Jane Austen and Critical Theory is a collection of new essays that addresses the absence of Critical Theory in Austen studies—an absence that has limited the reach of Austen criticism. The collection brings together innovative scholars who ask new and challenging questions about the efficacy of Austen’s work. This volume confronts mythical understandings of Austen as “Dear Aunt Jane,” t…
Researchers and students of body movement and nonverbal communication will find this annotated bibliography an indispensable guide to the literature on the subject that has been produced over the last decade. The editors' objective was not so much to evaluate works as to give readers enough information to determine if a specific text is relevant to their interests. The bibliography includes wor…
In The New Midlife Self-Writing, Wittman treats recent self-writing by Rachel Cusk, Roxane Gay, Sarah Manguso, and Maggie Nelson, carefully situating these vital midlife works within the history of self-writing. She argues that they renew and redirect the autobiographical trajectories characteristic of earlier self-writing by switching their orientation to face the future and by celebrating mid…
# This is an e-book. What is a book? How is it set to evolve in the digital age? In May 2018, researchers and practitioners from a wide range of fields (design, publishing, communication, literature, and more) gathered in Montreal for the ÉCRIDIL conference to assess the current state of affairs and propose possible solutions. The result of a publishing experiment conducted in parallel with th…
The essays in this collection examine how both colonial and British authors engage with Victorian subjects and subjectivities in their work. Some essays explore the emergence of a key trope within colonial texts: the negotiation of Victorian and settler-subject positions. Others argue for new readings of key metropolitan texts and their repositioning within literary history. These essays work t…
This chapter examines Sasha Waltz’s choreographic staging of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette for the Paris Opera Ballet from 2007. Waltz’s production reimagines one of the most canonical stories in the classical ballet repertoire through the abstract and fragmentary lens of contemporary dance. I trace how Waltz appropriates the post-modern principles of Contact Improvisation for purposes of …
How can narrative theory account for the changing roles of storytelling and storysharing in the public sphere? This essay proposes a new concept of narrative dynamics, one that generates well-constrained descriptions of specific elements, features, or qualities of narratives, as well as programmatic claims concerning their potential uses and effects. Narrative dynamics research is equally inter…
Navigating the landscape of Romantic literature and art across Europe and the Americas, An Outline of Romanticism in the West invites readers to embark upon a literary journey. Showcasing a breadth of theoretical and contextual approaches to the study of Romanticism, John Isbell provides an insightful contemporary overview of the field, paired with wide-ranging comparative reflections on the ar…
Irritation, fascination, complication – contradictions in the German reception of Shaftesbury. The book was awarded the Ernst Reuter Prize. The question of the significance of Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671–1713), the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, for the German 18th century is a key issue in Enlightenment studies. Traditional German studies answered it enthusiastically: it regarded Shaftesbury’s…
From self-help books and nootropics, to self-tracking and home health tests, to the tinkering with technology and biological particles - biohacking brings biology, medicine, and the material foundation of life into the sphere of »do-it-yourself«. This trend has the potential to fundamentally change people's relationship with their bodies and biology but it also creates new cultural narratives…