Whether revered for his masculinity, condemned as an icon of machismo, or perceived as possessing complex androgynous characteristics, Ernest Hemingway is acknowledged to be one of the most important ...twentieth-century American novelists. For Debra A. Moddelmog, the intense debate about the nature of his identity reveals how critics' desires give shape to an author's many guises. In her provocative book, Moddelmog interrogates Hemingway's persona and work to show how our perception of the writer is influenced by society's views on knowledge, power, and sexuality. She believes that recent attempts to reinvent Hemingway as man and as artist have been circumscribed by their authors' investment in heterosexist ideology; she seeks instead to situate Hemingway's sexual identity in the interface between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Moddelmog looks at how sexual orientation, gender, race, nationality, able-bodiedness—and the intersections of these elements—contribute to the formation of desire. Ultimately, she makes a far-reaching and suggestive argument about multiculturalism and the canons of American letters, asserting that those who teach literature must be aware of the politics and ethics of the authorial constructions they promote.
Hayek on Liberty Gray, John
Hayek on Liberty,
2013, 1984, 20130111, 1998, 2013-01-11
eBook, Book
Not available since the 1980s, this up-dated edition by the leading political philosopher, John Gray, outlines his new position on Hayek. In a substantial new chapter, Gray assesses how far the ...historical development of the last ten years can be deployed in a critique of Hayek's thought. His reassessment is not only a provoking study of a classical philosopher. It is also a timely contribution to the debate over the future of conservatism, as Gray argues that Hayekian liberalism - 'the most well-articulated political theory of the new right' - is flawed.
Sigurd Olson (1899–1982) was acknowledged during his lifetime as a leader of the American environmental movement, an emblematic figure for a generation of activists. A Wilderness Within is the ...award-winning biography of this writer, teacher, and activist who was a harbinger of the raising of America’s ecological consciousness.
Clásico es aquel libro que una nación o un grupo de naciones o el largo tiempo han decidido leer como si en sus páginas todo fuera deliberado, fatal, profundo como el cosmos y capaz de ...interpretaciones sin término", escribió con sentido premonitorio Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). En efecto, no ha tenido que transcurrir mucho tiempo para sus lectores atestigüen cómo el ha adquirido esa condición que linda con la mortalidad; que su vasta obra es "capaz de interpretaciones sin término" lo prueban las quince aproximaciones o lecturas críticas de esta recopilación, cuyo origen está en el deseo de conmemorar el centenario del nacimiento del escritor. Los colaboradores de este volumen tienen la certeza absoluta de que pese a la ausencia física de su autor, la literatura de Borges está hoy más presente que nunca, en la tradición cultural de Occidente e incluso más allá de estos estrechos límites geográficos. Estas lecturas críticas están hermanadas por un rasgo esencial: su amor por la obra de Borges, y desean contribuir a comprender mejor una literatura que, felizmente, suele desafiar las capacidades interpretativas de sus lectores.
Nabokov’s pale fire Boyd, Brian; Boyd, Brian
2001., 20011015, 2001, 1999, c1999., 2000-01-01
eBook, Book
Pale Fireis regarded by many as Vladimir Nabokov's masterpiece. The novel has been hailed as one of the most striking early examples of postmodernism and has become a famous test case for theories ...about reading because of the apparent impossibility of deciding between several radically different interpretations. Does the book have two narrators, as it first appears, or one? How much is fantasy and how much is reality? Whose fantasy and whose reality are they? Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer and hitherto the foremost proponent of the idea thatPale Firehas one narrator, John Shade, now rejects this position and presents a new and startlingly different solution that will permanently shift the nature of critical debate on the novel. Boyd argues that the book does indeed have two narrators, Shade and Charles Kinbote, but reveals that Kinbote had some strange and highly surprising help in writing his sections. In light of this interpretation, Pale Firenow looks distinctly less postmodern--and more interesting than ever.
In presenting his arguments, Boyd shows how Nabokov designedPale Firefor readers to make surprising discoveries on a first reading and even more surprising discoveries on subsequent readings by following carefully prepared clues within the novel. Boyd leads the reader step-by-step through the book, gradually revealing the profound relationship between Nabokov's ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics. If Nabokov has generously planned the novel to be accessible on a first reading and yet to incorporate successive vistas of surprise, Boyd argues, it is because he thinks a deep generosity lies behind the inexhaustibility, complexity, and mystery of the world. Boyd also shows how Nabokov's interest in discovery springs in part from his work as a scientist and scholar, and draws comparisons between the processes of readerly and scientific discovery.
This is a profound, provocative, and compelling reinterpretation of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
Hitchcock's America Freedman, Jonathan; Millington, Richard
1999, 1999-01-29
eBook
Alfred Hitchcock has long been understood as an inspired technician and master of abnormal psychology. The authors of this volume suggest, through readings of his American films, that he is also a ...cultural critic of remarkable insight and undeniable presence.
This book examines the impact of ideas of race and gender on imperialism through various forms of discourse surrounding the Boer War of 1899-1902: from the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Olive ...Schreiner, H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling to newspapers, propaganda, and other forms of debate in print.
The engaging story of the 19th-century working lives of Frank and Walter Shanly, two Canadian civil engineers and businessmen who worked on many of the significant projects of the age. An important ...study of the professionalization of civil engineering.