Drawing upon historicist and cultural studies approaches to literature, this book argues that the Romantic construction of the self emerged out of the growth of commercial print culture and the expansion and fragmentation of the reading public beginning in eighteenth-century Britain.Arguing for continuity between eighteenth-century literature and the rise of Romanticism, this groundbreaking book traces the influence of new print market conditions on the development of the Romantic p...

During the nineteenth century, the idea of 'genius' became associated with natural landscapes on both sides of the Atlantic. Scott D. Hess explores how those associations defined the modern significance of nature and precipitated the emergence of National Parks and the environmental movement. William Wordsworth's identification with the English Lake District, Henry David Thoreau's with Walden, and John Muir's with Yosemite established the paradigm of the 'landscape of genius,' through whic...

In William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship, Scott Hess explores Wordsworth’s defining role in establishing what he designates as "the ecology of authorship": a primarily middle-class, nineteenth-century conception of nature associated with aesthetics, high culture, individualism, and nation. Instead of viewing Wordsworth as an early ecologist, Hess places him within a context that is largely cultural and aesthetic. The supposedly universal Wordsworthian vision of nature, ...

"Drought is as full of compassion for its characters—and humanity, in general—as it is unexpected in its storytelling. Hess has written a novella that manages to be simultaneously tender, macabre, and transcendent." —Brian Alessandro, author of Performer Non Grata and Julian's DebutWhen Parnell, a recluse from Newark, New Jersey, inherits a dilapidated tobacco farm in Kentucky from his estranged Uncle Willy, he moves to the farm hoping to jump start his e...

A Lambda Literary Finalist in Best EroticaIn modern day Manhattan, Atticus is a down-on-his-luck architect who stumbles into an S&M bar and meets a young man who changes the direction of his life. What begins as a random pick-up evolves into an intense game of sexual domination as Atticus finds himself wildly invigorated both as a man and an architect.As the relationship deepens, his creativity catches fire and he lands a prime architectural job at his firm designing...

The christening of the world's first skyscraper on the shores of the mighty Mississippi River is the backdrop for River Runs Red, Lambda Literary Award finalist Scott Alexander Hess' new historical LGBTQ novel set in St. Louis, Missouri circa 1891.Calhoun McBride and Clement Cartwright are men from different worlds. Young Calhoun works backbreaking, midnight shifts at the Snopes Brewery…and earns a little extra selling his body to eager men. Clement (inspired by famed architect Lou...

When Neal Tate, a just-out-of-rehab NYC party columnist, falls for Dewalt, a Harlem drug dealer he meets at a gay bathhouse, he discovers that navigating an honest relationship is a lot more difficult than chasing down the perfect pair of skinny jeans.Neal finds support from his fashion-loving friends: Rovvy, a blond boy-toy married to Andres Palamos, the shady millionaire owner of Pop magazine where Neal works; Nick, "It-boy" style writer for the New York Times w...

Witty, dark and explosively carnal, Diary of a Sex Addict chronicles a gay New Yorker's month-long descent into a circus of anonymous hook-ups as he struggles to erase the pain of a failed romance and blot out the routine of a soul-numbing day job. Bizarre gang-bangs and fleeting attempts at celibacy are interspersed with visits to his wealthy and eccentric dowager aunt, visits which awaken lost memories of a chaotic youth.Written in prose that is at once poetic and unabas...

In this pair of novellas, award-winning author Scott Alexander Hess provides a richly textured portrait of the shifting landscape of the 20th century American Dream.The Root of Everything is a multi-generational saga tracking fathers and sons from Germany's Black Forest to Missouri as they experience tragedy, triumph, forbidden love, and hard-earned reckonings.In Lightning, a young man in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1918 is driven by his deep love for horses and his emerging ...

This issue of Political Power and Social Theory explores the changes in science associated with the rise of neoliberalism since the 1970s. The neoliberalization of science has complicated interactions among states, markets, and civil society, often in ways that challenge major assumptions underlying decades of research. The articles collected here break with older Mertonian sociologies of science and constructivist microsociologies of scientific knowledge to examine the mesolevel problem o...

Those who have been lured by the sound of skate blades slicing into fresh ice and everything-or-nothing attitude of the game know that hockey can seem like its own world.Yet in another light, that tight community can turn insular; the values of teamwork and humility can manifest as collective silence in the face of abuse and discrimination, issues which have been brought to the forefront of the sport as many share their stories for the first time.In Game Misconduct...

This book presents the first published accounts and evaluations of the first free market in education in the U.S., Arizona charter schools.. The charter school is fast becoming one of the most significant attempts at public education reform in this country. Over 1100 charter schools operate in twenty-seven states, with several hundred more to be added in the next two years. School Choice in the Real World looks at the charter school movement through a highly focused lens: it examines chart...