Islands, identity and the literary imagination

Australia is the planet’s sole island continent. This book argues that the uniqueness of this geography has shaped Australian history and culture, including its literature. Further, it shows how shifting understandings of the island continent shed new light on the relationship between islands and...

The sexual imperative in the novels of sir henry rider haggard

‘The Sexual Imperative in the Novels of Sir Henry Rider Haggard’ offers a detailed and previously undocumented account of how the writer’s emotional experiences, primarily in the sexual arena, consistently informed and enriched his fiction.

Before einstein

Before Albert Einstein proposed the concept of four-dimensional spacetime, late Victorian scientists, radical philosophers and writers were discussing the possibility of a different kind of fourth dimension. ‘Before Einstein’ offers the first book-length examination of the impact of pre-Relativit...

Thomas keneally's career and the literary machine

Thomas Keneally: world success story or Australian writer who never fulfilled early potential? ‘Thomas Keneally’s Career and the Literary Machine’ explains the disparate opinions, charting his writing’s production and reception as shaping a literary career. It tracks tensions between literary and...

The selling and self-regulation of contemporary poetry

The Selling and Self-Regulation of Contemporary Poetry is the first book-length study of the contemporary poetry industry. By documenting radical changes over the past decade in the way poems are published, marketed, and circulated, it connects the seemingly small world of poetry with the other, ...

Post-multicultural writers as neo-cosmopolitan mediators

‘Post-Multicultural Writers as Neo-Cosmopolitan Mediators’ is the first book to bring together global debates in neo-cosmopolitanism over the last decade and Australian minority writers, linking them to globalisation and transnationalism in cultural studies.

Stephen wall, trollope and character and other essays on victorian literature

‘Stephen Wall, “Trollope and Character” (1988) and Other Essays on Victorian Literature’ is a collection of critical essays by the eminent literary critic Stephen Wall, including his exceptional writings on Anthony Trollope, as well as brilliant studies of Charles Dickens and other major Victoria...

Suburban space, the novel and australian modernity

‘Suburban Space, the Novel and Australian Modernity’ investigates the interaction between suburbs and suburbia in a century-long series of Australian novels. It puts the often trenchantly anti-suburban rhetoric of Australian fiction in dialogue with its evocative and imaginative rendering of subu...

What is we?

The concept "we" is central to every field in the interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences, yet it has been overdetermined by the question of “who we are”, leaving its basic conceptual operations undertheorized. In What is We? Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan argues that “we” is not a collecti...

Addiction, representation and the experimental novel, 1985–2015

The book analyzes the practices and politics of reading the experimental addiction novel, and outlines both a practice and an ethics of reading that advocates for a more compassionate response to addicts than the Western realistic novel traditionally has offered.

Travelling home, 'walkabout magazine' and mid-twentieth-century australia

'Walkabout' was one of the most popular magazines in mid-twentieth century Australia, educating local and international readers about the Australian landscape, its peoples and industry. It featured many of the most interesting writers, natural scientists and commentators. This book investigates '...

Picturing shakespeare

This study investigates the capacity of Shakespeare’s texts – obviously destined for stage performances – to generate mental images and mental colours. Jean-Louis Claret, both a Shakespeare professor at Aix-Marseille University and an illustrator, proposes to shed light on the process that leads ...

Reading as a philosophical practice

This book asks why reading matters so much to so many people. Its answer is that reading is a philosophical activity: a way of working through, and taking a stand on, fundamental questions about who and what we are, how we should live, and how we relate to other things.

Empathy in the reading and teaching of english literature

Empathy in the Reading and Teaching of English Literature explores the educational potential of empathy for literary studies across a historical, generic and geographic continuum. The book draws on interdisciplinary methodologies to offer new readings of popularly taught literary texts and discus...

Four augustan science poets: abraham cowley, james thomson, henry brooke, erasmus darwin

“Four Augustan Science Poets: Abraham Cowley, James Thomson, Henry Brooke, Erasmus Darwin” is a concise study focusing on four poets who because of their distinctive profiles illustrate especially well the opportunities and pitfalls of writing science poetry during the long eighteenth century.

Mabo’s cultural legacy

This book examines the broader impacts on Australian culture and cultural practice of the Australian High Court’s landmark Mabo decision of 1992. It considers how history, linguistics and anthropology as well as film, fiction, poetry and memoir writing have been challenged or transformed by Mabo.

Wittgenstein and modernist fiction

Wittgenstein and Modernist Fiction: The Language of Acknowledgment shows how works of twentieth-century literature and philosophy together examine language’s capacity to acknowledge the inner lives of marginalized figures.

'the tempest' in context

How did the court audience of 1611 respond to this unusual play? Situating ‘The Tempest’ in its time, this guide explains the Christian ethics, contemporary political scene, literary atmosphere and requirements of tragi-comedy that inform the background of this magical and mysterious play.

The significant hamlin garland

This book collects the best of Donald Pizer’s essays dealing with Hamlin Garland’s early work and activities in to re-establish the importance of this formative stage in his career.

The propaganda of peace

When political opponents Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness were confirmed as First Minister and Deputy First Minister of a new Northern Ireland executive in May 2007, a chapter was closed on Northern Ireland’s troubled past. A dramatic realignment of politics had brought these irreconcilable enemi...

Genre matters

This collection of new essays addresses a topic of established and expanding critical interest throughout the humanities. It demonstrates that genre matters in a manner not constrained by disciplinary boundaries and includes new work on Genre Theory and applications of thinking about genre. Essay...

Kiosk literature of silver age spain

The 'Silver Age' of Spain ran from 1898 to 1939 and was characterized by intense urbanization, widespread class struggle and mobility and a boom in mass culture. This book offers the most detailed scholarly analysis of kiosk literature, one of the mass culture's manifestations, examined through t...

Public spheres after socialism

Public Spheres After Socialism challenges the idea of public spaces being associated with urban environments in light of the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This book examines monuments, reconstruction, film and new media to ask whether public spaces are viable in ...

Hypertext

The philadelphia connection

Philadelphia is one of America's most interesting and innovative cities for theatre, rich in new theatres, new plays, and rising playwrights. This book paints a picture of the city's burgeoning scene through interviews with some of Philadelphia's most influential and successful playwrights, inclu...

Switching to digital television

Sometime in the next four years, in a move that is bound to anger consumers and endanger the careers of politicians, the United Kingdom plans to turn off its analog, terrestrial television and switch fully to digital TV. Switching to Digital Television argues that, in order for the initiative to ...

Dialogues 3

The articles in this volume are the reworkings of papers given at the second joint postgraduate colloquium organised by the department of French at the University of Bristol and the University of Exeter in July 1999. The volume offers a varied but cohesive exploration of the transposition of the...

Shakespeare valued

Taking a comprehensive critical and theoretical approach to the role of Shakespeare in educational policy and pedagogy from 1989 to the present, Shakespeare Valued explores the esteem afforded Shakespeare in the British educational system and its evolution throughout the twentieth and twenty-firs...

Dialogues 2

The articles were given as papers at an International Postgraduate conference on Endings held jointly by Exeter and Bristol Universities in July 1998. They reflect a wide area of specialisms whilst being linked by the common theme of endings which lead to fruitful exchanges of ideas. Areas cover...