In this study, ten independent critical essays and a coda explore the English-language poetry of South Asians in terms of time, place, themes and poetic methodologies. The transnational perspective taken establishes connections between colonial and postcolonial South Asian poetry in English as well as the poetry of the old and new diaspora and the Subcontinent. The poetry analysis covers the relevance of historical allusions as well as underlying concerns of gender, ethnicity and class. Comparisons are offered between poets of different places and time periods, yielding numerous sociopolitical paradigms that surface in the poetry.
In this classic study of the relationship between technology and culture, Miles Orvell demonstrates that the roots of contemporary popular culture reach back to the Victorian era, when mechanical replications of familiar objects reigned supreme and realism dominated artistic representation. Reacting against this genteel culture of imitation, a number of artists and intellectuals at the turn of the century were inspired by the machine to create more authentic works of art that were themselves "real things." The resulting tension between a culture of imitation and a culture of authenticity, argues Orvell, has become a defining category in our culture.
A study of the relationship between past and present, and the relation between histories in different levels of generality. One after another Siegfried Kracauer examines various theories of history and exposes their strengths and weaknesses.
Pericles, lover of Socrates, profaner of the Mysteries-- was called by some the saviour of Athens and by others its greatest enemy. This book is a study of the explosive mixture of fear and fascination he excited in his contemporaries and in classical texts. It examines the acute tension between the classical city and the individual of superlative power, status, and ambition.
