Focault interprets his writings about sexuality, politics and punishment stressing the contribution of each to the portrait of society he is compiling.
An anthology both personal and profound exploring the deep meaning of reading in our lives. Readers for Life is a collection of essays, mainly specially commissioned for the book, by fiction authors and literary scholars, who reflect on their childhood or adolescent memories of reading. The essays explore how the act of reading shapes an individual, from our formative years into adulthood and beyond. Instead of focusing on reading as an act of escapism, or mere literacy, these writings celebrate reading as a lifelong, joyful experience that intertwines past and present. By revealing our diverse reading histories, the collection fosters awareness of the profound impact of reading on a person's development and offers readers insights that will enrich their own literary experiences. Featuring an introduction by editors Sander L. Gilman and Heta Pyrhönen, Readers for Life includes essays by Natalya Bekhta, Peter Brooks, Philip Davis, Linda and Michael Hutcheon, Sander L. Gilman, Daniel Mendelsohn, Laura Otis, Laura Oulanne, Heta Pyrhönen, Salman Rushdie, Cristina Sandu, Pajtim Statovci, and Maria Tatar, as well as an interview with Michael Rosen.
Delving into the strange imaginings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Sarban, Robert Holdstock and many more, this new collection brings together fourteen tales traversing uncanny collateral fates, weird eddies of alternative history, and otherworlds bordering our own reality.
He spoke of a new kind of terremauvaise, of strange regions, connected, indeed, with definite geographical limits upon the earth, yet somehow apart from them and beyond them.A youth comes to a literal fork in his road where all three paths contrive to end in the same violent fate; a beleaguered man finds his neuroses oddly mirrored in a dark parallel world co-existing with our own; Kaiser Wilhelm II, rather than abdicate, leads the High Seas Fleet on one last voyage.
Treading the path of that which never existed (in our reality, at least) and the otherworlds bordering our own version of Earth, this new collection brings together tales of strange parallel destinies, unexplored forks in humanity's history, twisted pocket dimensions and forays into unsettling regions of Dark Fantasy.
Pulitzer Prize Nominated Winner of the 1993 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award for Claudia Johnson's extraordinary efforts to restore banned literary classics from Florida classrooms. Part memoir, part courtroom drama, and part primer for advocates fighting assaults on free speech, Stifled Laughter is the story of one woman's efforts to restore literary classics to the classrooms of rural north Florida. Updated with a new introduction, Johnson's honest, often hilarious, first-person account of censorship in its modern form provides valuable insight into why the books children read at school remains a controversial issue, and why free speech in America remains a precarious right. Johnson fights tirelessly to keep texts like Lysistrata and "The Millers Tale" in Florida school textbooks regardless of a preacher's efforts to take them out. Readers are given a glimpse into the courtroom and all the drama, passion, and hard work that follows. Johnson's writing is witty, emotional, and humorous, and it makes you want to jump in and fight censorship and book banning right alongside her. For anyone who has ever wondered just how far those who seek to ban books will go in limiting free expression, this book proves once again that the personal is political. At a time when book banning has reached new heights, parents and teachers, writers, and readers will all benefit from Johnson's experience and be touched by her spirit and courage.
An entertaining and illuminating collection of weird, wonderful, and downright baffling words from the origins of English--and what they reveal about the lives of the earliest English speakers
Old English is the language you think you know until you actually hear or see it. Unlike Shakespearean English or even Chaucer's Middle English, Old English--the language of Beowulf--defies comprehension by untrained modern readers. Used throughout much of Britain more than a thousand years ago, it is rich with words that haven't changed (like word), others that are unrecognizable (such as neorxnawang, or paradise), and some that are mystifying even in translation (gafol-fisc, or tax-fish). In this delightful book, Hana Videen gathers a glorious trove of these gems and uses them to illuminate the lives of the earliest English speakers. We discover a world where choking on a bit of bread might prove your guilt, where fiend-ship was as likely as friendship, and where you might grow up to be a laughter-smith. The Wordhord takes readers on a journey through Old English words and customs related to practical daily activities (eating, drinking, learning, working); relationships and entertainment; health and the body, mind, and soul; the natural world (animals, plants, and weather); locations and travel (the source of some of the most evocative words in Old English); mortality, religion, and fate; and the imagination and storytelling. Each chapter ends with its own "wordhord"--a list of its Old English terms, with definitions and pronunciations. Entertaining and enlightening, The Wordhord reveals the magical roots of the language you're reading right now: you'll never look at--or speak--English in the same way again.
"Stielstra is a masterful essayist." --Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger
From an important new writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice.
In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. In her titular piece "The Wrong Way To Save Your Life," she answers the question of what has value in our lives--a question no longer rhetorical when the apartment above her family's goes up in flames. "Here is My Heart" sheds light on Megan's close relationship with her father, whose continued insistence on climbing mountains despite a series of heart attacks leads the author to dissect deer hearts in a poetic attempt to interrogate her own feelings about mortality.
Whether she's imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home, or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood, Stielstra's work informs, impels, enlightens, and embraces us all. The result is something beautiful--this story, her courage, and, potentially, our own.
Intellectually fierce and viscerally intimate, Megan Stielstra's voice is witty, wise, warm, and above all, achingly human.