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Synopsis: Descriptions of animal sacrifice in Homer offer us some of the most detailed accounts of this attempt at communication between man and gods. What is the significance of these scenes within the framework of the Iliad? This book explores the structural and thematic importance of animal sacrifice as an expression of the quarrel between Akhilleus and Agamemnon through the differing perspectives of the primary narrative and character speech. In the Iliad, animal sacrifice is incorporated into the primary narrative to bolster the royal authority of Agamemnon and further emphasize Akhilleus' isolation. The sacrifices embedded in character speech express frustration with the failure of reciprocity and the inability of sacrifice to influence the course of human events.

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Synopsis: Döblin’s texts, which range widely across contemporary discourses, are paradigms of the encounter between literary and scientific modernity. With their use of ‛Tatsachenphantasie’, they explode conventional language, seeking a new connection with the world of objects and things. This volume reassesses and reevaluates the uniquely interdisciplinary quality of Döblin’s interdiscursive, factually-inspired poetics by offering challenging new perspectives on key works. The volume analyses not only some of Döblin’s best-known novels and stories, but also neglected works including his early medical essays, political journalism and autobiographical texts. Other topics addressed are Döblin’s engagement with German history; his relation to medical discourse; his topography of Berlin; his aestheticisation of his own biography and his relation to other major writers such as Heine, Benn, Brecht and Sebald. With contributions in English and in German by scholars from Germany and the United Kingdom, the volume presents insights into Döblin that are of value to advanced researchers and to students alike.

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Synopsis: Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics ("ontic structural realism"), which, when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences ("rainforest realism"), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics itself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects.

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Synopsis: Recent studies have highlighted the diversity, complexity, and plurality of identities in the ancient world. At the same time, scholars have acknowledged the dynamic role of material culture, not simply in reflecting those identities but their role in creating and transforming them. This volume explores and compares two influential approaches to the study of social and cultural identities, the model of globalization and theories of hybrid cultural development. In a series of case studies, an international team of archaeologists and art historians considers how various aspects of material culture can be used to explore complex global and local identity structures across the geographical and chronological span of antiquity.

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Synopsis: The contributions to this volume explore eleven key developments in the external history of the German language, that is, the combination of social, political and cultural circumstances which influenced the language and its speakers. Some of these 'landmarks' are individuals or groups of people who have exerted influence over the language: Charlemagne, Luther, the early modern grammarians and lexicographers. Others are studies of particular periods, places or groups which have not found their place in more narrative accounts: standardisation in the nineteenth century, the role of Low German, the state of German at the Stunde Null in 1945. An overarching theme is the role of deliberate intervention in the development of German, whether it took the form of education, prescriptivism, purism or political manipulation. The essays, a number of which were originally delivered as lectures in the University of Cambridge and all of which are by specialists in the field, combine to provide a history of the German language in its social context.

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Synopsis: In this study of the anti-colonial riots which erupted in Hong Kong in May 1967, the authors of May Days in Hong Kong shed new light on their causes, their impact on future government policy and on Sino-British relations, and their legacy for Hong Kong society and governance, and the people of the territory. This is the first sustained exploration of the anti-colonial campaign that was inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China, recent events in Macau, and fuelled by inequalities in Hong Kong society. The riots presented a sustained challenge to British authority. The second part of the book presents testimonies from Hong Kong residents, participants in different ways in the unfolding events, which speak to the salience of 1967 in Hong Kong's popular memory. There has been an awkward silence about this episode for almost forty years, and this book begins to normalize discussion about it and its place in Hong Kong, Chinese and British imperial history.

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Synopsis: This groundbreaking integrated book and DVD presents an exploration of the major fissures of established knowledge created by a new trans-disciplinary, worldwide project. Through an innovative combination of formats, it aims to embody the principles of performance and screen practice-as-research in its structure and design.

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Synopsis: Andrew Bennett argues in this fascinating book that ignorance is part of the narrative and poetic force of literature and is an important aspect of its thematic focus: ignorance is what literary texts are about. He sees that the dominant conception of literature since the Romantic period involves an often unacknowledged engagement with the experience of not knowing. From Wordsworth and Keats to George Eliot and Charles Dickens, from Henry James to Joseph Conrad, from Elizabeth Bowen to Philip Roth and Seamus Heaney, writers have been fascinated and compelled by the question of ignorance, including their own.Bennett argues that there is a politics and ethics as well as a poetics of ignorance: literature's agnoiology, its acknowledgement of the limits of what we know both of ourselves and of others, engages with the possibility of democracy and the ethical, and allows us to begin to conceive of what it might mean to be human. This exciting approach to literary theory will be of interest to lecturers and students of literary theory and criticism.

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Synopsis: Forms of Astonishment sets out to interpret a number of Greek myths about the transformations of humans and gods. Such tales have become familiar in their Ovidian dress, as in the best-selling translation by Ted Hughes; Richard Buxton explores their Greek antecedents. One pressing question which often occurs to the reader of these tales is: Did the Greeks take them seriously? Buxton repeatedly engages with this topic, and attempts to answer it context by context and author by author. His book raises issues relevant to an understanding of broad aspects of Greek culture (e.g. how 'strange' were Greek beliefs?'); in so doing, it also illuminates issues explored by anthropologists and students of religion.

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Synopsis: Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World brings together ten original essays by an international group of scholars exploring the complex outcomes of the intermingling of people, circulation of goods, exchange of information, and exposure to new ideas that are the hallmark of the early modern Atlantic. Spanning the period from the earliest French crossings to Newfoundland at the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the wars of independence in Spanish South America, c. 1830, and encompassing a range of disciplinary approaches, the contributors direct particular attention to regions, communities, and groups whose activities in, and responses to, an ever-more closely bound Atlantic world remain relatively under-represented in the literature.

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Synopsis: Contested Objects breaks new ground in the interdisciplinary study of material culture. Its focus is on the rich and varied legacy of objects from the First World War as the global conflict that defined the twentieth century. From the iconic German steel helmet to practice trenches on Salisbury Plain, and from the ‘Dazzle Ship’ phenomenon through medal-wearing, diary-writing, trophy collecting, the market in war souvenirs and the evocative reworking of European objects by African soldiers, this book presents a dazzling array of hitherto unseen worlds of the Great War.

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Synopsis: This volume extends the 'British Isles' approach pioneered by Robin Frame and Rees Davies to the later middle ages. Through examination of issues such as frontier formation, colonial identities and connections with the wider world it explores whether this period saw the bonds between the British Isles weaken, strengthen, or simply alter.

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Synopsis: Fresh, original and compelling, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory is the essential guide to literary studies. Starting at ‘the beginning’ and concluding with ‘the end’, the book covers topics that range from the familiar (character, narrative, the author) to the more unusual (secrets, pleasure, ghosts). Eschewing abstract isms, Bennett and Royle successfully illuminate complex ideas by engaging directly with literary works – so that a reading of Jane Eyre opens up ways of thinking about racial difference, whilst Chaucer, Raymond Chandler and Monty Python are all invoked in a discussion of literary laughter. Each chapter ends with a narrative guide to further reading and the book also includes a glossary and bibliography. The fourth edition has been revised to incorporate two timely new chapters on animals and the environment.

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Synopsis: The apparent self-sufficiency of joie de vivre means that, despite the widespread use of the phrase since the late nineteenth century, the concept has rarely been explored critically. Joie de vivre does not readily surrender itself to examination, for it is in a sense too busy being what it is. However, as the essays in this collection reveal, joie de vivre can be as complex and variable a state as the more negative emotions or experiences that art and literature habitually evoke. This volume provides an urgently needed study of an intriguing and under-explored area of French literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era. While the range and content of contributions embraces linguistics, literature, art, sport and politics, the starting point is, like that of the term joie de vivre itself, in French language and culture.

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Synopsis: Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Because of this, historian Ronald Hutton shows, succeeding British generations have been free to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton’s captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world.

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Synopsis: ‘Rapture’: The act of seizing or carrying off as prey or plunder; the act of carrying or being carried; and the expression of ecstasy or euphoria in words.

The concept of rapture in literature navigates along a specific trajectory, from rapine status through to ‘being carried (away)’. This book identifies the apparent impossibility of recounting such ‘rapturous states’, and of fixing them in words or in time within cultural expectations, while questioning what we can do with those who are ‘enrapt’, and what we do inside ourselves with reading moments of rapture.
Rapture: Literature, Secrecy, Addiction engages with the ‘states of heightened awareness’, and seeks to connect with the notion of addiction as an alternative to the moral law. Punter deals with notions of writing as itself a kind of ‘seizure’, writing as a ‘fit’, in the works of Blake, Hölderlin, Novalis, Nietzsche, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Genet, and Ballard. ‘Writing it down’ – the process of returning from states of exaltation to find oneself writing in often bleak locations, underlines the relationship between rapture and literature. The author concludes that the very possibility of communication and interpretation is radically open to doubt. The addict–writer becomes representative of the dialectic of writing as an act of communication; an act which is tragically doomed from the outset.

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Synopsis: The image of the `Madonna of Humility', the Virgin and Child seated on the ground, is widespread in European art, yet it remains mysterious. This book provides a detailed and accessible investigation and explication of the theme's multiple significances, and of other associated images (including the Virgin suckling the Child, the Woman of the Apocalypse and the Virgin Annunciate). It takes issue with the orthodox view of the origins of the image lying in the work of Simone Martini at Avignon, suggesting a longer process of development, with a key role for manuscript illumination in Metz. Subsequent chapters pursue the assimilation, appropriation, and adjustment of the image in a number of regions across Europe, challenging the simplistic idea of unequivocal iconographic meaning determined solely by the context of the image's genesis. The book argues for an essential fluidity and negotiability of meaning in the visual arts, challenging the very idea of unitary and unequivocal iconographic readings; and its examination of the multi-layered functions of the image in different contexts and different regions provides not just an iconographical case-study, but a cultural history of a devotional resource with Europe-wide implications.

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Synopsis: This book examines four areas of disputed controversy in Christianity's relations to other religions. The first relates to the definition of religion - a recent invention. The second to the genealogy of the secular and the debate between public and private and how 'religion' is usually allocated to the latter. The third is an argument that secular liberalism cannot accommodate religious pluralism as can certain forms of Islam and Roman Catholicism. The fourth is the utilisation of the doctrine of Christ's descent into hell in relation to the salvation of all people.

D'Costa advises the Vatican and the Anglican Church on interfaith matters and is Professor of Catholic Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Stephen Cheeke (Department of English)
    Title: Writing for Art: The Aesthetics of Ekphrasis
    Publisher: Manchester University Press
    Date of Publication: December 2008

Synopsis: Writing for Art is a concise introduction to the subject of ekphrasis, and the first study to offer a useful general survey of the larger philosophical and theoretical questions arising from the encounter of literary texts and artworks.

Stephen Cheeke offers close readings of poems and prose from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along with a generous amount of illustrations, covering a broad range of writing and theory about the relation of literary texts to the visual arts, and extending the subject of ekphrasis to include literary works on photography, as well as celebrated prose descriptions of artworks.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Rupert Gethin (Department of Theology and Religious Studies)
    Title: Sayings of the Buddha
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Date of Publication: December 2008

Synopsis: As more and more westerners study and practice Buddhism, reliable modern translations of the Buddha's teachings are increasingly in demand. One of the main sources for knowledge of the Buddhadharma is the four Pali Nikayas or "collections" of his sayings. Written in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit, the Nikayas are among the oldest Buddhist texts and consist of more than one and a half million words. This new translation offers a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings, reflecting the full variety of material contained in the Nikayas: the central themes of the Buddha's teaching (his biography, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life) and the range of literary style (myth, dialogue, narrative, short sayings, verse). This edition is the most critically up-to-date and For anyone seeking a more direct encounter with the Buddha's words and teaching, this new translation will prove to be essential reading, rewarding scholars and practitioners alike.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor John Parkin (Department of French)
    Title: The Humor of Marguerite de Navarre in the Heptaméron: A Feminist Author Before Her Time
    Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
    Date of Publication: December 2008

Synopsis: This title presents an analysis of the religious and feminist bases of de Navarre's humor. The author emphasizes Marguerite's use of stock medieval comic patterns. This book examines the humor developed by Marguerite de Navarre in the so-called "Heptameron", her short-story collection emulating Boccaccio's "Decameron" but published incomplete after her death. Within the patterns of anti-clerical mockery and comical tales of adultery, one notes how her religious satire is reinforced by a clear, if relatively ill-defined, Reformist agenda.Also, much of the humor deriving from faithless marriages is biased against the male sex: she is a feminist avant la lettre. These satiric patterns, seen as either value-based or clan-based (or sometimes both), stand against entirely contrary trends of humor whose aim can be either to parody Marguerite's principles by inverting them - she responds to the appeal of the lovable rogue - or to lay those principles aside, indulging the comedy of the uninitiated, the simpleton, the naif and the ingenue. How one selects from such a rich matrix those elements which are key to one's own response is an individual matter. By adopting serious poses, Marguerite's narrators may prevent us from finding humor everywhere. But when she invites us to laugh, she will not and cannot deny us the freedom to do so on our own terms.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Natalia Gogolitsyna (Department of Russian)
    Title: Untranslatable Russian Words
    Publisher: Russian Information Services, Inc.
    Date of Publication: December 2008

Synopsis: Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. A key to understanding another language, another culture, is figuring out what cannot be known, but only felt. This new book looks at nearly 100 difficult-to-grasp Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Martin White (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare Handbooks
    Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan         
    Date of Publication: November 2008

Synopsis:This is an essential student guide to the text, context and performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".It is the only introduction to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on the market which offers a theatrical commentary - enabling students to get a sense of the play as a performance text. It responds to the increasing focus on the plays as performance in English literature courses and the growth in student numbers on undergraduate Theatre and Performance courses. The series editor is an internationally well regarded scholar of Shakespeare.This introductory guide to one Shakespeare's most read and performed plays offers a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key performances and productions, a survey of film and TV adaptation, and wide sampling of critical opinion and annotated further reading.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Genevieve Liveley (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Latin Elegy and Narratology
    Publisher: Ohio State University Press
    Date of Publication: October 2008

Synopsis:Latin Elegy and Narratology is the first volume entirely dedicated to the analysis of Latin elegy through the prism of theories of narrative. It brings together an international range of classicists whose specialties include Roman elegy, Augustan literature more generally, and critical theory. Among the questions explored in this volume are: Can the inset narratives of elegy, with their distinctive narrative strategies, provide the key to a poetics of elegiac story telling? In what ways does elegy renegotiate the linearity and teleology of narrative? Can formal theories of narratology help to make sense of the temporal contradictions and narrative incongruities that so often characterize elegiac stories? What can the reception of Roman elegy tell us about narratives of unity, identity, and authority? The essays contained in this volume provide provocative new readings and an enhanced understanding of Roman elegy using the tools of narratology.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Neville Morley (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Antiquity and Modernity
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    Date of Publication: October 2008

Synopsis:The nature, faults and future of modern civilization and how these connect to the past are tackled in this broad-reaching volume. This publication presents a study of modernity that examines classical influences. It incorporates political, economic, social, and psychological theories and highlights writings from a wide range of thinkers, including Adam Smith, Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Weber, and Freud

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Tamar Hodos  (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)
    Title: Local Responses to Colonization in the Iron Age Mediterranean
    Publisher: Routledge
    Date of Publication: October 2008

Synopsis: The first study to bring together such a breadth of data, this book compares responses to colonization in the Iron-Age Mediterranean. From North Syria to Sicily and North Africa, Dr Tamar Hodos explores the responses to these colonies in areas where Greeks and Phoenicians were in competition with one another via the same local communities. Highlighting the diversity of interest displayed by local populations in these foreign cultural offering, Dr Hodos charts their selective adaptation, modification and reinterpretation of Greek and Phoenician goods and ideas as their own cultures evolve.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Lesel Dawson (Department of English)
    Title: Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Date of Publication: September 2008

Synopsis: In early modern medical texts, intense unfulfilled erotic desire is held to be a real and virulent disease: it is classified as a species of melancholy, with physical etiologies and cures. Lesel Dawson analyzes literary representations of lovesickness in relation to medical ideas about desire and wider questions about gender and identity, exploring the different ways that desire is believed to take root in the body, how gender roles are encoded and contested in courtship, and the psychic pains and pleasures of frustrated passion. She explores the relationship between women's lovesickness and other female maladies (such as hysteria and greensickness), and asks whether women can suffer from intellectual forms of melancholy generally thought to be exclusively male. Finally, she examines the ways in which Neoplatonism offers an alternative construction of love to that found in natural philosophy and considers how anxieties concerning love's ability to emasculate the male lover emerge indirectly in remedies for lovesickness.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Paul Williams (Department of Theology and Religious Studies)
    Title: Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations
    Publisher: Taylor and Francis Ltd
    Date of Publication: July 2008

Synopsis: This book offers an introduction to the field of Mahayana Buddhism and focuses on the religion's diversity and richness. It includes material on China and Japan, with reference to Nepal, and for students who wish to carry their study further, a bibliography, and footnotes and cross-referencing.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Tatiana String (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII
    Publisher: Ashgate
    Date of Publication: July 2008

Synopsis: Exploring the intersection between art and political ideology, this innovative study of art in Henrician England sheds new light on the ways in which Henry VIII and his advisers exploited visual images in order to communicate ideas to his subjects. The works analyzed include water triumphs, coronation pageants and funeral processions, printed title pages of vernacular Bibles, coins, portrait miniatures, and murals, as well as panel paintings.

With her analysis of these categories of objects, and using communication theory as a starting point, String presents a new model of communication based on the concepts of magnificence, topicality, persuasiveness, and propaganda. Through this model she shows how medium, location, display, and viewership were all considered in the transmission of royal messages. Using the art of Henry VIII's reign as a case study, String enriches our understanding of the fundamental contribution of imagery to communication, and also provides a model for the study of the dissemination of ideas and the patron-artist relationship in other royal courts and historical periods.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Mike O'Mahony (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Sergei Eisenstein
    Publisher: Reaktion Books
    Date of Publication: June 2008

Synopsis: 'Sergei Eisenstein' analyses the complex life and works of Eisenstein as film-maker, artist and writer. Drawing heavily upon Eisenstein's extensive writings, both published and unpublished, Mike O'Mahony explores the major pathways and stages within his career. Unlike previous studies the author evaluates the life and work against the context of the social and historical circumstances of the first three decades of Soviet rule. He considers the director's major film releases alongside his other works, including his uncompleted film projects and his copious writings and drawings, to bring to light the singular personality of the subject and the unique circumstances in which his work was produced and received.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Ronald Hutton (Department of Historical Studies)
    Title: Druids - A History
    Publisher: Hambledon Continuum
    Date of Publication: May 2008

Synopsis: Most books written on the Druids hitherto have been by archaeologists specialising in the Iron Age, who have occupied a great deal of space trying to find things to say about the 'original’ ancient priesthood. Most have then devoted a final section of their books to people who have called themselves Druids since 1700 - until recently with contemptuous dismissal. Hutton’s contention is that the sources for the ancient Druids are so few and unreliable that almost nothing certain can be said about them. Instead he reverses the traditional balance of interest to look at the many ways in which Druids have been imagined in Britain since 1500, and what this tells us about modern and early modern society. In the process he achieves many new insights into the development of British national identities, established and 'alternative’ religions, literary culture, fraternal organisation and protest movements. He also suggests new ways in which the discipline of archaeology can be perceived - which will delight some practitioners and enrage others.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Vanda Zajko (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Laughing with Medusa - Classical Myth and Feminist Thought
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Date of Publication: February 2008

Synopsis: Laughing with Medusa explores a series of interlinking questions, including: Does history's self-positioning as the successor of myth result in the exclusion of alternative narratives of the past? How does feminism exclude itself from certain historical discourses? Why has psychoanalysis placed myth at the centre of its explorations of the modern subject? Why are the Muses feminine? Do the categories of myth and politics intersect or are they mutually exclusive? Does feminism's recourse to myth offer a script of resistance or commit it to an ineffective utopianism? Covering a wide range of subject areas including poetry, philosophy, science, history, and psychoanalysis as well as classics, this book engages with these questions from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. It includes a specially commissioned work of fiction, `Iphigeneia's Wedding', by the poet Elizabeth Cook.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Pauline Fairclough (Department of Music)
    Title: The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press
    Date of Publication: 2008

Synopsis: As the Soviet Union’s foremost composer, Shostakovich’s status in the West has always been problematic. Regarded by some as a collaborator, and by others as a symbol of moral resistance, both he and his music met with approval and condemnation in equal measure. The demise of the Communist state has, if anything, been accompanied by a bolstering of his reputation, but critical engagement with his multi-faceted achievements has been patchy. This Companion offers a new starting point and a guide for readers who seek a fuller understanding of Shostakovich’s place in the history of music. Bringing together an international team of scholars, the book brings up-to-date research to bear on the full range of Shostakovich’s musical output, addressing scholars, students and all those interested in this complex, iconic figure.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Jacqueline Maingard (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: South African National Cinema
    Publisher: Routledge
    Date of Publication: December 2007

Synopsis: South African National Cinema examines how cinema in South Africa represents national identities, particularly with regard to race. This significant and unique contribution establishes interrelationships between South African cinema and key points in South Africa’s history, showing how cinema figures in the making, entrenching and undoing of apartheid. This study spans the twentieth century and beyond through detailed analyses of selected films, beginning with De Voortrekkers (1916) through to Mapantsula (1988) and films produced post apartheid, including Drum (2004), Tsotsi (2005) and Zulu Love Letter (2004).

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting
    Publisher: Yale University Press
    Date of Publication: November 2007

Synopsis: In the London circles of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Frederic Leighton, the notion of “art for art's sake” became a shared concern: if art is not created for the sake of preaching a moral lesson, or supporting a political cause, or making a fortune, or any other objective, what might art be? Art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn traces the emergence of the debates over this issue in the 1860s and 1870s, focusing especially on the Rossetti, Whistler, Leighton, and other protagonists of the Aesthetic Movement and their paintings—some of the most haunting and memorable images in modern art. The English painters' search for the formula to best express the idea of “art for art's sake” was a unified and powerful artistic undertaking, Prettejohn demonstrates, and the Aesthetic Movement made important contributions to the history of modern art.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Elena Lombardi (Department of Italian)
    Title: The Syntax of Desire: Language and Love in Augustine, the Modistae, Dante
    Publisher: University of Toronto Press
    Date of Publication: November 2007

Synopsis: In medieval culture, the consideration of language is deeply connected to other aspects of the system of knowledge. One interesting connection takes place between theories of language and theories of larger concepts such as love and desire. The Syntax of Desire is an interdisciplinary examination of the interlacing operation of syntax and desire in three medieval "grammars": theological, linguistic, and poetic.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Catherine Hindson (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: Female performance practice on the fin-de-siècle popular stage of London and Paris
    Publisher: Manchester University Press
    Date of Publication: November 2007

Synopsis: This study explores the connections between popular entertainment and experimental performance between 1880 and 1910. The popular legacies of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London and Paris continue to influence and shape impressions of the modern city. In historicisations of the fin de siècle, the two metropolitan centres have been linked with the leisure and pleasure of commodity culture and the entertainments and diversions that it offered to the modern consumer. The female star performer - simultaneously a product of and a contributor to commodity culture - emerged out of new urban environments. She materialised as an international cultural phenomenon of the fin de siècle.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Stephen James (Department of English)
    Title: Shades of Authority: The Poetry of Lowell, Hill and Heaney
    Publisher: Liverpool University Press
    Date of Publication: October 2007

Synopsis: What is the relationship between poetry and power? Should poetry be considered a mode of authority or an impotent medium? And why is it that the modern poets most commonly regarded as authoritative are precisely those whose works wrestle with a sense of artistic inadequacy? Such questions lie at the heart of this study, prompting fresh insights into three of the most important poets of recent decades: Robert Lowell, Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney. Through attentive close reading and the tracing of dominant motifs in each writer's works, James shows how their responsiveness to matters of political and cultural import lends weight to the idea of poetry as authoritative utterance, as a medium for speaking of and to the world in a persuasive, memorable manner. And yet, as James demonstrates, each poet is exercised by an awareness of his own cultural marginality, even by a sense of the limitations and liabilities of language itself.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Isabella Sandwell (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Religious Identity in Late Antiquity
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press
    Date of Publication: September 2007

Synopsis: Studies of religious interaction in the fourth century AD have often assumed that the categories of 'pagan', 'Christian' and 'Jew' can be straightforwardly applied, and that we can assess the extent of Christianization in the Graeco-Roman period. In contrast, Dr Sandwell tackles the fundamental question of attitudes to religious identity by exploring how the Christian preacher John Chrysostom and the Graeco-Roman orator Libanius wrote about and understood issues of religious allegiance. By comparing the approaches of these men, who were living and working in Antioch at approximately the same time, she strives to get inside the process of religious interaction in a way not normally possible due to the dominance of Christian sources. In so doing she develops new approaches to the study of Libanius' religion, the impact of John Chrysostom's preaching on his audiences and the importance of religious identity to fourth-century individuals.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Alexander Bird (Department of Philosophy)
    Title: Nature's Metaphysics - Laws and Properties
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Date of Publication: August 2007

Synopsis: Nature's Metaphysics argues that a satisfactory philosophy of science requires a metaphysics that is based on the understanding that natural properties are essentially dispositional. Alexander Bird develops a dispositional essentialist account of the laws of nature, defending the claim that laws are metaphysically necessary. Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Robert Bickers (Department of Historical Studies)
    Title: The Boxers, China, and the world
    Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
    Date of Publication: August 2007

Synopsis: In 1900, China chose to take on imperialism by fighting a war with the world on the parched north China plain. This multi-disciplinary volume explores the causes behind what is now known as the Boxer war, examining its particular cruelties and its impact on China, foreign imperialism in China, and on the foreign imagination. The Boxers have often been represented as a force from China's past, resisting an enforced modernity. Here, expert contributors argue that this rebellion was instead a wholly modern resistance to globalizing power, representing new trends in modern China and in international relations. This volume will appeal to readers interested in modern Chinese, East Asian, and European history as well as the history of imperialism, colonialism, warfare, missionary work, and Christianity.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Andrew Bennett (Department of English)
    Title: Wordsworth Writing
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press
    Date of Publication: August 2007

Synopsis: Andrew Bennett challenges the popular conception of Wordsworth as a writer who didn't so much write poetry as compose it aloud or in his head (usually while walking, and preferably while ascending mountains). The act and idea of writing is in fact central to the themes and to the rhetorical texture of Wordsworth's poetry. This wide-ranging study considers various aspects of Wordsworth's compositional practice, including questions of revision and dictation, of monumental inscription and graffiti, of talking and thinking, and of the poet's own theory of composition, and examines the implications of a critical tradition that erroneously assumes that Wordsworth employed exclusively 'oral' modes of composition. For Wordsworth, acts of writing were important dimensions of his poetry and indeed of his sense of personal and poetic identity. Bennett contends that a sustained attention to the question of writing in Wordsworth produces compelling new readings of the major poems.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Sarah Street (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: Queer Screen - A Screen Reader
    Publisher: Routledge
    Date of Publication: May 2007

Synopsis: Queer Screen: A Screen Reader brings together a selection of key articles on queer cinema published over the past two decades in the internationally renowned journal, Screen, with new introductory editorial material from Jackie Stacey and Sarah Street.

Queer Screen features scholarship which has contributed to the emergence of queer theory in the field of screen studies during the last fifteen years, demonstrating how writers in Screen have contributed to developments in queer theory as it relates to a wide range of popular and experimental films and videos.

The book considers a wide range of case studies including popular films such as Boys Don’t Cry, Alien Resurrection, Brief Encounter, Bound, and Rope, as well as experimental films and videos by artists such as Richard Fung, Ulrike Ottinger, Sheila McLaughlin and Derek Jarman.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Nicholas Saunders (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)
    Title: Killing Time: Archaeology and the First World War
    Publisher: The History Press Ltd
    Date of Publication: April 2007

Synopsis: At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Great War stands at the furthest edge of living memory. There are a handful of men alive who fought in the trenches of the Somme and Flanders. Within their own lifetimes, their memories have become epic history. Hardly a month passes without some dramatic and sometimes tragic discovery being made along the killing fields of the Western Front. Poignant remains of British soldiers buried during battle and then forgotten - lying in rows arm in arm, or found crouching at the entrance to a dugout. Whole 'underground cities' of trenches, dugouts, and shelters, preserved in the mud of Flanders - with newspapers and blankets scattered where they were left. There are field hospitals carved out of the chalk country of the Somme, tunnels marked with graffiti by long dead hands, and tons of volatile bombs and gas canisters waiting to explode. Yet, while there are innumerable books on the history of the war, there is not a single book on its archaeology. Nicholas J. Saunders' new book is therefore unique. In an authoritative and accessible way, it would bring together widely scattered discoveries, and offer fresh insights into the human dimension of the war.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Peter Coates (Department of Historical Studies)
    Title: American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species
    Publisher: University of California Press
    Date of Publication: January 2007

Synopsis: Sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose, humans have transported plants and animals to new habitats around the world. Arriving in ever-increasing numbers to American soil, recent invaders have competed with, preyed on, hybridized with, and carried diseases to native species, transforming our ecosystems and creating anxiety among environmentalists and the general public. But is American anxiety over this crisis of ecological identity a recent phenomenon? Charting shifting attitudes to alien species since the 1850s, Peter Coates brings to light the rich cultural and historical aspects of this story by situating the history of immigrant flora and fauna within the wider context of human immigration. Through an illuminating series of particular invasions, including the English sparrow and the eucalyptus tree, what he finds is that we have always perceived plants and animals in relation to ourselves and the polities to which we belong. Setting the saga of human relations with the environment in the broad context of scientific, social, and cultural history, this thought-provoking book demonstrates how profoundly notions of nationality and debates over race and immigration have shaped American understandings of the natural world.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Charles Burdett (Department of Italian)
    Title: Journeys Through Fascism: Italian Travel Writing between the Wars
    Publisher: Berghahn Books
    Date of Publication: 2007

Synopsis: During the twenty years of Mussolini's rule a huge number of travel texts were written of journeys made during the interwar period to the sacred sites of Fascist Italy, Mussolini's newly conquered African empire, Spain during the Civil War, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the America of the New Deal. Examining these observations by writers and journalists, the author throws new light on the evolving ideology of Fascism, how it was experienced and propagated by prominent figures of the time; how the regime created a utopian vision of the Roman past and the imperial future; and how it interpreted the attractions and dangers of other totalitarian cultures. The book helps gain a better understanding of the evolving concepts of imperialism, which were at the heart of Italian Fascism, and thus shows that travel writing can offer an important contribution to historical analysis.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Sarah Street (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination
    Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
    Date of Publication: 2007

Synopsis: Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination presents for the first time a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s; based on a wealth of designers’ drawings, film stills and archival documents, the book offers a new insight into the development and significance of trans-national artistic collaboration during this period. European cinema from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is famous for its attention to detail in terms of set design and visual effect. Focusing on developments in Britain, France, and Germany, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema provides a comprehensive analysis of the practices, styles, and function of cinematic production design during this period, and its influence on subsequent filmmaking patterns.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Samir Okasha (Department of Philosophy)
    Title: Evolution and the Levels of Selection
    Publisher: Clarendon Press
    Date of Publication: November 2006

Synopsis: Does natural selection act primarily on individual organisms, on groups, on genes, or on whole species? Samir Okasha provides a comprehensive analysis of the debate in evolutionary biology over the levels of selection, focusing on conceptual, philosophical and foundational questions. A systematic framework is developed for thinking about natural selection acting at multiple levels of the biological hierarchy; the framework is then used to help resolve outstanding issues. Considerable attention is paid to the concept of causality as it relates to the levels of selection, in particular the idea that natural selection at one hierarchical level can have effects that 'filter' up or down to other levels. Unlike previous work in this area by philosophers of science, full account is taken of the recent biological literature on 'major evolutionary transitions' and the recent resurgence of interest in multi-level selection theory among biologists. Other biological topics discussed include Price's equation, kin and group selection, the gene's eye view, evolutionary game theory, outlaws and selfish genetic elements, species and clade selection, and the evolution of individuality. Philosophical topics discussed include reductionism and holism, causation and correlation, the nature of hierarchical organization, and realism and pluralism.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Nils Langer (Department of German)
    Title: The Making of Bad Language
    Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Group
    Date of Publication:2006

Synopsis: This book is a contribution to the history of non-standard or bad German. The origin and development of standard German was a complex process and many factors were involved in the selection, non-selection and de-selection of variants, as well as the initial promotion of certain varieties of German to supraregional status. The interest here is in non-selection and de-selection of variants and so the study focuses especially on questions such as: Why were certain constructions ignored in the formation of standard German grammar and why were others explicitly judged ill-suited for inclusion in the prestige variety? Who was responsible for these stigmatisations and what reasons were given? And finally, how was the knowledge that one shouldn't use particular constructions transmitted to the language users? At the heart of this study are case studies of 11 morphosyntactic features of bad German as found in a selection of texts produced by norm makers, from 1600 to 2005, all of them salient Zweifelsfälle of modern German.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Pamela King (Department of Philosophy)
    Title: The York Mystery Cycle and the Worship of the City
    Publisher: Boydell and Brewer
    Date of Publication: November 2006

Synopsis: The York Play is the earliest near-complete English civic mystery cycle. It evolved constantly throughout its long performance history, but the text that was recorded in the York Register shows that it was already a mature and elaborate civic festival by the time it was written down.This study uncovers the Cycle's connection with worship in York, in the sense both of devotional practice and of civic honour, informing a particular period in the cultural history of the city. The pageants in the Register show in their different ways how the community which devised and performed the Cycle regarded the celebration of the great summer feast of Corpus Christi. Moreover the principles of selection that give the Cycle its structure reflect the broader pattern of the liturgical calendar, with its other feasts and fasts. The Cycle bears witness not only to the practices of religious observance in York, but also to the ecclesiastical politics in which the city was caught up from the very beginning of the fifteenth century.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Nicholas Saunders (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)
    Title: The Peoples of the Caribbean: An Encyclopedia of Archaeology and Traditional Culture
    Publisher: ABC-CLIO Ltd
    Date of Publication: July 2006

Synopsis: A true "first," this encyclopedia is the only comprehensive guide ever published on the archaeology and traditional culture of the Caribbean. The fascinating, often violent cross-fertilization of cultures in the Caribbean has given rise to such world-renowned traditions as Vodoun, Shango, Rastafarianism, Santería, reggae, and calypso. But the cultural mix in these islands is so rich and varied, its roots so tangled and deep, that scholars have until now covered it piecemeal—island by island, people by people.

In The Peoples of the Caribbean, archaeologist Nicholas J. Saunders assembles for the first time a comprehensive sourcebook on the archaeology, folklore, and mythology of the entire region, charting a story 7,000 years in the making. Drawing on decades of study in the Caribbean and South America, Saunders explores landmark archaeological sites, such as Caguana in Puerto Rico, with its ceremonial architecture and ballcourts, and plantation sites, such as Jamaica's Drax Hall.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Gino Raymond (Department of French)
    Title: Redefining the French Republic
    Publisher: Manchester University Press
    Date of Publication: April 2006

Synopsis: Redefining the French Republic is an innovative work. Explicitly adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the book investigates continuity and change in contemporary French politics, society and culture. The chapters go beyond the familiar question of whether the Republic is acting in accordance with its vocation, to address the issue of whether that vocation is still viable. Drawing on contributions that reflect a variety of methodological approaches, ranging from theoretical speculations and modelling to the interpretation of fieldwork data, this study examines the dynamics of the relationship between the Republic and its constituencies, in the fields of political relations, territorial identities, social movements, public policy and foreign policy, and in each context juxtaposing what is perceived as the model for that relationship with the current reality.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Mike O'Mahony (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Sport in the USSR
    Publisher: Reaktion Books
    Date of Publication: March 2006

Synopsis: 'Sport in the USSR' looks at physical culture within a wide range of Soviet cultural practices, paying special attention to visual culture. In particular it explores the role that physical culture played in the formulation of the Soviet New Person. Here, visual culture was deployed not only to promote the existence of this notional new being, but also to articulate the very process of transformation that brought him or her into existence. Images of sportsmen and women were also widely produced to conflate the leisurely nature of sports practice with the civic duty of voluntary labour, especially during the industrialization drives, and the military defence of the nation. Also examined are such issues as sports spectatorship and participation; the development of the sports parade; the role of fizkultura during military conflict; the deployment of fizkultura as a weapon during the Cold War; and the collapse of the Soviet sports machine.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Jane Griffiths (Department of English)
    Title: John Skelton and Poetic Authority: Defining the Liberty to Speak
    Publisher: Clarendon Press Oxford English Monographs
    Date of Publication: February 2006

Synopsis: John Skelton and Poetic Authority is the first book-length study of Skelton for almost twenty years, and the first to trace the roots of his poetic theory to his practice as a writer and translator. It demonstrates that much of what has been found challenging in his work may be attributed to his attempt to reconcile existing views of the poet's role in society with discoveries about the writing process itself. The result is a highly idiosyncratic poetics that locates the poet's authority decisively within his own person, yet at the same time predicates his 'liberty to speak' upon the existence of an engaged, imaginative audience. Skelton is frequently treated as a maverick, but this book places his theory and practice firmly in the context of later sixteenth as well as fifteenth-century traditions. Focusing on his relations with both past and present readers, it reassess his place in the English literary canon.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Siobhan Shilton (Department of French)
    Title: New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Travel Literature in French: Genre, History, Theory
    Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing
    Date of Publication: January 2006

Synopsis: From the postcolonial perspective of the early twenty-first century, the importance of travel literature, for considerations of national and international cultures and identities, has become increasingly apparent. Travel literature in French has, however, received little critical scrutiny. This book contributes to contemporary reassessments of the form in a number of disciplines, focusing specifically on the discourses and contexts of travel in twentieth-century texts written in French. Its scope is interdisciplinary, involving theoretical and generic considerations as well as a historical overview of colonial and postcolonial texts. The book provides essential reading for all students of travel literature in French - and of travel literature in general.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Mike O'Mahony (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Picasso
    Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
    Date of Publication:2006

Synopsis: 'Picasso' follows the exceptional career of a man who was undeniable the most prolific genius in the history of art. Examining a unique mix of famous and instantly recognizable pieces, along with several lesser-known works, this superb reference book allows the reader to explore the life and work of Picasso, from his earliest blue-period paintings right through to his sculptures and ceramics of later years.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Mike O'Mahony (Department of History of Art)
    Title: American Art
    Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
    Date of Publication:2006

Synopsis: 'American Art' explores the incredible range of modern American art, and looks at the emergence of the United States as a key influence on international art during the twentieth century. From early American Modernism and Regionalism through to the more recent pop Art and Neo-Expressionism styles, the book covers all the key movements and includes works by most of the major artists.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor João Zilhão (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)
    Title: Towards a definition of the Aurignacian
    Publisher: Instituto Portugues de Arqueologia
    Date of Publication: 2006

Synopsis: This volume contains the proceedings of a Lisbon 2002 expert round-table organised by the editors with the purpose of achieving agreement on the definition and periodisation of the Aurignacian. The 20 chapters discuss the characteristics of this technocomplex, an archaeological proxy for modern humans in Europe, from Portugal in the west to Iran the east.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Gavin D'Costa (Department of Theology and Religious Studies)
    Title: Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation
    Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
    Date of Publication: December 2005

Synopsis: This imaginative study rethinks the nature of theology and its role in universities. The book sketches out a fascinating project using examples from US and UK institutions, whereby theology becomes a transformative force within universities. It imagines what a Christian university, in which all disciplines have been theologized, would look like and feeds into discussions about the religious identity of denominationally-linked colleges and universities. The book forms part of a wider attempt to imagine a vital public role for theology that enables it to serve both the Church and the wider community.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Ruth Coates (Department of Russian)
    Title: Christianity in Bakhtin
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press
    Date of Publication: November 2005

Synopsis: This book examines the influence of Christianity on the thought and work of the great Russian theorist Mikhael Bakhtin, paying particular attention to the motifs of God the Creator, the Fall, the Incarnation and Christian love. This is the first full-length work to approach Bakhtin from a religious perspective, and introduces the reader to a vitally important but hitherto ignored aspect of his work. In this context Ruth Coates presents readings of Bakhtin very different from those of Marxist and Structuralist critics.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Sarah Street (Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television)
    Title: Black Narcissus - Turner Classic Movies British Film Guide
    Publisher: I. B. Tauris
    Date of Publication: November 2005

Synopsis: Black Narcissus, now heralded as a masterpiece, is a landmark film in the influential canon of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. With the centenary of Powell's birth in 2005 this timely book--the first dedicated exclusively to the film--draws on archival documents, original set drawings and stills to demonstrate its remarkable achievements, both as a production and as a vehicle for ideas. Looking at the film's enduring images of both place and gender, Sarah Street also examines Black Narcissus as a masterly technical accomplishment, as well as a meditation on the end of empire. Looking too at the film's controversial reception by international critics and censors, and its subsequent impact on experimental filmmakers, Street explores issues of technique, style, performance and interpretation to reveal the continued relevance of the film today.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Genevieve Liveley (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Ovid: Love Songs
    Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
    Date of Publication: October 2005

Synopsis: The most prolific of Roman poets, Ovid was born in 43 BC and died in exile on the Black Sea in 17 AD, banished by the Emperor Augustus. As well as his famous Metamorphoses (the subject of another book in this series) he produced a large body of elegiac poetry, the Amores, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, Heroides, Fasti, Tristia and Ex Ponto, all of which are accessibly discussed here in Genevieve Liveley's important re-evaluation of the poet's politics, poetics and erotics. She examines the impact on Ovid of Augustus' programmes for social and political reform, the role of genre, allusion and intertextuality in his writings, and the tensions underlying his representations of gender and sexuality. Finally she assesses responses to Ovid's elegiac works by later love poets and writers, and reflects on the continued relevance and readability of his work for a twenty-first century audience.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Paul Williams (Department of Theology and Religious Studies)
    Title: Songs of Love, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama
    Publisher: I.B. Tauris
    Date of Publication: June 2005

Synopsis: The Sixth Dalai Lama (1683-1706) refused to take full monastic vows, returned the vows he had already taken, and loved women, alcohol and archery with a passion that perhaps suggests he had a premonition of his early death at the age of 24. He also wrote love poetry, poetry that has survived in a Tibetan world where secular verse generally does not, precisely because he was the Dalai Lama. In this fascinating and completely original book, Professor Williams aims to make the Sixth Dalai Lama and his verses accessible to those with no background in the study of Buddhism or Tibet. He also offers a completely new translation of the extant erotic poems, which reveal a rich and complex personality. This first translation to be based on the latest critical edition and accompanied by hints on how to read the verses, as well as explanations of obscure points or allusions, will be of great interest to those desiring to learn more about eastern religion and spirituality.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn (Department of History of Art)
    Title: Beauty and Art 1750-2000
    Publisher: Oxford University Press
    Date of Publication: May 2005

Synopsis: What do we mean when we call a work of art `beautiful`? How have artists responded to changing notions of the beautiful? Which works of art have been called beautiful, and why? Fundamental and intriguing questions to artists and art lovers, but ones that are all too often ignored in discussions of art today. Prettejohn argues that we simply cannot afford to ignore these questions. Charting over two hundred years of western art, she illuminates the vital relationship between our changing notions of beauty and specific works of art, from the works of Kauffman to Whistler, Ingres to Rossetti, Cézanne to Jackson Pollock, and concludes with a challenging question for the future: why should we care about beauty in the twenty-first century?

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Susan Harrow (Department of French)
    Title: The Material, the Real, and the Fractured Self: Subjectivity and Representation from Rimbaud to Réda
    Publisher: University of Toronto Press
    Date of Publication: September 2004

Synopsis: In The Material, the Real, and the Fractured Self, Susan Harrow explores the fascinating interrelation of subjectivity, materiality, and representation in the poetry and related texts of four modern French writers: Arthur Rimbaud, Guillaume Apollinaire, Francis Ponge, and Jacques Réda. She demonstrates the richness and the relevance of modern French poetry for today's readers, putting contemporary thought to work on the fractured self emerging in the post-Baudelairian lyric.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor Gillian Clark (Department of Classics and Ancient History)
    Title: Christianity and Roman Society
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press
    Date of Publication: 2004

Synopsis:Early Christianity in the context of Roman society raises important questions for historians, sociologists of religion and theologians alike. This work explores the differing perspectives arising from a changing social and academic culture. Key issues concerning early Christianity are addressed, such as how early Christian accounts of pagans, Jews and heretics can be challenged and the degree to which Christian groups offered support to their members and to those in need. The work examines how non-Christians reacted to the spectacle of martyrdom and to Christian reverence for relics. Questions are also raised about why some Christians encouraged others to abandon wealth, status and gender-roles for extreme ascetic lifestyles and about whether Christian preachers trained in classical culture offered moral education to all or only to the social elite. The interdisciplinary and thematic approach offers the student of early Christianity a comprehensive treatment of its role and influence in Roman society.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr Stephen Cheeke (Department of English)
    Title: Byron and Place: History, Translation, Nostalgia
    Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
    Date of Publication: September 2003

Synopsis: This new study of Byron explores the 'geo-historical' - places where historically significant events have occurred. Cheeke examines the ways in which the notion of being there becomes the central claim and shaping force in Byron's poetry up to 1818. He goes on to explore the concept of being in-between which characterizes Byron's 1818-21 poetry. Finally, Byron's complex nostalgia for England, his sense of having been there, is read in relation to a broader critique of memory, homesickness and place-attachment.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor David Punter (Department of English)
    Title: The Gothic (Blackwell Guides to Literature)
    Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
    Date of Publication: 2003

Synopsis: This guide provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. The guide is divided into four parts. The opening section explains the origins and development of the term ‘Gothic’, considers the particular features of the Gothic within specific periods, and explores its evolution in both literary and non–literary forms, such as art, architecture and film. The following section contains extended entries on major writers of the Gothic, pointing to the most significant features of their work. The third section features authoritative readings of key works, ranging from Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto to Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. Finally, the text considers recurrent concerns of the Gothic such as persecution and paranoia, key motifs such as the haunted castle, and figures such as the vampire and the monster. Supplementary material includes a chronology of key Gothic texts, listing literature and film from 1757 to 2000, and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

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  • Author/Editor: Dr John Kieschnick (Department of Theology and Religious Studies)
    Title: The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture
    Publisher: Princeton University Press
    Date of Publication: 2003

Synopsis: From the first century, when Buddhism entered China, the foreign religion shaped Chinese philosophy, beliefs, and ritual. At the same time, Buddhism had a profound effect on the material world of the Chinese. This wide-ranging study shows that Buddhism brought with it a vast array of objects big and small--relics treasured as parts of the body of the Buddha, prayer beads, and monastic clothing--as well as new ideas about what objects could do and how they should be treated. Kieschnick argues that even some everyday objects not ordinarily associated with Buddhism--bridges, tea, and the chair--on closer inspection turn out to have been intimately tied to Buddhist ideas and practices. Long after Buddhism ceased to be a major force in India, it continued to influence the development of material culture in China, as it does to the present day.

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  • Author/Editor: Professor João Zilhão (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)
    Title: The Chronology of the Aurignacian and of the Transitional Technocomplexes: Dating, Stratigraphies, Cultural Implications
    Publisher: Instituto Portugues de Arqueologia
    Date of Publication: 2003

Synopsis: This volume contains the proceedings of a symposium organised by the editors in the framework of the Liège 2001 congress of the IUPPS (International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences). The 21 chapters cover the archaeology of Europe in the period between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago during which Neandertals were replaced by modern humans and figurative art appeared for the first time in human history.

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