Showing results for "Literary Criticism" in Social Sciences

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of "basic stories" in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it reveals that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling.

The follow-up and companion volume to the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor—a lively and entertaining guide to understanding and dissecting novels to make everyday reading more enriching, satisfying, and fun Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the...

Brought to you by Penguin. A masterclass in telling stories - and how they shape our world - from the internationally renowned narrative expert To command narrative is to control a sometimes frightening power. What is it that turbocharges some tales, and how is it possible to harness that...

In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake". Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.

Video game sales as a whole have continued to grow, now raking in twice as much money per year as the entire film industry, and countless psychologists have turned their attention to the effects gaming has on us: our confidence, our identity, and our personal growth. The Psychology of Zelda applies the latest psychological findings, plus insights from classic psychology theory, to Link, Zelda, Hyrule, and the players who choose to wield the Master Sword.

Serving as the first relational study of antiracism in France, Natives against Nativism observes how claims to indigeneity have been deployed in multiple directions, both in the ongoing struggle for migrant rights and racial justice, and in white nativist claims in France today.

In a magisterial work, Jaan Puhvel unravels the prehistoric Indo-European origins of the traditions of India and Iran, Greece and Rome, of the Celts, Germans, Balts, and Slavs. Utilizing the methodologies of historical linguistics and archaeology, he reconstructs a shared religious, mythological, and cultural heritage. Separate chapters on individual traditions as well as on recurrent themes—god and warrior, king and virgin, fire and water—give life to Comparative Mythology as both a general introduction and a detailed reference.

Thirty years have passed since Cornel West's book Race Matters rose to the top of the bestseller lists in 1993. Yet his book remains as relevant as ever to American culture-even more so, if one considers its influence on contemporary racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, prison justice, and the fight for police reform. Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope looks back to the original 1993 text and forward into the future of racial understanding and healing in our current century.

A fascinating exploration of the Divided Woman, the key to understanding why women cannot take a hero’s journey. Every woman battles being a Divided Woman, whether she is a stay-at-home mom or a high-powered corporate executive. In this book, psychotherapist Dr. Stacey Simmons explores the...

Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.

David Sterling Brown offers nothing less here than a wholesale deconstruction of whiteness in Shakespeare's plays, arguing that the 'white other' was a racialized category already in formation during the Elizabethan era—and also one to which Shakespeare was himself a crucial contributor.

In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two centuries. Demonstrating how female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from 19th-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag-king performances.

You already know Mr. Darcy—at least you think you do! The romantic hero of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy initially insults and ignores the witty heroine but eventually succumbs to her charms. It’s a classic enemies-to-lovers plot and one that has profoundly influenced our cultural ideas about courtship. But what if this classic isn’t just a grand romance but a horror novel about how scary love and marriage can be for women? In The Darcy Myth, literature scholar Rachel Feder unpacks Austen’s Gothic influences and how they have led us to a romantic ideal that is halfway to being a monster story.

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner "[Morrison] boldly...reimagines and remaps the possibility of...

WritersMosaic - illuminating, in-depth conversations between writers. The series brings global majority writers face-to-face to explore each other’s work and thought. The knowledge, excitement and curiosity of fellow writers in these informal exchanges bring to light the connecting currents that flow through contemporary UK writing, reflecting profound changes in our cultural diversity, social experience and imaginative responses.