Download or read book Reading Novels During the Covid 19 Pandemic written by Ben Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book provides a snapshot of a phenomenal moment in modern history. The ethnographic approach shows what no historical account of books published during the pandemic will be able to capture, namely the movement of readers between new purchases and books long kept in their collections. The book follows readers who have tuned into novels about plague, apocalypse, and racial violence, but also readers whose taste for older novels, and for re-reading novels they knew earlier in their lives, has grown. Alternating between chapters that analyse single texts that were popular (Albert Camus's The Plague, Ali Smith's Summer, Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre) and others that describe clusters of, for example, dystopian fiction and nature writing, this work brings out the diverse quality of the Covid-19 bookshelf. Time is of central importance to this study, both in terms of the time of lockdown and the temporality of reading itself within this wider disrupted sense of time. By exploring these varied experiences, this book investigates the larger question of how the consumption of novels depends on and shapes people's experience of non-work time, providing a specific lens through which to examine the phenomenology of reading more generally. This timely work also negotiates debates in the study of reading that distinguish theoretically between critical reading and reading for pleasure, between professional and lay reading. All sides of the sociological and literary debate must be brought to bear in understanding what readers tell us about what novels have meant to them in this complex historical moment.

Download or read book Reading Novels During the Covid 19 Pandemic written by Ben Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book provides a snapshot of a phenomenal moment in modern history. The ethnographic approach shows what no historical account of books published during the pandemic will be able to capture, namely the movement of readers between new purchases and books long kept in their collections. The book follows readers who have tuned into novels about plague, apocalypse, and racial violence, but also readers whose taste for older novels, and for re-reading novels they knew earlier in their lives, has grown. Alternating between chapters that analyse single texts that were popular (Albert Camus's The Plague, Ali Smith's Summer, Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre) and others that describe clusters of, for example, dystopian fiction and nature writing, this work brings out the diverse quality of the Covid-19 bookshelf. Time is of central importance to this study, both in terms of the time of lockdown and the temporality of reading itself within this wider disrupted sense of time. By exploring these varied experiences, this book investigates the larger question of how the consumption of novels depends on and shapes people's experience of non-work time, providing a specific lens through which to examine the phenomenology of reading more generally. This timely work also negotiates debates in the study of reading that distinguish theoretically between critical reading and reading for pleasure, between professional and lay reading. All sides of the sociological and literary debate must be brought to bear in understanding what readers tell us about what novels have meant to them in this complex historical moment.

Download or read book Reading Habits in the COVID 19 Pandemic written by Abigail Boucher and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Love Etc written by Rita Felski and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2024-10-17 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The look of love . . . through an analytic lens Long treated with skepticism in literary and cultural studies, love – as a subject of serious scholarly inquiry – is now attracting intense interest and renewed attention. Love, Etc. centers on two key themes: representations of love in literature and culture and love as a relationship to literature and culture. How are our attitudes to love changing in the wake of new technologies and social media; shifting norms around partnering, marriage, and divorce; and feminist and queer thought? Fifteen short and accessible essays cover a wide range of topics from Tinder to The Bachelor, from liking trees to loving aliens, from unrequited love to maternal love, from polyamory to new stories of female friendship, from loving physical books to theorizing love in popular music. Contributors: Carolina Bandinelli, University of Warwick * Mette Blok, Roskilde University, Denmark * Angus Connell Brown * Stephanie Burt, Harvard University * Anne-Marie S. Christensen, University of Southern Denmark * Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University * Lily Gurton-Wachter, Smith College * Timothy Laurie, University of Technology Sydney * Hanna Meretoja, University of Turku, Finland * Kevin Ohi, Boston College * John Plotz, Brandeis University * Anna Poletti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands * Jessica Pressman, San Diego State University * Biswarup Sen, University of Oregon * Hannah Stark, University of Tasmania

Download or read book The Productivity of Negative Emotions in Postcolonial Literature written by Jean-François Vernay and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-11-18 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the possibilities and potentialities of “negative” affect in postcolonial literature and literary theory, featuring work on postcolonial studies, First Nations studies, cognitive cultural studies, cognitive historicism, reader response theory, postcolonial feminist studies, and trauma studies. The chapters of this work investigate negative affect in all its types and dimensions: analyses of the structures of feeling created by socio-political forces; assemblages and alliances produced by negative emotion; enactive interrelationships of emotion and environment; and the ethical implications of emotional response, to name a few. It seeks to rebrand “negative” emotions as productive forces which can paradoxically confer pleasure, agential power, and social progress through literary representation.

Download or read book Literature and Medicine written by Anna M. Elsner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The experiences of health and illness, death and dying, the normal and the pathological have always been an integral part of literary texts. This volume considers how the two dynamic fields of medicine and literature have crossed over, and how they have developed alongside one another. It asks how medicine, as both science and practice, shapes the representation of illness and transforms literary form. It considers how literary texts across genres and languages of disease have put forward specific conceptions of medicine and impacted its practice. Taking into account the global, multilingual and multicultural contexts, this volume systematically outlines and addresses this double-sidedness of the literature-medicine connection. Literature and Medicine covers a broad spectrum of conceptual, thematic, theoretical, and methodological approaches that provide a solid foundation for understanding a vibrant interdisciplinary field.

Download or read book Masculinity in Crisis An Analysis of Contemporary Pandemic Novels written by Ilayda Can and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2023-08-31 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2022 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,6, University of Flensburg, course: American Literature, language: English, abstract: The objective of this thesis is to examine the portrayal of masculinity in contemporary pandemic novels. Specifically, it aims to highlight the positive aspects of male characters and counteract their general neglect. It will also explore how men's private and public performances during a pandemic impact society. The thesis begins with an introduction outlining the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and society's response to it, highlighting the role of pandemic fiction as an analogy and familiar routine in times of crisis. It then argues for the necessity of examining the representation of masculinity in pandemic fiction, as existing research predominantly addresses feminist theories, with the analysis of men being either secondary or nonexistent. It also emphasizes the need to consider both negative and positive aspects of masculinity. The thesis then discusses the definition of 'masculinity' and highlights the necessity of rereading literature from a male perspective. It investigates the portrayal of masculinity in the novels 'Station Eleven' by Emily St. John Mandel, 'Severance' by Ling Ma, and 'The End of Men' by Christina Sweeney-Baird, focusing particularly on the impacts of men's private and public performances during the pandemic. Finally, it stresses the necessity of a complete examination of gender dynamics to broaden the definition of masculinity and challenge patriarchal norms.

Download or read book The Captive Imagination written by Elias Dakwar and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2024 "NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB" MUST-READ A profound, humane, and revolutionary new framework for understanding and addressing addiction. Addiction has been called a moral failing, a social problem, a spiritual crisis, a behavioral disorder, and a brain disease. It has also been called a class issue, a supply problem, a problem of learning, a memory disorder, and a result of trauma. And some propose that addiction is neither a disease nor a problem, but a transgressive expression of freedom, a maligned sub-culture, a therapeutic relationship. Even the term ‘addiction’ is open to question. There are few human phenomena so elusive and intractable; after decades of neuroscientific research, we aren’t much closer to understanding addiction, nor to addressing it effectively. This profusion of interpretations, meanings, and models reflects a hidden truth about addiction: that it is profusely generative of meaning itself. In this bold reimagining, pioneering psychiatrist Elias Dakwar examines addiction as a sustained creative act—and specifically as a process of personal world-building, complete with its own rituals, systems of value, modes of suffering, and sources of support. In this regard, addiction is something we all do. But there is a crucial difference. In the case of those of us suffering from addiction explicitly, this meaningful world keeps us in clear captivity, worsening the suffering and confusion we hoped it would console. And we remain stuck because we have trouble imagining it differently. Drawing on vivid stories of his own patients, path-breaking research with meditation, psychotherapy, and psychedelics/hallucinogens, and decades of clinical experience, Dakwar explores this captivity at the heart of our addictions, and shows how we might move beyond its bounds to reclaim our freedom. He also relates addiction to our collective self-inflicted crises, from environmental destruction to militarism to social injustice, rendering this often stigmatized condition relevant to all of us. With fluid, rich, and often startling prose, The Captive Imagination offers a novel path for better understanding and overcoming addiction, as well as human suffering more generally.

Download or read book Boy Swallows Universe Playscript written by Trent Dalton and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2022-05-01 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling novel, which has taken Australia and the world by storm, now comes alive onstage. Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and learn what it takes to be a good man, but life keeps throwing obstacles in his way - not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer. Soon Eli is beset by chaos on all sides, and a run-in with the local crime king and his henchman launches the 13-year-old with the old soul on a journey to find out what kind of man he is going to be. Adapted by Tim McGarry from Trent Dalton's smash-hit novel, Boy Swallows Universe is an exhilarating story of magic and madness, of beauty and brutality, of joy and heartbreak, and of the power of love to triumph over the darkest of circumstances.

Download or read book States of Plague written by Alice Kaplan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-10-31 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States of Plague examines Albert Camus’s novel as a palimpsest of pandemic life, an uncannily relevant account of the psychology and politics of a public health crisis. As one of the most discussed books of the COVID-19 crisis, Albert Camus’s classic novel The Plague has become a new kind of literary touchstone. Surrounded by terror and uncertainty, often separated from loved ones or unable to travel, readers sought answers within the pages of Camus’s 1947 tale about an Algerian city gripped by an epidemic. Many found in it a story about their own lives—a book to shed light on a global health crisis. In thirteen linked chapters told in alternating voices, Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris hold the past and present of The Plague in conversation, discovering how the novel has reached people in their current moment. Kaplan’s chapters explore the book’s tangled and vivid history, while Marris’s are drawn to the ecology of landscape and language. Through these pages, they find that their sense of Camus evolves under the force of a new reality, alongside the pressures of illness, recovery, concern, and care in their own lives. Along the way, Kaplan and Marris examine how the novel’s original allegory might resonate with a new generation of readers who have experienced a global pandemic. They describe how they learned to contemplate the skies of a plague spring, to examine the body politic and the politics of immunity. Both personal and eloquently written, States of Plague uncovers for us the mysterious way a novel can imagine the world during a crisis and draw back the veil on other possible futures.

Download or read book Alone Together written by Garth Stein and published by Central Avenue Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Could there be a timelier gift to quarantined readers...? I doubt it."—The Washington Post "A heartening gathering of writers joining forces for community support."—Kirkus Reviews "Connects writers, readers, and booksellers in a wonderfully imaginative way. It's a really good book for a really good cause"—Bestselling author James Patterson ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come. All contributing authors and business partners are donating their share to The Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc), a nonprofit organization that coordinates charitable programs to strengthen the bookselling community. The roster of diverse voices includes Faith Adiele, Kwame Alexander, Jenna Blum, Andre Dubus III, Jamie Ford, Nikki Giovanni, Pam Houston, Jean Kwok, Major Jackson, Devi S. Laskar, Caroline Leavitt, Ada Limón, Dani Shapiro, David Sheff, Garth Stein, Luis Alberto Urrea, Steve Yarbrough, and Lidia Yuknavitch. The overarching theme is how this age of isolation and uncertainty is changing us as individuals and a society. "Alone Together showcases the human desire to grieve, explore, comfort, connect, and simply sit with the world as it weathers the pandemic. Jennifer Haupt's timely and moving anthology also benefits the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, making it a project that is noble in both word and deed."—Ann Patchett, Bestselling author, bookseller, and Co-Ambassador for The Book Industry Charitable Foundation

Download or read book Breathless written by David Quammen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Pandemic written by Yvonne Ventresca and published by Sky Pony. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A suspenseful, authentic, and emotional narrative makes Pandemic a gripping and powerful story. . . . Riveting and terrifyingly real with moments of hope that shine through when you least expect it, Pandemic is one that will stay with you long after you read the last page.” —Amalie Howard, author of the Alpha Goddess and Aquarathi series and the Riven Chronicles Even under the most normal circumstances, high school can be a painful and confusing time. Unfortunately, Lilianna’s circumstances are anything but normal. Only a few people know what caused her sudden change from model student to the withdrawn pessimist she has become, but her situation isn’t about to get any better. When people begin coming down with a quick-spreading illness that doctors are unable to treat, Lil’s worst fears are realized. With her parents called away on business before the contagious outbreak—her father in Delaware covering the early stages of the disease and her mother in Hong Kong and unable to get a flight back to New Jersey—Lil’s town is hit by what soon becomes a widespread illness and fatal disaster. Now, she’s more alone than she’s been since the “incident” at her school months ago. With friends and neighbors dying all around her, Lil does everything she can just to survive. But as the disease rages on, so does an unexpected tension as Lil is torn between an old ex and a new romantic interest. Just when it all seems too much, the cause of her original trauma shows up at her door. In this thrilling debut from author Yvonne Ventresca, Lil must find a way to survive not only the outbreak and its real-life consequences, but also her own personal demons. The paperback edition includes bonus materials that discuss pandemics of the past: Spanish flu, H1N1, and COVID-19.

Download or read book Still life of a Pandemic written by Brandon Broll and published by Riols Quarter. This book was released on 2021-04-14 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Still-life of a Pandemic: In Three Books is an "easily readable" and "brilliant" account of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21 "written with pathos and understanding of these unprecedented times". Garnering reviews of being "heart-rending" while "humane and accessible", it is penned by a world poet. It takes us beyond how the media, politicians or scientists have portrayed the pandemic, to the heart of intensely personal experiences of ordinary people, the heroic and the unspoken. Book One: Street of the hollow eyes was first published in summer 2020. It explores with a haunting reality and poignancy, the life of an ordinary family of four trying to get on in these times when the father develops a fever. In this volume, Book Two: Living the lockdowns and Book Three: The Covid-19 vaccine race are newly incorporated, expanding the reach of Still-life of a Pandemic into subjects of national and international importance.

Download or read book Love in the Time of Contagion written by Laura Kipnis and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely, insightful, and darkly funny investigation, the acclaimed author of Against Love asks: what does living in dystopic times do to our ability to love each other and the world? COVID-19 has produced new taxonomies of love, intimacy, and vulnerability. Will its cultural afterlife be as lasting as that of HIV, which reshaped consciousness about sex and love even after AIDS itself had been beaten back by medical science? Will COVID end up making us more relationally conservative, as some think HIV did within gay culture? Will it send us fleeing into emotional silos or coupled cocoons, despite the fact that, pre-COVID, domestic coupledom had been steadily losing fans? Just as COVID revealed our nation to itself, so did it hold a mirror up to our relationships. In Love in the Time of Contagion, Laura Kipnis weaves (often hilariously) her own (ambivalent) coupled lockdown experiences together with those of others and sets them against a larger backdrop: the politics of the virus, economic disparities, changing gender relations, and the ongoing institutional crack-ups prompted by #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, mapping their effects on the everyday routines and occasional solaces of love and sex.

Download or read book Deceit of the Soul Saving the World from Covid 19 Before the Pandemic written by Henry Cox and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2020-09-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fast-paced novel is as timely as it is thrilling, with mesmerizing characters. There is a story before COVID-19 became a pandemic. For Colonel Li Huiwei, the story never ends. Her intellect was always Huiwei's blessing and curse since she was a young girl taken from her family. A Colonel in the People's Republic Air Force and an expert in statistical modeling, she stumbles on the information to potentially bring the Global economies to their knees. It was her plan, one she never intended, and one she cannot stop. Time is running out, she knows the odds, she made them. In a world where trust is a limited commodity, can her former colleagues from M.I.T, and a Royal Air Force Commander, save her from herself, and the World from the worst possible outcome of a Global pandemic. At what point do people unravel the identity thrust upon them and discover the deceit of the soul, finding the inner strength to act on the actual truths revealed, to choose a path when there are no good choices.

Download or read book The Orphan Collector written by Ellen Marie Wiseman and published by Kensington Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ellen Marie Wiseman, acclaimed author of What She Left Behind and The Life She Was Given, weaves the stories of two very different women into a page-turning novel as suspenseful as it is poignant, set amid one of history's deadliest pandemics. In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone . . . Since her baby died days ago, Bernice Groves has been lost in grief and bitterness. If doctors hadn't been so busy tending to hordes of immigrants, perhaps they could have saved her son. When Bernice sees Pia leaving her tenement across the way, she is buoyed by a shocking, life-altering decision that leads her on a sinister mission: to transform the city's orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are "true Americans." As Pia navigates the city's somber neighborhoods, she cannot know that her brothers won't be home when she returns. And it will be a long and arduous journey to learn what happened--even as Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost. Only with persistence, and the courage to face her own shame and fear, will Pia put the pieces together and find the strength to risk everything to see justice at last.