Greta Olson

Shows how the ideological standpoints of fictional texts, legal phenomena, and social media are central to understanding law as a source of legal identities. This volume takes stock of the pluralization and diversification of the field of law and literature over fifty years.

From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect

Sarah Copland

This volume enacts a project we term ‘a politics of form’, working to politicise the formal analysis of narrative in novels, life narratives, documentaries, dramas, short prose works and multimodal texts while retaining the form specificity that is distinctive of narratology. The introduction offers an overview of how to perform narrative analysis in conjunction with ideological critique, while the chapters unite the formal analysis of texts with readings that uncover how structures of social power are expressed in, as well as challenged by, aesthetic forms. The contributors address the need to develop sustained political analysis of aesthetic and narrative forms, and they articulate methods for performing such analysis while reflecting on the politics of the work they undertake. By establishing criteria to describe the politicised use of narrative forms, and by historicising narratological concepts, the volume bridges theoretical gaps between narratology, critical theory and cultural analysis, resulting in the refinement of existing narratological models. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of English Studies.

The Politics of Form

Criminals as Animals from Shakespeare to Lombroso demonstrates how animal metaphors have been used to denigrate persons identified as criminal in literature, law, and science. Its three-part history traces the popularization of the 'criminal beast' metaphor in late sixteenth-century England, the troubling of the trope during the long eighteenth century, and the late nineteenth-century discovery of criminal atavism. With chapters on rogue pamphlets, Shakespeare, Webster, Jonson, Defoe and Swift, Godwin, Dickens, and Lombroso, the book illustrates how ideologically inscribed metaphors foster transfers between law, penal practices, and literature. Criminals as Animals concludes that criminal-animal metaphors continue to negatively influence the treatment of prisoners, suspected terrorists, and the poor even today.

Criminals as Animals from Shakespeare to Lombroso

Current Trends in Narratology offers an overview of cutting-edge approaches to theories of storytelling. It describes the move to cognition, the new emphasis on non-prose and multimedia narratives, and introduces a third field of research comparative narratology. This research addresses how local institutions and national approaches have affected the development of narratology. Leading researchers detail their newest scholarship while placing it within the scope of larger international trends."

Current Trends in Narratology

Current Trends in Narratology offers an overview of cutting-edge approaches to theories of storytelling. The introduction details how new emphases on cognitive processing, non-prose and multimedia narratives, and interdisciplinary approaches to narratology have altered how narration, narrative, and narrativity are understood. The volume also introduces a third post-classical direction of research ‑ comparative narratology ‑ and describes how developments in Germany, Israel, and France may be compared with Anglophone research. Leading international scholars including Monika Fludernik, Richard Gerrig, Ansgar Nünning, John Pier, Brian Richardson, Alan Palmer, and Werner Wolf describe not only their newest research but also how this work dovetails with larger narratological developments.

Jan Alber

This volume combines narratological analyses with an investigation of the ideological ramifications of the use of narrative strategies. The collected essays do not posit any intrinsic or stable connection between narrative techniques and world views. Rather, they demonstrate that world views are inevitably expressed through highly specific formal strategies. This insight leads the contributors to investigate why and how particular narrative techniques are employed and under what conditions.

Cognitive and Diachronic Perspectives

How to Do Things with Narrative

Daniel Hartley

Regina Leonie Schmidt

Mirjam Horn-Schott

Scholars and activists often narrate the history of gender and feminism as a progression of "waves," said to mark high points of innovation in theory and moments of political breakthrough. Arguing for the notion of multiple futurities over that of progressive waves, Beyond Gender combines theoretical work with practical applications to provide an advanced introduction to contemporary feminist and sexuality research and advocacy. This comprehensive monograph documents the diversification of gender-related disciplines and struggles, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach to issues formerly subsumed under the unified field of gender studies. Split into two parts, the volume demonstrates how the notion of gender has been criticized by various theories pertaining to masculinity, feminism, and sexuality, and also illustrates how the binary and hierarchical ordering system of gender has been troubled or overcome in practice: in queer performance, legal critique, the classroom, and textual analysis. Taking a fresh approach to contemporary debates in feminist and sexuality studies, Beyond Gender will appeal to undergraduate students interested in fields such as Feminism and Sexuality Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, and Masculinity Studies.

Greta Olson

Books

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