Ambiguity in the Western mind; edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Patrick Messina, and Marc Stier. Peter Lang 2005 248p $75.95, pa $ 32.95

ISBN 0-8204-6380-9; ISBN 0-8204-6376-0; LC 2005-22904

This collection of essays considers the conceptual relevance of ambiguity in terms of the "Great books" and ideas that have contributed to the development of Western civilization. Among the texts discussed are Oedipus tyrannos, Hamlet, War and peace, and Huckleberry Finn.

Applied anthropology; domains of application; edited by Satish Kedia and John van Willigen. Praeger Pubs. 2005 370p $149.95, pa $34.95

ISBN 0-275-97841-9; 0-275-97842-7; LC 2005-17486

Contributors explore how anthropologists use their skills and knowledge in various settings to inform policy and initiate action for the many social, economic, health, and technological problems that communities face.

Artists of power; Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and their enduring impact on U.S. foreign policy; edited by William N. Tilchin and Charles E. Neu; foreword by William R. Keylor. Praeger Security International 2006 196p $139.95

ISBN 0-275-97067-1; LC 2005-19179

Essays discuss how Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson used foreign policy as well as personal diplomacy to achieve their diplomatic goals.

Bryson, J. Scott

The west side of any mountain; place, space, and ecopoetry. University of Iowa Press 2005 156p $27.95

ISBN 0-87745-955-X; LC 2005-47011

The author, examining the relationship between place and space in contemporary nature poetry, offers readings of works by such ecopoets as Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, and W. S. Merwin.

Caribbean literature and the environment; between nature and culture; edited by Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey, Renee K. Gosson, George B. Handley. University of Va. Press 2005 303p (New World studies) $59.50, pa $22.50

ISBN 0-8139-2373-5; 0-8139-2372-7; LC 2005-7615

In this exploration of the relationship between human and natural history, essays address the environmental impact of colonial and plantation economies, biotic and cultural creolization processes, and aesthetic issues concerning tourism and globalization.

Cotsell, Michael

The theater of trauma; American modernist drama and the psychological struggle for the American mind, 1900-1930. Peter Lang 2005 377p $80.95

ISBN 0-8204-7466-5; LC 2004-21355

The author investigates the psychological aspects of trauma and its consequences, such as hysteria and dissociation, through the works of such theorists as Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet, William James, Morton Prince, and W.E.B. DuBois.

Death and religion in a changing world; Kathleen Garces-Foley, editor. M.E. Sharpe 2006 322p $72.95, pa $27.95

ISBN 0-7656-1221-6; 0-7656-1222-4; LC 2005-9185

Contributors consider the funeral and burial rites of various religions, and how their actions illustrate the changing religious practices in a modernizing world. Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Protestantism are among the religions surveyed.

Docufictions: essays on the intersection of documentary and fictional filmmaking; edited by Gary D. Rhodes and John Parris Springer. McFarland & Co. 2006 294p pa $39.95

ISBN 0-7864-2184-3; LC 2005-12767

Contributors study how documentary uses of cinema have influenced such films and shows as M*A*S*H, Citizen Kane, This is Spinal Tap!, and Zelig. Topics include the industrial film as faux documentary, reality television, mockumentaries, and the fear that evolved from 1950s science fiction films.

Ekphrasis in the age of Cervantes; edited by Frederick A. de Armas. Bucknell Univ. Press 2005 241p $50.00

ISBN 0-8387-5624-7; LC 2005-9238

This collection of essays explores how the technique of visual writing during the Spanish Golden Age foregrounded the verbal as a mnemonic, decorative, and didactic device.

Gevirtz, Karen Bloom

Life after death; widows and the English novel, Defoe to Austen. University of Del. Press 2005 218p $46.00

ISBN 0-87413-923-6; LC 2005-3462

The author demonstrates how, through the depiction of the widow character, eighteenth-century novelists reacted to Britain’s shift from an agricultural nation to a trade-based one. Among the texts studied are Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Jane Austen’s Emma, and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders.

Handler, Richard

Critics against culture; anthropological observers of mass society. University of Wis. Press 2005 224p $35.00

ISBN 0-299-21370-6; LC 2005-11175

Exploring anthropology’s early involvement with the study of American society, the author examines the works and theories of such anthropologists as Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Jules Henry.

Haslam, Jason

Fitting sentences; identity in nineteenth-and twentieth-century prison narratives. University of Toronto Press 2005 264p $60.00

ISBN 0-8020-3833-6

Reading texts by Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Jacobs, Oscar Wilde, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Constance Lytton, among others, the author explores the ways in which these writers redefined social power structures, especially within the confines of the prison itself.

Himmelfarb, Gertrude

The moral imagination; from Edmund Burke to Lionel Trilling. Ivan R. Dee 2006 259p $26.00

ISBN 1-56663-624-8; LC 2005-19838

In this assessment of the minds and lives of such thinkers as Winston Churchill, Edmund Burke, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Lionel Trilling, and Benjamin Disraeli, the author reflects on such topics as politics and literature, religion and society, and marriage and sex.

Kim, Yeon-Soo

The family album; histories, subjectivities, and immigration in contemporary Spanish culture. Bucknell Univ. Press 2005 268p $49.50

ISBN 0-8387-5610-7; LC 2005-5802

The author studies the various ways the family album has been used to represent sociocultural concerns as well as generate nostalgia of one’s own version of the past. Films, narratives, paintings, and a photographic exhibition are included in this analysis.

Lee, Susanna

A world abandoned by God; narrative and secularism. Bucknell Univ. Press 2006 197p $44.50

ISBN 0-8387-5609-3; LC 2005-12254

Examining the idea and experience of secularism, the author concentrates on five canonical French and Russian novels of the 19th century: Stendhal’s The red and the black, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Ivan Turgenev’s A nest of gentry, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Bewitched, and Dostoevsky’s Demons.

Magistrale, Tony

Abject terrors; surveying themodern and postmodern horror film. Peter Lang 2005 213p pa $29.95

ISBN 0-8204-7056-2; LC 2005-7036

In this overview of the modern horror film, the author addresses the psychological appeal of the horror film from social, historical, economic, and political perspectives. Among the films covered are The cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dracula, Interview with the vampire, Psycho, The birds, The exorcist, Panic room, The shining, Eyes wide shut, Halloween, A nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas chainsaw massacre, Friday the 13th, and Scream.

McEnteer, James

Shooting the truth; the rise of American political documentaries. Praeger Pubs. 2006 196p $39.95

ISBN 0-275-98760-4; LC 2005-19270

The author explores the political evolution of American nonfiction films through the works of four documentary filmmakers: Barbara Kopple, Michael Moore, Errol Morris, and Robert Greenwald.

Moraru, Christian

Memorial discourse; reprise and representation in postmodernism. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press 2005 282p $52.50

ISBN 0-8386-4086-9; LC 2005-10155

The author examines the significance of cultural memory within texts by such writers and theorists as Michel Foucault, Jaques Derrida, Thomas Pynchon, Kathy Acker, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Vladimir Nabokov.

The New queer aesthetic on television; essays on recent programming; edited by James R. Keller and Leslie Stratyner. McFarland & Co. 2006 216p pa $32.00

ISBN 0-7864-2390-0; LC 2005-29556

Contributors discuss the new commercial acceptance of homosexuality within mainstream media as evidenced in such shows as Will and Grace, Queer as folk, and The L word.

Scandalous truths; essays by and about Susan Howatch; edited by Bruce Johnson and Charles A. Huttar. Susquehanna Univ. Press 2005 293p $53.00

ISBN 1-57591-096-9; LC 2005-11817

This collection of essays offers Howatch’s own articulations as well as those of literary scholars on narrative methods, writing style, epistemology, and expansions of genre.

Southwest archaeology in the twentieth century; edited by Linda S. Cordell and Don D.Fowler. The University of Utah Press 2005 300p $45.00

ISBN 0-87480-825-1; LC 2005-17157

Contributors assess the influence on the American Southwest of such topics as field schools, cultural resource management, ethnographic analogy, and the presence of American Indians living traditionally on their ancestral lands.

Tinsley, Barbara Sher

Reconstructing western civilization; irreverent essays on antiquity. Susquehanna Univ. Press 2006 392p $55.00

ISBN 1-57591-095-0; LC 2005-10889

The author shares her thoughts on the tragicomic aspects of men and women from Paleolithic through early Christian times. Intolerance and spirituality, sex and gender, and poverty and greed are among the subjects explored.

Weinbrot, Howard D.

Aspects of Samuel Johnson; essays on his arts, mind, afterlife, and politics. University of Del. Press 2005 417p $40.00

ISBN 0-87413-874-4; LC 2005-3464

Examining Johnson’s roles as lexicographer, poet, prose stylist, and literary and political thinker, the author shows how Johnson changed his goals, rhetoric, and characterization as he moved from one project to the other.

Young, David

Six modernist moments in poetry. University of Iowa Press 2006 175p $29.95

ISBN 0-87745-954-1; LC 2005-43913

The author discusses the provenance of everyday world practices in poems by Eugenio Montale, Marianne Moore, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats.

Yu, Yi-Lin

Mother, she wrote; matrilineal narratives in contemporary women’s writing. Peter Lang 2005 237p pa $29.95

ISBN 0-8204-6900-9; LC 2003-13707

The author explores the significance and commonality of mother-daughter relationships in texts by such writers as Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Amy Tan, Joy Kogawa, Margaret Drabble, and Margaret Forster, given their differences of race, class, culture, and geographical and historical locations.