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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2023

        Suicide and the Gothic

        by William Hughes, Andrew Smith

        Suicide and the Gothic is the first protracted study of how the act of self-destruction recurs and functions within one of the most enduring and popular forms of fiction. Comprising eleven original essays and an authoritative introduction, this collection explores how the act of suicide has been portrayed, interrogated and pathologised from the eighteenth century to the present. The featured fictions embrace both canonical and the less-studied texts and examine the crisis of suicide - a crisis that has personal, familial, religious, legal and medical implications - in European, American and Asian contexts. Featuring detailed interventions into the understanding of texts as temporally distant as Thomas Percy's Reliques and Patricia Highsmith's crime fictions, and movements as diverse as Wertherism, Romanticism and fin-de-siècle decadence, Suicide and the Gothic provides a comprehensive and compelling overview of this recurrent crisis in fiction and culture.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2017

        Asia in Western fiction

        by Robin Winks

        Any reader who has ever visited Asia knows that the great bulk of Western-language fiction about Asian cultures turns on stereotypes. This book, a collection of essays, explores the problem of entering Asian societies through Western fiction, since this is the major port of entry for most school children, university students and most adults. In the thirteenth century, serious attempts were made to understand Asian literature for its own sake. Hau Kioou Choaan, a typical Chinese novel, was quite different from the wild and magical pseudo-Oriental tales. European perceptions of the Muslim world are centuries old, originating in medieval Christendom's encounter with Islam in the age of the Crusades. There is explicit and sustained criticism of medieval mores and values in Scott's novels set in the Middle Ages, and this is to be true of much English-language historical fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even mediocre novels take on momentary importance because of the pervasive power of India. The awesome, remote and inaccessible Himalayas inevitably became for Western writers an idealised setting for novels of magic, romance and high adventure, and for travellers' tales that read like fiction. Chinese fictions flourish in many guises. Most contemporary Hong Kong fiction reinforced corrupt mandarins, barbaric punishments and heathens. Of the novels about Japan published after 1945, two may serve to frame a discussion of Japanese behaviour as it could be observed (or imagined) by prisoners of war: Black Fountains and Three Bamboos.

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        Film theory & criticism
        February 2014

        Swedish crime fiction

        by Steven Peacock

      • Trusted Partner
        Crime & mystery
        February 2014

        The Untouched Crime

        by Zijin Chen

        A mystery novel by Zijin Chen, a web celebrity famous for serial detective stories. The Untouched Crime tells a story about hunting the serial killer who tends to leave a fingerprint and a note saying “Catch Me!” at each crime scene. Except for these, there isn’t any other clues. Who is the murderer? Why the murder claimed that he kills for saving lives?

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2014

        French crime fiction and the Second World War

        by Claire Gorrara

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2023

        The penny politics of Victorian popular fiction

        by Rob Breton

        Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2022

        Nordic Gothic

        by Maria Holmgren Troy, Johan Hõglund, Yvonne Leffler, Sofia Wijkmark

        Nordic Gothic traces Gothic fiction in the Nordic region from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, with a main focus on the development of Gothic from the 1990s onwards in literature, film, TV and new media. The volume gives an overview of Nordic Gothic fiction in relation to transnational developments and provides a number of case studies and in-depth analyses of individual narratives. It creates an understanding of this under-researched cultural phenomenon by showing how the narratives make visible cultural anxieties haunting the Nordic countries, their welfare systems, identities and ideologies. Nordic Gothic examines how figures from Nordic folklore function as metaphorical expressions of Gothic themes and Nordic settings are explored from perspectives such as ecocriticism and postcolonialism. The book will be of interest to researchers and post- and- undergraduate students in various fields within the Humanities.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2012

        Gender, crime and empire

        convicts, settlers and the state in early colonial Australia

        by Kirsty Reid, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie, Martin Hargreaves

        Between 1803 and 1853, some 80,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land. Revising established models of the colonies, which tend to depict convict women as a peculiarly oppressed group, Gender, crime and empire argues that convict men and women in fact shared much in common. Placing men and women, ideas about masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the body, in comparative perspective, this book argues that historians must take fuller account of class to understand the relationships between gender and power. The book explores the ways in which ideas about fatherhood and household order initially informed the state's model of order, and the reasons why this foundered. It considers the shifting nature of state policies towards courtship, relationships and attempts at family formation which subsequently became matters of class conflict. It goes on to explore the ways in which ideas about gender and family informed liberal and humanitarian critiques of the colonies from the 1830s and 1840s and colonial demands for abolition and self-government. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Gender, crime and empire

        Convicts, settlers and the state in early colonial Australia

        by Kirsty Reid, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie, Martin Hargreaves

        Between 1803 and 1853, some 80,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land. Revising established models of the colonies, which tend to depict convict women as a peculiarly oppressed group, Gender, crime and empire argues that convict men and women in fact shared much in common. Placing men and women, ideas about masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the body, in comparative perspective, this book argues that historians must take fuller account of class to understand the relationships between gender and power. The book explores the ways in which ideas about fatherhood and household order initially informed the state's model of order, and the reasons why this foundered. It considers the shifting nature of state policies towards courtship, relationships and attempts at family formation which subsequently became matters of class conflict. It goes on to explore the ways in which ideas about gender and family informed liberal and humanitarian critiques of the colonies from the 1830s and 1840s and colonial demands for abolition and self-government.

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2021

        Involução e outros contos para um mundo em crise

        Colectânea de contos traduzidos pelos vencedores do Concurso de Tradução Literária 2020

        by Sandra Tamele

        Neste terceiro volume da Colectânea de Contos Traduzidos pelos vencedores do Concurso de Tradução Literária, apresentamos seis contos publicados entre 2017 e 2019 no âmbito do Caine Prize for African Writing e da colectânea New Short Fiction from Africa: ‘Involução’ da autoria da sul-africana Stacy Hardy que aborda abertamente a sexualidade da mulher, também preocupações sociais e políticas, faz alusão a questões como a degradação ambiental, o colonialismo e direitos da mulher, ancorados numa teatralidade conceptual necessária para que o conto não se torne efémero e engaje o sentido de humor do leitor para o aproximar da mente aberta de Hardy. ‘A heroína misteriosa’ ou ‘Mavbanelo na mayi’ em Bitonga, é da autoria da Tanzaniana Lydia Kasese. Ela escreve sobre as expectativas e pressões sociais que levam as mulheres a desejarem concertar tudo. Neste conto Kasese traz destramente à luz questões sobre o abuso de menores e o seu impacto sobre as famílias na Tanzânia e, não só. Alinafe Malonje estreou-se nesta colectânea da Short Story Day com o conto ‘Manutenção de Rotina’, um registo metafísico de um hotel: parte alegoria, parte meditação com um subtil comentário sobre o que significa ser mulher no Malawi. Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda cria um fabuloso hotel de fantasia que contém realidades sinistras, construindo um persuasivo mundo alternativo. Tariro Ndoro em ‘A lenda das duas irmãs’, ou ‘Xihitana xa vamakwavu na makwavu’ em Changana, traz uma abordagem arrepiante dos perigos da saudade, onde a busca por uma irmã num hotel de luxo em Victoria Falls tem um fim fantasmagórico. Mampianina Randria nos apresenta em ‘O Gatilho’, ou ‘Niyódeké sê xidúvúlá’ em Changana, um conto com um ritmo cerrado e um desfecho totalmente inesperado onde uma mulher que lida com as frustrações de quem entra na vida adulta.

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        Children's & YA

        Siberian haiku

        by Jurga Vile, Lina Itagaki

        This graphic novel tells a story of a Lithuanian boy Algiukas, who in 1941 together with his family was deported to Siberia. His aunt Petronella brings along a book of the Japanese haiku poems. In exile, she inspires the deportees not to succumb to the despair and to see the beautiful side of life.   AWARDS Main Prize in Book Art Contest 2017 Best Book of the Year by IBBY Lithuania 2017 Best Illustrations for a Children’s Book by IBBY Lithuania 2017 White Raven 2017 The Aloysius Petrikas Literary Prize for Children’s Book of the Year 2018 Children’s Book of the Year 2018 (Lithuania) IBBY Honor List 2020 Nomination at the Angoulême International Comics Festival 2020 Selection for Children’s Book Jury in Latvia 2020 International Jānis Baltvilks Award in Latvia 2020 Nomination for Bologna Ragazzi Award 2020 in Italia Latvian edition of “Sibīrijas haiku” was included in the Latvian PEN list of the most important books published in Latvia in 2020 Nomination at the International Book Contest “Reading St. Petersburg,” 2021 (Russia) Nomination for Latvian Literature Prize 2020 Nomination for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2021 in the young adult book category

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2023

        Worrier state

        Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa

        by Nicky Falkof

        Risk, anxiety and moral panic are endemic to contemporary societies and media forms. How do these phenomena manifest in a place like South Africa, which features heightened insecurity, deep inequality and accelerated social change? What happens when cultures of fear intersect with pervasive systems of gender, race and class? Worrier state investigates four case studies in which fear and anxiety appear in radically different ways: the far right myth of 'white genocide'; so-called 'Satanist' murders of young women; an urban legend about township crime; and social theories about safety and goodness in the suburbs. Falkof foregrounds the significance of emotion as a socio-political force, emphasising South Africa's imbrication within globalised conditions of anxiety and thus its fundamental and often-ignored hypermodernity. The book offers a bold and creative perspective on the social roles of fear and emotion in South Africa and thus on everyday life in this complex place.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        The End of the Desert

        by Said Khatibi

        On a nice fall day of 1988, Zakiya Zaghwani was found lying dead at the edge of the desert, giving way to a quest to discover the circumstances surrounding her death. While looking for whoever was involved in the death of the young singer, nearby residents discover bit by bit their involvement in many things other than the crime itself. ///The story takes place in a town near the desert. And as with Khatibi’s previous novels, this one is also marked by a tight plot, revolving around the murder of a singer who works in a hotel. This sets off a series of complex investigations that defy easy conclusions and invite doubt about the involvement of more than one character. /// Through the narrators of the novel, who also happen to be its protagonists, the author delves into the history of colonialism and the Algerian War of Independence and its successors, describing the circumstances of the story whose events unfold throughout the month. As such, the characters suspected of killing the singer are not only accused of a criminal offense, but are also concerned, as it appears, with the great legacy that the War of Independence left, from different aspects.///The novel looks back at a critical period in the modern history of Algeria that witnessed the largest socio-political crisis following its independence in 1988. While the story avoids the immediate circumstances of the war, it rather invokes the events leading up to it and tracks its impact on the social life, while capturing the daily life of vulnerable and marginalized groups. /// Nonetheless, those residents’ vulnerability does not necessarily mean they are innocent. As it appears, they are all involved in a crime that is laden with symbolism and hints at the status of women in a society shackled by a heavy legacy of a violent, wounded masculinity. This approach to addressing social issues reflects a longing to break loose from the stereotypical discourse that sets heroism in a pre-defined mold and reduces the truth to only one of its dimensions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages

        by Anthony Musson, Edward Powell

        This book provides an accessible collection of translated legal sources through which the exploits of criminals and developments in the English criminal justice system (c.1215-1485) can be studied. Drawing on the wealth of archival material and an array of contemporary literary texts, it guides readers towards an understanding of prevailing notions of law and justice and expectations of the law and legal institutions. Tensions are shown emerging between theoretical ideals of justice and the practical realities of administering the law during an era profoundly affected by periodic bouts of war, political in-fighting, social dislocation and economic disaster. Introductions and notes provide both the specific and wider legal, social and political contexts in addition to offering an overview of the existing secondary literature and historiographical trends. This collection affords a valuable insight into the character of medieval governance as well as revealing the complex nexus of interests, attitudes and relationships prevailing in society during the later Middle Ages.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 1995

        Der Glasmensch und andere Science-fiction-Geschichten

        by Marcus Hammerschmitt, Franz Rottensteiner, Marcus Hammerschmitt

        Marcus Hammerschmitt schreibt Science-fiction-Erzählungen, die technologische Phantasie, psychologische Einsicht, Lust am gedanklichen Experiment und poetische Erfindungskraft vereinen. Wie Herbert W. Franke oder Peter Schattschneider basiert er seine Geschichten auf einer soliden Grundlage, entwickelt seine Szenarios und Fabeln spielerisch, verknüpft sie aber dramatisch mit den größeren Problemen von Ökologie einerseits und den Zweifeln und inneren Konflikten des einzelnen andererseits.

      • Trusted Partner
        October 2023

        Post-Mortem

        Autopsy stories: the unusual experiences of a pathologist

        by Roland Sedivy

        — True crime stories from the morgue — Famous deaths and autopsy stories resolved, such as Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and the case of Anne Greene, who survived her execution by hanging The post-mortem examination. A glimpse inside the interior of the human being. Many find the idea fascinating; for others it is creepy or even repugnant. There are still numerous myths and horror stories surrounding the autopsy, many of them associated with primal human fears such as that of being buried alive, which have existed since Antiquity. It is precisely for this reason that it is important to carry out the post-mortem examination with the utmost conscientiousness. Pathologist Roland Sedivy provides an exciting insight into his profession. Profound and with tremendous humour, he tells us about the early days of the autopsy, and shares with us some macabre and some mysterious cases.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2012

        Narration in nineteenth-century French short fiction

        Prosper Mérimée to Marcel Schwob

        by Peter Cogman

        The short fiction that flourished in nineteenth-century France has attracted relatively little critical attention compared with the novel. This study focuses on some key stories by major authors of contes and nouvelles from the late 1820s to the 1890s, taking as a starting-point, aspects of narrative technique as a way of exploring not just characteristic strategies of short fiction, but also the ends to which they were put: recurrent themes, and the vision of mankind. Each chapter looks in some detail at three or four stories, referring briefly to other tales for illustration. The underlying point that emerges from this study is that the interest of a tale lies in the telling, not the events. ;

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