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The Transgressive Iain Banks
This collection of 12 new essays brings together prominent literary experts to explore the importance of Scottish writer Iain (M.) Banks, both his mainstream and science fiction work. It considers Banks as a habitual border crosser who makes things fresh and new by subversive and transgressive strategies. The essays are divided into four thematic areas--the Scottish context, the geographies of his writing, the impact of genre and a combined focus on gender, games and play--and will be of particular interest to scholars of contemporary literature, Scottish literature and science fiction.
Alienation and Resistance
This collection draws together recent work by new and emerging scholars which examines the representation of alienation and resistance in texts and images, both modern and traditional. The essays collected here incorporate both “high” and “low” culture, covering a wide range of disciplines from traditional literary sources to the more modern mediums of film and comic. Informing each of the contributions is one overriding question: what are the roles, forms, and conditions of alienation and resistance in our culture and its diverse media? The contributors to this collection find examples of both alienation and resistance everywhere, from sixteenth century drama to contemporary fiction, from American comics to Eastern European cinema, from representations of the body to the site of the body itself. In seeking out these representations of alienation and resistance, the essays begin also to probe the limits and limitations of such terms. As such, the collection as a whole offers both a broad overview of the field of play as it stands today and makes tentative suggestions as to potential paths of future inquiry.
Churchill on the Far East in the Second World War
Cat Wilson brings together two strands of historical scholarship: Churchill's work as a historian and the history of WWII in the Far East. Examining Churchill's portrayal of the British Empire's war against Japan, as set down in his memoirs, it ascertains whether he mythologised wartime Anglo-American relations to present a 'special relationship'.
The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks
This critical history of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels covers the series from its inception in the 1970s to the The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), published less than a year before Banks' death. It considers Banks' origins as a writer, the development of his politics and ethics, his struggles to become a published author, his eventual success with The Wasp Factory (1984) and the publication of the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas (1987). His 1994 essay "A Few Notes on the Culture" is included, along with a range of critical responses to the 10 Culture books he published in his lifetime and a discussion of the series' status as utopian literature. Banks was a complex man, both in his everyday life and on the page. This work aims at understanding the Culture series not only as a fundamental contribution to science fiction but also as a product of its creator's responses to the turbulent times he lived in.
Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups
"A book club gives the opportunity to meet up with friends and wake the brain up a bit with lively and often quite aggressive discussion" Dawn French How do you keep your reading groups discussions lively and focussed? If you want to gain new insight into literature and share your passion with friends this book offers readers guides for 75 of the very best reads - guaranteed to provoke spirited debate! Each of the readers guides includes a summary of the book, a brief author biography, discussion points to spark debate, and a set of titles for further reading that deal with similar themes. A `background' section provides pointers to more material about the book online and as well as further ...
Irish Urban Fictions
This collection is the first to examine how the city is written in modern Irish fiction. Focusing on the multi-faceted, layered, and ever-changing topography of the city in Irish writing, it brings together studies of Irish and Northern Irish fictions which contribute to a more complete picture of modern Irish literature and Irish urban cultural identities. It offers a critical introduction to the Irish city as it represented in fiction as a plural space to mirror the plurality of contemporary Irish identities north and south of the border. The chapters combine to provide a platform for new research in the field of Irish urban literary studies, including analyses of the fiction of authors including James Joyce, Roddy Doyle, Kate O’Brien, Hugo Hamilton, Kevin Barry, and Rosemary Jenkinson. An exciting and diverse range of fictions is introduced and examined with the aim of generating a cohesive perspective on Irish urban fictions and to stimulate further discussion in this emerging area.
The Psychological Fictions of J.G. Ballard
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.
Border Crossings
Borderlands, boundaries and frontiers are crucibles for diverse cultures and multiple alternative histories. Nowhere is this truer than in the debateable lands between nation states in what is commonly known as the British Isles. This collection takes the reader on an imaginative journey inside the borders, offering a fresh perspective on the liminality of these porous and contested terrains and the liminal peoples therein. Implicitly or explicitly, the contributors to this volume, in one way or another acknowledge that the term ‘borderland’ is imprecise, ambiguous and never neutral, and due to its liminal status, a crucible for multiple and competing identities. As the essays in this co...
New Critical Essays on H.P. Lovecraft
The last ten years have witnessed a renewed interest in H.P. Lovecraft in academic and scholarly circles. New Critical Essays on H.P. Lovecraft seeks to offer an expansive and considered account of a fascinating yet challenging writer; both popular and critically valid but also problematic in terms of his depictions of race, gender and class.
