Mind's World: Imagination and Subjectivity from Descartes to Romanticism by Professor Alexander Schlutz WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROMANTICISM'S JEAN-PIERRE BARRICELLI PRIZE FOR BEST BOOK PUBLISHED IN ROMANTICISM STUDIES IN 2009 As the mental faculty that mediates between self and world, mind and body, the senses and the intellect, imagination is indispensable for modern models of subjectivity. From René Descartes's Meditations to the aesthetic and philosophical systems of the Romantic period, to think about the subject necessarily means to address the problem of imagination. In close readings of Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Novalis, and Coleridge, Alexander Schlutz, associate professor of English at John Jay College, City University of New York, demonstrates that neither the unity of the subject itself, nor the unity of the philosophical systems that are based on it, can be conceptualized without recourse to imagination. Yet, philosophers like Descartes and Kant must deny imagination any such foundational role because of its dangerous connection to the body and the unruly passions, which threatens the desired autonomy of the rational subject. The modern subject is simultaneously dependent upon and constructed in opposition to imagination, and the resulting ambivalence about the faculty is one of the fundamental conditions of modern models of subjectivity. "This book is an original and valuable contribution to the intellectual history of the Enlightenment and early Romanticism and to the history of literary theory: intelligently ambitious in scope, genuinely comparative in approach.  Schlutz is adept at juxtaposing texts that are usually examined in isolation from one another."  -- Nicholas Halmi, University of Oxford
The Other Side of Terror: An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia Edited by Professor Nivedita Majumdar  Post-9/11, ‘terrorism’ is perhaps the most prominent political phenomenon on the world stage, making its presence felt in increasingly darker and starker forms. While the need to understand terrorism is urgently vocalized, the often inordinate focus on bare facts rather than on socio-political conditions defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. Literature, on the other hand, by historicizing and humanizing the phenomenon, helps in our understanding of terrorism. The Other Side of Terror brings together writings based on terrorism from India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Including short stories, essays, poems, and excerpts from novels, both original writings in English as well as translations, the volume addresses issues of wide interest. The Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka, the Indian manifestations ranging from the militant wing of the Independence movement to the various post-Independence terrorist movements, such as separatism in Kashmir, the insurgency in Assam, and the Naxalite movement in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, are all represented. The range of authors—including Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, to Bhagat Singh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo Ghose, Khushwant Singh, Pankaj Mishra, Mahashweta Devi, Anita Agnihotri, Jean Arasanayagam, and Tenzin Tsundue, represents a gamut of writing covering this terrain. In a detailed Introduction Nivedita Majumdar traces terrorism across South Asia, explores important aspects of the phenomenon from its definition to its psychological and sociological effects, and reflects on moral and ethical issues and counter-terrorism. "One cannot overemphasize the timeliness of a volume such as this. Nivedita Majumdar gives pause to rhetoric that isolates acts of individual terror from their structural conditions, and which seeks to restore to "terrorists" a basic humanity." --Solidarity
Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Criticism Edited by Professor Richard Perez This is the first inter-group and gender inclusive collection of scholarship in U.S. Latino literary criticism that begins with the assumption that the literature written by U.S. Latinos is as important an object of scholarship as U.S. Latino/a history, sociology, and culture, fields that have dominated previous inter-group anthologies. Some of the most important and insightful Latino and Latina literary scholars in the field write on authors from the four major Latino/a groups-- Cuban American, Dominican American, Mexican American, and Puerto Rican American. The anthology evaluates the state of U.S. Latino/a literary study and projects a vision of that study for the twenty-first century. This book is divided into four major areas of literary inquiry: analyses of the psychic relations between the Latino/a subject and its mimetic others; explorations of the complexities of race and Afro-Latino/a poetics; studies of the representation of labor in the Latino/a literary imagination; and genealogical and archival assessment of U.S. Latino literature’s relationship with American, Caribbean, and Latin American literatures and histories. “This collection brings together an impressive group of established and young scholars to produce a multi-layered, theoretically complex approach to the practices of Latino/a criticism. These essays continue the dialogue about ambivalent identities and the usefulness (or lack thereof) of contemporary literary theory in helping scholars tease out the meaning of Latino/a texts. It should prove a valuable and popular text for scholars and students of Latino/a literature.”--Lisa Paravisini, Vassar College "Welcome to 21st century literary criticism of the Americas, where the foreign is domestic, the strange familiar, and the presumed outsider is the ultimate insider. Free from the idea that Latino/a literature's work is identity politics,Contemporary US Latino/a Literary Criticism takes the path less taken and asks how does this literature offers alternative ways of understanding today's world. In contrast to most writing on the subject, this collection is also not about how Latinos are becoming Americans. Rather, it's about how the people of the United States are becoming Americans in a whole different way."--Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Professor of English and Latino Studies, Columbia University
Art of the Brooklyn Bridge: A Visual History by Professor Richard Haw The Brooklyn Bridge is a pre-eminent global icon. It is the world's most famous and beloved bridge, a "must-see" tourist hotspot, and a vital fact of New York life. For almost a hundred and forty years it has inspired artists of all descriptions, fueling a constant stream of paintings, photographs, lithographs, etchings, advertising copy, movies, and book, magazine, and LP covers. In consequence, the bridge may have the richest visual history of any man-made object, so much so, in fact, that almost no major American artist has failed to pay homage to the span in some form or other. Oddly, however, there are no books currently available that chart and discuss the bridge's visual history or its role in the development of American (or Western) art. This monograph aims to correct that, providing a full visual record of the bridge from the origins of its conception to the present day. It is a celebration of the bridge's glorious visual heritage timed to appear when the city will celebrate the span's 125th birthday. "Richard Haw is our greatest chronicler of the Brooklyn Bridge" -- Francis Morrone, author of An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn "Richard Haw's Art of the Brooklyn Bridge is irresistible" -- Thomas Bender, Department of History, New York University "Art of the Brooklyn Bridge is a visual and literary delight" -- Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams and The Toothpick: Technology and Culture "Richard Haw's beautiful book is about one of the world's great bridges, but also all about the city that makes it great." -- Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World
Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts by Professor Bettina Carbonell Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of approaches to museums and their relation to history, culture, philosophy and their adoring or combative publics.   Brings together for the first time a wide array of texts that mix contemporary analysis with historical documentation. Includes five sections that highlight central themes in museum studies: issue-oriented contexts in museology; states of "nature"; the status of nations; history, memory and other locations; and arts, crafts and visitors. Addresses the development of museums, the role of the museum in society, and issues central to contemporary museum studies. Opens with an introductory essay that situates museum studies in a truly interdisciplinary context and includes an opening essay for each section that guides the reader through the selections. Includes a bibliography and list of resources devoted to museum studies that makes the volume an authoritative guide on the subject. Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of approaches to museums and their relation to history, culture, philosophy and their adoring or combative publics. * Brings together for the first time a wide array of texts that mix contemporary analysis with historical documentation. * Includes five sections that highlight central themes in museum studies: issue-oriented contexts in museology; states of "nature"; the status of nations; history, memory and other locations; and arts, crafts and visitors. * Addresses the development of museums, the role of the museum in society, and issues central to contemporary museum studies. * Opens with an introductory essay that situates museum studies in a truly interdisciplinary context and includes an opening essay for each section that guides the reader through the selections. * Includes a bibliography and list of resources devoted to museum studies that makes the volume an authoritative guide on the subject. "Combining important historical texts, classic critical analyses, and current commentary on the museum, this anthology is a unique resource for Museum Studies. It is especially useful in assembling sophisticated discussions of many kinds of institutions, including museums of art, history, anthropology, and natural history."-- Bruce Altshuler, New York University "The rich diversity of contexts and commentaries in this collection reveals the fascination of the museum not only for curators and museologists, but also for anthropologists, architects, politicians, historians, critics, and poets. The breadth of the survey is a timely reminder that the condition of our museums is - and has always been - a barometer of social attitudes and change." -- Helen Rees Leahy, University of Manchester
Little Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches by Professor Adam McKible Little Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches reflects the diversity of Anglo-American modernism, with essays on avant-garde, literary, political, regional, and African American little magazines. It also presents a diversity of approaches to these magazines: discussions of material practices and relations; analyses of the relationship between little magazines and popular or elite audiences; examinations of correspondences between texts and images; feminist modifications of the traditional canon or histories; and reflections on the emerging field of periodical studies. All emphasize the primacy and materiality of little magazines. With a preface by Mark Morrisson, an afterword by Robert Scholes, and an extensive bibliography of little magazine resources, the collection serves both as an introduction to little magazines and a reconsideration of their integral role in the development of modernism. 'Little Magazines & Modernism offers a much-needed, high-quality collection of articles on an emerging approach to modernist studies. Exploring periodicals as well-known as Poetry or The Dial, along with lesser-known magazines like the multi-racial Ebony and Topaz, it will attract readers across a wide spectrum and should be in every research library. Some of the essays are gems, and all are interesting.' -- George Bornstein, University of Michigan, USA
Detecting the Nation by Professor Caroline Reitz This is a real little gem of a book—concise and yet remarkable in its breadth. Caroline Reitz makes a compelling, original argument for the imperial origins of detective fiction through readings of a range of texts written throughout the long nineteenth century. Setting out to show how the detective narrative "turned national concerns about the abuses of authority into a popular story about British authority in the contact zone of Victorian culture" (xiii), Reitz ... gives us not merely a new context for reading Doyle and detective fiction, but also a new way of reading and thinking about empire and identity in the nineteenth century. The argument makes a significant contribution to ongoing discussions about Victorian imperialism. The book, overall, is written with exemplary clarity and great argumentative verve." -- Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Victorian Studies
Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by Professor John Matteson WINNER OF THE 2008 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY The revelations that Matteson provides us with, of souls alive in a time superficially quite unlike ours, never flag in interest. The story moves briskly from just before the century's beginning, in November 1799, when Bronson Alcott was born in a Connecticut hilltop farmhouse, all the way to 1888, near century's end, with Bronson's death in Boston in a home in Louisburg Square. The father's death was followed two days later by that of his famous daughter, Louisa May Alcott, beloved author of Little Women.....Matteson, a professor of English at John Jay College in New York City, tells his story so clearly and attractively that no previous acquaintance with the remarkable Alcott clan and their various, equally remarkable friends is needed to relish their world as he re-creates it." -- The Boston Globe
On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages by Professor Valerie Allen “Allen has written the secret history of waste from the Ancient to the early modern world, and--dare I say it?--the hidden history of humankind’s relation to the anus. On Farting, in the line of Norbert Elias’s Civilizing Process or Erik Erikson’s Young Man Luther, begins small and spreads like wind to almost every area of personal, social, and even spiritual life in what is a truly original and significant work of cultural analysis. This is a book with a huge sweep--from the folklore of the fart, to popular and canonical literary works, to the upper reaches of Aristotle and Dante. Allen writes with such a combination of wit, imagination, and erudition that scholars will wonder, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ and the more general reader will be drawn towards a vision of the past that is lively, courageous, and profound.” -- R. Howard Bloch, Sterling Professor of French, Yale University
Erotic Coleridge by Professor Anya Taylor Erotic Coleridge charts Coleridge's prolific creation of love poems from early flirtatious verse to poems about marital incompatibility, the blank faces of young women fearing for their reputations, the exaltation of falling in love, the spoken and sung voices of women, the pain of jealousy, and late meditations on how to live with the waning of love. In his prose he responds to Parliamentary debates about punishing adulteresses and gives advice about how marriage can warp the soul. In his sensual exuberance and his ethics of reverencing the individuality of other persons, Coleridge attends closely to the lives of women." -- publisher's description
The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History by Professor Richard Haw In the most important work on the Brooklyn Bridge in a generation, Richard Haw shows how and why it remains a central but contested American icon." David E. Nye, author of America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings "Absorbing and provocative. Richard Haw sells you the great bridge in a thousand incarnations." -- Kevin Baker, author of Dreamland and Paradise Alley
Belmondo Style by Professor Adam Berlin WINNER OF PUBLISHING TRIANGLE'S 2005 AWARD FOR BEST GAY-THEMED NOVEL "You'll be dazzled by this tough, elegant, touching love story about a criminal father and his outcast son. Belmondo Style is a very rare thing indeed: a dark and violent novel punctuated by flashes of unexpected, incredible joy." -- Paul Russell, author of Boys of Life and Against the Animals "With its macho staccato language and riveting characters, this novel is all about mood and motion" -- Booklist
Teacher Training at Cambridge by Professor Mark McBeth and Pam Hirsch Although [Teacher Training at Cambridge] deals specifically with two important pioneers of the study of education--the first principals of the men's and women's teacher training colleges in Cambridge in the late 19th century--it also offers a broad acount of the history of education in Britain . . . Pulling off the rare trick of being scholarly and very readable, the book is ever mindful of the late Victorian context--a world dominated by social class, where the very word "education" had a wide variety of meanings, depending on which social stratum was being educated. Against this background the authors conclude: "Both their colleges opened opportunities for people, namely women and working-class men, who had been previously disenfranchised form higher education and professional employment." -- Gerald Haigh, The LondonTimes Educational Supplement, 30 April, 2004
When Washington Was In Vogue by Edward Christopher Williams Introduction and Discovery by Professor Adam McKible "This lost epistolary novel of the Harlem Renaissance, originally serialized in The Messenger in 1925-1926, is slight in plot but deep in detail, an invaluable addition to period scholarship. Williams, the country's first professionally trained black librarian, aptly portrays the 1920s African-American high society of which he was a part....As a light-skinned man who refused to 'pass,' Williams had an abiding interest in intraracial tension, and the absence of white characters further dramatizes the issue....McKible's discovery is sure to provoke scholarship and discussion, and attract well-deserved attention." -- Publisher's Weekly
Destiny's Daughters: 9 Voices of P. J. Gibson by Professor P. J. Gibson "When this new anthology by P.J. Gibson arrives in bookstores, black theatres, black studies departments, and community theatres across America will rejoice. I know I will! Gibson is a major voice in black theatre in particular and American theatre in general." -- Woodie King J., Producing Director, New Federal Theatre "P.J. Gibson writes of women with a passion and clarity that mesmerizes." -- Gloria Naylor, Author
Culture and Change: Attending to Early Modern Women Edited by Margaret Mikesell Tabb and Adele Seeff This is the fourth in the series of proceedings of the interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies at the University of Maryland. This volume reflects the commitment of scholars to the exploration of early modern women's culture as recovered through images, literature, music, and archives of the period. In essays on "Stories," "Goods," "Faiths," and "Pedagogues," scholars from a wide variety of fields discuss the contributions that reveal early modern women's influence on the societal and cultural transformations in which they participated. Nearly thirty workshops from the conference are summarized, and these offer a detailed overview of current research in early modern women's studies. An introduction by Margaret Mikesell traces the development of the Attending to Early Modern Women symposia (1990-2000). -- publisher description
Homoeroticism and Chivalry by Professor Richard Zeikowitz "[T]his is a very clever and enlightening study, the implications of which are broad and worth extending. This is not a book for a special-interest audience or one of marginal importance. It should be taken as a model for future studies that locate vestiges of the queer at the heart of the canonical." -- William Burgwinkle, King's College, Cambridge for Studies in the Age of Chaucer
Mainstreaming Edited by Professor Effie Papatzikou Cochran Mainstreaming takes many forms in schools and programs around the world, but all mainstreaming efforts share a commitment to bringing language minority students into regular content classes with their native English-speaking peers. Mainstreaming entails teaching through and about a host culture while recognizing the heritage cultures and languages that learners bring with them. A key objective of mainstreaming is supporting the students as well as their mainstream teachers whose classes these international students eventually reach. Multiculturalism is an asset not a liability that makes classes richer and more complex, albeit more demanding, a challenge to be sure, but most assuredly not a negative one." -- from the editor
The Instruction of a Christen Woman by Juan Luis Vives Edited by Professor Margaret Mikesell Tabb, Elizabeth Hageman, and Virginia Walcott Beauchamp "This edition of The Instruction of a Christen Woman is the first to provide the modern reader with the complete text of the single most influential book in Tudor England concerning women and how they should live their lives." -- publisher's description "With its thorough introductory materials and intelligently edited text, this work will be an important resource for scholars and students of religion and culture, as well as early modern England, gender history, and the history of education." -- review, Church History
Space and Place of Modernism: Little Magazines in New York by Professor Adam McKible This book examines reactions to the Russian Revolution by four little magazines of the teens and twenties (The Liberator, The Messenger, The Little Review, and The Dial) in order to analyze some of the ways modernist writers negotiate the competing demands of aesthetics, political commitment and race. Re-examining interconnections among such superficially disparate phenomena as the Harlem Renaissance, Greenwich Village bohemianism, modernism and Leftist politics, this book rightly emphasizes the vitality of little magazines and argues for their necessary place in the study of modernism." --publisher's description
Issues in Gender, Language and Learning, and Classroom Pedagogy Edited by Professor Effie Papatzikou Cochran and Mary Yepez "The intriguing articles in this volume explore the intricacies and intersections of language, multiculturalism, and gender in schools, offering the reader potent insights into how language (mis)shapes reality. Teachers who are intentional about their language are the same instructors who will likely be intentional about their teaching behaviors as well. Thoughtful teachers seek out female students who need this teacher initiative. This book speaks to the importance of teachers investing time and attention to insure that all students, including these quiet ones, participate in class." --David Sadker, American University
World Enough by Professor Emeritus Charles Stickney Boating down Nepali rivers, tracking rhinos on foot and on elephant back, seeing the "Buddha light" at dawn in Peru's Machu Picchu and from a sacred mountain peak in China, worshipping in the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa just after Tibet was opened to Westerners, and having a pistol pulled on him in Kabul just before Afghanistan and Iran were closed to Westerners by revolutions and wars. By camel in Rajahstan and Morocco, by elephant in Thailand and Nepal, by bike in Sri Lanka, paddleboat in Kashmir, yacht in Panama, motorcycle in Japan, jammed minivan in Java, rickshaw in Jaipur, by thumb in the US, horse in Mexico, water buffalo in India, and on foot everywhere and often, Dr. Charles Stickney invites you along on his travels--country-by-country--many of them several times over the years. -- from the book jacket
The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgeman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl by Professor Emerita Betsy Gitter WINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTES BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION "This is an exciting, profound, highly readable narrative of the lives of a once-famous disabled child and her physician-mentor. Gitter's account illuminates the drama and tragedy of their relationship while brilliantly mirroring the social history of their times--and providing cautionary insights for our own." --Albert J. Solnit, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, and former Director of the Yale Child Study Center "Stimulating…a challenging mix of American history and unique biography that at times can wring the heart." --Kirkus Reviews
Headlock by Professor Adam Berlin "A powerful debut novel with fascinating characters." --Booklist (starred and boxed review) "Headlock is a book with a split personality: it occupies fractured territory between family drama and noir."--The New York Times Book Review
Building an Active College Vocabulary by Professor Patricia Licklider "Building an Active Vocabulary helps students develop their reading and writing vocabularies by showing new words in memorable contexts. Exercises ask students to use these new words in their writing and speaking. The text shows how to figure out the meaning of new words from contexts; how to use word parts; how to use a dictionary and a thesaurus efficiently and profitably; and how to improve writing through expanded vocabulary. The exercises in Building an Active Vocabulary are taken from college-level texts as well as “real-world” sources such as magazines and newspapers." -- publisher's description
Modernism, Mass Culture and the Aesthetics of Obscenity by Professor Allison Pease "This is an impressive book—elegantly conceived and suffused with intelligence. It looks at the history of pornographic and aesthetic discourses in Britain since the eighteenth century and seeks to explain why early-twentieth-century canonical writers were able to represent sexuality explicitly when only a few years earlier the Victorians considered such lusty representations patently pornographic....The book is meticulously researched and exceptionally well-documented, with clear, eloquently chiseled argumentation unusually strong in its logic and relatively free of obfuscating jargon." -- English Literature in Transition "Pease has produced a provocative book likely to stir some controversy in academic circles." -- Choice
Whispered Consolations: Law and Narrative in African American Life by Professor Emeritus Jon-Christian Suggs "In Whispered Consolations, Jon-Christian Suggs examines the tradition of American law as it appears in African American literary life, from pre-Revolutionary murder trials to gangsta rap. This exciting approach changes our pictures of both American law and African American literature." -- from the book jacket "an important and creative study of a distinctively African-American legal consciousness" -- Law & Politics Book Review
Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink, 1780-1830 by Professor Anya Taylor "Anya Taylor opens Bacchus in Romantic England, her study of drinking in the literature of the Romantics, by demonstrating that alcohol was every bit as much of a problem during this period as in those immediately before and after. . . . As well as being a professor of English, Anya Taylor teaches in an alcohol and substance abuse programme, and she has put her knowledge and experience to good use in examining the careers of Romantic drunks. . . .extremely readable. . .fascinating." -- Times Literary Supplement "Judiciously argued and free from post-modern jargon, Taylor's study adds an important dimension to the understanding of British Romanticism." -- Choice
Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa Edited by Professor Marie Umeh "I warmly commend Marie Umeh and Africa World Press... for putting out the most comprehensive and informative study every published so far on Flora Nwapa... [T]he international literary discourse on Flora [Nwapa] is opening up, not closing....[T]he ideas in her writing are universal and timeless...." -- Chukwuemeka Ike "This rich volume...suggests the wide ranging appeal and possibilities for study across many disciplines and cultures. The women...speak across physical boundaries to the realities of women's experiences around the world." --Flora Edouwaye S.Kaplan
"Black-Jewish Relations: A Social and Mythic Alliance" in Blacks and Jews on the Couch: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Black-Jewish Conflict by Professor Emeritus Lee Jenkins "The Black-Jewish conflict is constantly taking on new dimensions, and without effective strategies for intervention, a dismal state of relations between the two groups can only be expected to worsen. This contributed volume suggests a psychoanalytic approach to conceptualizing and resolving the complex emotional issues causing the conflict." -- from the book jacket
Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent Age by Professor Michael Blitz "Letters for the Living takes up issues of violence in the lives of urban and rural college students and looks for possibilities of teaching composition as an act of peace making. In a semester-long project that linked Hurlbert's research writing class at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Blitz¹s freshman composition II class at John Jay College, these two groups of students researched and wrote about their neighborhoods and the neighborhoods of their interstate partners, and in many cases, what each learned about the other was shocking." --Refiguring English Studies