James F. English - Böcker

The Humanities and Human Flourishing series publishes edited volumes that explore the role of human flourishing in the central disciplines of the humanities, and whether and how the humanities can increase human happiness.The contributors to this volume of essays investigate the question: what do literary scholars contribute to social scientific research on human happiness and flourishing?Of all humanities disciplines, none is more resistant to the program of positive psychology or the prevailing discourse of human flourishing than literary studies. The approach taken in this volume of essays is neither to gloss over that antagonism nor to launch a series of blasts against positive psychology and the happiness industry. Rather, the contributors reflect on how their literary research--work to which they are personally committed--might become part of an interdisciplinary conversation about human flourishing. The contributors' areas of research are wide ranging, covering literary aesthetics, book history, digital humanities, and reader reception, as well as the important "inter-disciplines" of gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and black studies-fields in which issues of stigma and exclusion are paramount, and which have critiqued the discourse of human flourishing for its failure to grapple with structural inequality and human difference. Literary scholars are drawn more readily to the problematic than to the decidable, but by dwelling on the trouble spots in a field of inquiry still largely confined to the sciences, Literary Studies and Human Flourishing provides the groundwork for new and more productive forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange.

The Humanities and Human Flourishing series publishes edited volumes that explore the role of human flourishing in the central disciplines of the humanities, and whether and how the humanities can increase human happiness.The contributors to this volume of essays investigate the question: what do literary scholars contribute to social scientific research on human happiness and flourishing?Of all humanities disciplines, none is more resistant to the program of positive psychology or the prevailing discourse of human flourishing than literary studies. The approach taken in this volume of essays is neither to gloss over that antagonism nor to launch a series of blasts against positive psychology and the happiness industry. Rather, the contributors reflect on how their literary research--work to which they are personally committed--might become part of an interdisciplinary conversation about human flourishing. The contributors' areas of research are wide ranging, covering literary aesthetics, book history, digital humanities, and reader reception, as well as the important "inter-disciplines" of gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and black studies-fields in which issues of stigma and exclusion are paramount, and which have critiqued the discourse of human flourishing for its failure to grapple with structural inequality and human difference. Literary scholars are drawn more readily to the problematic than to the decidable, but by dwelling on the trouble spots in a field of inquiry still largely confined to the sciences, Literary Studies and Human Flourishing provides the groundwork for new and more productive forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange.

The Global Future of English Studiespresents a succinct, carefully documented assessment of the current state and future trajectory of English studies around the world.Compiles data on student enrollments, faculty hiring, and financing in English studies around the world including China, home to more English majors than the U.S. and U.K. combinedRejects prevailing narratives of contraction and decline that dominate histories of the disciplineStresses English studies' expansion within a rapidly expanding global academic apparatus, and the new challenges and opportunities such sudden and dispersive growth presentsEssential reading for anyone interested in studying or teaching English in higher education

This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts. Such prizes and the competitions they crown are almost as old as the arts themselves, but their number and power--and their consequences for society and culture at large--have expanded to an unprecedented degree in our day. In a wide-ranging overview of this phenomenon, James F. English documents the dramatic rise of the awards industry and its complex role within what he describes as an economy of cultural prestige.Observing that cultural prizes in their modern form originate at the turn of the twentieth century with the institutional convergence of art and competitive spectator sports, English argues that they have in recent decades undergone an important shift--a more genuine and far-reaching globalization than what has occurred in the economy of material goods. Focusing on the cultural prize in its contemporary form, his book addresses itself broadly to the economic dimensions of culture, to the rules or logic of exchange in the market for what has come to be called "cultural capital." In the wild proliferation of prizes, English finds a key to transformations in the cultural field as a whole. And in the specific workings of prizes, their elaborate mechanics of nomination and election, presentation and acceptance, sponsorship, publicity, and scandal, he uncovers evidence of the new arrangements and relationships that have refigured that field.

A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction offers an authoritative overview of contemporary British fiction in its social, political, and economic contexts. Focuses on the fiction that has emerged since the late 1970s, roughly since the start of the Thatcher era.Comprises original essays from major scholars.Topics range from the rise and fall of the postcolonial novel to controversies over the celebrity author.The emphasis is on the whole fiction scene, from bookstores and prizes to the changing economics of film adaptation.Enables students to read contemporary works of British fiction with a much clearer sense of where they fit within British cultural life.