Download or read book Why Does Literature Matter written by Frank B. Farrell and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Literature matters because... it allows for experiences important to the living out of a sophisticated and satisfying human life; because other arenas of culture cannot provide them to the same degree; and because a relatively small number of texts carry out these functions in so exceptional a manner that we owe it to past and future members of the species to keep such texts alive in our cultural traditions."—from Chapter One Frank B. Farrell defends a rich conception of the space of literature that retains its links to issues of self-formation and metaphysics and does not let that space collapse into just another reflection of social space. He maintains that recent literary theory has badly misread findings in the philosophy of language and the theory of subjectivity. That misreading, Farrell says, has tended to endorse ways of understanding literature that make one question why it matters at all. Farrell here opposes some recent theoretical trends and, through a mix of philosophical and literary studies, tells us why in his view literature does truly matter.Among the writers Farrell discusses are John Ashbery, Samuel Beckett, Amit Chaudhuri, Cormac McCarthy, James Merrill, Marcel Proust, Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie, W. G. Sebald, and John Updike. The philosophers important to his arguments include Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, and Bernard Williams; G. W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein play roles as well. Among the literary theorists addressed are Stephen Greenblatt, Paul de Man, and Marjorie Perloff. In addition to his close readings of literary, philosophical, and critical texts, Farrell considers cultural studies and postcolonial studies more generally and speculates on the possible contributions of object-relations theory in psychology to the study of literature.
Download or read book Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century written by Mark William Roche and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not just another jeremiad against prevailing isms and orthodoxies, Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century examines literature in its connection to virtue and moral excellence. The author is concerned with literature as the teacher of virtue. The current crisis in the humanities, Mark William Roche argues, may be traced back to the separation of art and morality. (“When the distinction between is and ought is leveled,” he writes, “the power of the professions increases.”) The arts and humanities concern themselves with the fate and prospects of humankind. Today that fate and those prospects are under the increasing influence of technology. In a technological age, literature gains in importance precisely to the extent that our sense of intrinsic value is lost. In its elevation of play and inexhaustible meaning, literature offers a counterbalance to reason and efficiency. It helps us grasp the ways in which diverse parts form a comprehensive and complex whole, and it connects us with other ages and cultures. Not least, great literature grapples with the ethical challenges of the day.
Download or read book Out of this World written by Holly Virginia Blackford and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author analyzes the way the girls discuss pleasure in becoming "the eye" of the reader, use film to decode the genres of literature, master forms such as fantasy and Gothic, describe the differences between reading and viewing films, and identify only with animal rather than human characters. Blackford intertwines the vivid voices of her girl respondents with her own story of moving beyond her feminist and multicultural assumptions of how children are shaped by the stories we tell in literature. This breakthrough text presents surprising findings about how girls appreciate literature and what they enjoy about reading.
Download or read book Why Reading Books Still Matters written by Martha C. Pennington and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together strands of public discourse about valuing personal achievement at the expense of social values and the impacts of global capitalism, mass media, and digital culture on the lives of children, this book challenges the potential of science and business to solve the world’s problems without a complementary emphasis on social values. The selection of literary works discussed illustrates the power of literature and human arts to instill such values and foster change. The book offers a valuable foundation for the field of literacy education by providing knowledge about the importance of language and literature that educators can use in their own teaching and advocacy work.
Download or read book Literature Matters written by J. Hillis Miller and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-09 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection of J. Hillis Miller's essays centres on the question "why and to what end should we read, teach, and spend our time with literary and/or cultural studies?" At a time when electronic media seem to dominate the market completely, and jobs follow the money flows into electronic and technical fields, literary and cultural studies might appear as a decorative addenda but not really necessary for the process of growth and development, neither in business nor in the area of personal development. This question is not really new, it has many facets, requires differentiated answers which depend and mirror the political and cultural climate of a society. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.
Download or read book Why Indigenous Literatures Matter written by Daniel Heath Justice and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today. In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How do we become good ancestors? How do we learn to live together? Blending personal narrative and broader historical and cultural analysis with close readings of key creative and critical texts, Justice argues that Indigenous writers engage with these questions in part to challenge settler-colonial policies and practices that have targeted Indigenous connections to land, history, family, and self. More importantly, Indigenous writers imaginatively engage the many ways that communities and individuals have sought to nurture these relationships and project them into the future. This provocative volume challenges readers to critically consider and rethink their assumptions about Indigenous literature, history, and politics while never forgetting the emotional connections of our shared humanity and the power of story to effect personal and social change. Written with a generalist reader firmly in mind, but addressing issues of interest to specialists in the field, this book welcomes new audiences to Indigenous literary studies while offering more seasoned readers a renewed appreciation for these transformative literary traditions.
Download or read book How and why Books Matter written by James W. Watts and published by Equinox Publishing (UK). This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious and secular communities ritualize some books in one, two, or three dimensions. They ritualize the dimension of semantic interpretation through teaching, preaching, and scholarly commentary. This dimension receives almost all the attention of academic scholars. Communities also ritualize a text's expressive dimension through public reading, recitation, and song, and also by reproducing its contents in art, theatre and film. This dimension is receiving increasing scholarly attention, especially in religious studies and anthropology. A third textual dimension, the iconic dimension, gets ritualized by manipulating the physical text, decorating it, and displaying it. This dimension has received almost no academic attention, yet features prominently in the most common news stories about books, whether about e-books, academic libraries, rare manuscript discoveries, or scripture desecrations. By calling attention to the iconic dimension of books, James Watts argues that we can better understand how physical books mediate social value and power within and between religious communities, nations, academic disciplines, and societies both ancient and modern.How and Why Books Matter will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in books, reading, literacy, scriptures, e-books, publishing, and the future of the book. It also addresses scholarship in religion, cultural studies, literacy studies, biblical studies, book history, anthropology, literary studies, and intellectual history.
Download or read book Why Scottish Literature Matters written by Carla Sassi and published by The Saltire Society. This book was released on 2005 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fourth book in a Saltire series examining the significance of Scottish history, philosophy and the Scots language. Here, the Distinguished Italian academic Carla Sassi examines Scotland's literature from the earliest times to the late 20th century and offers new and fascinating insights into the nature of nationhood and identity, and the way in which these are reflected in, and the inspiration for, literary output at various periods. The major historical influences are covered including relations with England, religious division, enlightenment philosophy and the Union of 1707, but Professor Sassi also examines Scotland's role in the British imperial adventure and the impact on literature of the coloniser / colonised experience. She makes a special study of the contribution of women writers and the writers of the 20th century 'Renaissance' and concludes with speculation on the future of 'Scottish' literature in a post-modern Scotland exposed to global cultural influences and living in the new political world heralded by the restoration of the Holyrood Parliament. Carla Sassi is Associate Professor of English literature at the University of Verona. She specialises in Sc
Download or read book Augustown written by Kei Miller and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 11 April 1982: a smell is coming down John Golding Road right alongside the boy-child, something attached to him, like a spirit but not quite. Ma Taffy is growing worried. She knows that something is going to happen. Something terrible is going to pour out into the world. But if she can hold it off for just a little bit longer, she will. So she asks a question that surprises herself even as she asks it, "Kaia, I ever tell you bout the flying preacherman?" Set in the backlands of Jamaica, Augustown is a magical and haunting novel of one woman’s struggle to rise above the brutal vicissitudes of history, race, class, collective memory, violence, and myth.
Download or read book Why Reading Literature in School Still Matters written by Dennis J. Sumara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elaborates a theory of reading developed in an earlier book, by offering a larger discussion of what constitatutes the act of literacy engagement and the ways these acts contribute to the ongoing invention of the "reading subject."
Download or read book Why Victorian Literature Still Matters written by Philip Davis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Victorian Literature Still Matters is a passionatedefense of Victorian literature’s enduring impact andimportance for readers interested in the relationship betweenliterature and life, reading and thinking. Explores the prominence of Victorian literature forcontemporary readers and academics, through the author’sunique insight into why it is still important today Provides new frames of interpretation for key Victorian worksof literature and close readings of important texts Argues for a new engagement with Victorian literature, fromgeneral readers and scholars alike Seeks to remove Victorian literature from an entrenched set ofvalues, traditions and perspectives - demonstrating how vital andresonant it is for modern literary and cultural analysis
Download or read book Waste Matters written by Sarah K. Harrison and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do those pushed to the margins survive in contemporary cities? What role do they play in today’s increasingly complex urban ecosystems? Faced with stark disparities in human and environmental wellbeing, what form might more equitable cities take? Waste Matters argues that contemporary literature and film offer an insightful and timely response to these questions through their formal and thematic revaluation of urban waste. In their creation of a new urban imaginary which centres on discarded things, degraded places and devalued people, authors and artists such as Patrick Chamoiseau, Chris Abani, Dinaw Mengestu, Suketu Mehta and Vik Muniz suggest opportunities for an inclusive urban politics that demands systematic analysis. Waste Matters assesses the utopian promise and pragmatic limitations of their as yet under-examined work in light of today’s pressing urban challenges. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of English Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Urban Studies, Environmental Humanities and Film Studies.
Download or read book Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art written by Jeff Persels and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feces, urine, flatus, phlegm, vomitus - unlike ourselves, our most educated forebears did not disdain these functions, and, further, they employed scatological references in all manner of works. This collection of essays was provoked by what its editors considered to be a curious lacuna: the relative academic neglect of the copious and ubiquitous scatological rhetoric of Early Modern Europe, here broadly defined as the representation of the process and product of elimination of the body's waste products. The contributors to this volume examine the many forms and functions of scatology as literary and artistic trope, and reconsider this last taboo in the context of Early Modern European expression. They address unflinchingly both the objective reality of the scatological as part and parcel of material culture - inescapably a much larger part, a much heavier parcel then than now - and the subjective experience of that reality among contemporaries.
Download or read book Poetry and the Language of Oppression written by Carmen Bugan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A first-hand account of the creative process that engages with the language of oppression and with politics in our time. How does the poet become attuned to the language of the world's upheaval? How does one talk insightfully about suffering, without creating more of it? What is freedom in language and how does the poet who has endured political oppression write himself or herself free? What is literary testimony? Poetry and the Language of Oppression is a consideration of the creative process that rests on the conviction that poetry is of help in moments of public duress, providing an illumination of life and a healing language. Oppression, repression, expression, as well as their tools (prison, surveillance, gestures in language) have been with us in various forms throughout history, and this volume represents a particular aspect of these conditions of our humanity as they play out in our time, providing another instance of the communion, and sometimes confrontation, with the language that makes us human.
Download or read book Kensuke s Kingdom written by Michael Morpurgo and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young boy is stranded on a small island with a mysterious man who shows him how to survive in this adventure story by the acclaimed author of War Horse. When Michael’s father loses his job, he buys a boat and convinces Michael and his mother to sail around the world. It’s an ideal trip—even Michael’s sheepdog can come along. It starts out as the perfect family adventure—until Michael is swept overboard. He’s washed up on an island, where he struggles to survive. Then he discovers that he’s not alone. His fellow-castaway, Kensuke, is wary of him. But when Michael’s life is threatened, Kensuke slowly lets the boy into his world. The two develop a close understanding in this remote place, but the question of rescue continues to divide them. Praise for Kensuke’s Kingdom “[A] poignant adventure story . . . This well-crafted story has all the thrills and intrigues of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet . . . and Theodore Taylor’s The Cay . . . and it will resonate with the same audience.” —School Library Journal “Highly readable.” —Booklist
Download or read book True to the Life A novel written by and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Why Race Still Matters written by Alana Lentin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Why are you making this about race?' This question is repeated daily in public and in the media. Calling someone racist in these times of mounting white supremacy seems to be a worse insult than racism itself. In our supposedly post-racial society, surely it’s time to stop talking about race? This powerful refutation is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of 'race realism', bursts the 'I’m not racist, but' justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism. Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less.
