Honorable Mention, 2021 SSAWW Book AwardThe Once and Future Muse presents the first major study of the life and work of Dominican-born bilingual American poet and translator Rhina P. Espaillat (b. 1932). Beginning with her literary celebrity as the youngest poet ever inducted into the Poetry Society of America, it traces her relative obscurity after 1952 when she married and took on family and employment responsibilities, to her triumphant return to the poetry spotlight de...

Silvio Torres-Saillant’s collected writings examine political contradictions within Latinx identity in the United States.Since the 1990s Silvio Torres-Saillant’s work has questioned the notion of Latinidad, challenging presumptions of panethnic unity within the US Hispanic population and assessing dominant modes of Latinx representation. The essays in Problematic Paradigms and the Contours of US Latinidad examine the dynamics of a diverse collective of ove...

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott, edited by Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, and Nancy Kang, brings together eighteen critical essays that illuminate a nearly comprehensive selection of the director’s feature films from cutting-edge multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Chapters examine such signature works as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and American Gangster (2007).This vol...

A slave shall rise from the ashes to master dragons.Born into slavery, Mai's horizons are limited to one simple desire: to catch the eye of a handsome mate. She dares not dream for more, for like all humans, she's been taught from birth that her life belongs to the orcs, her destiny to serve.But her world is upended when Aralas, a messenger from the elf gods, reveals blasphemous truths: humanity was created to be free; and hope—if it can be called that—lies...

In this masterly, deeply personal, and provocative book, the internationally renowned Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, whose work has been called “a combination of Poe, Baudelaire, and Isak Dinesen” (Newsweek), steps back to survey the wellsprings of art and ideology, the events that have shaped our time, and his extraordinary life and fiercest passions.Arranged alphabetically from “Amore” to “Zurich,” This I Believe takes us on a marvelous inner journey with a grea...

Literary Analysis: The Basics is an insightful introduction to analysing a wide range of literary forms. Providing a clear outline of the methodologies employed in twenty-first century literary analysis, it introduces readers to the genres, canons, terms, issues, critical approaches, and contexts that affect the analysis of any text. It addresses such questions as:What counts as literature?Is analysis a dissection?How do gender, race, class and cu...

As defining as Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, and Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education were to the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, respectively, Marjorie Garber’s The Use and Abuse of Literature is to our times.Even as the decline of the reading of literature, as argued by the National Endowment for the Arts, proceeds in our culture, Garber (“One of the most powerful women in the academic w...

A delightful and provocative journey across four decades of contemporary American poetry with Stephanie Burt, “the leading poetry critic of her generation” (New York Times), as our surefooted guide.In The Poem Is You, critic and poet Stephanie Burt canvasses contemporary American poetry —from the urgency of Claudia Rankine’s Citizento the limitless energy of Juan Felipe Herrera and the erotic provocations of D. A. Powell.Burt presents a range of s...

While Canadian poetic practices have steadily pluralised since the early 1960s, the poetry review has remained stubbornly constant. You Must Work Harder to Write Poetry of Excellence is a critical, and at times hilarious survey of reviews of innovative Canadian poetry in English since 1961. What is at stake in the reviewing of poetry? What fantasies are inherent to the practice? How is poetry itself produced in the reviewing of poetry? Why has the reviewing of poetry remained larg...

Ethics, Literature, and Theory: An Introductory Reader brings together the work of contemporary scholars, teachers, and writers into lively discussion on the moral role of literature and the relationship between aesthetics, art, and ethics. Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex...

As teachers and readers expand the canon of world literature to include writers whose voices traditionally have been silenced by the dominant culture, fundamental questions arise. What do we mean by "world"? What constitutes "literature"? Who should decide?Reading World Literature is a cumulative study of the concept and evolving practices of "world literature." Sarah Lawall opens the book with a substantial introduction to the overall topic. Twelve original essays by dist...

At the beginning of a new writing project—whether it’s the first page of a new novel or a less ambitious project, writers often experience exhilaration, fear, or dread. For Kristjana Gunnars, the call of a new project is “like someone you don’t know knocking on your door—you either choose to let the person in or not. It’s both exciting and dangerous to start a new manuscript.” This book is an engagement with that “stranger” called writing.Creative or imaginative writing is a comple...