Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance investigates the ever-evolving role of the widow in medieval and early modern Italian literature, from canonical authors such as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, to the numerous widowed writers who rose to prominence in the sixteenth century—including Vittoria Colonna, Veronica Gambara, and Francesca Turina—and radically changed the conversation on public mourning. Engaging with broader intellectual discussions a...

The essays in this volume revisit the Italian Renaissance to rethink spaces thought to be defined and certain: from the social spaces of convent, court, or home, to the literary spaces of established genres such as religious plays or epic poetry. Repopulating these spaces with the women who occupied them but have often been elided in the historical record, the essays also remind us to ask what might obscure our view of texts and archives, what has remained marginal in the texts and context...

The enduring "black legend" of the Italian Counter-Reformation, which has held sway in both scholarly and popular culture, maintains that the Council of Trent ushered in a cultural dark age in Italy, snuffing out the spectacular creative production of the Renaissance. As a result, the decades following Trent have been mostly overlooked in Italian literary studies, in particular. The thirteen essays of Innovation in the Italian Counter-Reformation present a radical reconsideration ...

Drawing on over two decades of research in and on China and on extensive reviews of current scholarship, China: The Basics introduces readers to the key aspects of Chinese society, culture, and politics.The book provides an empirically rich overview of China’s global position and the challenges posed by urbanisation, uneven economic development, and environmental governance. With detailed vignettes giving a flavour of everyday life experiences, China: The Basics c...

An examination of the daily grind of living with pollution in rural China and of the varying forms of activism that develop in response.Residents of rapidly industrializing rural areas in China live with pollution every day. Villagers drink obviously tainted water and breathe visibly dirty air, afflicted by a variety of ailments—from arthritis to nosebleeds—that they ascribe to the effects of industrial pollution. In Resigned Activism, Anna Lora-Wainwright...

Drawing on over two decades of research in and on China and on extensive reviews of current scholarship, China: The Basics introduces listeners to the key aspects of Chinese society, culture, and politics.The book provides an empirically rich overview of China's global position and the challenges posed by urbanization, uneven economic development, and environmental governance. With detailed vignettes giving a flavor of everyday life experiences, China: The Basics ...