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Literature & Literary StudiesAugust 2023Poison on the early modern English stage
Plants, paints and potions
by Lisa Hopkins, Bill Angus
Many early modern plays use poison, most famously Hamlet, where the murder of Old Hamlet showcases the range of issues poison mobilises. Its orchard setting is one of a number of sinister uses of plants which comment on both the loss of horticultural knowledge resulting from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and also the many new arrivals in English gardens through travel, trade, and attempts at colonisation. The fact that Old Hamlet was asleep reflects unease about soporifics troubling the distinction between sleep and death; pouring poison into the ear smuggles in the contemporary fear of informers; and it is difficult to prove. This book explores poisoning in early modern plays, the legal and epistemological issues it raises, and the cultural work it performs, which includes questions related to race, religion, nationality, gender, and humans' relationship to the environment.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2023The fall and rise of the English upper class
Houses, kinship and capital since 1945
by Daniel R. Smith
The fall and rise of the English upper class explores the role traditionalist worldviews, articulated by members of the historic upper-class, have played in British society in the shadow of her imperial and economic decline in the twentieth century. Situating these traditionalist visions alongside Britain's post-Brexit fantasies of global economic resurgence and a socio-cultural return to a green and pleasant land, Smith examines Britain's Establishment institutions, the estates of her landed gentry and aristocracy, through to an appetite for nostalgic products represented with pastoral or pre-modern symbolism. It is demonstrated that these institutions and pursuits play a central role in situating social, cultural and political belonging. Crucially these institutions and pursuits rely upon a form of membership which is grounded in a kinship idiom centred upon inheritance and descent: who inherits the houses of privilege, inherits England.
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Literature & Literary StudiesJanuary 2013The English manor c.1200–c.1500
by Mark Bailey
Provides a comprehensive introduction and essential guide to one of the most important institutions in medieval England and to its substantial archive. This is the first book to offer a detailed explanation of the form, structure and evolution of the manor and its records. Offers translations of, and commentaries upon, each category of document to illustrate their main features. Examples of each category of record are provided in translation, followed by shorter extracts selected to illustrate interesting, commonly occurring, or complex features. A valuable source of reference for undergraduates wishing to understand the sources which underpin the majority of research on the medieval economy and society.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2023Sleep and its spaces in Middle English literature
Emotions, ethics, dreams
by Megan Leitch
Middle English literature is intimately concerned with sleep and the spaces in which it takes place. In the medieval English imagination, sleep is an embodied and culturally determined act. It is both performed and interpreted by characters and contemporaries, subject to a particular habitus and understood through particular hermeneutic lenses. While illuminating the intersecting medical and moral discourses by which it is shaped, sleep also sheds light on subjects in favour of which it has hitherto been overlooked: what sleep can enable (dreams and dream poetry) or what it can stand in for or supersede (desire and sex). This book argues that sleep mediates thematic concerns and questions in ways that have ethical, affective and oneiric implications. At the same time, it offers important contributions to understanding different Middle English genres: romance, dream vision, drama and fabliau.
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MedicineTheory and Clinical Practice of Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion (in Chinese and English)
by Chen Shaozong
For decades, Prof. Chen Shaozong has been dedicating to the research on the modern acupuncture and moxibustion system that is different from the traditional paradigm. As early as 1990, he published Theory and Clinical Application of Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion. The book is the prototype of the modern acupuncture and moxibustion system, though it contains merely 100,000 Chinese characters. 21 years later in 2011, Prof. Chen Shaozong published Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion that contains nearly 1 million Chinese characters with more informative content and a more comprehensive theoretical system. At the same time, as acupuncture and moxibustion grows into a more international discipline, the European and American community of acupuncture and combustion is going beyond the study of traditional acupuncture and moxibustion to start exploring into the acupuncture and moxibustion system in the context of modern science and technology. In recent years, they have gradually developed "western acupuncture and moxibustion" represented by "dry needling". As a response to the huge challenges brought by the evolution of western acupuncture and moxibustion, we published the six-volume Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Prof. Chen Shaozong in 2018. Containing more than 3 million Chinese characters, this book features richer content and a further improved theoretical system. A few foreign universities have expressed their hope to have a compact edition of Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion in Chinese and English languages based on the original edition so that they can use it as a textbook in teaching. This is how this Theory and Clinical Practice of Modern Acupuncture and Moxibustion (in Chinese and English) comes into being. It is believed that the publication of this book not only benefits the international exchange and communication on acupuncture and moxibustion, but also produces positive impact on the orientation of the discipline.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017The harem, slavery and British imperial culture
Anglo-Muslim relations in the late nineteenth century
by Diane Robinson-Dunn
This book focuses on British efforts to suppress the traffic in female slaves destined for Egyptian harems during the late-nineteenth century. It considers this campaign in relation to gender debates in England, and examines the ways in which the assumptions and dominant imperialist discourses of these abolitionists were challenged by the newly-established Muslim communities in England, as well as by English people who converted to or were sympathetic with Islam. While previous scholars have treated antislavery activity in Egypt first and foremost as an extension of earlier efforts to abolish plantation slavery in the New World, this book considers it in terms of encounters with Islam during a period which it argues marked a new departure in Anglo-Muslim relations. This approach illuminates the role of Islam in the creation of English national identities within the global cultural system of the British Empire. This book would appeal to those with an interest in British imperial history; Islam; gender, feminism, and women's studies; slavery and race; the formation of national identities; global processes; Orientalism; and Middle Eastern studies.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Scottishness and Irishness in New Zealand since 1840
by Angela McCarthy, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
This book examines the distinctive aspects that insiders and outsiders perceived as characteristic of Irish and Scottish ethnic identities in New Zealand. When, how, and why did Irish and Scots identify themselves and others in ethnic terms? What characteristics did the Irish and the Scots attribute to themselves and what traits did others assign to them? Did these traits change over time and if so how? Contemporary interest surrounding issues of ethnic identities is vibrant. In countries such as New Zealand, descendants of European settlers are seeking their ethnic origins, spurred on in part by factors such as an ongoing interest in indigenous genealogies, the burgeoning appeal of family history societies, and the booming financial benefits of marketing ethnicities abroad. This fascinating book will appeal to scholars and students of the history of empire and the construction of identity in settler communities, as well as those interested in the history of New Zealand.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2020Early modern war narratives and the Revolt in the Low Countries
by Raymond Fagel, Leonor Álvarez Francés, William G. Naphy, Beatriz Santiago Belmonte
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2022The quiet contemporary American novel
by Rachel Sykes, Sharon Monteith
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December 2018The Complete Collection of Modern Chinese Prints by Lu Xun
by Editorial Board of the Complete Works of Modern Chinese Prints Collected by Lu Xun
This series contains about 1,800 modern prints collected by Lu Xun at that time, which authored by nearly 200 domestic printmakers and currently in the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shanghai and the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing. It is showcasing the glorious history of modern Chinese woodcut art: In the 1920s and 1930s, in order to guide the artistic direction of Chinese literary youth, smashed the KMT’s counter-revolutionary cultural " encirclement and suppression", Mr. Lu Xun held a "woodcut workshop" in Shanghai, and cultivated a group of emerging woodcut backbone. These backbones led young artists in various regions of the country to create a large number of realistic works reflecting the suffering and tragic fate of the people at the bottom of the society at that time. They cruelly lashed the dark reality of society and called for national salvation and survival. These young woodcutters sent their woodcut works to Lu Xun, who not only guided their creation personally, but also spared no effort to collect, publicize and promote them to the public. With the active advocacy and support of Mr. Lu Xun, the emerging woodcut movement in China has developed vigorously, driving the modernization of Chinese art and leaving an indelible glorious footprint in the history of Chinese modern culture and art. This complete collection is a companion to the The Complete Collection of Foreign Prints by Lu Xun published in 2014.
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Literature & Literary StudiesJune 2022The early modern English sonnet
Ever in motion
by Laetitia Sansonetti, Rémi Vuillemin, Enrica Zanin
This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English sonnet: that it was a strictly codified form, most often organised in sequences, which only emerged at the very end of the sixteenth century and declined as fast as it had bloomed, and that minor poets merely participated in the sonnet fashion by replicating established conventions. Drawing from book history and relying on close reading and textual criticism, this collection offers a more nuanced account of the history of the sonnet. It discusses how sonnets were written, published and received in England as compared to mainland Europe, and explores the works of major (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser) and minor (Barnes, Harvey) poets alike. Reflecting on current editorial practices, it also provides the first modern edition of an early seventeenth-century Elizabethan miscellany including sonnets presumably by Sidney and Spenser.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017
The language of empire
Myths and metaphors of popular imperialism, 1880-1918
by Robert Macdonald
The debate about the Empire dealt in idealism and morality, and both sides employed the language of feeling, and frequently argued their case in dramatic terms. This book opposes two sides of the Empire, first, as it was presented to the public in Britain, and second, as it was experienced or imagined by its subjects abroad. British imperialism was nurtured by such upper middle-class institutions as the public schools, the wardrooms and officers' messes, and the conservative press. The attitudes of 1916 can best be recovered through a reconstruction of a poetics of popular imperialism. The case-study of Rhodesia demonstrates the almost instant application of myth and sign to a contemporary imperial crisis. Rudyard Kipling was acknowledged throughout the English-speaking world not only as a wonderful teller of stories but as the 'singer of Greater Britain', or, as 'the Laureate of Empire'. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the Empire gained a beachhead in the classroom, particularly in the coupling of geography and history. The Island Story underlined that stories of heroic soldiers and 'fights for the flag' were easier for teachers to present to children than lessons in morality, or abstractions about liberty and responsible government. The Education Act of 1870 had created a need for standard readers in schools; readers designed to teach boys and girls to be useful citizens. The Indian Mutiny was the supreme test of the imperial conscience, a measure of the morality of the 'master-nation'.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2024Approaches to emotion in Middle English literature
by Carolyne Larrington
Over the last twenty-five years, the 'history of emotion' field has become one of the most dynamic and productive areas for humanities research. This designation, and the marked leadership of historians in the field, has had the unlooked-for consequence of sidelining literature - in particular secular literature - as evidence-source and object of emotion study. Secular literature, whether fable, novel, fantasy or romance, has been understood as prone to exaggeration, hyperbole, and thus as an unreliable indicator of the emotions of the past. The aim of this book is to decentre history of emotion research and asks new questions, ones that can be answered by literary scholars, using literary texts as sources: how do literary texts understand and depict emotion and, crucially, how do they generate emotion in their audiences - those who read them or hear them read or performed?
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Literature & Literary StudiesJune 2021Sleep and its spaces in Middle English literature
by Megan Leitch, Anke Bernau, David Matthews, James Paz
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Literature & Literary StudiesOctober 2018The politics of Middle English parables
by Mary Raschko, David Matthews, Anke Bernau
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The ArtsJanuary 2019Jack Clayton
by Neil Sinyard
In François Truffaut's opinion The Innocents was 'the best English film after Hitchcock goes to America'. Tennessee Williams said of The Great Gatsby: 'a film whose artistry even surpassed the original novel'. The maker of both films was Jack Clayton, one of the finest English directors of the post-war era and perhaps best remembered for the trail-blazing Room at the Top which brought a new sexual frankness and social realism to the British screen. This is the first full-length critical study of Clayton's work. The author has been able to consult and quote from the director's own private papers which illuminate Clayton's creative practices and artistic intentions. In addition to fresh analyses of the individual films, the book contains new material on Clayton's many unrealised projects and valuably includes his previously unpublished short story 'The Enchantment' - as poignant and revealing as the films themselves. This is a personal and fascinating account of the career and achievement of an important, much-loved director that should appeal to students and film enthusiasts.
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The ArtsSeptember 2024The renewal of post-war Manchester
Planning, architecture and the state
by Richard Brook
A compelling account of the project to transform post-war Manchester, revealing the clash between utopian vision and compromised reality. Urban renewal in Britain was thrilling in its vision, yet partial and incomplete in its implementation. For the first time, this deep study of a renewal city reveals the complex networks of actors behind physical change and stagnation in post-war Britain. Using the nested scales of region, city and case-study sites, the book explores the relationships between Whitehall legislation, its interpretation by local government planning officers and the on-the-ground impact through urban architectural projects. Each chapter highlights the connections between policy goals, global narratives and the design and construction of cities. The Cold War, decolonialisation, rising consumerism and the oil crisis all feature in a richly illustrated account of architecture and planning in post-war Manchester.
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The ArtsJune 2021Contemporary French cinema
An introduction (revised edition)
by Guy Austin
Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
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The ArtsJanuary 2019Contemporary French cinema
An introduction (revised edition)
by Guy Austin
Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Caché. Reflecting the diversity of French film production since the New Wave, this clear and perceptive study includes chapters on the heritage film, the thriller and the war movie, alongside the 'cinéma du look', representations of sexuality, comedies, the work of women film makers and le jeune cinéma. Each chapter introduces the public reception and critical debates surrounding a given genre, interwoven with detailed accounts of relevant films. Confirmed as a major contribution to both Film Studies and French Studies, this book is a fascinating volume for students and fans of French film alike.
