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This study of collective American memory exposes the historical phenomenon of self-directed American imperialism, still frequently ignored or denied in the United States. Over the course of the 250 years of its history, this has taken the form of African American slavery, thwarted black motherhood, same-race slavery (both white and African American) as well as the extermination of indigenous American peoples. On the literary level, the study helps to broaden, or even modify, the present perspective on the oeuvres of four major American writers, i. e., William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, and Cormac McCarthy, by pointing to the intertwining of their themes, motifs, and techniques of writing to form an intricate pattern of the intertextualized collective memory of the American nation.
A diverse and multinational volume, this book showcases the passages of Joseph Conrad's narratives across geographical and disciplinary boundaries, focusing on the transtextual and transcultural elements of his fiction. Featuring contributions from distinguished and emergent Conrad scholars, it unpacks the transformative meanings which Conrad's narratives have achieved in crossing national, cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Featuring studies on the reception of Conrad in modern China, an exploration of Conrad's relationship with India, a comparative study of the hybrid art of Conrad and Salman Rushdie, and the responses of Conrad's narratives to alternative media forms, this volume brings out transtextual relations among Conrad's works and various media forms, world narratives, philosophies, and emergent modes of critical inquiry. Gathering essays by contributors from Canada, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Norway, Poland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this volume constitutes an inclusive, transnational networking of emergent border-crossing scholarship.
»A Smile of Fortune«, originally published in 1912 in Conrad’s volume of tales »Twixt Land and Sea«, tells the story of a young sea captain at the beginning of a promising career. His first mission is a voyage to the Indian Ocean where he is supposed to do lucrative trade with local merchants. He arrives at an island described as the »Pearl of the Ocean« where he makes the acquaintance of two very different brothers: one a respected tradesman, the other an ill-reputed and ruthless figure. The captain is torn between the two men but finally becomes involved with the dubious brother. When he realizes the scope of his engagement, it is too late to stop it ... Joseph Conrad was born in 1857 in former Poland. In 1886 he obtained British citizenship and two years later was appointed captain of the British merchant marine. His voyages to the Malay Peninsula and to the Congo Free State became the setting for his stories. Conrad published many tales and novels in English and is still regarded as one of the most brilliant authors in English literature. He died in 1924 in England.
There is a degree of bliss too intense for elation. This little-known novella from one of the masters of the form is so unusual for Joseph Conrad's work in several respects, although not in its exotic maritime setting or its even more exotic prose—it is unusual in that it is one of his very few works to feature a woman as a leading character, and to take the form of a romance. Still, it's a Conradian romance: a sweeping saga set in the Indian Ocean basin, against a turbulent background of barely suppressed hostilities between Dutch and British merchant navies, told by one of Conrad's classically detached narrators. In the end, the unique perspective of the sharply etched character of Freya...
Born into a Polish szlachta (noble) family, the extraordinary modern novelist Joseph Conrad maintained, even in exile, strong ties to his Polish heritage and culture. Yet the author earned renown by writing in English, often about nautical adventures in remote parts of the world. In Joseph Conrad's Polish Soul, G. W. Stephen Brodsky seeks to reclaim the essentially Polish sensibility of Conrad's groundbreaking oeuvre. He finds in Conrad's work a distinct Polonism that plays intriguingly with selfhood, freedom, and irony. For Brodsky, Conrad's outlook and writing betray numerous contradictions. Despite the novelist's practical realism, Conrad was drawn to romance, orientalism, and the exotic. Frequently sick, he nevertheless pursued a life at sea. He despised adventurers, yet loved risk. An instinctive skepticism, conservatism, and nationalism complicated his liberalism and respect for humanity, and though he resigned himself to Poland's tragic destiny, Conrad refused to despair over the terribleness of his times. In this incomparable study, Brodsky shows how these inherent aspects of Conrad's personality inform and guide his Polonism, along with the best attributes of his fiction.
A diverse and multinational volume, this book showcases the passages of Joseph Conrad's narratives across geographical and disciplinary boundaries, focusing on the transtextual and transcultural elements of his fiction. Featuring contributions from distinguished and emergent Conrad scholars, it unpacks the transformative meanings which Conrad's narratives have achieved in crossing national, cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Featuring studies on the reception of Conrad in modern China, an exploration of Conrad's relationship with India, a comparative study of the hybrid art of Conrad and Salman Rushdie, and the responses of Conrad's narratives to alternative media forms, this volume brings out transtextual relations among Conrad's works and various media forms, world narratives, philosophies, and emergent modes of critical inquiry. Gathering essays by contributors from Canada, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Norway, Poland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this volume constitutes an inclusive, transnational networking of emergent border-crossing scholarship.
Our Conrad is about the American reception of Joseph Conrad and its crucial role in the formation of American modernism. Although Conrad did not visit the country until a year before his death, his fiction served as both foil and mirror to America's conception of itself and its place in the world. Peter Mallios reveals the historical and political factors that made Conrad's work valuable to a range of prominent figures—including Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Richard Wright, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore and Edith Roosevelt—and explores regional differences in Conrad's reception. He proves that foreign-authored writing can be as integral a part of United States culture as that of any native. Arguing that an individual writer's apparent (national, gendered, racial, political) identity is not always a good predictor of the diversity of voices and dialogues to which he gives rise, this exercise in transnational comparativism participates in post-Americanist efforts to render American Studies less insular and parochial.
The First Polish Evangelical Congregation of Christ the Lord was founded in 1904 as a Missouri Synod Polish Lutheran congregation. It was also the last of any Polish Lutheran congregations in America to hold a Polish-language service.This book is a celebration of the people who were instrumental in the founding and development, as well as those who answered the call to minister to their spiritual needs. It is this testament to faith that created, nourished and sustained them as they heard the word of God in their native tongue.
Cormac McCarthy's first novel, The Orchard Keeper, won the William Faulkner Award. His other books - Outer Dark, Child of God, Suttree, and Blood Meridian - have drawn a cult readership and the praise of such writers as Annie Dillard and Shelby Foote. "There are so many people out there who seem to have a hunger to know more about McCarthy's work," says McCarthy scholar Vereen Bell. Helping to satisfy such a need, this collection of essays, one of the few critical studies of Cormac McCarthy, introduces his work and lays the groundwork for study of an important but underrecognized American novelist, winner in 1992 of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses. The essays explore McCarthy's historical and philosophical sources, grapple with the difficult task of identifying the moral center in his works, and identify continuities in his fiction. Included too is a bibliography of works by and about him. As they reflect critical perspectives on the works of this eminent writer, these essays afford a pleasing introduction to all his novels and his screenplay, "The Gardener's Son."
While Plato recommended expelling poets from the ideal society, W. H. Auden famously declared that poetry makes nothing happen. The 19 contributions to the present book avoid such polarized views and, responding in different ways to the “ethical turn” in narrative theory, explore the varied ways in which narratives encourage readers to ponder matters of right and wrong. All work from the premise that the analysis of narrative ethics needs to be linked to a sensitivity to esthetic (narrative) form. The ethical issues are accordingly located on different levels. Some are clearly presented as thematic concerns within the text(s) considered, while others emerge through (or are generated by) ...