In The Poet’s Voice in the Making of Mind, Russell Meares presents a fascinating inquiry into the origin of mind. He proposes that the way in which mind, or self, evolved, may resemble the way it emerges in childhood play and that a poetic, analogical style of thought is a biological necessity, essential to bringing to fruition the achievement of the human mind.
In Phenomenal Shakespeare, leading Shakespeare scholar Bruce R. Smith presents an original account for the ways in which Shakespeare s poems and plays continue to resonate with audiences, readers and scholars because of their engagement with the whole body, not just the reading mind.
The Post-Apocalyptic Novel in the Twenty-First Century
Many contemporary novelists, such as Atwood, Mitchell, and McCarthy, have flocked to a literary form that was once considered lowbrow: the post-apocalyptic novel. Calling on her broad knowledge of the history of apocalyptic literature, Hicks argues these writers employ conventions of the post-apocalyptic to reengage with key features of modernity.
Mary Edwards Bryan became one of America's best-known writers of popular fiction in the nineteenth century. She reached literary success despite a tough frontier life, the upheavals of secession and war, disruptive affairs with authors and politicians, the tensions of emancipation, and pervading post-war economic disorder. Pairing historical insights with selections of Bryan's best writing, this book illustrates how the obstacles she overcame shaped what she wrote.
The Contemporary Anglophone Travel Novel: The Aesthetics of Self-Fashioning in the Era of Globalization (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)
The Contemporary Anglophone Travel Novel explores the themes of alienation and displacement in a genre of post-World War II novels that portrays the pursuit of an authentic travel experience in a culturally unfamiliar place. Levin explores two questions: why does travel to an "undiscovered" place—one imagined outside the bounds of modernity—remain an enduring preoccupation in western civilization; and how does the representation of adventure travel change in the era of mass culture, when global capitalism expands at a rapid pace.
