Matthew Paul Smith – författare

This Cambridge Companion offers a rich range of contexts for studying the literary histories of New Orleans. Some of the essays offer a deep focus on the significance of iconic figures such as Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Kate Chopin. Other essays detail long traditions of writing not widely known beyond the city but that complicate our understanding of American literary history in new ways, as in the chapters on queer writers or Mardi Gras or the Asian presence in the city's literary imagination or how deadly nineteenth-century epidemics continue to shape the ways the world has come to read the city as a capital of Gothic horror fiction. These fresh perspectives on one of the most storied cities in the world are an essential resource for those who seek to piece together their own understanding of New Orleans as an historic and living flashpoint in the global literary imagination.

This Cambridge Companion offers a rich range of contexts for studying the literary histories of New Orleans. Some of the essays offer a deep focus on the significance of iconic figures such as Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Kate Chopin. Other essays detail long traditions of writing not widely known beyond the city but that complicate our understanding of American literary history in new ways, as in the chapters on queer writers or Mardi Gras or the Asian presence in the city's literary imagination or how deadly nineteenth-century epidemics continue to shape the ways the world has come to read the city as a capital of Gothic horror fiction. These fresh perspectives on one of the most storied cities in the world are an essential resource for those who seek to piece together their own understanding of New Orleans as an historic and living flashpoint in the global literary imagination.

Recognizing the significance of cross-cultural exchange across newly established frontiers, this edited volume explores the purpose and relevance of non-Japanese individuals who operated with or within the samurai class and their role in constructing and communicating identity in early modern Japan.The volume proposes a largely unexplored methodological lens through which to examine Japanese engagement with foreign others: the samurai class. These chapters locate instances of cross-cultural influence, by non-Japanese who conformed to Japanese society or by Japanese people who adopted foreign practices, and identify those individuals responsible for creating such fusion – and, at times, confusion – of values, loyalties, and traditions. This project serves as an examination of foreigners within the warrior class, gathering such studies in a singular volume, to yield vital and timely insight into power dynamics, the performance of identity, and the transmission and translation of cultural ideologies in the early modern world. Topics explored include samurai and the Japanese military class; Portuguese, Dutch, and English merchants in eastern Asia; Jesuit activity in Japan; Japan’s invasions of Korea; the reopening of Japan to western contact; European travel accounts; artistic and textual representation of Japan; and the Boshin War.This volume appeals to a range of scholars, both those from European and eastern Asian studies and of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The collection is well suited for graduate students of Japanese history, identity in the early modern period, and global exploration and commercial enterprise.