Literary Studies
In Defense of Reason
Three Classics of Contemporary Criticism
By Yvor Winters
Introduction by Kenneth Fields Yvor Winters has here collected, with an introduction, the major critical works—Primitivism and Decadence, Maule’s Curse, and The Anatomy of Nonsense—of the period in which he worked out his famous and influential critical position.…
In His Own Voice
The Dramatic and Other Uncollected Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Edited by Herbert Woodward Martin and Ronald Primeau
Paul Laurence Dunbar, introduced to the American public by William Dean Howells, was the first native-born African American poet to achieve national and international fame. While there have been many valuable editions of his works over time, gaps have developed when manuscripts were lost or access to uncollected works became difficult.…
In the Work of Their Hands Is Their Prayer – On Sale
Cultural Narrative and Redemption on the American Frontiers, 1830-1930
By Joel Daehnke
Westward expansion on the North American continent by European settlers generated a flurry of writings on the frontier experience over the course of a hundred years. Asserting that the dominant ideology of America's Manifest Destiny embodied a tense, often contradictory union of Christian and secular republican views of social progress, In the Work of Their Hands Is Their Prayer investigates the ambivalence of the frontier as it was inscribed with redemptive, historical significance by a host of frontier writers.…
Inaugural Wounds – On Sale
The Shaping of Desire in Five Nineteenth-Century English Narratives
Desire, Jacques Lacan suggests, is a condition or expression of our wounded nature. But because such desire is also unconscious, it can be expressed only indirectly, for what we consciously desire is hardly ever what we really want.…
The Indigenization of Pali Meters in Thai Poetry
By Thomas Hudak
During the Ayutthaya period in Thailand (1350-1767), a group of meters based upon specific types and arrangements of syllables became a significant part of the Thai literary corpus. Known as chan in Thai literature, these meters, and the stanzas created from them, were adapted and transformed so that they corresponded in structure to other Thai verse forms.…
Infinite Morning – On Sale
Poems
About the author of this award-winning collection, final judge Miller Williams commented: "Meredith Carson writes poems so well-controlled in tone that the language of conversation takes on an elegance rarely found in contemporary poetry, but emphatically contemporary.…
Interior Country
Stories of the Modern West
A mile down the road from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, a woman unearths an ancient shard of pottery bearing the thousands-year-old thumbprint of a Navawi'i woman. A marriage is thrown into crisis by the husband's discovery, on a fishing trip, of a girl’s corpse.…
Isak Dinesen
The Life and Imagination of a Seducer
Born into a Victorian Danish family, Karen Christentze Dinesen married her second cousin, a high-spirited and philandering baron, and moved to Kenya where she ran a coffee plantation, painted, and wrote.…
Isak Dinesen – On Sale
Critical Views
Edited by Olga Anastasia Pelensky
This historical overview of criticism of the famous Danish writer is the first such collection available in English. Composed of selections from major critics and scholars both here and abroad (including Aage Henriksen, Eudora Welty, Curtis Cate, Abdul JanMohamed, and Lionel Trilling, among others) Isak Dinesen would have suited the self-absorbed artist, who so delighted in being continually appropriated and invented within different forms of critical discourse that it became a source of amusement and distraction for her.…
J. M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual
Edited by Jane Poyner
In September 2003 the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, confirming his reputation as one of the most influential writers of our time. J. M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual addresses the contribution Coetzee has made to contemporary literature, not least for the contentious forays his work makes into South African political discourse and the field of postcolonial studies.…
James Wright
The Poetry of a Grown Man; Constancy and Transition in the Work of James Wright
By Kevin Stein
Although some critics have identified two phases in the poetry of James Wright and have isolated particulars of his movement from traditional to more experimental forms, few have noted also the elements of constancy in the evolution of his poetry.…
The Japanese Experience in Indonesia
Selected Memoirs of 1942-1945
By Richard Reid
Edited by Oki Akira
Although the wartime Japanese military administration of Indonesia was critical to the making of modern Indonesia, it remains shrouded in mystery, in part because of the systematic destruction of records following the Japanese surrender.…
Javanese
A Cultural Approach
By Ward Keeler
Foreign language lessons often provide translations into a foreign language of phrases students would normally use in their native language and cultural setting. Particularly when studying a non-Western language, such direct translation is very misleading.…
John Reed and the Writing of Revolution – On Sale
John Reed (1887-1920) is best known as the author of Ten Days That Shook the World and as champion of the communist movement in the United States. Still, Reed remains a writer almost systematically ignored by the literary critical establishment, even if alternately vilified and lionized by historians and by films like Warren Beatty's Reds.…
José María Arguedas – On Sale
Reconsiderations for Latin American Studies
Edited by Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval
José María Arguedas (1911-1969) is one of the most important authors to speak to issues of the survival of native cultures. José María Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American Cultural Studies presents his views from multiple perspectives for English-speaking audiences for the first time.…
Justina of Andalusia – On Sale
and Other Stories
This collection of stories is, like Petesch’s previous work, distinguished by its brilliant lyrical intensity and by characters who are stunningly alive. It is a powerful collection about impassioned cultural conflicts in present-day Spain and Mexico; it is also a book about ourselves—how we have failed to love the Earth and have squandered our resources.…
Kakungulu & the Creation of Uganda: 1868–1928
This is a history of the early days of Uganda. The account has an African focus because it shows the British takeover through the experiences of an extraordinary leader.“At this spot in the year 1901 the British flag was first hoisted by Semei Kakanguru, emissary and loyal servant of His Majesty the King.…
The Komedie Stamboel
Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891–1903
Originating in 1891 in the port city of Surabaya, the Komedie Stamboel, or Istanbul-style theater, toured colonial Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by rail and steamship. The company performed musical versions of the Arabian Nights and European fairy tales and operas such as Sleeping Beauty and Aida, as well as Indian and Persian romances, Southeast Asian chronicles, true crime stories, and political allegories.…
Kwame Nkrumah
The Father of African Nationalism
The first African statesman to achieve world recognition was Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), who became president of the new Republic of Ghana in 1960. He campaigned ceaselessly for African solidarity and for the liberation of southern Africa from white settler rule.…
Ladders to Fire
By Anaïs Nin
After struggling with her own press and printing her own works, Anaïs Nin succeeded in getting Ladders to Fire accepted and published in 1946. This recognition marked a milestone in her life and career.…
