Associated University Presses
Desire and disorder; fevers, fictions, and feeling in English Georgian culture.
Critics dismiss as melodrama the raging and dangerous fevers that about in 18th-century English novels, a genre historically associated with women. While studying such literature one day, Ward (English, Florida State U.) wandered off into the medical literature from the same period, and was astounded to find the same fevers described in the same vocabulary, punctuation, and tone as in the sentimental texts. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The development of Albert Camus's concern for social and political justice; "justice pour un juste".
Orme (contemporary French society and culture, U. of Central Lancaster) traces the growth and evolution of theories and applications of social justice in the life and work of Camus. Necessarily chronological, this work considers all of the philosopher's prose writing, supplying and explaining the intellectual milieu as well as the historical and political contexts. Orme traces the origins of Camus's lifelong preoccupation, his realization of that preoccupation, his search to apply his concepts to real life in a time in which colonialism was still supreme, his support of radical or even revolutionary causes that supported his concepts of social justice, and the series of crises that caused him to re-evaluate his assertions. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Divided loyalties in a doomed empire; the French in the West; from New France to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
With the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French settlers of the former New France found themselves divided under British and Spanish sovereignties depending on what side of the Mississippi River they resided. In this volume, Royot (emeritus, American literature and civilization, the Sorbonne, France) traces the evolution of French communities in North America, focusing on how they negotiated the divided loyalties engendered by the demise of New France, trading and conflict with Native Americans, and the American Revolution. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Early feminists and the education debates; England, France, Germany 1760-1810.
Blame it on Rousseau. Not all of his ideas took hold, but when the widely popular philosopher proposed that women's education be limited to the domestic sphere, public and private organizations listened and for some time it became almost impossible for women to attain a formal education. Sotiropoulos (modern languages and literatures, Northern Michigan U.) examines not only this situation but the work of reformers. Working in a broad range of genres, who sought to counter Rousseau's notions about women for the next 50 years, including Sophie von La Roche, Catherine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, Theodor von Hippel, Amalia Holst and Betty Gleim. As they agitated for equality even when it meant danger to themselves, they were keenly aware, notes Sotiropoulos, that they were most successful when employing the Romantic semantics of their opposition by using fiction as a subtle and effective tool against idiocy. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Embodying resistance; Griselda Gambaro and the grotesque.
Zandstra (Spanish language and literature, Calvin College) gives readers a solid background in the grotesque tradition, with its elements of drama, sentimentality, violence and cruelty. She explores the image of the monster in Gamboro's Nada que ver con otra historia, her deliberations on distortion and distance, her alliance of word and body language, and the strange balance that she maintains between art and suffering. The result is the first English book-length treatment of Gamboro's work, and also a significant addition to our understanding of why and when writing the grotesque is not only justified but absolutely necessary. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Feeling British; sympathy and national identity in Scottish and English writing, 1707-1832.
Efforts to establish a shared national identity between England and Scotland after the 1707 Act of Union, represent a more secular, more popular, and therefore more modern form of Britishness than any form that had preceded it, says Gottlieb (English, Oregon State U.). He furthermore argues that central to this new identity was the discourse of sympathy that was developed by the Scottish Enlightenment then deployed and disseminated by a variety of writers from both sides of the border that officially was no longer there. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The fourth imagist; selected poems of F.S. Flint.
Copp brings together poems by F.S. Flint (1885-1960) from three volumes published between 1909 and 1920 — In the Net of the Stars, Cadences, and Otherworld — in addition to previously uncollected or unpublished works. He aims to bring more attention to Flint's place in early modernism in England. Three of these poems are in French and include a translation. The introduction provides biographical information, an examination of his place in Imagism, and critical discussion of his poems. Flint's essays, "Imagism" and "The History of Imagism," are provided in the appendices, along with an obituary notice and his autobiographical sketch, "Round Holes by a Square Peg." In addition to the subject index, an index of first lines is included. Copp taught modern languages in secondary education and continuing education courses at Cambridge U. in the UK. He is currently editing the letters of Richard Aldington and F.S. Flint. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Imagining fascism; the cultural politics of the French young right, 1930-1945.
Much has been written about 20th-century French generational cohorts, says Mazgaj (history, U. of North Carolina-Greensboro), but the patriotic generation of 1914 and the radical generation of 1968 have received almost all the attention, while the intervening generation of 1930 has been forgotten. His study of the Young Right also casts light on the characteristically French phenomenon of the engaged writer, and on the debate over implications of fascism for French nationalism. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The infanticidal logic of evolution and culture.
The very nature of evolutionary life is infanticidal at its core, according to Kimball (English, U. of North Florida). That is, in order to achieve reproductive success, living things must impose death onto others. After laying out this argument, he examines how certain texts have sought to grapple with, or deny, the fact that the infanticidal lies at the heart of existence and, thus, the sacred. He explores infanticidal themes in Genesis, arguing that the story of Abraham and Isaac is a metaphor for how the ethical is only made possible by the infanticidal. He also discusses how, in attributing to the social role of the father a metaphorical power of conception, Homer's Odyssey and Sophocles' Oedipus the King seek to suppress the infanticidism of the symbolic order, whereas the Eucharistic discourse of the biblical Gospel of John recognizes the "non-transcendable infanticidity of the Divine Logos itself." Similar themes are taken up in readings of the denials of the infanticidal in the films The Matrix and Terminator 2 and the confrontations with the infanticidal in Alien Resurrection. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
North American players of Shakespeare; a book of interviews.
Shurgot, a retired professor of humanities at South Puget Sound Community College, brings together 21 interviews with current Shakespearean actors from the US and Canada. Interviews were conducted by scholars and reviewers who have extensively covered the company and actors. The actors, from James Earl Jones to those who are lesser-known, discuss issues such as training, working with directors, disparities in British and North American approaches, festivals and regional differences among audiences, gender-neutral and multi-racial casting, speaking techniques, and interpretation of characters. They come from theaters in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Ashland, Stratford, and Canada, and Maine's Theatre at Monmouth, San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company in Portland, and the Seattle Shakespeare Company. Brief biographies and photos are included. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Novel stages; drama and the novel in nineteenth-century France.
American and European scholars explore the intersections between drama and the novel in 19th-century France. Each of ten essays examines a particular aspect of the cross-pollination between these two genres. Sample topics include Flaubert's mid-career experiments in writing fairy-plays, and the musical adaptation of George Sand's novel, La Petite Fadette. Prasad teaches French at the U. of Massachusetts-Boston, and McCready is affiliated with the U. of South Alabama. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Plot twists and critical turn; queer approaches to early modern Spanish theater.
His first task, explains Stroud (Spanish, Trinity U., San Antonio, Texas), was to speculate on what homosexuality might look like in the rigidly moralistic society of early modern Spain, where homosexuals as known in the 21st century did not exist. He discusses such topics as performativity and cross-dressing, the failure of heterosexuality, the fear of penetration, Gila in Vélez de Guevara's La Serrana de la Vera, and Cervantes' Algerian plays. Quotations are in Spanish with English translation. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Putting the caliph in his place; power, authority, and the late Abbasid caliphate.
The commonly held notion of the Abbasid caliphs being mere puppets from the Buyid period on is disproven in this study by Hanne (Florida Atlantic U.). Based on research of medieval sources, Hanne describes the evidence for the caliphs' exercise of power from al-Qadir billah in the 10th-11th century C.E. to al-Mustadi bi-Amr Ahllah in the 12th century, ranging from their involvement in politics at home, building activities, and their influence on politics throughout the Muslim world. The study is a revision of his doctoral thesis at U. of Michigan. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Shelley and the Romantic imagination; a psychological study.
Frosch (English, City U. of New York-Queens College) looks at the imagining of an ideal women in Percy Shelley's (1792-1822) Alastor, Prometeus Unbound, and The Triumph of Life, in light of the modern dream interpretation offered by psychoanalysis. His purpose is to understand the poems better, to underscore the power of their idealizations, and to set the poetic myths in a human complexity of ambivalence and conflict. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Susquehanna University, 1858-2000; a goodly heritage.
Housley, a retired professor of history from Pennsylvania's Susquehanna U., describes the development of his former institutional employer from its founding in 1858 as the Missionary Institute of the Evangelical Lutheran Church to the year 2000. He discusses the reasons for its founding, how it was transformed into Susquehanna U. and developed into a liberal arts college, its pioneering role in intercollegiate athletics and physical education, and how it weathered social and economic changes over its 150 year history. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Tourific; travels in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Novelist Janet Weis's tourism experiences during the 1960s and 1970s, which she dutifully described in a daily diary while on her travels, would lead to her penning a travel column, "Tourific," for the Central Pennsylvania newspaper, The Daily Item. As the shared title suggests, this volume collects those columns describing her travels as reconstructed from the diary entries written as she traveled with her husband and other companions around Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Western and Eastern Europe. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The women writers in Schiller's Horen; patrons, petticoats, and the promotion of Weimar classicism.
Holmgren (German women of letters and minority studies, Pacific Lutheran U., Washington) seeks to revive literary history's conversation on Die Horen, Friedrich Schiller's German literary journal, by focusing on six female writers — Louise Brachmann, Friederike Brun, Amalie von Imhoff, Sophie Mereau, Elisa von der Recke, and Caroline von Wolzogen — who were eventually, though not initially, invited to contribute to the periodical. The author examines their literary relationships to Schiller and Goethe, challenges the notion that their material was included as "filler," and draws from their stories conclusions on the experience of the late 18th century female writer and the legacy of Die Horen and Weimar Classicism. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
