“What is history, but a set of lies agreed upon?” – Napoleon Bonaparte. At least, we think it was him. This quote is traditionally attributed to Napoleon, but ironically it’s not really clear whether or not he ever actually said it. As it turns out, a great many things which we think we know about history often turn out to be myths, misunderstandings, or outright fictions. For example…

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, new ways of storytelling and inventing fictions appeared in the French-speaking areas of Europe. This new art still influences our global culture of fiction. Virginie Greene explores the relationship between fiction and the development of neo-Aristotelian logic during this period through a close examination of seminal literary and philosophical texts by major medieval authors, such as Anselm of Canterbury, Abélard, and Chrétien de Troyes. This study of Old French logical fictions encourages a broader theoretical reflection about fiction as a universal human trait and a defining element of the history of Western philosophy and literature.

Literature reveals the intense efforts of moral imagination required to articulate what justice is and how it might be satisfied. Examining a wide variety of texts including Shakespeare's plays, Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, and modernist poetics, Poetic Justice and Legal Fictions explores how literary laws and values illuminate and challenge the jurisdiction of justice and the law.

Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England - Bodies, Plagues and Politics

How did early modern people imagine their bodies? What impact did the new disease syphilis and recurrent outbreaks of plague have on these mental landscapes? Why was the glutted belly such a potent symbol of pathology? Ranging from the Reformation through the English Civil War, this is a unique study of a cultural imaginary of "disease" and its political consequences. Healy's approach illuminates the period's disease-impregnated literature, including works by Shakespeare, Milton, Dekker, Heywood and others.

Managing the Monstrous Feminine

Managing the Monstrous Feminine takes a unique approach to the study of the material and discursive practices associated with the construction and regulation of the female body. Jane Ussher examines the ways in which medicine, science, the law and popular culture combine to produce fictions about femininity, positioning the reproductive body as the source of women's power, danger and weakness.