In a collection that includes new essays written explicitly for this volume, one of our sharpest and most influential critics confronts the past, present, and future of literary culture.

Developing the arguments of Terence Hawkes' "That Shakespeherian Rag" (1986), this book uses the work of influential critics to question whether we could have any genuine access to final, authoritative or essential meanings in respect of Shakespeare's plays. Implicitly and explicitly, it argues that all we can ever do is use Shakespeare as a powerful element in specific ideological strategies. Traditionally, critics, producers, actors and audiences of Shakespeare have assumed that the "meaning" of each play is bequeathed to it by the Bard and lies within its text.

Reading Hour brings you a selection of creative writing from India. It is a bimonthly magazine that features short fiction, poetry, essays, reviews and interviews. Launched in Jan 2011, it has been well appreciated by critics, writers and the reading public - as one of them puts it, "...how utterly addictive your little magazine is!"

Millikan and Her Critics offers a unique critical discussion of Ruth Millikan's highly regarded, influential, and systematic contributions to philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of biology, epistemology, and metaphysics. These newly written contributions present discussion from some of the most important philosophers in the field today and include replies from Millikan herself.

In this survey Ian McEwan emerges as one of those rare writers whose works have received both popular and critical acclaim. His novels grace the bestseller lists, and he is well regarded by critics, both as a stylist and as a serious thinker about the function and capacities of narrative fiction.