February 2006

Assmann, Jan

Religion and cultural memory: ten studies; translated by Rodney Livingstone. Stanford Univ. Press 2006 222p (Cultural memory in the present) $60.00; pa $21.95

ISBN 0-8047-4522-6; 0-8047-4523-4; LC 2005-24771

Focuses on cultural memory from the Egyptians, Babylonians, and the Osage Indians down to recent controversies about memorializing the Holocaust in Germany, the role of memory in the current disputes between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, and between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Bernstein, J. M.

Against voluptuous bodies: late modernism and the meaning of painting. Stanford Univ. Press 2006 400p $70.00; pa $27.95

ISBN 0-8047-4895-0; 0-8047-4895-0; LC 2005-12303

Discusses the criticism of Lessing, Kant, Schiller, Schlegel, Adorno, Stanley Cavell, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, and Arthur Danto, as well as the work of artists Pieter de Hooch, Jackson Pollack, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, and Chaim Soutine.

Berry, Wendel

The way of ignorance and other essays by Wendell Berry. Shoemaker and Hoard 2005 180p $24.00

ISBN 1-59376-077-9; LC 2005-12294

Topics include secrecy vs. rights, individualism, community, environmentalism, and agriculture.

Booker, M. Keith

Alternate Americas: science fiction film and American culture. Praeger 2006 274p il $49.95

ISBN 0-275-98395-1; LC 2005-32303

Forbidden planet, 2001: a space odyssey, Star wars, Alien, Blade runner, and Robocop are among the films analyzed.

Circumpolar lives and livelihood: a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender and subsistence; edited by Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach. University of Nebraska Press 2006 330p il $55.00

ISBN 0-8032-2606-3; LC 2005-21947

Essays discuss the artic societies of the Chipewyan, Khanty, Sámi, and Inupiaq.

E. T. culture: anthropology in outerspaces; edited by Debbora Battaglia. Duke University Press 2005 281p il $79.95; pa $22.95

ISBN 0-8223-3621-9; 0-8223-3632-4; LC 2005-25677

Contributors to this volume show how discussions and representations of otherworldly beings express concerns about racial and ethnic differences, the anxieties and fascination associated with modern technologies, and alienation from the inner workings of government.

Early modern Europe: from crisis to stability; edited by Philip Benedict and Myron P. Gutmann. University of Delaware Press 2005 318p $55.00

ISBN 0-87413-906-6; LC 2005-12123

Military technology, original sin, witchcraft, the Bohemian crisis, and the Spanish monarchy are among some of the topics discussed.

Higginbotham, Don

Revolution in America: considerations and comparisons. University of Virginia Press 2005 230p $49.50; pa $19.50

ISBN 0-8139-2383-2; 0-8139-2384-0; LC 2005-5033

Essays examine the Revolutionary era through the perspectives of war, leadership, state formation, the creation of a federal system, the militia, West Point, George Washington’s relationships with women, and other topics.

Hollinger, David A.

Cosmopolitanism and solidarity: studies in ethnoracial, religious, and professional affiliation in the United States. University of Wisconsin Press 2006 213p (Studies in America thought and culture) $29.95

ISBN 0-299-21660-8; LC 2005-32876

The author looks at topics such as ethnoracial mixture, academic freedom, cultural conflict, and the Veblen thesis.

Hustvedt, Siri

A plea for Eros: essays. Picador 2006 228p pa $15.00

ISBN 0-312-42553-8; LC 2005-44616

Includes discussions on Charles Dickens, The great Gatsby, The Bostonians, and the aftermath of 9/11.

Leonard, Keith D.

Fettered genius: the African American bardic poet from slavery to civil rights. University of Virginia Press 2006 283p $55.00; pa $19.50

ISBN 0-8139-2505-3; 0-8139-2506-1; LC 2005-14853

Phillis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, and Melvin B. Tolson are the poets discussed.

Moseley, Marcus

Being for myself alone: origins of Jewish autobiography. Stanford Univ. Press 2006 650p $70.00

ISBN 0-8047-5157-9; LC 2004-18649

The author discusses the influence of Rousseau, the works of Abraham Yagel, Leon Modena, Michah Berdichevsky, and other topics.

Nineteenth-Century America: essays in honor of Paul H. Bergeron; edited by W. Todd Groce and Stephen V. Ash; with an afterword by Paul H. Bergeron. University of Tennessee Press 2005 188p $40.00

ISBN 1-57233-441-X; LC 2005-7240

Contributors explore such topics as the sabbath controversy, President Andrew Johnson, nativist conspiracy theories, and Robert Lewis Dabney.

O’Rourke, James

Sex, lies, and autobiography: the ethics of confessions. University of Virginia Press 2006 215p $35.00

ISBN 0-8139-2512-6; LC 2005-16401

Essays demonstrate the ethical legacy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in a series of English-language texts, and how Rousseau's doubts about the possibility of ethical behavior in everyday life shadows the first-person narratives of William Wordsworth's Prelude, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Villette, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

The Oxford handbook of ethical theory; edited by David Copp. Oxford Univ. Press 2006 665p $74.00

ISBN 0-19-514779-0; LC 2004-65411

Topics include moral realism, ethical naturalism, biology and ethics, moral relativism, and free will.

Reading Erskine Caldwell: new essays; edited by Robert L. McDonald. McFarland 2006 239p pa $35.00

ISBN 0-7864-2343-9; LC 2005-35056

Essays discuss Caldwell as humorist, social commentator, modernist, and revolutionary novelist, as well as examine his themes and tropes (political images, social injustice, the environment, ideological struggles) and his use of artistic devices (short stories, cubist strategies, repetition).

Richards, Phillip M.

Black heart: the moral life of recent African American letters. Lang, P. 2006 252p (Intersections in communications and culture; v.12) pa $32.95

ISBN 0-8204-7122-4; LC 2005-15548

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Michael Dyson, Karla Holloway, Charles Chesnutt, and Toni Morrison are among the authors analyzed.

Rituals and patterns in children’s lives; edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson. University of Wisconsin Press 2006 285p $45.00

ISBN 0-87972-873-6; LC 2004-25632

Contributors examine trick-or-treating, flower girls, bedtime stories, bar and bat mitvah, childhood costumes, and other topics.

Schelling, Thomas C.

Strategies of commitment and other essays. Harvard Univ. Press 2006 341p $39.95

ISBN 0-674-01929-6; LC 2005-52786

The author explores topics such as smoking and other addictions, global warming, segregation, nuclear war, rationality, economics, and Viet Nam.

The soul of tragedy: essays on Athenian drama; edited by Victoria Pedrick and Steven M. Oberhelman. University of Chicago Press 2005 323p $56.00; pa $22.50

ISBN 0-226-63559-5; 0-226-65306-4; LC 2005-15646

Analyzes such works as Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Bacchae, Aeschylus’ Suppliants, and Wole Soyinka’s The bacchae of Euripides.

Thinking with James Carey: essays on communications, transportation, history; edited by Jeremy Packer and Craig Roberston. Lang, P. 2006 234p (Intersections in communications and culture; v. 15) pa $26.95

ISBN 0-8204-7405-3; LC 2005-18066

Essays discuss relationships between transportation and communication, technology and ideology, spatial materialism, the U. S. passport, and other topics.

Thompson, Carlyle Van

Eating the Black body: miscegenation as sexual consumption in African American literature and culture. Lang, P. 2006 231p (African American literature and culture; v. 10) pa $29.95

ISBN 0-8204-7931-4; LC 2005-13511

Examines such works as Richard Wright’s Between the world and me, John Oliver Killens’ Youngblood and Gayl Jones’ Corregidora.

Tremper, Ellen

I’m no angel: the blonde in fiction and film. University of Virginia Press 2006 288p il (Cultural frames, framing culture) $55.00; pa $20.00

ISBN 0-8139-2521-5; 0-8139-2520-7; LC 2005-17751

The works of Brontë, Thackeray, and Elliot, as well as actresses Marilyn Monroe, Mae West and Jean Harlow are among the topics discussed.

Weinrich, Harald

The linguistics of lying and other essays; translated and introduced by Jane K. Brown and Marshall Brown. University of Washington Press 2005 148p (Literary conjugations) pa $18.95

ISBN 0-295-98549-6; LC 2005-16955

The author discusses different ways in which language is untrue and forges links between linguistic and literary categories on the one hand and ethics and good manners on the other.

Within the landscape: essays on nineteenth-century American art and culture; edited by Phillip Earenfight and Nancy Siegel. The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College 2005 213p il pa $29.95

ISBN 0-9768488-0-5; LC 2005-26397

Analyzes the works of such artists and authors as Thomas Cole, Sanford Gifford, Washington Irving, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.