Robert Crawford – författare

Published simultaneously in Britain and America to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T. S. Eliot, this major biography traces the life of the twentieth century’s most important poet from his childhood in the ragtime city of St Louis right up to the publication of his most famous poem, The Waste Land. Meticulously detailed and incisively written, Young Eliot portrays a brilliant, shy and wounded American who defied his parents’ wishes and committed himself to life as an immigrant in England, authoring work astonishing in its scope and hurt. Quoting extensively from poetry and prose as well as drawing on new interviews, archives, and previously undisclosed memoirs, Robert Crawford shows how Eliot’s background in Missouri, Massachusetts and Paris made him a lightning conductor for modernity. Most impressively, Young Eliot shows how deeply personal were the experiences underlying masterpieces from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ to The Waste Land. T. S. Eliot wanted no biography written, but this book reveals him in all his vulnerable complexity as student and lover, stink-bomber, banker and philosopher, but most of all as an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters.

Unashamedly a book for the bookish, yet accessible and frequently entertaining, this is the first book devoted to how libraries are depicted in imaginative writing. Covering fiction, poetry, and drama from the late Middle Ages to the present, it runs the gamut of British and American literature, as well as examining a range of fiction in other languages--from Rabelais and Cervantes to modern and contemporary French, Italian, Japanese, and Russian writing. While the tropes of the complex catalogue and the bibliomaniacal reader persist throughout the centuries, libraries also emerge as societal battle-sites where issues of personality, gender, cultural power, and national identity are contested repeatedly and often in surprising ways. As well as examining how libraries were deployed in their work by canonical authors from Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Swift to Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Jorge Luis Borges, the volume also examines in detail the haunted libraries of Margaret Oliphant and M. R. James, and a range of much less familiar historic and contemporary authors. Alert to the depiction of librarians as well as of book-rooms and institutional readers, this book will inform, entertain, and delight. At a time when traditional libraries are under pressure, Libraries in Literature shows the power of their lasting fascination.

The twin concerns of primitive and metropolitan life nourished T.S. Eliot's imagination through his childhood and student years and developed to mould and underpin his writing. Ranging from Dr Sweany of St Louis and Eliot's intense interest in anthropology to his interest in Victorian urban writing and popular American models, this book throws new light on Eliot's major works, particularly on The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes. In understanding how a great poet obsessively and continually brought together `savages' and the sophisticated as well as slum-dwelling members of modern urban society, we can see his work afresh as possessing remarkable and profound excitement as well as unusual integrity.

Addressed to all readers of poetry, this is a wide-ranging book about the poet's role throughout the last three centuries. It argues that a conception of the poets as both primitive and sophisticated emerged in the 1750s. Encouraged by the classroom when English literary works began to be studied in universities, this view continues to shape our own attitudes towards verse. Whether considering Ossian and the Romantics, Victorian scholar-gipsies, Modernist poetries of knowledge, or contemporary poetry in Britian, Ireland, and America, The Modern Poet shows how many successive generations of poets have needed to collaborate and to battle with academia.

A unique collaboration between leading poets and scientists, Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science demonstrates through its form, and through practice as well as reflection, that poetry and science can meet with productive results. Crossing between disciplines, and between prose and verse, the book shows how modes of scientific knowledge and of poetic making continue to be intertwined. Often drawing on Scottish intellectual traditions, rather than on the notorious 'two cultures' argument, Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science argues through examples for a more open and mutually sympathetic engagement of poetry and science in contemporary culture.Provocative, nimble, and surprising, this book is in several senses a crossover volume. In its gathering of essays as well as poems, it is the first book of its kind. Readers can see how a poet and a solar physicist may share working assumptions; how poetic insight may inform psychiatric practice; how a poet's encounter with an MRI scanner leads to a fresh neurological experiment. As well as new essays by internationally distinguished poets, scientists, and literary critics including Simon Armitage, Gillian Beer, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Miroslav Holub, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Edwin Morgan, the book includes a series of specially commissioned poems by John Burnside, Michael Donaghy, Sarah Maguire, Paul Muldoon, Don Paterson, and others. Each poem is introduced by the scientist whose work prompted the poem.Though Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science exposes and investigates strains between the way poets and scientists see and reinvent the world, the book is most arresting and enjoyable when it shows just how often poets and scientists agree.

Addressed to all readers of poetry, this is a wide-ranging book about the poet's role throughout the last three centuries. It argues that a conception of the poets as both primitive and sophisticated emerged in the 1750s. Ever since English literary works became the focus of university studies, classroom discussion has shaped attitudes towards verse. Whether considering Ossian and the Romantics, Victorian scholar-gipsies, Modernist poetries of knowledge, or contemporary poetry in Britain, Ireland, and America, The Modern Poet shows how many successive generations of poets have needed to collaborate and to battle with academia.

Holding in balance the ecological and the technological, ancient and modern, Full Volume sings languages and cultures, people and habitats burgeoning on the brink of extinction. From revved-up battle-cry to nervous whisper, these lyrical poems praise intricate abundance. Assured in its rhymes and cadences, Full Volume is often attentive to poetry in other tongues, not least Gaelic. As their tones and forms shift from the spiritual to the wry, from haiku to brosnachadh, the poems' resonance and music build into a sustained sounding of what it means to live, love, and listen in a world where 'Nothing is ever single'.

To make a testament is to attempt to pass on what matters most. In his seventh full-length collection of poems Robert Crawford writes of love, loss, belief, and commitment. Whether in intimate erotic lyrics or in a sustained engagement with the politics of Scottish independence he writes with passion, wit, and assurance about struggles to pass on values and treasures. The book opens with a sequence of love poems, and closes with ‘Testament’, a startlingly fresh gathering of deftly rhymed paraphrases based on the New Testament. Whether making versions of Cavafy or elegising fellow poet Mick Imlah, or writing how a father hands on a piece of marble to his son, Robert Crawford shows in Testament how poetry can communicate from generation to generation aspects of what makes us most vulnerably and engagingly human.

The story of haiku’s global journey, from Japan to every culture and languageA century and a half ago, almost no one outside of Japan had heard of the haiku. Even in Tokyo some people regarded these tiny poems with disdain. Today they are the world’s most widely known poetic form, cherished and reviled in equal measure. At their best, haiku are highly attentive to the moment and describe the world with pinpoint accuracy; at their worst, they can be trite and cloyingly cute.How did these diminutive, seventeen-syllable poems come to pervade global culture?Acclaimed poet and critic Robert Crawford charts the haiku’s journey across the world, from Japan to nineteenth-century New Jersey, London, and California—and on to twenty-first-century Senegal and Brazil. We see the early experiments by contemporaries of Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle, grapple with Ezra Pound’s modernist haiku, witness their transformation by Rabindranath Tagore and the Beat Generation, and newly appreciate the globalised, digital form we know today.In Crawford’s hands, the story of the haiku is the story of international literary exchange—and a resounding celebration of poetry and translation.

Life cycle assessment enables the identification of a broad range of potential environmental impacts occurring across the entire life of a product, from its design through to its eventual disposal or reuse. The need for life cycle assessment to inform environmental design within the built environment is critical, due to the complex range of materials and processes required to construct and manage our buildings and infrastructure systems.After outlining the framework for life cycle assessment, this book uses a range of case studies to demonstrate the innovative input-output-based hybrid approach for compiling a life cycle inventory. This approach enables a comprehensive analysis of a broad range of resource requirements and environmental outputs so that the potential environmental impacts of a building or infrastructure system can be ascertained. These case studies cover a range of elements that are part of the built environment, including a residential building, a commercial office building and a wind turbine, as well as individual building components such as a residential-scale photovoltaic system.Comprehensively introducing and demonstrating the uses and benefits of life cycle assessment for built environment projects, this book will show you how to assess the environmental performance of your clients’ projects, to compare design options across their entire life and to identify opportunities for improving environmental performance.

This collection of essays delves into the Coke brand to identify and decode its DNA. Unlike other accounts, these essays adopt a global approach to understand this global brand. Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary team of scholars, Decoding Coca-Cola critically interrogates the Coke brand as well its constituent parts. By examining those who have been responsible for creating the images of Coke as well as the audiences that have consumed them, these essays offer a unique and revealing insight into the Coke brand and asks whether Coca-Cola is always has the same meaning. Looking into the core meaning, values, and emotions underpinning the Coca-Cola brand, it provides a unique insight into how global brands are created and positioned.This critical examination of one of the world’s most recognisable brands will be an essential resource for scholars researching and teaching in the fields of marketing, advertising, and communication. Its unique interdisciplinary approach also makes it accessible to scholars working in other humanities fields, including history, media studies, communication studies, and cultural studies.

This book introduces business historians to oral history methodologies and approaches.Using four distinct oral history case studies to explore ideas of disruption and continuity in business history over the second half of the twentieth century, Robert Crawford and Matthew Bailey demonstrate how critical engagement with oral history approaches serves to enhance and enliven business history as well as its relationship with other historical fields. The focus on disruption is used to encompass a broad set of processes such as technological change, the impact of external forces, informal business networks, social constructions of gender, knowledge transfer, firm adaptability and cultural change. The use of oral histories to interpret responses to disruption in the past, and to explore the features characterising business continuity, provides an opportunity to consider the human dimensions, subjective experiences and personal insights of workplace, firm and industry change. It also sheds light on the ways that people and firms respond to disruptive forces through innovation and adaptation – both successfully and unsuccessfully.This succinct and accessible account is essential reading for business historians with little experience in using oral history, as well as those looking to gain deeper insights from their oral history data.

This book introduces business historians to oral history methodologies and approaches.Using four distinct oral history case studies to explore ideas of disruption and continuity in business history over the second half of the twentieth century, Robert Crawford and Matthew Bailey demonstrate how critical engagement with oral history approaches serves to enhance and enliven business history as well as its relationship with other historical fields. The focus on disruption is used to encompass a broad set of processes such as technological change, the impact of external forces, informal business networks, social constructions of gender, knowledge transfer, firm adaptability and cultural change. The use of oral histories to interpret responses to disruption in the past, and to explore the features characterising business continuity, provides an opportunity to consider the human dimensions, subjective experiences and personal insights of workplace, firm and industry change. It also sheds light on the ways that people and firms respond to disruptive forces through innovation and adaptation – both successfully and unsuccessfully.This succinct and accessible account is essential reading for business historians with little experience in using oral history, as well as those looking to gain deeper insights from their oral history data.

Cultural and regional differences in creating and managing advertising require unique responses to a dynamic, rapidly globalising business environment. To be global in advertising is no longer to be homogenised or standardised, it is to be at the leading edge of social and cultural trends that are changing the world as we know it.Global Advertising Practice in a Borderless World covers a wide range of adaptive advertising practices, from major and emerging markets, in mainstream and digital advertising. It focuses on understanding how the globalisation of advertising works in practice, explored in three sections:globalising advertising in a media and communications context;advertising in a global world; andglobal advertising in a digital world.Covering past, present and potential futures, through an impressive ensemble of global advertising practitioners and academics, the book combines academic rigour with practical insights to provide a comprehensive analysis of the changing dynamics between advertising and globalisation. It will be of great interest to researchers, educators and advanced students in advertising, global branding, international marketing, international business media, communication and cultural studies.

We all know what religion is - or do we? Confronted with religious pluralism and cultural diversity, it manifests itself in many forms. What is Religion? serves not only as an introduction to the different belief systems flourishing throughout the modern world, but asks us to consider how the very boundaries of faith might be drawn now and in the future. How might religion interact with political ends, or permeate culture, society and everyday life? Is the post-secular world in thrall to 'religions' of its own kind - materialism, humanism, medicine, science? And what logic separates 'common-sense' or academic knowledge from the immutable but unstable boudaries of faith? Which is the more certain? What does it mean to believe?Combining clear accounts of contemporary global religious practice with an incisive philosophical interrogation of the dynamics and aims of belief, What is Religion? offers a fresh and wide-ranging introduction to the perennial human questions of ritual, faith, ethics and salvation.

We all know what religion is - or do we? Confronted with religious pluralism and cultural diversity, it manifests itself in many forms. What is Religion? serves not only as an introduction to the different belief systems flourishing throughout the modern world, but asks us to consider how the very boundaries of faith might be drawn now and in the future. How might religion interact with political ends, or permeate culture, society and everyday life? Is the post-secular world in thrall to 'religions' of its own kind - materialism, humanism, medicine, science? And what logic separates 'common-sense' or academic knowledge from the immutable but unstable boudaries of faith? Which is the more certain? What does it mean to believe?Combining clear accounts of contemporary global religious practice with an incisive philosophical interrogation of the dynamics and aims of belief, What is Religion? offers a fresh and wide-ranging introduction to the perennial human questions of ritual, faith, ethics and salvation.

Life cycle assessment enables the identification of a broad range of potential environmental impacts occurring across the entire life of a product, from its design through to its eventual disposal or reuse. The need for life cycle assessment to inform environmental design within the built environment is critical, due to the complex range of materials and processes required to construct and manage our buildings and infrastructure systems.After outlining the framework for life cycle assessment, this book uses a range of case studies to demonstrate the innovative input-output-based hybrid approach for compiling a life cycle inventory. This approach enables a comprehensive analysis of a broad range of resource requirements and environmental outputs so that the potential environmental impacts of a building or infrastructure system can be ascertained. These case studies cover a range of elements that are part of the built environment, including a residential building, a commercial office building and a wind turbine, as well as individual building components such as a residential-scale photovoltaic system.Comprehensively introducing and demonstrating the uses and benefits of life cycle assessment for built environment projects, this book will show you how to assess the environmental performance of your clients’ projects, to compare design options across their entire life and to identify opportunities for improving environmental performance.

Regenerative Design and Construction provides a critical and comprehensive resource that examines the transformative impact of regenerative systems within the construction industry, particularly in light of escalating global climate change concerns. Given the construction industry's significant carbon footprint and resource consumption, it stands at the forefront of the transition towards sustainable methodologies. The book bridges the existing literature gap by offering an in-depth exploration of the role of regenerative systems in fostering sustainable and low-carbon approaches throughout the various disciplines within the construction sector.Provides discipline-specific insights into regenerative systems, which assists architects and engineers in collaborative, holistic regenerative outcomesContent on circular economy principles and environmental impact assessment offers guidance on sustainable materials, emission reduction, and green building standardsCase studies on successful regenerative system implementations provide practical insightsLinks theory with practice, along with insights into emerging trends and technologiesQuantitative models and case studies on energy-efficient designs facilitate practical application

The Scottish Invention of English Literature explores the origins of the teaching of English literature in the academy. It demonstrates how the subject began in eighteenth-century Scottish universities before being exported to America and other countries. The emergence of English as an institutionalised university subject was linked to the search for distinctive cultural identities throughout the English-speaking world. This book explores the role the discipline played in administering restraints on the expression of indigenous literary forms, and shows how the growing professionalisation of English as a subject offered a breeding ground for academics and writers with an interest in native identity and cultural nationalism. This book is a comprehensive account of the historical origins of the university subject of English literature and provides a wealth of new material on its particular Scottish provenance.

The Scottish Invention of English Literature explores the origins of the teaching of English literature in the academy. It demonstrates how the subject began in eighteenth-century Scottish universities before being exported to America and other countries. The emergence of English as an institutionalised university subject was linked to the search for distinctive cultural identities throughout the English-speaking world. This book explores the role the discipline played in administering restraints on the expression of indigenous literary forms, and shows how the growing professionalisation of English as a subject offered a breeding ground for academics and writers with an interest in native identity and cultural nationalism. This book is a comprehensive account of the historical origins of the university subject of English literature and provides a wealth of new material on its particular Scottish provenance.

Edinburgh and Glasgow enjoy a famously scratchy relationship. Resembling other intercity rivalries throughout the world, from Madrid and Barcelona, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Beijing and Shanghai, Scotland’s sparring metropolises just happen to be much smaller and closer together—like twin stars orbiting a common axis. Yet their size belies their world-historical importance as cultural and commercial capitals of the British Empire, and the mere forty miles between their city centers does not diminish their stubbornly individual nature.Robert Crawford dares to bring both cities to life between the covers of one book. His story of the fluctuating fortunes of each city is animated by the one-upping that has been entrenched since the eighteenth century, when Edinburgh lost parliamentary sovereignty and took on its proud wistfulness, while Glasgow came into its industrial promise and defiance. Using landmarks and individuals as gateways to their character and past, this tale of two cities mixes novelty and familiarity just as Scotland’s capital and its largest city do. Crawford gives us Adam Smith and Walter Scott, the Scottish Enlightenment and the School of Art, but also tiny apartments, a poetry library, Spanish Civil War volunteers, and the nineteenth-century entrepreneur Maria Theresa Short. We see Glasgow’s best-known street through the eyes of a Victorian child, and Edinburgh University as it appeared to Charles Darwin.Crawford's lively account, drawing on a wealth of historical and literary sources, affirms what people from Glasgow and Edinburgh have long doubted—that it is possible to love both cities at the same time.

How writers have imagined the idea of Scottish independence over 700 yearsPoet and critic Robert Crawford explores in eloquent detail the literary-cultural background to Scottish nationalism in the lead-up to the referendum on independence for Scotland in September 2014. He begins with the totemic Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, in which the Scots routed the English and preserved their independence until the two nations peacefully united in 1707. Continuing up to the present day, he examines how writers have set out in poetry, fiction, plays and on film the ideal of Scottish independence. Publication coincides with the 700-year anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, 1314-2014.This engagingly written volume begins with an English poet-in-residence at the 1314 battle. The book then traces how that famous victory has been interpreted and reinterpreted imaginatively. It moves from vivid medieval epics in several languages through the Romantic political imagination of Robert Burns to the striking part played by twenty-first-century poets, novelists, and dramatists in creative attempts to answer the 2014 question: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’Here are the nationalist poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid and the gore of Braveheart and Black Watch; the Surrey novelist who celebrates Scotland’s political freedom in her international best-seller, and the bisexual Jewish American who develops a nuanced theory of Scottish nationalism in opposition to the oppressive rhetoric of fascism. Bannockburns concludes with a spirited discussion of literature and Scotland's 2014 referendum. From The Bruce to contemporary literature and modern-day campaigning, Bannockburns is revelatory.

How writers have imagined the idea of Scottish independence over 700 yearsPoet and critic Robert Crawford explores in eloquent detail the literary-cultural background to Scottish nationalism in the lead-up to the referendum on independence for Scotland in September 2014. He begins with the totemic Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, in which the Scots routed the English and preserved their independence until the two nations peacefully united in 1707. Continuing up to the present day, he examines how writers have set out in poetry, fiction, plays and on film the ideal of Scottish independence. Publication coincides with the 700-year anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, 1314-2014.This engagingly written volume begins with an English poet-in-residence at the 1314 battle. The book then traces how that famous victory has been interpreted and reinterpreted imaginatively. It moves from vivid medieval epics in several languages through the Romantic political imagination of Robert Burns to the striking part played by twenty-first-century poets, novelists, and dramatists in creative attempts to answer the 2014 question: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’Here are the nationalist poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid and the gore of Braveheart and Black Watch; the Surrey novelist who celebrates Scotland’s political freedom in her international best-seller, and the bisexual Jewish American who develops a nuanced theory of Scottish nationalism in opposition to the oppressive rhetoric of fascism. Bannockburns concludes with a spirited discussion of literature and Scotland's 2014 referendum. From The Bruce to contemporary literature and modern-day campaigning, Bannockburns is revelatory.