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        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2021

        Passing into the present

        Contemporary American fiction of racial and gender passing

        by Sinead Moynihan

        This book is the first full-length study of contemporary American fiction of passing. Its takes as its point of departure the return of racial and gender passing in the 1990s in order to make claims about wider trends in contemporary American fiction. The book accounts for the return of tropes of passing in fiction by Phillip Roth, Percival Everett, Louise Erdrich, Danzy Senna, Jeffrey Eugenides and Paul Beatty, by arguing meta-critical and meta-fictional tool. These writers are attracted to the trope of passing because passing narratives have always foregrounded the notion of textuality in relation to the (il)legibility of "black" subjects passing as white. The central argument of this book, then, is that contemporary narratives of passing are concerned with articulating and unpacking an analogy between passing and authorship. The title promises to inaugurate dialogue on the relationships between passing, postmodernism and authorship in contemporary American fiction.

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        THE POLITICS OF HATE – A Piercing Insight into American Politics

        by HUGO N. GERSTL

        America is being systematically destroyed – not by terrorists from without, but by vested interests from within! It’s being destroyed by politicians, talk show hosts, media moguls, and populist rabble rousers who seek to preserve their “territory” at any cost – by obstructing the passage of beneficial laws, by scandalous lies and accusations, by negative campaigning, and by gratuitous insults. These “saviors” pose absolutely no constructive ideas of their own to resolve the morass in which our country now finds itself. The politicians think no further than getting themselves elected or re-elected. The lure of $100,000 in lecture fees is a powerful aphrodisiac. The lure of power is an even greater aphrodisiac. Politicians, fearmongers, “talking heads,” and captains of industry revel in their fame, their glory, and their self-styled wisdom when the country is in greater debt than any other nation in history, and when we are more and more quickly slipping toward becoming a third world nation each year. If the public starts putting two and two together, the answer should come out “four.” But so far, the “average” American can still be led to believe that 2+2 equals whatever number the spin masters want to make it. What is even worse, more than 40% of Americans are buying into the politics of fear, dissension, and abuse without stopping for even a moment to consider exactly what these political hatemongers are offering in exchange for turning one faction out and securing the benefits of power for themselves. But regardless of political infighting or outfighting, what we are doing is akin to two fleas fighting over who owns the dog. We don’t seem to realize that we have run out of time and money; that we no longer have the luxury of political gamesmanship and needless, stupid bickering. While this timely book points the finger at who’s to blame, it also goes one step further and tells how America, the most powerful nation on earth, can take back control of its destiny and cure its own disease!   HUGO N. GERSTL earned a degree in political science and history at UCLA, then went on to graduate from the UCLA School of Law. He turned down an invitation to run for Congress on the Republican ticket as it meant running against his friend and fellow-lawyer, Leon Panetta, who was just finishing his first term in Congress. Gerstl has been a nationally known trial lawyer for forty-six years and remains eternally optimistic about the resilience of the American people. An English eBook Edition was published in fall 2012 by Samuel Wachtman's Sons  INC., C.A. 454 pages, 15x22.5cm

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        The Arts
        June 2017

        Terry Gilliam

        by Peter Marks

        Terry Gilliam presents a sustained examination of one of cinema's most challenging and lauded auteurs, proposing fresh ways of seeing Gilliam that go beyond reductive readings of him as a gifted but manic fantasist. Analysing Gilliam's work over nearly four decades, from the brilliant anarchy of his Monty Python animations through the nightmarish masterpiece Brazil to the provocative Gothic horror of Tideland, it critically examines the variety and richness of Gilliam's sometimes troubled but always provocative output. The book situates Gilliam within the competing cultural contexts of the British, European and American film industries, examining his regular struggles against aesthetic and commercial pressures. He emerges as a passionate, immensely creative director, whose work encompasses a dizzying array of material: anarchic satire, childhood and adult fantasy, dystopia, romantic comedy, surrealism, road movie, fairy tale and the Gothic. The book charts how Gilliam interweaves these genres and forms to create magical interfaces between reality and the illuminating, frightening but liberating worlds of the imagination. Scrutinising the neglected importance of literature and adaptation in Gilliam's career, this study also observes him through the lenses of auteurism, genre, performance, design and national culture, explaining how someone born in Minnesota and raised in California came to be one of British television and film's most compelling figures.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2016

        The American bomb in Britain

        by Ken Young

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        Children's & YA

        Story Story, Story Come

        12 Reimagined Tales From Africa

        by Maïmouna Jallow

        However, the age-old tradition of oral storytelling is on the decline. Rapid urbanisation, the breakdown of the extended family, technology and so on have altered our social fabric. Whilst our daily lives are still peppered with snippets of remembered words of wisdom and proverbs, the reality is that a new generation of Africans have never had the pleasure of listening to a story being told by a storyteller. Story, Story! Story Come! is a contribution to larger efforts to revive storytelling in Africa and beyond. Through a global online contest, Positively African invited African writers, wherever they lived and whatever their age, to write a folktale – either based on an old one, or newly imagined. The challenge was to develop new narratives that speak to issues that are fundamental to Africa’s development in a way that is unconventional but true to our past traditions of folktale and oral storytelling. The stories needed to contain life lessons that are relevant for both young and old, however writers were invited to be as inventive and disruptive as they wished in terms of theme, form, language, characters, imagery and context. The ten winning stories are refreshingly imaginative and tackle a mix of issues. We criss-cross from South Sudan to South Africa, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. Some stories offer valuable moral lessons on greed and pride; others celebrate bravery, perseverance and friendship. One story takes us to a real archaeological site in Niger where a young girl imagines the future. In another, African water spirits share a world with a Beyoncé-obsessed teen that is taught a big lesson in humility. We have also included two additional stories, one by author and publishing partner Zukiswa Wanner and another by the editor of the anthology, Maimouna Jallow. One thing that they all have in common is that they speak to issues we face globally today, from an African perspective.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Ephemeral vistas

        by Paul Greenhalgh

        The international exhibitions held around the world between 1851 and 1939 were spectacular gestures, which briefly held the attention of the world before disappearing into an abrupt oblivion, of the victims of their planned temporality. Known in Britain as Great Exhibitions, in France as Expositions Universelles and in America as World's Fairs, the genre became a self-perpetuating phenomenon, the extraordinary cultural spawn of industry and empire. Thoroughly in the spirit of the first industrial age, the exhibitions illustrated the relation between money and power, and revelled in the belief that the uncontrolled expression of that power was the quintessence of freedom. Philanthropy found its place on exhibition sites functioning as a conscience to the age although even here morality was inextricably linked to economic efficiency and expansion. Imperial achievement was celebrated to the full at international exhibitions. Nevertheless, most World's Fairs maintained an imperial element and out of this blossomed a vibrant racism. Between 1889 and 1914, the exhibitions became a human showcase, when people from all over the world were brought to sites in order to be seen by others for their gratification and education. In essence, the English national profile fabricated in the closing decades of the nineteenth century was derived from the pre-industrial world. The Fine Arts were an important ingredient in any international exhibition of calibre. This book incorporates comparative work on European and American empire-building, with the chronological focus primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when these cultural exchanges were most powerfully at work.

      • Family & home stories (Children's/YA)
        February 1905

        Little Women

        by Louise May Alcott

        Little Women "has been read as a romance or as a quest, or both. It has been read as a family drama that validates virtue over wealth", but also "as a means of escaping that life by women who knew its gender constraints only too well".[6]:34 According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from Romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new format. Elbert argued that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the "All-American girl" and that her multiple aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.

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        Children's & YA

        Do As You Are Told, Baji

        by Lola Shoneyin

        Baji goes to Kwoi in Kaduna State to spend the weekend with Baba, his grandfather. Baba takes Baji to his farm, but soon discovers that Baji does not often do as he is told. As an eventful day on the farm comes to an end, fun-loving Baji has an interesting encounter with a stubborn donkey.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2023

        The penny politics of Victorian popular fiction

        by Rob Breton

        Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2022

        Nordic Gothic

        by Maria Holmgren Troy, Johan Hõglund, Yvonne Leffler, Sofia Wijkmark

        Nordic Gothic traces Gothic fiction in the Nordic region from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, with a main focus on the development of Gothic from the 1990s onwards in literature, film, TV and new media. The volume gives an overview of Nordic Gothic fiction in relation to transnational developments and provides a number of case studies and in-depth analyses of individual narratives. It creates an understanding of this under-researched cultural phenomenon by showing how the narratives make visible cultural anxieties haunting the Nordic countries, their welfare systems, identities and ideologies. Nordic Gothic examines how figures from Nordic folklore function as metaphorical expressions of Gothic themes and Nordic settings are explored from perspectives such as ecocriticism and postcolonialism. The book will be of interest to researchers and post- and- undergraduate students in various fields within the Humanities.

      • Trusted Partner
        2020

        History of the German Language

        A textbook for German studies; Part 1: Introduction, prehistory and history; Part 2: Old High German, Middle High German and Early New High German

        by Wilhelm Schmidt, Edited by Dr. Elisabeth Berner and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Norbert Richard Wolf

        The 12th revised and updated version of the History of the German language – long regarded as an indispensable standard work for German Studies, has just been published. From now on, this comprehensive textbook on the history of the language is divided into two volumes. In addition to introducing questions about historical linguistics, the first volume provides a detailed account of the prehistory and history of German right up to the present day. Based on extensive source analyses, the focus is on aspects of culture and social history; only the chapters on the Indo-Germanic and Germanic language include key information about structural history. The second part contains concise, but readily understandable accounts of Old, Middle and Early New High German in terms of phonology, graphemics, morphology and syntax. Not only are synchronous descriptions given of the particular language period, but also the development of German language construction at all structural levels is explained. The association of grammatical synchrony and structural diachrony is a particular characteristic of this second part of Schmidt’s work on the history of language.

      • Trusted Partner
        May 2021

        The Truth about American History You Didn't Know

        by Wang Ying, Wang Yongyi

        American history has its glorious side, but also its obscure, dark, and even cruel and bloody side. The book begins with "Brilliant Indian Civilization", and then begins with "The Tragic Indians", "The B-side of Washington's Life", "The Myth of the American Constitution", "The Long Road to Black Liberation", "The Faces of All Living Beings in the Mirror of Democracy", and "The Blood under the Stars and Stripes" As the theme, it uses a large number of unknown, vivid images, and narrative specific historical facts. From different historical perspectives, it exposes the obscure, dark, cruel and bloody history of the United States. thousand.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2009

        John Ashbery and American Poetry

        by David Herd

        starting point. David Herd sets out to provide readers with a new critical language through which they can appreciate the beauty and complexity of Ashbery's writing. Presenting the poet in all his forms -avant-garde, nostalgic, sublime and camp - the book argues that the perpetual inventiveness of Ashbery's work has always been underpinned by the poets desire to write the poem fit to cope with its occasion. Tracing Ashbery's development in the light of this idea, and from its origins in the dazzling artistic environment of 1950's New York, the book evaluates his poetry against the aesthetic, literary and historical backgrounds that have informed it. The story of a brilliant career, and a history of the period in which that career has taken shape, John Ashbery and American Poetry provides a compelling account of Ashbery's importance to Twentieth Century Literature. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2001

        Beginning ethnic American literatures

        by Helena Grice, Peter Barry, Candida Hepworth, John McLeod, Maria Lauret, Martin Padget, Annete Musker

        Since the late 1960s, American literature has been revitalised by the work of writers such as Toni Morrison, Sherman Alexie, Sandra Cisneros and Maxine Hong Kingston. An introduction to the study of ethnic American fictions organised into four sections, each written by a specialist in the fields of African American, Asian American, Chicano/a and native American literature. Writers are discussed in their cultural/political contexts and literary traditions (rather than as exceptions or as individuals, or on a generic basis). The book highlights common themes in ethnic writing as well as specificities, and has extensive suggestions for further reading as well as a critical introduction regarding the concept of 'ethnic writing'. No competing titles - there are no textbooks, no beginners' books nor any systematised combination of ethnic fictions such as this - only edited collections on each area. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2002

        American society today

        by Edward Ashbee, Bill Jones

        American society today provides a balanced introduction to the defining features of contemporary American society. Includes the ways in which the US can be considered 'exceptional' - the character of the 'American dream', the role of ethnicity and race, and the differences between the regions. Considers in depth a number of contemporary debates including the claim that the US economy has lost its capacity to generate wealth and stimulate mobility, that there has been a process of civic disengagement as voluntary organisations have lost members, and that the traditional family is in decline. Includes a thorough investigation of the effects of the terrorist attacks of September 11 and their aftermath. Looks at the arguments put forward by those who assert that a common American identity has given way to a multitude of conflicting identities structured around factors such as race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. ;

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