April 2005

Allen, Carol

Peculiar passages: black women playwrights, 1875-2000. Peter Lang 2005 295p pa $32.95

ISBN 0-8204-7619-6; LC 2004-20875

This book analyzes the works of such playwrights as Angelina Weld Grimke, Pauline Hopkins, Alice Childress, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange within the contexts of minstrelsy, the Passion Play, and the black arts movement.

Anglo-Saxon England 33; edited by Michael Lapidge [et al.]. Cambridge Univ. Press 2004 393p $80

ISBN 0-521-84905-5

Canada and the First World War; essays in honour of Robert Craig Brown; edited by David Mackenzie. University of Toronto Press 2005 452p $85.00; pa $35.00

ISBN 0-8020-3573-6; 0-8020-8445-1

Essays examine how Canadians experienced the war and how issues of race, class, politics, and region affected their experiences.

Caputi, Jane

Goddesses and monsters; women, myth, power, and popular culture. The University of Wisconsin Press; Popular Press 2004 468p $65.00; pa $24.95

ISBN 0-299-19620-8; 0-299-19624-0; LC 2003-20572

The author discusses the portrayal of women in television, film, and contemporary literature, as well as in ancient Greek mythology. Racism, feminism, serial killers, and nuclear war are among the topics covered.

Cawelti, John G.

Mystery, violence, and popular culture. The University of Wisconsin Press; Popular Press 2004 410p $65.00; pa $21.95

ISBN 0-299-19630-5; 0-299-19634-8; LC 2003-20569

Homer, Shakespeare, the Lone Ranger, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Alfred Hitchcock, and Andy Warhol are some of the people and subjects explored in this survey of the political, psychological, and sociological state of the nation. Perspectives on mystery literature, the detective story, and twentieth-century mystery writers are also presented.

Ferreira, Maria Aline Seabra

I am the other; literary negotiations of human cloning. Praeger Publishers 2005 304p (Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy) $79.95

ISBN 0-313-32006-3; LC 2004-44382

From a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective, the author considers fictional representations of human cloning by such writers as Aldous Huxley, Nancy Freedman, and Ira Levin, as well as theories by Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida.

Garval, Michael D.

"A dream of stone": fame, vision, and monumentality in nineteenth-century French literary culture. University of Del. Press; Associated Univ. Presses 2004 266p $60.00

ISBN 0-87413-862-0; LC 2004-2542

Focusing on the lives and works of Honore de Balzac, George Sand, and Victor Hugo, the author, through the metaphor of monuments and monumentality, traces how nineteenth-century French culture envisioned the literary greatness of these writers.

Gopinath, Gayatri

Impossible desires; queer diasporas and South Asian public cultures. Duke Univ. Press 2005 247p pa $22.95

ISBN 0-8223-3513-1; LC 2004-27163

The author discusses the near exclusion of lesbian and gay desires and identities in South Asian diasporic literature, film, and music. V. S. Naipaul, Monica Ali, Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair are among the authors and filmmakers covered.

Holton, Gerald

Victory and vexation in science; Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and others. Harvard Univ. Press 2005 229p $35.00

ISBN 0-674-01519-3; LC 2004-60572

Addressing conflicts between such scientists as Heisenberg and Einstein, Bohr and Einstein, and P. W. Bridgman and B. F. Skinner, the author examines how modern science influences our world.

India’s Shakespeare; translation, interpretation, and performance; edited by Poonam Trivedi and Dennis Bartholomeusz. University of Del. Press; Associated Univ. Presses 2005 303p $57.50

ISBN 0-87413-881-7; LC 2004-9444

This collection of essays explores the political, social, and literary implications in the teaching, translation, and performance of Shakespeare’s works in colonial and postcolonial India.

The intimate life of L.M. Montgomery; edited by Irene Gammel. University of Toronto Press 2005 305p $70.00, pa $29.95

ISBN 0-8020-8924-0; 0-8020-8676-4

In this study of Montgomery’s fiction, her published and unpublished journals, letters, and scrapbooks, contributors consider such issues as identity construction, role-playing , narrative strategies, and the relationship between fiction and life-writing.

Literature, religion, and East/West comparison; essays in honor of Anthony C. Yu; edited by Eric Ziolkowski. University of Del. Press; Associated Univ. Presses 2005 295p $52.50

ISBN 0-87413-869-8; LC 2004-10516

Contributors investigate connections between Easterna and Western religion and literature, focusing on texts by Sophocles, Seamus Heaney, George Eliot, Thomas Merton, Su Shi, and David Henry Hwang.

Mackey, Nathaniel

Paracritical hinge; essays, talks, notes, interviews. The University of Wisconsin Press 2005 382p (Contemporary North American poetry) $65.00, pa $24.95

ISBN 0-299-20400-6; 0-299-20404-9; LC 2004-12860

Topics covered in this volume include Walt Whitman’s interest in phrenology, African-American experiential writing, Robert Duncan’s Vietnam War poetry, and the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Mexican Americans & World War II; edited by Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez. University of Tex. Press 2005 310p $45.00, pa $19.95

ISBN 0-292-70651-0; 0-292-70681-2; LC 2004-24343

Contributors offer personal accounts and scholarly perspectives on how the war affected school experiences; how Mexican American patriotism helped appease racist attitudes; the media’s exposition of racist practices in Texas; and the championing of the rights of Mexican Americans through the Bracero program.

Milton’s legacy; edited by Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham. Susquehanna Univ. Press; Associated Univ. Presses 2005 257p $49.50

ISBN 1-57591-086-1; LC 2004-13641

Essays investigate issues of authorship, audience, and the author as biographical subject in Paradise lost, Paradise regained, A mask, and in "The Passion" and "Sonnet 14."

Nisse, Ruth

Defining acts; drama and the politics of interpretation in late medieval England. University of Notre Dame Press 2005 226p $40.00, pa $23.00

ISBN 0-268-03601-2; 0-268-03602-0; LC 2004-27604

The Canterbury tales, Piers Plowman, and The book of Margery Kempe are among the texts analyzed in this study of the relationship between drama, religion, and politics, and their varying interpretations in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts.

Philip Roth: new perspectives on an American author; edited by Derek Parker Royal. Praeger Publishers 2005 303p $39.95

ISBN 0-275-98363-3; LC 2004-28089

Contributors include David Brauner, Alan Cooper, Bonnie Lyons, Elaine B. Safer, and Tom Parrish.

Phillips, Kendall R.

Projected fears; horror films and American culture. Praeger Publishers 2005 227p $39.95

ISBN 0-275-98353-6; LC 2004-28376

Dracula, Night of the living dead, Halloween, Scream, and The silence of the lambs are among the films discussed.

Porter, Laurence M.

Women’s vision in Western literature; the empathic community. Praeger Publishers 2005 256p (Contributions in women’s studies, no. 203) $92.95

ISBN 0-313-31830-1; LC 2004-25206

Close readings of works by Sappho, Marie de France, Madame de Stael, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Yourcenar, and Christa Wolf.

The shortest and most convenient route: Lewis and Clark in context; Robert S. Cox, editor; American Philosophical Society 2004 255p pa $24.00

ISBN 0-87169-945-1; LC 2004-62282

Based on papers delivered at the Bicentennial Conference for Lewis and Clark, held in Philadelphia, August 2003.

Spectral America; phantoms and the national imagination; edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock. The Univesity of Wisconsin Press; Popular Press 2004 282p $65.00, pa $19.95

ISBN 0-299-19950-9; 0-299-19954-1

Contributors explore ghostly themes in the work of Sarah Orne Jewett, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Amy Tan, Gloria Naylor, and Stephen King.

Steinberg, Theodore L.

Twentieth-century epic novels. University of Del. Press; Associated Univ. Presses 2005 247p $48.50

ISBN 0-87413-889-2; LC 2004-21652

Studies of Sholem Asch’s Three cities, Olivia Manning’s Balkan and Levant trilogies, Paul Scott’s Raj quartet, Edward Whittemore’s Jerusalem quartet, and Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria quartet.

Stilgoe, John R.

Landscape and images. University of Va. Press 2005 354p $34.95

ISBN 0-8139-2321-2; LC 2004-20122

Topics range from the postcard preference for sunsets over sunrises, to the concept of "teen geography," to the unwillingness of Americans to walk up and down stairs.

Walking a tightrope; Aboriginal people and their representations; Ute Lischke and David T. McNab, editors. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press 2005 377p (Aboriginal studies series) $64.95

ISBN 0-88920-460-8

In addition to exploring the representation of Aboriginal peoples, contributors explore Native notions of time, land, cultures, identities, and literacies.

Weyler, Karen A.

Intricate relations; sexual and economic desire in American fiction, 1789-1814. University of Iowa Press 2004 269p $39.95

ISBN 0-87745-884-7; LC 2004-47893

Novels by Charles Brockden Brown, Hannah Foster, Samuel Relf, Susanna Rowson, Rebecca Rush, and Sally Wood are featured.