It has seemed at times that there is no neutral territory between those who see Bakhtin as the practitioner of a kind of neo-Marxist, or at least materialist, deconstruction and those who look at the same texts and see a defender of traditional, liberal humanist values and classical conceptions of order, a conservative in the true sense of the term. Arising from a conference under the same title held at Texas Tech University, Carnivalizing Difference seeks to explore the actual an...

The end of communism in Europe has tended to be discussed mainly in the context of political science and history. This book, in contrast, assesses the cultural consequences for Europe of the disappearance of the Soviet bloc. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, the book examines the new narratives about national, individual and European identities that have emerged in literature, theatre and other cultural media, investigates the impact of the re-unification of the continent on the ment...

This book focuses on literature and cinema in English or French by authors and directors not working in their native language. Artists with hybrid identities have become a defining phenomenon of contemporary reality following the increased mobility between civilisations during the postcolonial period and the waves of emigration to the West. Cinema and prose fiction remain the most popular sources of cultural consumption, not least owing to the adaptability of both to the new electronic med...

Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation considers gender and sexuality in modern Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapters look individually at gender and sexuality through history, art, folklore, philosophy or literature,but are also arranged into sections according to the arguments they develop. A number of chapters also consider Russia in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Thematic sections include:*Gender and Power*Gender and National...

Russian Literature and the Classics attempts to fill a gap. To date there has been no book-length, systematic study of the impact of antiquity on Russian literature and culture. While by no means claiming to offer a comprehensive approach, the authors focus on various aspects of the influence which the Classics have had on Russian literature at particularly significant junctures - the beginning of the nineteenth century; the age of the great Russian realist novel; the "Silver Age"...

The recent tumult of Ukraine's Orange Revolution and its aftermath has exposed some of the deep political, social, and cultural divisions that run through the former Soviet republic. Examining Odessa, the Black Sea port that was once the Russian Empire's southern window onto Europe, Kaleidoscopic Odessa provides an ethnographic portrait of these overlapping divisions in a city where many residents consider themselves separate and distinct from Ukraine.Exploring the tension...

The increasing popularity of bande dessinee, or French-language comic strip, means that it is being established on university syllabuses worldwide. Reading Bande Dessinee provides a thorough introduction to the medium and in-depth critical analysis with focus on contemporary examples of the art form, historical context, key artists, and themes such as gender, autobiography and postcolonial culture. Miller's groundbreaking book demonstrates exactly why bande dessinee is considered to be a v...

This book brings together life stories from five generations of Balts, living through the diverse and recurring transformations of the twentieth century: occupations, war, independence, totalitarianism, and democratic rule and market economy. The twentieth century history of the Baltic countries has often been deeply tragic. Lying on the coastline of the Baltic Sea, these rather small but strategically well located territories have historically found themselves in the middle of many power ...

This book analyses Irene Némirovsky’s literary production in its relationship to the literary and cultural context of the inter-war period in France. It examines topics of central importance to our understanding of the literary field in France in the period, such as: the close relationship between politics and literature; the historical, political, cultural and personal legacies of the First World War; the so-called ‘crisis of the novel’ and the attempt to create and develop new narrative ...

‘He becomes everyman’s guide to everything exciting in the history of ideas’ New York Review of BooksIsaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century, and one of the finest writers. The Proper Study Of Mankind selects some of his best essays in which his insights both illuminate the past and offer a key to the burning issues of today.The full (and enormous) range of his work is represented here, from ...

Abandoning the usual Cold War–oriented narrative of postwar European protest and opposition movements, this volume offers an innovative, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive perspective on two decades of protest and social upheaval in postwar Europe. It examines the mutual influences and interactions among dissenters in Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact countries, and the nonaligned European countries, and shows how ideological and political developments in the East and West were interconnec...

Translating Montreal follows the trajectories of adventurous cultural translators such as Malcolm Reid, F.R. Scott, and A.M. Klein - pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s - Pierre Anctil, whose translations from Yiddish to French are emblematic of the dramatic reroutings now occurring across the Montreal landscape, and contemporary writer-translators such as Gail Scott, Erin Mouré, Jacques Brault, Michel Garneau, Nicole Brossard, and Emile Ollivier. Simon argues that translation is a dynamic and...