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Making the case that J. G. Ballard's fictional and non-fictional writings must be read within the framework of Surrealism, Jeannette Baxter argues for a radical revisioning of Ballard that takes account of the political and ethical dimensions of his work. Ballard's appropriation of diverse Surrealist aesthetic forms and political writings, Baxter suggests, are mobilised to contest official narratives of postwar history and culture and offer a series of counter-historical and counter-cultural critiques. Thus Ballard's work must be understood as an exercise in Surrealist historiography that is politically and ethically engaged. Placing Ballard's illustrated texts within this critical framework permits Baxter to explore the effects of photographs, drawings, and other visual symbols on the reading experience and the production of meaning. Ballard's textual spectacles raise a variety of questions about the shifting role of the reader and the function of the written text within a predominantly visual culture, while acknowledging the visual contexts of Ballard's Surrealist writings allows a very different historical picture of the author and his work to emerge.
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J. G. Ballard self-professedly 'devoured' the work of Freud as a teenager, and entertained early thoughts of becoming a psychiatrist; he opened his novel-writing career with a manifesto declaring his wish to write a science fiction exploring not outer but 'inner space', and declaring the need for contemporary fiction to be viewed 'as a branch of neurology'. He also apparently welcomed a reader's report on Crash (1973) condemning him as 'beyond psychiatric help' as confirming his achievement of 'total artistic success'. Samuel Francis investigates Ballard's engagement with psychology and the psychological in his fiction, tracing the influence of key figures including Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung and R.D. Laing and placing his work in the context of the wider fields of psychology and psychiatry. While the psychological preoccupations of his writing are very clear - including his use of concepts such as the unconscious, psychopathology, 'deviance', obsession, abnormal psychology and schizophrenia - this is the first book to offer a detailed analysis of this key conceptual and historical context for his fiction.
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Another addition to the Southern Women series, Alabama Women celebrates women's histories in the Yellowhammer State by highlighting the lives and contributions of women and enriching our understanding of the past and present. Exploring such subjects as politics, arts, and civic organizations, this collection of eighteen biographical essays provides a window into the social, cultural, and geographic milieux of women's lives in Alabama. Featured individuals include Augusta Evans Wilson, Maria Fearing, Julia S. Tutwiler, Margaret Murray Washington, Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, Ida E. Brandon Mathis, Ruby Pickens Tartt, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Sara Martin Mayfield, Bess Bolden Walcott, Virginia Foster...
The Anglia Book Series (ANGB) offers a selection of high quality work on all areas and aspects of English philology. It publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on the new English literatures, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory.