While researching my Object Lessons series book on glitter, I learned the surprising fact that one of the major commercial uses for this substance is in fishing lures. After finishing the book, I decided to investigate this phenomenon a bit deeper—and fell down what can only be described as a rabbit hole into another world.
Guest Post by Mikhail Epstein, Author of The Transformative Humanities: A Manifesto The Transformative Humanities: What, Why and How to Transform? The current crisis of the humanities is caused by their intellectual autism, characterised by impaired social interaction. The humanities have lost the ability and desire to communicate with humans as spiritual beings; instead, they choose to… Read More »
Is poetry rational? Is poetry reasonable? Is rhyme rational? Is rhyme reasonable? Does reason rhyme? Is rhyme a kind of non-reason, or nonsense? It is readily accepted among today’s cultural elite that modern poetry doesn’t have to rhyme – as if it is an unreasonable demand to be so reasonably rhyming in an age where,… Read More »
John Schad is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Lancaster and author of our new fictional narrative The Late Walter Benjamin. 'Set partly in Watford and partly in the haunted wing of the English language' (Ian Macmillan, on BBC Radio 3's 'The Verb'), this documentary novel juxtaposes the life and death of Walter… Read More »
As mentioned previously, we're really excited to be publishing The Late Walter Benjamin this week! On Monday John Schad (the author) gave us an insight into his experience of writing about Walter Benjamin, and today I'm delighted to bring you the first couple of chapters of the book to read, for free, exclusively on our… Read More »
This week we publish The Late Walter Benjamin, a documentary novel that creatively explores the life and thought of Walter Benjamin in the political context of a post-War London estate. In this blog post, our author John Schad looks back on his personal engagement with Walter Benjamin and how it influenced and inspired the book.… Read More »
If you have studied Mikhail Bakhtin, then no doubt you will have felt as bewildered as the man himself looks here. Help is at hand in the form of our new book Key Terms in Literary Theory. All week we have been quoting definitions from the book and today we look at the term 'Dialogic'.… Read More »
A new day, a new definition from our Key Terms in Literary Theory. Yesterday we had 'Phallogocentric' so I felt it only right to balance things up a bit and give Hélène Cixous centre stage. L’ecriture feminine L’ecriture feminine is a term coined by Hélène Cixous, in The Laugh of the Medusa (1976), meaning literally… Read More »
Phallogocentric. Fun to say. Perhaps not so fun to get your head around. All week we'll be blogging up definitions from our new book Key Terms in Literary Theory – designed to make difficult terms, concepts and theorists accessible and understandable. This is one of my favourite literary words, what's yours? Phallogocentric Phallogocentric refers to a combination of… Read More »
Chances are, if you’re reading this blog post, you already know something about literary theory; perhaps you are a student, or someone who has wondered what “literary theory” is all about and is looking for some explanations. There are lots of useful guides explaining various types of literary theory but this new book by Mary… Read More »