Litteraturstudier: skønlitteratur og forfattere

Exploring Paris arm in arm with Balzac, nineteenth-century France’s most famous novelist and observer

«A pioneering first in the English language. This is a wonderfully subtle, multifaceted study of the image in the work of one of Portugal¿s greatest writers. Admirable for its depth of analysis and breadth of coverage, this is a real gift for new learners of Portuguese and established scholars alike.»(Hilary Owen, University of Oxford)«The present collection of essays, produced by some of the best scholars who have dealt with Lídia Jorge¿s work, should be of great help to English readers not familiar with the original language of a compelling, engaging writer deeply concerned with the world she lives in and the future of us all.»(Onésimo Teotónio Almeida, Brown University)As Aristotle has written, the image is at the core of the soul¿s language. Indeed, given its significant potential and capacity for revelation ¿ heightened in a society dominated by visual culture ¿ the image would seem to be key to reflecting, critically and creatively, on humanity and on history itself. Lídia Jorge has asserted several times that her writing has always taken as its starting point a powerful and inspiring image, which concentrates the various meanings and reflections that she intends to explore while also dispersing these across her texts. Radiating from the initial image, Jorge manages to develop a gaze which is simultaneously critical, thorough and informative. Scholars point out that whenever language opens to universal images and mythologies capable of conveying visions of clarity, the subversive power of beauty is re-asserted. This power is confirmed and examined from different points of view and theories in this volume.

"Flying saucers. Bigfoot. Frogs raining from the sky. Such phenomena fascinated Charles Fort, the maverick writer who scanned newspapers, journals, and magazines for reports of bizarre occurrences: dogs that talked, vampires, strange visions in the sky, and paranormal activity. His books of anomalies advanced a philosophy that saw science as a small part of a larger system in which truth and falsehood continually transformed into one another. His work found a ragged following of skeptics who questioned not only science but the press, medicine, and politics. Through their worldviews varied, they shared compelling questions about genius, reality, and authority. At the center of the community was adman, writer, and enfant terrible Tiffany Thayer, who founded the Fortean SOciety and ran it for almost three decades, collecting and reporting on every manner of oddity and conspiracy. In Think to New Worlds, Joshua Blu Buhs argues that the FOrtean effect on modern culture is deeper than you think. Fort's descending provided tools to expand the imagination, explore the social order, and demonstrate how power is exercised. Science fiction writers put these ideas to work as they sought to uncover the hidden structures undergirding reality. Avant-garde modernists--including the authors William Gaddis, Henry Miller, and Ezra Pount, as well as Surrealist visual artists--were inspired by Fort's writing about metaphysical and historical forces. And in the years following World War II, flying saucer enthusiasts convinced of alien life raised questions about who controlled the universe."--Publisher marketing.

'A first-rate biography of the man, the writer and the lover' DAVID HOCKNEY'Bucknell's research is impressive and her judgements astute' GUARDIANAn engrossing new biography of the man whose writings about 1930s Berlin made him famous. From the editor of Isherwood's diaries and letters.Christopher Isherwood rejected the life he was born to and set out to make a different one. Heir to an English estate, he flunked out of university, moved to Berlin, was driven through Europe by the Nazis, and circled the globe before settling in Hollywood.There he adopted a new religion and continued to form the friendships - including an astounding number of romantic and sexual ones - through which he discovered himself.Using a wealth of unpublished material, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out tells how the traumas of his father's death in World War I and his failure to protect his German lover from the Nazis were healed by his life as a monk in the 1940s, enabling him to commit unflinchingly to a sexually open relationship in the 1950s, and to come out as a 'grand old man' of the gay rights movement in the 1970s.With this new biography, enriched by unlimited access to Isherwood's partner Don Bachardy, Katherine Bucknell shows how Christopher Isherwood achieved a uniquely inspiring personal life. He effected lasting change in our culture, through both his literary works and the way he lived.'The best biography I've ever read . . . Every page is full of surprises' EDMUND WHITE'It's hard to imagine a better qualified candidate for this task than Katherine Bucknell' THE TIMES'A fast-paced story of an extraordinary life and a broadly illuminating history of vast cultural changes' EDWARD MENDELSON

From the World Fantasy Award-winning author Helen Marshall comes a collection of critical writing focused on the evolution of writing, horror, and the weird tale. Within this volume you'll find an interrogation of the radical poetics of M. John Harrison's Worldbuilding, deep dives into the works of Stephen King and Kelly Link, and a meditation on the need for new and evolving language to describe weird times. You'll also find Marshall's extraordinary story, Survival Strategies, accompanied by an extended commentary that unearths its hidden depths and utilization of the uncanny. Insightful, dangerous, and incredibly precise, Tomorrow's Language shows us Dr Helen Marshall's critical work on horror and writing craft are just as unsettling, startling, and viscerally engaging as her best work as a fiction writer.

Den franske revolution, Napoleon i Ægypten, Tusind og én nat, rejseberetninger fra Konstantinopel, Kairo, Palæstina og Algeriet er forskellige spor i europæisk kultur fra starten af det 19. århundrede. Interessen for Orienten var forbundet med kolonial stormagtspolitik på de asiatiske og afrikanske kontinenter, men også med entusiastisk udforskning af østlig kultur og oversættelser af persiske, tyrkiske, indiske og arabiske klassiske tekster til europæiske sprog. J.W. Goethe drømmer sig tilbage til barmakidernes storhedstid i Bagdad, Lord Byron fortæller dramatiske haremshistorier med noter om egne oplevelser i Tyrkiet, H.C. Andersen er fortryllet i Konstantinopel, Alexandre Dumas omgiver sin helt, Greven af Monte-Cristo, med et spind af gåder, der har at gøre med grevens skjulte fortid i Orienten. Orienten som horisont favner det 19. århundredes europæiske orientinteresse i bredden og viser, hvordan fascinationen af den orientalske verden går hånd i hånd med aktuelle spørgsmål og anliggender i den europæiske kontekst. I bogens kapitler behandles berømte og mindre kendte engelske, franske, tyske og nordiske forfatteres orient-fortællinger og bidrag til en stadig aktuel diskussion om Europas selvforståelse i forhold til nabokulturerne i Øst.

The fourth volume in the immensely popular Field Guide series, this book gives readers unprecedented insight into the techniques of 28 of today's most innovative creators of graphic literature. With original craft essays, corresponding exercises, and full-color examples of their work, each contributor offers reflection and instruction.

Den jyske hjemstavnsdigter Jeppe Aakjær (1866-1930) er den dag i dag kendt for sine socialrealistiske romaner og noveller og for sine naturdigte, hvoraf flere lever videre som folkekære sange i Højskolesangbogen. Han virkede også som samfundsdebattør, og gården Jenle ved Limfjorden var hver sommer samlingssted for forfattere og politikere, når Aakjær og hans kone Nanna var værter for de stærkt besøgte Jenlefester.I denne biografi fortæller K.K. Nicolaisen historien om forfatteren Jeppe Aakjær. Bogen udkom første gang i 1913.Karl Kristian Nicolaisen (1883-1951) var lærer, forfatter og foredragsholder. Han er mest kendt for eftertiden for sine biografier om andre samtidige forfattere – blandt andet Jeppe Aakjær, Johan Skjoldborg, Martin Andersen Nexø og Johannes V. Jensen.

Johannes V. Jensen (1873-1950) var en uhyre produktiv forfatter, der udgav både digte, artikler, noveller og romaner. Mest kendt er han i dag for romanen "Kongens Fald" og novellesamlingen "Himmerlandshistorier". Johannes V. Jensen har som én af blot tre danske forfattere modtaget Nobelprisen i litteratur.I denne biografi fortæller K.K. Nicolaisen historien om forfatteren Johannes V. Jensen. Bogen udkom første gang i 1914.Karl Kristian Nicolaisen (1883-1951) var lærer, forfatter og foredragsholder. Han er mest kendt for eftertiden for sine biografier om andre samtidige forfattere – blandt andet Jeppe Aakjær, Johan Skjoldborg, Martin Andersen Nexø og Johannes V. Jensen.

Strejken var i store dele af det 19. og 20. århundrede arbejderbevægelsens dominerende protest- og modstandsform. Med udgangspunkt i analyser af Emile Zolas Germinal, Martin Andersen Nexøs Den store kamp og John Steinbecks Det ukuelige sind viser Nicklas Freisleben Lund, hvordan virkelighedens arbejdskampe mellem 1850 og 1950 bliver et centralt motiv i vestlig litteratur og selve udgangspunktet for en særlig romanform - strejkeromanen.Litteraturhistorikeren dr.phil. Henrik Yde: ”Med sin 53 sider lange analyse af "Pelle Erobreren"s tredje bind, "Den store Kamp", giver bogen den skarpeste behandling af denne roman, der er set siden 1975…" Nicklas Freisleben Lund er litteraturforsker ved Syddansk Universitet og kritiker ved Jyllandsposten. Han modtog i 2019 Arbejderhistorieprisen for sin ph.d.-afhandling om strejken og romanen. I ambivalent kamp er en bearbejdet udgave af denne.

Angela Carter is known for her style¿daring, disturbing, excessive¿and her efforts to destroy and demystify every social norm. But she does more than dare. With sharp and subtle sensitivity, Carter disintegrates paradigms of temporality and mind enshrined by western philosophical tradition. She recognizes and illustrates how our modern alienation and disorientation derive more from spatial anxiety than time disorientation. Through her novels and short stories, Carter re-examines the human-space relation, unraveling the power discourses inscribed as the representation of space, and provides broader spatiotemporal imagination and possibilities. Focusing on spatiality in her works, this book explores Carter¿s attempts to criticize, resist and rewrite hierarchical, gendered discourse¿analyzing it through the lens of confining space, specular space and bodily space. I will show how Carter tries to build a new model of space that transcends the dominant/dominated paradigm and establishes a spatiality-subjectivity totality. Her model overcomes our state of alienation by embracing corporeality and excess, lived experience in everyday interactions with space, and a new construction of subject of becoming. This book is for literary critics, professors and students of literature, readers of Angela Carter, and all those who feel trapped by their bodies and space.

Superhero meaning making is a site of struggle. Superheroes (are thought to) trouble borders and normative ways of seeing and being in the world. Superhero narratives (are thought to) represent, and thereby inspire, alternative visions of the real world. The superhero genre is (thought to be) a repository for radical or progressive ideas. In the superhero world and beyond, much is made of the genre's utopian and dystopian landscapes, queer identity-play, and transforming bodies, but might it not be the case that the genre's overblown normative framing, or representation, serves to muzzle, rather than express, its protagonists' radical promise? Why, when set against otherwise unbounded, and often extreme, transformation-human to machine, human to animal, human to god-are certain categories seemingly untouchable? Why does this speculative genre routinely fail to fully speculate about other worlds and ways of being in those worlds? For all their nonconformity, superhero stories do not live up to the idea of a radical genre, in look, feel, or tone. The mainstream American superhero genre, and its surrounding discourses, tells and facilitates an astonishingly seamless tale of opposing ideologies. But how?Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes: Un/Making Worlds serves a speculative response, detailing not so much a hunt for genre meaning as a trip through a genre's meaningscape. Looking anew at superhero meaning-making practices allows a distinct way of thinking about and describing the creative, formal, and ideological conditions of the genre and its protagonists, one removed from corralling binaries, one foregrounding the idea of a synergy-often unseen, uneasy, and even hostile-between official and unofficial agents of superhero meaning and one reframing familiar questions: What kinds of meaning do superhero texts engender? How is this meaning made? By whom and under what conditions? What processes and practices inform, regulate, and extend superhero meaning? And finally, superhero narratives present a new question: How might we reimagine its agents, surfaces, and spaces? Centering the experiences and practices of excluded and marginalized superhero fans, Recovering the Radical Promise of Superheroes reveals that genre meaning is not lodged in one place or another, neither in its official creators or fans, nor in "black and white" conservatism or in a "rainbow" of progressive possibilities. Nor is it even located somewhere in the in-between; it is instead better conceived of as an antagonistic, in-process nexus of meaning undergirded by systems of power.Ellen Kirkpatrick, based in northern Ireland, is an activist-writer with a PhD in Cultural Studies. In her work, she writes about activism, pop culture, fan cultures, and the transformative power of storytelling. She has published work in a range of academic journals and media outlets and her writings and work can be found at The Break and on Twitter @elk_dash.

H. P. Lovecraft was a devotee of astronomy from the age of eleven, when he first discovered the "myriad suns and worlds of infinite space." He immediately began reading astronomy books, going to Brown University's Ladd Observatory to gaze at the stars, and doing his own astronomical observations from a 3¿ telescope that his mother purchased for him. Soon he was writing astronomy columns for local newspapers. Lovecraft's passion for astronomy is a major component of his life, thought, and literary work, but until now it has never been extensively examined. This important topic has now been treated in an exhaustive treatise written by two authorities on the subject, Edward Guimont and Horace A. Smith. The authors probe the origin and development of Lovecraft's astronomical interests, his studies of the moon, Venus, Mars, and other objects in the solar system, his fascination with a "trans-Neptunian planet" (discovered in 1930 and named Pluto), and his conjectures as to what might lie in the farthest gulfs of the cosmos. Along the way they examine such crucial texts as "The Colour out of Space," "In the Walls of Eryx," and the handwritten astronomy journals and pamphlets that Lovecraft wrote as a boy. They make emphatically clear that astronomy was a central element in Lovecraft's life and a vital component of his weird fiction. Edward Guimont is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut. Horace A. Smith is an emeritus professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Michigan State University.

The Darkest Lullaby is an anthology full of suspense and horror. You'll not want to miss this heart-pounding collection if you loved Survive the Night by Riley Seger, works by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, or American Horror Story.Six authors come together to bring to life thrilling and heart-pounding horror stories of nannies and their wards, creating something unsettling that will haunt the reader long after they've finished reading!A governess is plagued by nightmares of her own death each night-but are they mere dreams? Atrocities of the past collide with the future for a nighttime nanny. Secrets surrounding a castle are murderous for a caregiver. A failed witch's apprentice must take up her late aunt's babysitting shift at a terrifying house. For one babysitter, discovering the truth about a local house, and her ward, comes with a hefty price. An unsuspecting young woman gets more than she bargained for when she takes on a nannying job... for a doll.Your new favorite hair-raising thrill awaits.

Many films and novels defy our ability to make sense of the plot. While puzzling storytelling, strange incongruities, inviting enigmas and persistent ambiguities have been central to the effects of many literary and cinematic traditions, a great deal of contemporary films and television series bring such qualities to the mainstream--but wherein lies the attractiveness of perplexing works of fiction? This collected volume offers the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and trans-medial approach to the question of cognitive challenge in narrative art, bringing together psychological, philosophical, formal-historical, and empirical perspectives from leading scholars across these fields.

This book considers the key critical interventions on short story writing in South Africa written in English since the year 2000.The short story genre, whilst often marginalised in national literary canons, has been central to the trajectory of literary history in South Africa. In recent years, the short story has undergone a significant renaissance, with new collections and young writers making a significant impact on the contemporary literary scene, and subgenres such as speculative fiction, erotic fiction, flash fiction and queer fiction expanding rapidly in popularity. This book examines the role of the short story genre in reflecting or championing new developments in South African writing and the ways in which traditional boundaries and definitions of the short story in South Africa have been reimagined in the present. Drawing together a range of critical interventions, including scholarly articles, interviews and personal reflective pieces, the volume traces some of the aesthetic and thematic continuities and discontinuities in the genre and sheds new light on questions of literary form. Finally, the book considers the place of the short story in twenty-first century writing and interrogates the ways in which the short story form may contribute to, or recast ideas of, the post-apartheid or post-transitional.The perfect guide to contemporary short story writing in South Africa, this book will be essential reading for researchers of African literature.

The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief offers a fresh reevaluation of the relationship between fiction and belief, surveying key debates and perspectives from a range of disciplines including narrative and cultural studies, science, religion, and politics.