In 1996 the physicist Alan Sokal planted a hoax article in the journal Social Text, mimicking the social constructionist view of science popular in the humanities, and sparked into life the ’science wars’ which had been rumbling throughout the 1990s. Postmodern Postures puts this contemporary controversy into the context of earlier debates about the ’two cultures’, between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow, and Mathew Arnold and T.H. Huxley. Through an interrogation of interdisciplinary approaches...

This book analyses the 1980s as a nuclear decade, focusing on British and United States fiction. Ranging across genres including literary fiction, science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, graphic novels, children’s and young adult literature, thrillers and horror, it shows how pressing nuclear issues were, particularly the possibility of nuclear war, and how deeply they penetrated the culture. It is innovative for its discussion of a “nuclear transatlantic,” placing British and American ...

The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time examines alternate history science fiction using the eschatological, genetic, entropic, and teleological historical models. Hellekson’s original approach explains much of the appeal of alternate history and distinguishes among the many varieties of the genre. In her measured consideration of a range of writers, Hellekson displays a deep and broad knowledge of the major works in this genre—those by famous or neglected writers alike....

Technology, Literature and Culture provides a detailed and accessible exploration of the ways in which literature across the twentieth century has represented the inescapable presence and progress of technology. As this study argues, from the Fordist revolution in manufacturing to computers and the internet, technology has reconfigured our relationship to ourselves, each other, and to the tools and material we use.The book considers such key topics as the legacy of late-nineteenth ...

In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sellers, Eagleton offers a new theory of what we mean by literature. He also shows what it is that a great ...

He called the first atomic bomb “technically sweet,” yet as he watched its brilliant light explode over the New Mexico desert in 1945 in advance of the black horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he also thought of the line from the Hindu epic The Bhagavad Gita: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the single most recognizable face of the atomic bomb, and a man whose name has become almost syn...

Bringing his perennially popular course to the page, Yale University Professor Paul H. Fry offers in this welcome book a guided tour of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. At the core of the book's discussion is a series of underlying questions: What is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?Fry engages with the major themes and strands in twentieth-century literary theory, among them hermeneutics, modes of formalism, sem...

Is Western civilisation based on a mistaken understanding of humanity? Fundemental to any society is its comprehension of human nature. It shapes attitudes and policies on a whole range of issues: interpersonal relations, child-rearing, discipline and punishment, economics and welfare.The outcome of egalitarian aims or methods has often missed its mark: e.g.,in education it has led to the dumbing down of academic standards, grade inflation and a decline in social mobility. Egalitar...

At the Speed of Light There is Only Illumination collects a dozen re-evaluative essays on Marshall McLuhan and his critical and theoretical legacy; from intellectual adventurer creating a complex architecture of ideas to cultural icon standing in line in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Given McLuhan’s prominent status in many academic disciplines, the contributors reflect a multi-disciplinary background. John Moss and Linda Morra chose the essays from a gathering of McLuhan’s academic d...

Children's literature takes many forms - works adapted for children in antiquity, picture books and pop-ups - and now includes the latest online games and eBooks. This vast and amorphous subject is both intimately related to other areas of literary and cultural investigation but also has its own set of concerns, issues and challenges. From familiar authors including Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, classic books such as Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden

Pocket Essentials is a dynamic series of books that are concise, lively, and easy to read. Packed with facts as well as expert opinions, each book has all the key information you need to know about such popular topics as film, television, cult fiction, history, and more. It sounds daunting: all those -isms, long technical words, weird French thinkers, and incomprehensible Germans. Most books providing introductions to "Literary Theory" are long-winded tomes, guiding dogged readers through ...