Alison Sinclair – författare

The Deceived Husband is an ambitious and original study of the representation in European literature of adultery, focusing in particular on the figure of the husband.Drawing on psychoanalysis, and primarily the work of Melanie Klein, Dr Sinclair argues that the differing representations of the deceived husband evidence anxieties within patriarchal society about gender and power, and ultimately about death and the unknown. Detailed discussions of a wide range of texts including The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, Othello, Madame Bovary, Effi Briest, Anna Karenina, La Regenta, and Flaubert's Parrot reveal that fundamental anxieties about masculinity are repeatedly articulated in two main characterizations of the deceived husband: the cuckold and the man of honour. These are representations which can be usefully understood, the book shows, with reference to the two early developmental positions forwarded by Klein: the paranoid schizoid and the depressive positions.Innovative and challenging, The Deceived Husband is an important examination of a previously neglected aspect of European literature and to psychoanalytic literary criticism in general.

This book examines issues of sex and society in early twentieth-century Spain, with particular emphasis on eugenics and the sex reform movement. As a central narrative thread it uses the specific case history of Hildegart Rodriquez (1914-33), a 'eugenic' child who came to be one of the central players in the Spanish chapter of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) and was made tragically famous when murdered by her mother. In the last two years of her life Hildegart was in correspondence with the English sexologist Havelock Ellis. Her letters to him, reproduced in the appendix, provide a unique source for understanding the WLSR in Spain, its complexities, and its relationship to similar movements elsewhere in Europe. The letters also make it possible to glimpse in poignant and dramatic detail the personal tensions and anxieties in the life of this young woman that was brought to such a premature end.

Dislocations of Desire provides the first sustained psychoanalytic reading of La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas. In this unique study, Alison Sinclair focuses on the representation and articulation of desire in the novel. She argues that instead of being seduced by the fiction, what is at stake is sexual desire leading to adultery-the characteristic fiction of the adultery novel. According to the critic, the reader must learn to look below the surface in order to see the ontological insecurities that this fiction veils and attempts to contain. In a reading that draws both on a broad spectrum of modern psychoanalytic theory and on an understanding of social, sexual, and medical norms of the period in which the novel was written, Sinclair proposes that the adultery story be understood as a coded resume of fantasied, dislocated, repudiated, and thwarted desire.

A new romantic fantasy of magic, manners, and espionage that is also a "fast-paced thriller" (Carol Berg). For the Darkborn, sunlight kills. For the Lightborn, darkness is fatal. Living under a centuries-old curse, the Darkborn and the Lightborn share the city of Minhorne, coexisting in an uneasy equilibrium but never interacting. When Darkborn physician Balthasar Hearne finds a pregnant fugitive on his doorstep just before sunrise, he has no choice but to take her in. Tercelle Amberley''s betrothed is a powerful Darkborn nobleman, but her illicit lover came to her through the daytime. When she gives birth to twin boys, they can see, something unheard of among the Darkborn. When men come for the boys, Balthasar is saved by the intervention of his Lightborn neighbor-and healed by the hands of his wife, Telmaine. Soon he finds himself drawn deeper into political intrigue and magical attacks, while Telmaine must confront a power she can no longer keep sheathed in gloves, a power she neither wants nor can control.

Minhorne is a city divided. An ancient curse makes darkness anathema to the Lightborn, while a touch of sunlight kills the Darkborn. Thus its people share a home but live forever separate. Until a prince''s death turns Darkborn against Lightborn, earthborn against mage, as conspiracies and betrayals are revealed in both worlds...

For the Darkborn, the touch of sunlight kills, while darkness is lethal for the Lightborn. For centuries, the two have lived in an uneasy peace, sharing the same city but never meeting. Now, with the rise of the Shadowborn, everything is about to change…Condemned to death by the Darkborn for practicing sorcery, Lady Telmaine Hearne escaped her fate and is now bound with her mageborn allies for the Borders—and the war brewing there.

Also on the frontlines of the battle between Darkborn and Shadowborn is the assassin Floria White Hand, desperately maneuvering between allies and enemies to bring her Lightborn prince home safe.

The fragile alliance between Lightborn and Darkborn, between mage and non-mage, is endangered. The mage Tammorn is forced to become ambassador to the enemy. And a lifetime fighting the Shadowborn has not prepared Ishmael di Studier for what he will find when he follows the Call from the Shadowlands—and meets the woman behind it…

From the Paperback edition.

Examines issues of sex and society in early twentieth-century Spain, using a specific case history, namely that of Hildegart Rodriguez (1914-1933) who came to be one of the central players in the Spanish chapter of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) and made famous by her dramatic demise when murdered by her mother.

Tracks the emergence and vicissitudes of attitudes to wrongdoing in Spain from the 19th century through the decades before the Civil War.The international contributors to this volume explore the rich diversity of cultures and representations of wrongdoing in Spain through the 19th century and the decades up to the Civil War. Their line of enquiry is predicated on the belief that cultural constructions of wrongdoing are far from simple reflections of historical or social realities, and that they reveal not a line of historical development, but rather variation and movement. Voices and discourses arise in response to the social phenomena associated with wrongdoing. They set out to persuade, to shock, to entice, and in so doing provide complex windows on to social aspiration and desire. The book's three sections (Realities, Representations, and Reactions) offer distinct points of focus, and move between areas where control is paramount and on the agenda from above and those where the subtleties of emotional response take pride of place.Alison Sinclair was Professor of Modern Spanish Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge until retirement in 2014.Samuel Llano is a Lecturer in Spanish Cultural Studies at the Universityof Manchester.

How many cassette tapes do you still own? In one hundred years, how many TikTok videos or Instagram posts will still be accessible? Yet much of today's news and mass culture is produced and disseminated via transient means. Just as in previous eras.Hispanic popular cultures of previous centuries, once intended for a broad audience, can now only be glimpsed in fragile, and frequently overlooked, media such as chapbooks, newspapers, journals and early sound recordings. This bilingual collection explores aspects of the ephemeral cultures of Spain and Latin America between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, taking advantage of the recent digital turn in the humanities. The first section examines the varied audiences for mass literature in Spain and the authorities' attempts to censor and control it. The second looks at pliegos sueltos, songbooks and collections of popular poetry in Argentina, Mexico and Chile. The third section concentrates on questions of performance, studying placards which originally accompanied oral readings of pliegos sueltos, news ballads and zarzuelas. The volume concludes with a focus on three case studies: the travels of an eighteenth-century giant and the reception of his self-fashioning in Spain, the diffusion of the works of a Spanish pulp novelist in Portugal and Brazil and the revival of a Peruvian festival of popular music in the early twentieth century. Throughout, the chapters show how the increasing digitisation of library and archival collections has enabled much of this ephemeral material to be 'discovered', analysed and compared, leading to new understandings of how popular culture developed and migrated and, indeed, what is meant by 'popular'.

Eighteen years ago, Ev'rel gave up the throne of Sevildom to Ameron in exchange for a Pureblood son known as the Throne Price, gifted to her by Ameron. However, problems arise that re-open the question of whether Ameron or Ev'rel should lead the empire – problems that will lead to the challenge floor, and the death of one of Sevildom's last Purebloods. Caught in the middle, Amel keeps his dangerous secrets quiet in a troubled heart. His relationships with those in power are strangely deep, but perilous.Meanwhile, raised on foreign ideals of truth and equality, young Erien enters the court of the Sevolite empire. Despite his formidable intellect and a stint of fleet service under Horth Nersal, he is as innocent, in his own way, as the sixteen-year-old Princess Luthan he meets there. As the younger generation, they and Erien's foster brother Ditatt struggle to act on their ideals in the face of duty, danger and the complexities of politics.