Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men
Superheroes and the American Experience
Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men explores the changing depiction of superheroes from the comic books of the 1930s to the cinematic present. In this anthology, scholars from a variety of disciplines – including history, cultural studies, Latin American studies, film studies, and English – examine the superhero’s cultural history in North America with attention to particular stories and to the historical contexts in which those narratives appeared. Enduring comic book characters from DC and Marvel Comics, including Superman, Iron Man, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Avengers, are examined, along…
This collection explores the superhero’s evolution from 1930s comics to modern cinema. It examines how iconic heroes like Superman, Batman, and the Avengers reflect the historical contexts of their eras, from the Great Depression to the Cold War and beyond.
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Laughter and War
Humorous-Satirical Magazines in Britain, France, Germany and Russia 1914–1918
War is no laughing matter. During a war, however, laughter can play a vital role in sustaining morale, both in the armies at the Front and in their homelands. Among wars, the 1914–18 conflict has left a haunting legacy, and remains a central topic in modern European history. This book offers a comparative study of the impact of the war in four countries, and breaks new ground by exploring this through the medium of what their respective populations laughed at. By searching the pages of four humorous-satirical magazines,…
This book explores the impact of World War One in four countries, and breaks new ground by exploring this through the medium of what their respective populations laughed at, investigating four humorous-satirical magazines of the period.
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Cheap Print and the People
European Perspectives on Popular Literature
In every country across Europe, at some point or other during the last five hundred years, cheap printed materials were the staple diet of ordinary people, providing a rich array of entertainment, education, and information. They came in various forms, but were usually variations on the theme of single sheets or simple booklets, and they were carried far and wide in pedlars’ packs and sold in the streets, at fairs and markets and wherever crowds gathered, as well as in backstreet shops. Their content was as broad as can be…
For 500 years, cheap print was the staple diet of ordinary Europeans, offering news, scandal, folktales, and songs. Neglected for centuries, these materials shine a light on the culture and lives of the people. This is the first pan-European study of the subject.
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The advent of the new age has alerted us to the conflicted nature of historical memory which defined the 20th century while simultaneously assaulting us with new historical upheavals that demand responsibility and critical consideration. As the historical text bears traces of the writing subject, the element of deception is remarkable, meaning historical memory easily lends itself to forgery and false and subjective projections. As such, how do we think about the past, about history, about memory, and how does memory function? Is history an objective account, a collection of…
The essays here focus on the relevance of the past to the present and future in terms of the shifting attitudes to personal and collective experiences that have shaped dominant Western critical discourses about history, memory, and nostalgia.
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Perspectives on Ecocriticism
Local Beginnings, Global Echoes
This volume gathers together papers presented at the conference “Ecocriticism in the Nordic Countries; Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” held in Västerås, Sweden, in 2017, organized by the research group Ecocritical Forum at Mälardalen University. The conference, which was an attempt to survey local ecocritical activities, transcended Nordic boundaries, engaging scholars from Europe and the United States. This expansion from the local to the global mirrors the subject of the conference: ecocriticism, a cross-disciplinary field of research in the intersection of environmental issues and cultural expressions. The chapters here engage with topical…
This volume gathers together papers presented at the conference “Ecocriticism in the Nordic Countries; Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”. The chapters engage with topics such as the Anthropocene, sustainability, and civilizational critique, as well as dark ecology and animal studies.
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This book examines Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection in several works by early British writers from the Restoration to the Romantic era. This period saw an increased emphasis on understanding the self. Poems with anxious speakers or narratives featuring characters with considerable psychic pressures emerged as writers responded to ideas on consciousness by natural philosophers. The pursuit of self-knowledge also reached greater imaginative depths, inspiring new artistic movements, including sensibility, with its attention to expressions of the suffering self, and the Gothic, a mode of art that examines…
Alexander uses Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection to examine several works by British writers from the Restoration to the Romantic era, providing a constructive perspective for thinking about literary depictions of the self-in-crisis.
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The Peak Time of Entertainment in China
A Study of the Jiaofang during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD)
This book is the most detailed study to date on the entertainment system in the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD) of China. It discusses entertainment institutions not only of the local and central governments, but also of city commoners. There are many kinds of performers mentioned in the stories and historical materials of the Tang, which has led to some confusion with institutions left over from the Song Dynasty (960-1279AD). This book clarifies such issues, in addition to resolving the question of the origin of Ci in ancient Chinese art…
This detailed study of the Tang Dynasty entertainment system covers institutions of the government and city commoners. The book clarifies confusion with the later Song Dynasty and resolves the question of the origin of Ci in ancient Chinese art and literature.
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This book examines the historical views of Japanese right-wing scholars critically. It is devoted to the origins and backgrounds of the right-wing view of history and identifies the trajectory of its development in Japanese society. To be more specific, this book centres on the intellectual right-wing after the Cold War. It carries out in-depth case studies to thoroughly analyse the representative figures of the right-wing and criticizes their typical viewpoints towards the Japanese cultural invasion of China. This book represents interdisciplinarity, assessing the right-wing views from a comprehensive set of…
This book critically examines the historical views of Japanese right-wing scholars, focusing on the post-Cold War intellectual right. Using in-depth case studies, it analyzes representative figures and criticizes their viewpoints on the Japanese cultural invasion of China.
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Toni Morrison’s A Mercy
Critical Approaches
Toni Morrison’s ninth novel, A Mercy, has been received with much acclaim by both the critical and lay reading public. Hailed as her best novel after the award-winning Beloved, most critics to date have concentrated on its setting in the late seventeenth century, a time in which, according to the author herself, slavery was “pre-racial,” a time before the “Terrible Transformation” irrevocably linked slavery to skin-color or “race.” Though a slender, easy to read novel, A Mercy is in fact a richly-layered text, full of multiple meanings and possibilities, a…
This first volume of essays on Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel, A Mercy, presents critical approaches to its richly-layered text. It explores the novel’s setting before slavery was linked to race, illuminating the work for scholars and students.
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Glocal Ireland
Current Perspectives on Literature and the Visual Arts
The transformations undergone by Ireland in the last decades have relocated the country within that liminal space of the local and the global. The country of the deeply-rooted rural traditions, the severely religious impositions and the fragile economic system became in the 1990s a world referent due to its unprecedented and impressive growth. However, the emergence of the so-called Celtic Tiger and the recognition that Ireland had become one of the most globalised nations in the Western world met a dramatic downfall that has left the country (pre)occupied with matters…
Ireland’s transformation from the Celtic Tiger’s boom to its dramatic downfall has redefined the nation’s identity. This volume explores the interplay of the local and the global in contemporary Irish literature, culture, and cinema.
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With the advent of the printing press throughout Europe in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the key Latin texts of Italian humanism began to be published outside Italy, most of them by a small group of printers who, in most cases, worked in close collaboration with lecturers and teachers. This study provides the first comprehensive account of the dissemination of this important literary corpus in Spain, France, the Low Countries and the German-speaking world between ca. 1470 and ca. 1540. By combining an examination of book production and…
Following the advent of the printing press, Italian humanist Latin texts spread across Europe. This study is the first comprehensive account of their dissemination and impact on the Renaissance curriculum and the rising national literary traditions of the period.
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The Yields of Transition
Literature, Art and Philosophy in Early Medieval China
The present volume is dedicated to the Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589 AD), which is generally regarded as one of the most fascinating phases in Chinese history. The collection opens new theoretical and methodological pathways in sinological studies, bringing to the forefront a new idea of intercultural encounters based upon a culture of recognition. It highlights the significance of transition in the making of Chinese culture and history, revises prevailing historical approaches in the study and research of China and develops and enhances existing theories or methodologies…
This volume on the Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589 AD) opens new pathways in sinological studies. It reveals a new image of this period, undermining common historical interpretations and showing its decisive achievements.
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Transnational England
Home and Abroad, 1780-1860
The rise of the modern English nation coincided with England’s increased encounters with other peoples, both at home and abroad. Their cultures and ideas—artistic, religious, political, and philosophical—contributed, in turn, to the composition of England’s own domestic identity. Transnational England sheds light on this exchange through a close investigation of the literatures of the time, from dramas to novels, travel narratives to religious hymns, and poetry to prose, all of which reveal how connections between England and other world communities 1780-1860 simultaneously fostered and challenged the sovereignty of the English…
Transnational England sheds light on how England’s encounters with other cultures shaped its identity. Through literature from 1780-1860, these essays reveal how global connections simultaneously fostered and challenged the sovereignty of the English nation.
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Metamorphoses of Travel Writing
Across Theories, Genres, Centuries and Literary Traditions
This book reflects, comments on and adds to a fast growing field of travel writing studies. The twenty-five papers in this volume rely on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches and explore a diverse body of travel writing texts created over the last three hundred years in English, Polish, Hungarian and French. The book is divided into three parts. The first one includes papers which apply the findings of post-structuralism, generic and cultural criticism as well as narratology to explore theories, canons and genres in travel writing drawing…
This book adds to the fast-growing field of travel writing studies. Its papers use varied theoretical approaches to explore a diverse body of texts—fictional, non-fictional, and poetry—from the last 300 years and from multiple literary traditions.
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The Modern Philosopher, Letters to Her Son and Verses on the Siege of Gibraltar, by Elizabeth Craven
This book offers a modern edition of three fascinating and important works by Elizabeth Craven (1750-1828), an English author who lived for many years on the Continent. Craven is mainly remembered for her scandalous personal life, but deserves more serious attention. She was influenced by Enlightenment ideas and took a broad interest in the events of her time. The Modern Philosopher (1790) is a satire on the egalitarian theories of the French Revolution. The intellectual Longinius advocates equality in theory as perfectly logical, but is dismayed when his…
Gasper offers a modern edition of three fascinating and important works by Elizabeth Craven (1750-1828), an English author who lived for many years on the Continent. Put together, these three works demonstrate Craven’s versatility as a writer and startling modernity.
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Conflict, Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe discusses processes of memory construction associated with the realities of war and genocide, totalitarianism, colonialism as well as trans-border dialogues in the overcoming of conflict memories. It is based on the premise that there are no available clear-cut or definite positions to approach the problematic issues of conflict, memory and history. Consequently, it examines and articulates across several different media discourses, problems, contexts and considerations of value. Its scope is thus deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing on the cross-fertilization of diverse research methods. The…
This book discusses memory construction associated with war, genocide, and colonialism. It offers an interdisciplinary examination of how conflict memories reshape history and identity, destabilizing fixed meanings and clarifying our invisible bonds to the past.
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In and Out
Eccentricity in Britain
The aim of the book is twofold: first, to provide an overview of the critical history of eccentricity; and secondly to conceptualise a notion that is often presented as a defining feature of the English “character”. It addresses the key issues raised by eccentricity and brings out interdisciplinary links between science, politics, literature and the arts: the sources and dissemination of the concept of eccentricity; its relationship with the English national character as historical and ideological constructs; the structural need for variation and divergence within accepted social norms; the paradoxical…
This book provides an overview of the critical history of eccentricity, a defining feature of the English character. It explores the eccentric’s paradoxical status as both outsider and insider, and the struggle to retain individuality against standardization.
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Within and Without Empire
Scotland Across the (Post)colonial Borderline
The concept of the border evoked by the title of the present volume provides a central interpretative key for our project at more than one level, as it is suggestive both of Scotland as a ‘theoretical borderland’ in relation to the Empire and postcoloniality, and of our attempt at bringing into dialogue scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, including Scottish, Celtic and postcolonial studies. The ‘Scotland’ of the present volume’s title is thus suggestive of a critical standpoint from which and within which we purpose to productively question disciplinary borders and…
This volume treats Scotland as a ‘theoretical borderland’ to question disciplinary borders. By bringing Scottish and postcolonial studies into dialogue, it fosters new paradigms for a deeper understanding of a world in dramatic flux and growing interdependence.
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This book offers a comparative study on the literary configurations of nation-state identity in the works of the contemporaneous Halide Edib Adıvar and Lady Augusta Gregory, specifically focusing on their roles as social reformists, female activists, and anti-imperialists through the components of national identity such as gender, language and transnational exchanges. It exposes the critical stance adopted by Lady Gregory and Halide Edib against British imperialism, and questions if these writers exhibit a local or international outlook of anti-imperialism. It is the first comparative study on Lady Gregory and…
A pioneering comparative study of Halide Edib Adıvar and Lady Augusta Gregory. It explores how these female activists and anti-imperialists challenged British imperialism, using literature to shape their national identities despite their different cultural backgrounds.
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Since the second half of the twentieth century, there has been a commitment on the part of women writers and scholars to revise and rewrite the history and culture of colonial and post-colonial women. This collection intends to enter a forum of discussion in which the colonial past serves as a point of reference for the analysis of contemporary issues. This volume will examine topics of women’s identities and bodies through literary representations and historical accounts. In other words, the aim is to reconstruct women’s identities through the representations of…
This collection examines women’s identities and bodies through literary and historical accounts. Using the colonial past to analyze contemporary issues, it explores the female body as a site of abuse and discrimination, but also of knowledge and cultural production.
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