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The ever-growing interest in the analysis of materiality has found its expression in many studies of objects and objecthood, of things and “thingness”. Combining cultural, phenomenological, semiotic, and philosophical approaches, this collection of eleven essays proposes a journey into “the silent life of things”, into those aspects of materiality that are not immediately visible and require both increased attention and a sense of intuition. It focuses on the subtle changes that materiality operates upon our subjectivity and upon our status as producers, users, possessors, negotiators and manipulators of objects, and analyses the ways in which materiality is constantly redefined by c...
This volume offers a collection of essays focused upon the representation of one of the most traumatic events in the history of India―the 1947 Partition―in literature and cinematographic adaptations. The focus here is placed on various strategies of representation and different types of memory at work in the process of remembering/re-membering Partition. All these avoid the traditional Hindu vs. Muslim perspective, and analyse other sides of the same story, seen from the perspective of marginal people belonging to other religious minorities, whose stories have generally been ignored and silenced by the official historical discourse. The book also demonstrates that the multiple “truths” engendered by this crucial event in India’s history lie along “improbable lines” randomly generated between history, amnesia and memory, between personal drama and collective trauma, loss and rupture, religion and nationalism, and longing and belonging.
Bringing together academics from Romania, the USA, Spain and Turkey, this volume follows the evolution of detective fiction, from its early forms during the late eighteenth century until its contemporary multi-media expressions. Tackling the best-known authors in the genre, as well as marginal, forgotten or eccentric names, and discussing prose which fits perfectly in the pattern of the genre or texts which have been conventionally associated with other genres, as well as films, the book explores the impact of whodunits in both highbrow and popular culture.
Romance: The History of a Genre is a collection of essays devoted to the highly popular and no less controversial genre of romance. A genre often disregarded for its stereotypical language, shallow characters, and predictable plots, dismissed as “women’s” fiction, accused of conventionalism, romance is a genre which, after ups and downs in its millennial history, is now holding a leading position on the international bookselling market. This achievement has also been possible with the endorsement of contemporary media and modern technology, cinema, television, the Internet, etc. Much has been written in both traditional and more recent literary theory about the origins and evolution of...
The purpose of Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre is the observation of the very hybridity of the fantastic genre, as a typical postmodern form. The volume continues an older project of the editor and a large number of the contributors, that of investigating the current status of several popular genres, from historical fiction to romance. The scrutiny continues in this third volume, dedicated to the fantastic imagination and the plethora of themes, moods, media, and formats deriving from it. FanLit is surely trendy, even if it is not highbrow, despite its noble ancestry. This apparent paradox characterizes many of the literary genres en vogue today, from histo...
As recent years have witnessed a strong interest in the cultural representation of the culinary, ranging from analyses of food representation in film and literature to cultural readings of recipes, menus, national cuisines and celebrity chefs, the study of food narratives amidst contemporary consumer culture has become increasingly more important. This book seeks to respond to the challenge by presenting a series of case studies dealing with the representation of food and the culinary in a variety of cultural texts including post-colonial and popular fiction, women’s magazines and food writing. The contributors to the first part of the volume explore the various functions of food in post-c...
This book looks at Rabindranath Tagore’s creative art, social commitment, literary and artistic representation and his unique legacy in the cultural history of modern India – as a blend of the quintessentially Indian and the liberal universalist. Tagore’s genius, which he expressed through his poetry, songs, paintings, drama and philosophy, is celebrated across the globe. In 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his volume of poetry, Gitanjali (Song Offerings), making him the first Nobel laureate from Asia. This volume of essays celebrates his intellectual engagements and his incredible legacy by discussing the diverse ways in which his works have been reinterpreted, ...
This book reconstructs Istanbul through the prism of Orhan Pamuk’s fiction. It navigates the multiple selves and layers of Istanbul to present how the city has shaped the writings of Pamuk and has, in turn, been shaped by it. Through everyday objects and architecture, it shows how Pamuk transforms the city into a living museum where different objects converse along with characters to present a rich tapestry across space and time. Further, the monograph explores the formation of communal and literary identity within and around nation-building narratives informed by capitalism and modernization. The book also examines how Pamuk uses the postmodern city to move beyond its postmodern confines, and utilizes the theories and universes of Bakhtin, Benjamin, and Foucault to open up his fiction and radically challenge the idea of the novel. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature, literary theory, museum studies, architecture, and cultural studies, and especially appeal to readers of Orhan Pamuk.
A groundbreaking essay collection that pursues the rise of geoculture as an essential framework for arts criticism, The Planetary Turn shows how the planet—as a territory, a sociopolitical arena, a natural space of interaction for all earthly life, and an artistic theme—is increasingly the conceptual and political dimension in which twenty-first-century writers and artists picture themselves and their work. In an introduction that comprehensively defines the planetary model of art, culture, and cultural-aesthetic interpretation, the editors explain how the living planet is emerging as distinct from older concepts of globalization, cosmopolitanism, and environmentalism and is becoming a new ground for exciting work in contemporary literature, visual and media arts, and social humanities. Written by internationally recognized scholars, the twelve essays that follow illustrate the unfolding of a new vision of potential planetary community that retools earlier models based on the nation-state or political “blocs” and reimagines cultural, political, aesthetic, and ethical relationships for the post–Cold War era.
A Serious Genre: The Apology of Children’s Literature is a collection of essays by scholars and academics from Romania, the United States and Turkey, who investigate the value and impact of what, since the 19th century, has been called, using an umbrella term, children’s literature. The volume is the fourth in a series, which focuses on literary genres which are considered marginal or low-brow, but which have a long tradition and display remarkable versatility and popularity. Previous volumes in the collection presented the historical novel (2010), romance (2012), and fantasy (2014). In this book, fourteen essays approach children’s literature from different angles, from classical Victorian children’s books to the latest film adaptation of The Hobbit, from adult narrators of children’s stories to children narrators of adult stories. The book addresses researchers, teachers and students with an interest in literature, literary theory and genre analysis, but it will also appeal to the wider public, given the flexibility and friendly nature of children’s literature.