variety of writers and genres from the nineteenth and twentieth century. The work covers topics such as Spain and the United States in the canon of western literature, romantic idealism from the Civil War to the Cuban War and Jewish-American travel literature, and provides analysis of works by authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Santayana, John Dos Passos, Langston Hughes and Saul Bellow. Suárez- Galbán is a professor of comparative literature. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Live poetry; an integrated approach to poetry in performance.
Poet Novak (English literature, U. of Vienna, Austria) presents an approach to the analysis of live poetry, both performance poetry and traditional readings, using disciplines such as literary studies, paralinguistics, musicology, kinesics, theatre and performance studies, and folklore studies. She first discusses challenges in analysis, live poetry as an artistic medium, and how it is a mode of poetry instead of just an oral presentation of a printed work. She then describes its relationship to theatre; analytical criteria through video examples of poetry performances (available on the companion website); audio dimensions, relationships to acoustic performance, and possibilities for notating audiotextual features; body communication and visual aspects; the performance context; and a sample analysis. Price is converted from euros and is subject to fluctuation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The privacy of the psychical.
Gilead (philosophy, U. of Haifa) defends the idea that we all have private minds to which only we personally have access and critiques both what he calls "externalism" and "actualism," views which he says "attempt to conceive a kind of knowledge in which no subjectivity takes place." He calls his own metaphysical position "panenmentalism." His interlocutors are a diverse bunch, ranging from American philosophers typically associated with pragmatism and analytic philosophy — including Donald Davidson, Wilard Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but notably not Richard Rorty — to psychoanalysts to modernist writers, particularly Virginia Wolff. In the first chapter, he argues that the exclusively private accessibility of what he calls "the psychical" does not entail solipsism. In chapter two he critiques "Quine's Externalism" and Donald Davidson's application of it. Chapter three reconsiders the problem of private experience and explores psychoanalytic transference. Chapter four challenges, among other things, a popular view about empathy. In chapter five he further critiques Wittgenstein, and in his final chapter he takes up literary fictions as a caveat. Price is converted from euros. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Seaing through the past; postmodern histories and the maritime metaphor in contemporary Anglophone fiction.
Rostek (whose affiliation is not stated) writes thoughtfully and lucidly about 14 novels written in the past 30 years, exploring the themes described in the subtitle. Among the works she examines: Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea (1978), Yann Martel's Life of Pi (2002), Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989), and J.M. Coetzee's Foe (1986). Discussion encompasses biographies, narratives of personal trauma, the politics of power, and post colonial histories. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Social justice, poverty and race; normative and empirical points of view.
The origins of this book, edited by Kriese (political science, Indiana U.) and Osborne (psychology, Texas State U.), lie in an Oxford Roundtable on "Social Justice" at Oxford U., England, in March of 2009. The Roundtable brought together an international and multidisciplinary group of scholars to discuss different disciplinary and cultural perspectives on social justice. Fifteen papers discuss such topics as ethnic politics and its constraints for social justice in post-colonial polyethnic societies, navigating social justice in teacher education, elitism in American higher education, the impact of genetically modified organisms on world hunger, poverty and immigration in the US state of Texas, and the activism of farm-worker organizer César Chavez. Cited price is converted from euros and subject to change. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Spheres public and private; western genres in African literature.
In the front matter is this description: "Matatu is a journal on African and African diaspora literatures and societies dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social sciences and cultural anthropology....[It] moves beyond worn-out clichéés of 'cultural authenticity' and 'national liberation' towards critical exploration of African modernities." This volume, the 39th in the series, contains overviews, poetry, theater, creative writing, reviews of books and films. Contributors are academics and some students in all sorts of fields — most with affiliations in Africa, others, elsewhere in the world. This compendium is not indexed. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The splintered glass; facets of trauma in the post-colony and beyond.
From the introduction: "...each essay deals with specific examples of how different traumas have been represented in the literature of various formerly colonized territories, thus acknowledging a series of traumatic experiences in different non-Western settings and taking account of cultural difference in the treatment of trauma." Editors Dolores Herrero and Sonia Baelo-Allué are both affiliated with the U. of Zaragoza (Spain) and with a research team working on the "ethical and traumatic component in contemporary fiction in English...." They have gathered 11 contributions from scholars in many countries who offer analyses of works including Janette Turner Hospital's Oyster, J.M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country, and Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night, among other works. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Towering figures; reading the 9/11 archive.
This literary analysis of key writings on the 9/11 terrorist attacks examines the treatment of global themes of political impacts, psychological trauma and the development of cultural meaning in the literature surrounding the event. The volume discusses works by Jonathan Safran Foer, Don DeLillo and others as it attempts to expose a broader vein of growth, understanding and healing in both the personal and political spheres. The book is derived from Cvek's doctoral thesis. Price is converted from euros. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Villains and villainy; embodiments of evil in literature, popular culture and media.
Drawn from papers delivered at a 2009 conference held at Mansfield College, Oxford, this collection of essays examines the portrayal of villains and villainy in popular media. The work is divided into sections covering infamous representations of evil, victorious villains, community and familiar villains, and evil as a necessary attribute. Individual articles address such topics as Nazi's as meta-villains, transitions from victims to villains, in-law women as cultural villains, and Jack Bauer as hero, anti-hero and villain. Contributors include academics in comparative literature and other fields from UK and European universities. Price is converted from euros. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
