Randall Stevenson – författare

This is a book on comets – visually stunning dirty space snowballs of mostly ice and dust that formed during the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Most comets have stable orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system past the planet Neptune, or in the still-more remote Oort Cloud. But if destabilized by gravitational forces, they may move into the inner solar system – with some risk of collision with the Earth, and some justification for the dread, fear, and awe they have inspired in many different cultures and societies around the world and throughout time. The depiction of comets in popular culture is firmly rooted in the long Western tradition of seeing comets as harbingers of doom and as omens of world-altering change. Comets are thus horrifying and exhilarating, at the same time, with a profound impact on earthly societies and cultures.

Comets and other celestials as fictional devices offer, as this collection of essays show, a tremendous opportunity to radically cut up the infectious wounds of our post-industrial society for close inspection and anamnesis. This volume contains fluid examples of how comets, suns, moons, planets all have contributed to creating speculative yet sensitized narratives about some of the most urgent existential, ontological and ecological matters in the modern world.

Essays by Terence Meaden, Randall Stevenson, Eric Sandberg, David Rennie, Amanda Silfver, and Niklas Salmose.

The essential guide for students of literatureExtensively tested at the University of Edinburgh, this introduction to the tools required for literary study provides all the skills, background and critical knowledge which students require to approach their study of literature with confidence. This second edition includes 3 new chapters on Reading, Writing an Essay, and Reflecting. Each focuses on the ‘how to’ element when studying literature, and covers issues such as how to avoid plagiarism, and how to prepare a bibliography.The original emphasis on clear explanation of critical practices, and of literary forms, styles and techniques remains. These explanations are carefully illustrated through examples taken from readily-available works, especially those included in the Norton Anthology of English Literature. The result is a well-stocked toolbox providing introductions to the ways in which literary texts can be approached as well as to the critical, formal and historical understanding this requires.New for this edition:3 new chapters on Reading, Writing an Essay, and ReflectingUpdated Works CitedTexts discussed in the book keyed to the latest edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature

The essential guide for students of literatureExtensively tested at the University of Edinburgh, this introduction to the tools required for literary study provides all the skills, background and critical knowledge which students require to approach their study of literature with confidence. This second edition includes 3 new chapters on Reading, Writing an Essay, and Reflecting. Each focuses on the ‘how to’ element when studying literature, and covers issues such as how to avoid plagiarism, and how to prepare a bibliography.The original emphasis on clear explanation of critical practices, and of literary forms, styles and techniques remains. These explanations are carefully illustrated through examples taken from readily-available works, especially those included in the Norton Anthology of English Literature. The result is a well-stocked toolbox providing introductions to the ways in which literary texts can be approached as well as to the critical, formal and historical understanding this requires.New for this edition:3 new chapters on Reading, Writing an Essay, and ReflectingUpdated Works CitedTexts discussed in the book keyed to the latest edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature