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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2017

        Re-visioning myth

        by Frances Babbage

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 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'.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2023

        Imperialism and the development myth

        by Sam King

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2024

        Myth and (mis)information

        Constructing the medical professions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature and culture

        by Allan Ingram, Helen Williams, Clark Lawlor

        This collection draws together original scholarship from international contributors on a range of aspects of professional and semi-professional medical work and its relations to British culture. It combines a diverse spectrum of scholarly approaches, from medical history to book history, exploring literary and scientific texts, such as satiric poetry, essays, anatomies, advertisements, and the novel, to shed light on the mythologisation and transmission of medical (mis)information through literature and popular culture. It analyses the persuasive and sometimes deceptive means by which myths, as well as information and beliefs, about medicine and the medical professions proliferated in English literary culture of this period, from early eighteenth-century household remedies to the late nineteenth-century concerns with vaccination that are still relevant today.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2018

        Water and fire

        The myth of the flood in Anglo-Saxon England

        by Anke Bernau, Daniel Anlezark

        Noah's Flood is one of the Bible's most popular stories, and flood myths survive in many cultures today. This book presents the first comprehensive examination of the incorporation of the Flood myth into the Anglo-Saxon imagination. Focusing on literary representations, it contributes to our understanding of how Christian Anglo-Saxons perceived their place in the cosmos. For them, history unfolded between the primeval Deluge and a future - perhaps imminent - flood of fire, which would destroy the world. This study reveals both an imaginative diversity and shared interpretations of the Flood myth. Anglo-Saxons saw the Flood as a climactic event in God's ongoing war with his more rebellious creatures, but they also perceived the mystery of redemption through baptism. Anlezark studies a range of texts against their historical background, and discusses shifting emphases in the way the Flood was interpreted for diverse audiences. The book concludes with a discussion of Beowulf, relating the epic poem's presentation of the Flood myth to that of other Anglo-Saxon texts.

      • Trusted Partner
        October 2020

        Turning Men into Pigs and Staying Safe from Such Trickery

        A Scientific Foray into the World of Ancient Greek Legends

        by Monika Niehaus, Michael Wink

        The adventures of Odysseus are not just a classic literary epic but also shine a light on intriguing questions for geography, archaeology and biology. Phenomena like the Cyclops and magic potions were only understood in recent decades thanks to phytochemical and pharmacological research that enabled new insights into the effect of plant substances on the mind and body. Monika Niehaus and Michael Wink embark on an enjoyable excursion in their book on a scientific foray for knowledge – from ancient myths to medieval drug excesses and the world of comics.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        September 2022

        William Blake's Gothic imagination

        by Chris Bundock, Elizabeth Effinger

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Popular imperialism and the military, 1850-1950

        by John M. MacKenzie

        Colonial war played a vital part in transforming the reputation of the military and placing it on a standing equal to that of the navy. The book is concerned with the interactive culture of colonial warfare, with the representation of the military in popular media at home, and how these images affected attitudes towards war itself and wider intellectual and institutional forces. It sets out to relate the changing image of the military to these fundamental facts. For the dominant people they were an atavistic form of war, shorn of guilt by Social Darwinian and racial ideas, and rendered less dangerous by the increasing technological gap between Europe and the world. Attempts to justify and understand war were naturally important to dominant people, for the extension of imperial power was seldom a peaceful process. The entertainment value of war in the British imperial experience does seem to have taken new and more intensive forms from roughly the middle of the nineteenth century. Themes such as the delusive seduction of martial music, the sketch of the music hall song, powerful mythic texts of popular imperialism, and heroic myths of empire are discussed extensively. The first important British war correspondent was William Howard Russell (1820-1907) of The Times, in the Crimea. The 1870s saw a dramatic change in the representation of the officer in British battle painting. Up to that point it was the officer's courage, tactical wisdom and social prestige that were put on display.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2017

        Law in popular belief

        Myth and reality

        by Edited by Anthony Amatrudo, Regina Rauxloh

        In recent years there has been a significant growth in interest of the so-called "law in context" extending legal studies beyond black letter law. This book looks at the relationship between statute law and legal practice. It examines how law is applied in reality and more precisely how law is perceived by the general public in contrast to the legal profession. The authors look at a number of themes that are central to examining ways in which myths about law are formed, and how there is inevitably a constitutive power aspect to this myth making. At the same time they explore to what extent law itself creates and sustains myths. The book will be of general interest to a number of different disciplines such as legal theory, general law, criminology and sociology.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2008

        El laberinto de la soledad by Octavio Paz

        by Catherine Davies, Anthony Stanton

        If one had to identify one central, defining text from modern Mexican culture, it would be Octavio Paz´s famous essay, El laberinto de la soledad. This fully annotated edition includes the complete text in Spanish (with the author's final revisions), and notes and additional material in English. The editor's introduction contextualizes the essay and discusses central features: autobiographical and textual origins, intellectual sources, reception and canonization, generic ambiguity, structure, and governing symbols. The intellectual sources identified range from Marx, Nietzsche and Freud to the more contemporary ones of the French College of Sociology (Caillois), the Surrealist movement, the ideas of D. H. Lawrence, previous essays from writers in Mexico (such as Samuel Ramos) and Latin America. Several lines of interpretation are examined to show how the work can be read as a psycho-historical essay, an autobiographical construct or a modern literary myth. Transdisciplinary by nature, this literary essay is both an imaginative construction of personal and national identity, and also a critical deconstruction of dominant stereotypes. It seeks to redefine the complex relationships that exist between psychology, myth, history and Mexican culture. This edition also includes excerpts of the author's opinions on his essay, a time-line of Mexican history, a selected vocabulary, and themes for discussion and debate. Paz's first full-length prose work remains his most well-known and widely read text, and this edition will appeal to sixth-form and university students, teachers, researchers and general readers with a knowledge of Spanish. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2008

        Every man in his humour

        Ben Jonson

        by Robert Miola

        This edition breaks with the usual practice by presenting the 1601 quarto version of Ben Jonson's play, set in Florence, instead of the revised 1616 version, set in London. Robert S. Miola presents a meticulously edited and modernised version of the play as originally acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men (with Shakespeare in the cast) in 1598. Miola explores the relevance of the Italian setting, particularly the potent, variegated, and fascinating body of myth and legend that constituted Italy for English audiences in 1598. The editor also illuminates the dramatic context of the play, while paying detailed attention to the social, political, and religious contexts. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        October 2007

        Bob Dylan

        Ein Kongreß

        by Axel Honneth, Peter Kemper, Richard Klein

        +++ Literaturnobelpreis 2016 für Bob Dylan +++ Über den Sonderstatus des Songschreibers Bob Dylan besteht nicht nur unter Musikbegeisterten Einigkeit, seine Texte haben ihm sogar den Literaturnobelpreis 2016 eingebracht. Um so mehr fällt es auf, daß sich die Literatur- und Sozialwissenschaften bisher kaum für Dylan, seine Texte und seine sozialhistorische Rolle interessiert haben. Ein internationaler Kongreß, der 2006 in Frankfurt am Main stattfand, hat das geändert. Der Band dokumentiert die Vorträge von Michael Gray, Axel Honneth, Susan Neiman und Klaus Theweleit und anderen sowie die Abschlußdiskussion. Die Plattentips der versammelten »Dylanologen« ermöglichen auch Jüngeren einen Einstieg in Dylans Werk. »It’s not me. It’s the songs. I’m just the postman. I deliver the songs. That’s what all the legend, all the myth is about – my songs.« Bob Dylan

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        November 2009

        Portraiture and social identity in eighteenth-century Rome

        by Sabrina Eliasson

        Portraiture and Social Identity in Eighteenth-Century Rome sheds new light on the relationship between portraiture, social affirmation and the myth of Antiquity as it was experienced and elaborated in eighteenth-century Rome. Drawing upon a wealth of unpublished documents and previously unexamined literary texts, it offers new insights and readings into how the experience of the City in terms of abstract or concrete appropriation affected the ways of portraying native or visiting elite sitters. The Grand Tour portrait, usually discussed as a purely British phenomenon, is here put in its original context of production and compared to the portraits of the Romans themselves. Portraiture and social identity in eighteenth-century Rome will become essential reading for anyone with a particular interest in eighteenth-century art and its social use. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2024

        Resisting Olympic evictions

        Contesting space in Rio de Janeiro

        by Adam Talbot

        By tracing the way evictions in a small community of around 600 families made news headlines all over the world, this book explores how activists in Rio protested against evictions at the Rio 2016 Olympics. They constructed the favela as safe, welcoming and homely, directly contesting the myth of marginality - the notion of favelas as havens of crime and poverty which is used to justify slum clearance. In doing so they were showcasing how a different kind of informal community rooted in security and belonging is possible, through a range of social events and other actions. Based on 14 months of fieldwork in Brazil, this book explores how this vision was constructed through collective action, transmitted around the world through both social and traditional media and how it lives on in the Evictions Museum that was created through the process.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        December 2023

        Fantasies of music in nostalgic medievalism

        by Helen Dell

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        September 2017

        Reading Robin Hood

        Content, form and reception in the outlaw myth

        by Anke Bernau, Stephen Knight

        Reading Robin Hood explores and explains stories about the mythic outlaw, who from the Middle Ages to the present stands up for the values of natural law and true justice. This analysis of the whole sequence of Robin Hood adventures begins with the medieval tradition, from early poems into the long-surviving sung ballads, and goes on to look at two variant Robins: the Scottish version, here named Rabbie Hood, and gentrified Robin, the exiled Earl of Huntington, now partnered by Lady Marian. The nineteenth century re-imagined medieval Robin as modern, a lover of nature, Marian, England and the rights of the ordinary man. In novels and especially films he has developed into an international figure of freedom, while Marian's role has grown in a modern feminist context. Even to this day, the Robin Hood myth continues to reproduce itself, constantly discovering new forms and new meanings.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2015

        Reading Robin Hood

        Content, form and reception in the outlaw myth

        by Stephen Knight, Anke Bernau

        Reading Robin Hood explores and explains stories about the mythic outlaw, who from the middle ages to the present stands up for the values of natural law and true justice. This analysis of the whole sequence of the adventures of Robin Hood first explores the medieval tradition from early poems into the long-surviving sung ballads, and also two variant Robins: the Scottish version, here named Rabbie Hood, and gentrified Robin, the exiled Earl of Huntington, now partnered by Lady Marian. The nineteenth century re-imagined medieval Robin as modern - he loved nature, Marian, England, and the rights of the ordinary man - and in novels and especially films he has developed further, into an international figure of freedom, just as Marian's role has grown in a modern feminist context. The vigour of the Robin Hood myth still reproduces itself, constantly with new forms and new meanings. ;

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