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This book makes an important contribution to cultural analysis by opening up the work of two canonical authors to issues of exile and migration. Barbara Straumann's close reading of selected films and literary texts focuses on Speak, Memory, Lolita, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Suspicion, North by Northwest and Shadow of a Doubt and explores the connections between language, imagination and exile. Invoking psychoanalysis as the principal discourse of dislocation, the book not only uses concepts such as 'screen memory', 'family romance', 'fantasy' and 'the uncanny' as hermeneutic foils, it also argues that, in their own ways, the arch-parodists Hitchcock and Nabokov are remarkably in tune with the images and tropes developed by Freud.
In Diplomacy in Postwar British Literature and Culture, Krzakowski shows how matters of international relations--refugee crises, tribunals, espionage, and diplomatic practice--have influenced the thematic and formal concerns of twentieth-century cultural production.
How do readers make sense of a picture, a photograph, or a map in literary narratives in which visual signs play a critical role? How do authors accomplish their various objectives in constructing such complex texts? What strategies and techniques do they use to project fictional worlds and to provide their readers with the means for orienting themselves there? This book investigates the dynamics of the imaginary diagrams created by cartographers, photographers, and writers of narratives, giving ample evidence of how mapping practices have inspired the imagination of a vast number of authors from Thomas More up to contemporary writers. A special focus is on the effects created by the projection of photographs into the narrative space, and how our seemingly effortless interpretation of photographs and even maps masks complex cognitive processes. The theoretical horizon of this study encompasses the fields of cartography, mental maps, iconicity research, and the spatial turn in cultural studies.
When Richard Schickel stated unequivocally in 1972 that "We're living in a Hitchcock world, all right", he did so without even mentioning the film that now stands at the top of the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll: Vertigo. That omission needs to be redressed when we think about the Hitchcock world we live in now. Haunted by Vertigo: Hitchcock's Masterpiece Then and Now gathers essays that offer a variety of approaches to what many consider to be Hitchcock's signature film, one that shows him operating at full strength as a cinematic artist portraying some of the defining elements of modern life: romantic exhilaration and anxiety, the attractiveness and elusiveness of love, and ...
Women's bodies have become a battleground. Around the world, people argue about veiling, schooling for Afghan girls, and "SlutWalk" protests, all of which involve issues of women's sexuality and freedom. Globalization, with its emphasis on human rights and individuality, heats up these arguments. In Of Virgins and Martyrs, David Jacobson takes the reader on a fascinating tour of how self-identity developed throughout history and what individualism means for Muslim societies struggling to maintain a sense of honor in a globalized twenty-first century. Some patriarchal societies have come to see women’s control of their own sexuality as a threat to a way of life that goes back thousands of y...
Winner of the 2020 Gourmand Awards, Translation Section, USA Even the most brilliant minds have to eat. And for some scholars, food preparation is more than just a chore; it’s a passion. In this unique culinary memoir and cookbook, renowned cultural critic Elisabeth Bronfen tells of her lifelong love affair with cooking and demonstrates what she has learned about creating delicious home meals. She recounts her cherished food memories, from meals eaten at the family table in postwar Germany to dinner parties with friends. Yet, in a thoughtful reflection on the pleasures of cooking for one, she also reveals that some of her favorite meals have been consumed alone. Though it contains more tha...
Since the early days of cinema, filmmakers have been intrigued by the lives and loves of British monarchs. The most recent productions by ITV and Netflix show that the fascination with British royalty continues unabated both in Britain and around the world. This book examines strategies of representing power and the staging of myths of power in seven popular films about British monarchs that were made after the mid-1990s revival of the “royal biopic” genre. By combining approaches from cultural studies with concepts and theories from the humanities, such as film studies and art history, it offers a comprehensive understanding of the cinematic portraits of royalty. In addition, the volume...
As many as half a million Russians lived in Germany in the 1920s, most of them in Berlin, clustered in and around the Charlottenburg neighborhood to such a degree that it became known as “Charlottengrad.” Traditionally, the Russian émigré community has been understood as one of exiles aligned with Imperial Russia and hostile to the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet government that followed. However, Charlottengrad embodied a full range of personal and political positions vis-à-vis the Soviet project, from enthusiastic loyalty to questioning ambivalence and pessimistic alienation. By closely examining the intellectual output of Charlottengrad, Roman Utkin explores how community membe...
Contemporary British and American fiction is defined by financial markets' power over the global publishing industry and the global economy.