Ashgate Publishing Co.

Landscape and vision in nineteenth-century Britain and France.

In a cultural history of landscape in the 19th century, Charlesworth (art and art history, U. of Texas at Austin) explores questions of vision in relation to nature and the physical world. Starting from the 1740s, a time when vision was starting to be treated scientifically as well as metaphorically, he examines the panorama entertainments that were popular then and subsequent subjective visions represented in Gothic novels, Impressionist paintings, Gauguin's exotic landscapes, and Husserl's phenomenology of mental processes. Illustrations include panorama drawings, and color plates and b&w prints of landscape art by leading British and French artists of the period. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Language, custom, and nation in the 1790s; Locke, Tooke, Wordsworth, Edgeworth.

The revolutionary Romanticism and poetic experimentation of the decade is generally attributed to the American and French revolutions, but Manly (U. of St. Andrews, Scotland) traces it to 17th-century British philosopher John Locke. She traces the influence of Locke's ideas and terminology through John Horne Tooke to William Wordsworth, and seeks to establish Maria Edgeworth's place in Locke's anti-authoritarian tradition. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Material and visual cultures beyond male bonding, 1870-1914: bodies, boundaries and intimacy.

Potvin (U. of Guelph, Canada) conducts close readings of representations of the male body, male intimacy, and male desire in Victorian culture, applying theoretical lenses borrowed from Michel Foucault's poststructuralist analysis of encoded surfaces and typological inscriptions on the body; Maurice Merleau-Ponty's work on "phenomenological applications to the study of how the subject and object, through fleshy corporeality, interact and enact a perceptual field through the senses;" and such queer theorists as Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick and David Halperin. His cases include medico-scientific treatises on masculinity, the decorative theories and drawings of Walter Crane, English Arts and Crafts designer Charles Robert Ashbee's aesthetics of the male body, the interior spaces created by David Urquhart for steam bathers, and the same-sex double photographic portraits created by Victorian phrenologists. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The monarchical republic of early Modern England; essays in response to Patrick Collinson.

In a 1987 essay, Collinson described Elizabethan England as a chimera state with elements of both a republic and a monarchy. Historians, who by profession neither forgive nor forget, respond these two decades later to his assertions, more agreeing an elaborating than challenging. Their topics include conflicting views of participatory local government in early Tudor England, rhetoric and citizenship, the mental world of Sir John Newdigate, and American corruption. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Myth, metaphysics and dialectic in Plato's Statesman.

Although central to many a foray into political philosophy, ethics, and many other subjects of inquiry, Plato's seminal work is also thought to be diffuse in its structure and disjointed in its transitions. White (philosophy, DePaul U.) finds, however, that Plato's central interpretive focus in The Statesman is the extended myth. Given this proviso, White finds The Statesman to be internally coherent and profound in its implications as well as integrally related to Plato's later dialogues. He offers a very close reading of relevant texts, developing his argument from perceptions of myth to the rule of the cosmos, then into knowledge and reality as paradigms, dialectic as a factor in measurement, and statecraft as an available application as well as a subject. Particularly interesting is White's epilog, in which he relates statecraft and metaphysics to Plato's Laws. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Oral traditions and gender in early modern literary texts.

Acknowledging that no narrative can now be verifiably identified as virgin oral free of literate taint, scholars of English literature assert that nevertheless there were oral practices in the early modern period, mostly associated with women. They explore such topics as the female storyteller in early modern English romance, the influence of folktales of Spenser's Busirane and Isis Church episodes, and exploiting the metaphysics of presence in Twelfth Night. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Performance, poetry and politics on the queen's day; Catherine de Medicis and Pierre de Ronsard at Fontainebleau.

In February 1564, Catherine, the queen mother of France and lyric poet Pierre organized a great day of theater and other entertainments for Carnival at Fontainebleau. Scott (emerita, theater) and Sturm-Maddox (emerita, French and Italian studies; both: U. of Massachusetts- Amherst) explore issues in political, literary, and theatrical history that converged that day, especially noting the political context that underlay the spectacle and particular performances in it. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Performance under stress.

Editors Hancock and Szalma (psychology, U. of Central Florida) have compiled a collection of monographs on stress and soldier performance on the modern electronic battlefield. Derived primarily from a multi-year, Multiple University Research Initiative project, this collection contains work from leading researchers. It contains a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches from traditional laboratory modeling to realistic simulations, from field simulations to personal experiences of actual combat conditions. The editors note that information overload is a major form of stress experienced by both soldiers and those involved in less life-threatening pursuits, such as business, academia, and research. Areas discussed include designing human-machine interfaces for people in high-stress conditions, adaptability of supporting computer systems and their place as members of a "team." The volume is intended for anyone who faces work-related stress and for professionals who study these and related issues. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Power to the people; Early Soviet propaganda posters in The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Reflecting a small part of the Merrill C. Berman collection of agitprop posters, this oversized volume (9.25x13.25 inches) contains a catalogue of posters created between 1920-22 (they were the subject of a 2004 exhibition at The Israel Museum). Printed using a stencil technique known as Rosta Window, the posters were created in series to present propaganda, many concerning food and taxation, with frequent references to the devastating famine in the Volga region. The series are presented in thumbnail views with English translation, giving the reader a clear idea of this art form, and two essays discuss their style, production, content, and the political world in which they were created. Full-page and two-page color plates display details from the posters. Distributed in the U.S. by Ashgate, the volume is not indexed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham; a complete catalogue.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was one of Britain's most noted abstract artists, working and developing new techniques well into her 90s, until her death in 2004. Gunn (museum and gallery studies in art history, U. of St. Andrews) has compiled a complete illustrated catalogue of her known work in etching, linocut, lithography, screen printing, and monotype from 1946 to 2007. While Gunn had talked with both the artist and her close associate, both died before she was able to complete more structured interviews with them. Instead, she has relied on letters, diaries, notes, and other sources from the artist's archive. Her art lived in both abstract and representational camps, and varied greatly in tone, style, and execution. Her etchings and pencil sketches range from simple to complex, from fanciful to moody. Her screen prints, eventually her medium of choice, were in many instances vibrant enough to light up a room. The book is distributed in the US by Ashgate. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Queer attachments; the cultural politics of shame.

Munt (media and cultural studies, U. of Sussex) explores the construction and social function of shame by homosexuals in the Atlantic anglophone world. She discusses queer Irish sodomites, New York's annual St. Patrick Day parades, uncanny attachments in the television drama Six Feet Under and Tracey Emin's aesthetics of the self. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Realism and religion; philosophical and theological perspectives.

English, American, Australian, and Scottish philosophers grapple with the meaning and accessibility of religious claims. These aspects of the religious realism/anti-realism debate are less discussed than others, but are addressed here as perhaps delving into more fundamental issues. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Reconstructing a Christian theology of nature; down to earth.

Through careful reading of primary texts and the application of such diverse approaches as feminist theology, process thought and elements of the dialog between religion and science, Case-Winters (theology, McCormick Theological Seminary) finds that the Christian tradition contains within it a viable theology of nature. She examines the state of the natural world and the need to build a new theology of nature, analyzes the reformed tradition and finds evidence supporting the ideas of stewardship and commitment to earth-friendly practice, employs ecofeminist insights about relations with the earth, applies ideas about the integrity of nature from process thought, and rethinks the Imago Dei along the lines of current debates between religion and science. Her chapter on what she calls "process-pantheism" is particularly interesting, as are her conclusions about the ethical implications of her approach. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rendering the Word in theological hermeneutics; mapping divine and human agency.

The idealist Enlightenment epistemological tradition continues to encourage a reading of the Bible that inhibits a full awareness of divine agency in scripture, contends Bowald (religion and theology, Redeemer U. College, Ontario). He looks at that inheritance and at various recent and contemporary approaches to recognizing it and countering it with a more balanced view of divine and human agency. And, oh yes, he proposes his own as well. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Virgilian tradition; book history and the history of reading in early modern Europe.

In this volume of the Variorum Collected Studies Series, author Kallendorf (College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M U.) provides a collection of 14 essays on the history of books, the history of reading in early modern Europe, and the Roman poet Virgil's place in that span of history. It also could be termed a series of essays on perception and context. Kallendorf notes in one reference to 16th-century readers, "...we must be careful not to conclude that early modern people are exactly like us. Early readers, for example, habitually read Virgil's poetry through the filter of Christianity." The essays encompass a variety of topics, including early criticism and commentary, the interpretive function of illustration, marginalia (the margin notes left in books by early readers), and Virgil's influence on authors — such as Dante — of succeeding generations. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

William Crozier.

Artist William Crozier (b.1930, Glasgow) settled in London during the 1950s and began what has been a 50-year career, during which time he has exhibited widely in London, Glasgow, Dublin, and continental Europe. Profoundly affected by existentialist post-World War II philosophy, he has developed a highly personal vision of nature and a formidable style of color-handling. This book surveys his oeuvre, providing insight into the history of figurative painting in Britain and locating his work in the context of Irish, Scottish, and English art. The color reproductions are organized chronologically, and each time period is introduced by a short article. Also included are a detailed chronology, a list of works in public collections, and a list of exhibitions, awards and films. Text is by editor Crouan, a freelance art historian formerly affiliated with the U. of Southampton; S.B. Kennedy (formerly with the Ulster Museum); and visual arts writer Philip Vann. The volume is oversize: 10x12 inches and is distributed in the US by Ashgate. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Women's work and identity in eighteenth-century Brittany.

Locklin (history, Maryville College) examines the work, lives, rights, tragedies, and triumphs of early modern women in the French occupied country called Brittany. She intends this case study of a specific time and place to combine with others in challenging the accepted models of women's history, in particular the practice of defining women in terms of the household rather than in terms of their contributions to society as a whole. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)