<p>In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. Here one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized ...

<p>Lively and well written, Bread and Circuses analyzes theories that have treated mass culture as either a symptom or a cause of social decadence. Discussing many of the most influential and representative theories of ...

<p>Building a National Literature boldly takes issue with traditional literary criticism for its failure to explain how literature as a body is created and shaped by institutional forces. Peter Uwe Hohendahl approaches literary history by focusing on the material and ideological structures that determine the canonical status of writers and works. He examines important elements in the making of a national literature, including the political and literary public sphere, the theory and practice of literary criticism, and the emergence of academic criticism as literary history. Hohendahl considers such key aspects of the process in Germany as the rise of liberalism and nationalism, the delineation of the borders of German literature, the idea of its history, the understanding of its cultural function, and the notion of a canon of major and minor authors. </p>...

<p>In this sensitive reading of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Winthrop Wetherbee redefines the nature of Chaucer’s poetic vision. Using as a starting point Chaucer’s profound admiration for the achievement of Dante and ...

<p>As Samuel Richardson's 'exemplar to her sex,’ Clarissa in the eponymous novel published in 1748 is the paradigmatic female victim. In Clarissa’s Ciphers, Terry Castle delineates the ways in which, in a world where only ...

≤p≥The Electrification of Russia, 1880–1926 is the first full account of the widespread adoption of electricity in Russia, from the beginning in the 1880s to its early years as a state technology under Soviet rule. Jonathan ...

<p>Aby M. Warburg (1866–1929) is recognized not only as one of the century’s preeminent art and Renaissance historians but also as a founder of twentieth-century methods in iconology and cultural studies in general. Warburg’s ...

<p>German radicals of the 1960s announced the death of literature. For them, literature both past and present, as well as conventional discussions of literary issues, had lost its meaning. In The Institution of Criticism, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores the implications of this crisis from a Marxist perspective and attempts to define the tasks and responsibilities of criticism in advanced capitalist societies. Hohendahl takes a close look at the social history of literary criticism in Germany since the eighteenth century. Drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School and on Jürgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere, Hohendahl sheds light on some of the important political and social forces that shape literature and culture. The Institution of Criticism is made up of seven essays originally published in German and a long theoretical introduction written by the author with English-language readers in mind. This book conveys the rich possibilities of the German perspective for those who employ American and French critical techniques and for students of contemporary critical theory.</p>...

>p<Broader in scope than any previous literary study of the transcendentalists, this rewarding book analyzes the theories and forms characteristic of a vital group of American writers, as well as the principles and vision ...

<p>Vladimir Nabokov described the literature course he taught at Cornell as ""a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary structures."" Leona Toker here pursues a similar investigation of the enigmatic ...

<p>Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory, illuminating the diverse positions and alliances among the participants. Bringing together six essays, as well as new introductory and concluding chapters, Hohendahl interprets and subjects to critical scrutiny many of the central ideas of the Frankfurt School. He first maps the trajectory of neomarxist criticism in Germany to the 1980s. Individual chapters then focus on the work of Georg Lukacs, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas, and on such issues as the politicization of German criticism after 1965 under the influence of the Frankfurt School.</p...

<p>In this book, conceived and written for the general reader as well as the specialist, Robert Edelman uses a case study of peasant behavior during a particular revolutionary situation to make an important contribution ...

<p>During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, amateur theater groups sprang up in cities across the country. Workers, peasants, students, soldiers, and sailors provided entertainment ranging from improvisations to ...

<p>Using archival materials never previously accessible to Western scholars, Michael David-Fox analyzes Bolshevik Party educational and research initiatives in higher learning after 1917. His fresh consideration of the era ...

<p>Taken together, the Russian census of 1897 and the Soviet censuses of 1926, 1959, 1970, and 1979 constitute the largest collection of empirical data available on that country, but until the publication of this book in ...

<p>The revolution of 1905 in the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland marked the consolidation of major new influences on the political scene. As he examines the emergence of a mass political culture in Poland, Robert E. Blobaum ...

<p>Seductive Reasoning takes a provocative look at contemporary Anglo-American literary theory, calling into question the critical consensus on pluralism's nature and its status in literary studies. Drawing on the insights ...

<p>Russian Formalism, one of the twentieth century's most important movements in literary criticism, has received far less attention than most of its rivals. Examining Formalism in light of more recent developments in ...

<p>Why did France spawn the radical poststructuralist rejection of the humanist concept of 'man' as a rational, knowing subject? In this innovative cultural history, Carolyn J. Dean sheds light on the origins of poststructuralist thought, paying particular attention to the reinterpretation of the self by Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, and other French thinkers. Arguing that the widely shared belief that the boundaries between self and other had disappeared during the Great War helps explain the genesis of the new concept of the self, Dean examines an array of evidence from medical texts and literary works alike. The Self and Its Pleasures offers a pathbreaking understanding of the boundaries between theory and history.</p>...

<p>Exploring the intricacy and complexity of Walter Pater’s prose, Transfigured World challenges traditional approaches to Pater and shows precise ways in which the form of his prose expresses its content. Carolyn Williams ...