November 2005

Armstrong, Paul

Play and the politics of reading; the social uses of modernist form. Cornell Univ. Press 2005 207p $39.95

ISBN 0-8014-4325-3; LC 2004-18217

The author considers texts by Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Henry James, and James Joyce as examples of narrative strategies seeking to question the social issues that existed in their communities and the world.

Burton, Jonathan

Traffic and turning; Islam and English drama, 1579-1624. University of Del. Press 2005 319p $55.00

ISBN 0-87413-913-9; LC 2004-30755

The author examines how the various images of Islam and the Muslim peoples influenced productions by English authors during the early modern period.

Cavigioli, Rita C.

Women of a certain age; contemporary Italian fictions of female aging. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press 2005 270p $50.00

ISBN 0-8386-4065-6; LC 2005-5794

Focusing on the 1990s, the author discusses, from sociological, cultural, and historical perspectives, how age consciousness affects narrative strategies of Italian women’s fiction in the last century.

Clarke, Cheryl

"After Mecca"; women poets and the Black Arts movement. Rutgers Univ. Press 2005 206p $60.00, pa $21.95

ISBN 0-8135-3405-4; 0-8135-3406-2; LC 2004-7530

The author explores the relationship between the Black Arts movement and black women writers of the sixties and early seventies. Among the authors studied are Gwendolyn Brooks, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Sonia Sanchez.

The Cold War; a military history; edited by Robert Cowley. Random House 2005 478p $27.95

ISBN 0-375-50910-0; LC 2005-42138

In this examination of the nearly fifty-year undeclared war between the United States and the Soviet Union, contributors profile such topics as Dien Bien Phu, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of Pigs, as well as such military and civil leaders as Harry S. Truman, Dean Acheson, Nikita Krushchev, John F. Kennedy, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Richard M. Nixon.

Considering the radiance; essays on the poetry of A. R. Ammons; editors, David Burak and Roger Gilbert. Norton 2005 365p $27.95

ISBN 0-393-05999-5; LC 2004-27491

Alice Fulton, Helen Vendler, John Ashbery, Harold Bloom, and Josephine Miles are among the writers paying tribute to the professional and personal influence of Ammons’s poetry.

Corry, Jennifer

Perceptions of magic in medieval Spanish literature. Lehigh Univ. Press 2005 258p $48.50

ISBN 0-934223-81-5; LC 2005-1311

The author investigates the opinions and attitudes toward magical practice held by many writers in medieval Spain. The Moorish invasion of 711, Christianity, and the Spanish Inquisition are some of the subjects studied that contributed to these perceptions.

Cosmopolitan modernisms; edited by Kobena Mercer. The MIT Press 2005 208p (Annotating art’s histories) pa $30.00

ISBN 0-262-63321-3; LC 2005-42808

Contributors examine the various ways different nations and cultures experienced a shared history of art and ideas, from colonial India to European modernism in the 1930s to Caribbean and African American artists in the New York art world of the 1940s and 1950s and North American minimalism of the 1960s.

Erotikon: essays on eros, ancient and modern; edited by Shadi Bartsch and Thomas Bartscherer. The University of Chicago Press 2005 338p $29.00

ISBN 0-226-03838-6; LC 2004-22687

Contributors discuss the nature, history, and power of eros, covering such areas as ancient philosophy, baroque architecture, modern literature, and Hollywood cinema.

Guyer, Paul

Values of beauty; historical essays in aesthetics. Cambridge Univ. Press 2005 359p $70.00, pa $27.99

ISBN 0-521-84490-8; 0-521-60669-1; LC 2004-24332

The author, exploring connections between aesthetics and morality, considers the views of such figures as Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Alexander Gerard, and John Stuart Mill.

Henry Adams & the need to know; edited by William Merrill Decker & Earl N. Harbert. Massachusetts Historical Society (dist. by the University of Va. Press) 2005 383p (Massachusetts Historical Society studies in American history and culture) $50.00

ISBN 0-934909-87-3; LC 2005-2829

Contributors discuss the multi-faceted career of the great-grandson of John and Abigail Adams and his intellectual inquisitiveness in such areas as the Civil War, party politics, the rise of corporations, new technologies, and the globalization of finance capitalism.

Horner, Avril and Sue Zlosnik

Gothic and the comic turn. Palgrave Macmillan 2005 205p $65.00

ISBN 0-333-77151-6; LC 2004-52099

The authors study the use and value of comedy in Gothic fiction from the late Romantic period to the late twentieth century. Writers examined include Djuna Barnes, Muriel Spark, Maria Edgeworth, Evelyn Waugh, George du Maurier, and Angela Carter.

Howard, Donald E.

The role of reading in nine famous lives. McFarland & Company 2005 199p pa $35.00

ISBN 0-7864-2133-9; LC 2005-3506

The author, explores the role that reading has played throughout history, considers how books influenced the achievements of such individuals as Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Susan B. Anthony, and Nelson Mandela.

Ingram, Allan

Cultural constructions of madness in eighteenth century writing; representing the insane; [by] Allan Ingram with Michelle Faubert. Palgrave Macmillan 2005 245p $74.95

ISBN 1-4039-4595-0; LC 2004-54656

The author offers representations of insanity, and such associated issues as gender, personal identity, and performance, in texts by Pope, Fielding, Sterne, Swift, and Wollstonecraft, among others.

Hustvedt, Siri

Mysteries of the rectangle; essays on painting. Princeton Architectural Press 2005 179p $24.95

ISBN 1-56898-518-5; LC 2004-29909

The author offers interpretations on various works of art, including Giorgone’s The tempest, Goya’s The third of May, and Vermeer’s Woman with a pearl necklace.

Madureira, Luis

Cannibal modernities; postcoloniality and the avant-garde in Caribbean and Brazilian literature. University of Va. Press 2005 255p (New World studies) $55.00, pa $19.50

ISBN 0-8139-2375-1; 0-8139-2376-X; LC 2005-7876

Examining the relationship between Caribbean and Latin American literary and cultural production, the author assesses the problem of origins and originality in western modernity.

Out of the shadows; African American baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson; edited and with an introduction by Bill Kirwin. University of Neb. Press 2005 226p $17.95

ISBN 0-8032-7825-X; LC 2005-4661

In this overview of African American baseball history, essays address such topics as baseball’s importance to the African American community, the turmoil surrounding the integration of baseball by Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe, and the influence of female owners on the Negro Leagues.

Race and religion in the postcolonial British detective story; ten essays; edited by Julie H. Kim. McFarland & Company 2005 244p pa $35.00

ISBN 0-7864-2175-4; LC 2005-9220

Contributors assess how the changing nature of British culture influenced British detective fiction during the twentieth century. Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Peter Ackroyd, Caroline Graham, and Philip Kerr are among the authors examined.

Rosen, Alan

Sounds of defiance; the Holocaust, multilingualism, and the problems of English. University of Neb. Press 2005 248p $45.00

ISBN 0-8032-3962-9; LC 2005-1442

The author chronicles the evolving role of the English language in texts about the Holocaust, from the Second World War to the 1990s.

Sapolsky, Robert M.

Monkeyluv and other essays on our lives as animals. Scribner 2005 209p $24.00

ISBN 0-7432-6015-6; LC 2005-42534

The author, exploring the science of behavioral biology, addresses the questions of who we are, why we are, and how we are.

Shirley Jackson: essays on the literary legacy; edited by Bernice M. Murphy. McFArland & Company 2005 296p pa $35.00

ISBN 0-7864-2312-9; LC 2005-11460

Contributors present various perspectives on such works as The road through the wall, The haunting of Hill House, and We have always lived here, and topics ranging from Jackson’s domestic fiction to ethics, eschatology, and cosmology.

Spain beyond Spain; modernity, literary history, and national identity; edited by Brad Epps and Luis Fernandez Cifuentes. Bucknell Univ. Press 2005 388p $63.50

ISBN 0-8387-5583-6; LC 2004-59591

Scholars of modern Spanish literary and cultural studies from Spain, the United States, and Great Britain focus on such issues as literary history, contemporary theory, geo-politics, and the problem of what constitutes Spain and what counts as Spanish.

Tracing the autobiographical; edited by Marlene Kadar, Linda Warley, Jeanne Perreault, and Susanna Egan. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press 2005 276p pa $32.95

ISBN 0-88920-476-4

Contributors investigate how the language of autobiography can be traced to such media and documents as a deportation list, an art exhibit, reality TV, Websites and chat rooms, a play, and government memos.

Vernacular modernism; Heimat, globalization, and the built environment; edited by Maiken Umbach and Bernd Huppauf. Stanford Univ. Press 2005 265p $60.00, pa $24.95

ISBN 0-8047-5154-4; 0-8047-5343-1; LC 2005-9493

This collection of essays addresses differences between modern, internationalized, and premodern architectural practice.

Wall, Cheryl A.

Worrying the line; Black women writers, lineage, and literary tradition. The University of North Carolina Press 2005 309p (Gender and American culture) $49.95, pa $19.95

ISBN 0-8078-2927-7; 0-8078-5586-3; LC 2004-18014

The author explores how both fiction and nonfiction writing by African American women in the twentieth century were influenced by earlier writers of varying ethnicities. Toni Morrison, Lucille Clifton, Alice Walker, Gayle Jones, Gloria Naylor, and Paule Marshall are among the writers studied.