Critical Quarterly Book Series – serie

This study revolutionises our understanding of both literary modernism and early cinema. Trotter draws on the most recent scholarship in English and film studies to demonstrate how central cinema as a recording medium was to Joyce, Eliot and Woolf, and how modernist were the concerns of Chaplin and Griffith. This book rewrites the cultural history of the early twentieth century, showing how film technology and modernist aesthetics combined to explore the limits of the human. Offers major re-interpretations of key Modernist works, including Ulysses, The Waste Land, and To the Lighthouse Explores film and film-going in works by Henry James, Frank Norris, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield, and Elizabeth Bowen Offers original analyses of crucial phases in the careers of two of the most celebrated film-makers of the silent era, D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin

Moustapha Safouan, in this courageous and honest book, confronts head-on the problem of Arab despotism, examining it from the point of view of political philosophy, religious argument and linguistic history. A ground-breaking book written by the eminent Lacanian psychoanalyst Moustapha Safouan. Rejects explanations of Arab despotism which appeal either to imperialism or to notions of Arab culture in favour of an analysis which focuses on the relations between writing and power. Investigates the divorce between the classical Arabic which is the medium of education and the diverse vernacular Arabics which are the languages of the streets. A tour de force of political philosophy, religious argument and linguistic history.

Both a controversial account of the transgressive turn in critical thought characteristic of the moral turmoil of the Twentieth Century, and a provocative study of maternal transfiguration in the author's own turn from Transgression, Against Transgression poses an urgent question for the current generation of literary critics. Studies the origins of the contemporary proliferation of 'Transgression' in the compelling thought experiments of Georges Bataille, and follows its inauguration as a mode of legitimate critical practice via Michel Foucault.Tracks the author's rejection of Transgression as a legitimate critical methodology following her mother's death and her own maternal transfiguration.Shows how the po-faced claims of critical methodology can be exploded by genuinely personal reflection.Considers the place of grief in the transformation of thought.Argues against the model of the 'death of god' that underpins the transgressive turn in critical thought, and for a more courageous account of the inevitable return of numinous desires.Considers the moral responsibility of the critical writer.Traces the transfiguration of the author from transgressive daughter to maternal agent.

The essays brought together in this book understand phobia not as a pathology, but as a versatile moral, political, and aesthetic resource – and one with a history. They demonstrate that enquiry into strong feelings of aversion has enabled writers and film-makers to say and show things they could not otherwise have said or shown; and in this way to get profoundly and provocatively to grips with the modern condition. Makes extensive reference to original readings of a wide range of literary texts and films, from the 1850s to the presentPlaces a strong emphasis on the value phobia has held, in particular, for women activists, writers, and film-makersDiscusses a range of writers and film-makers from Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot through Hardy, Joyce, Ford and Woolf; from Jean Renoir through Hitchcock and Truffaut to Margarethe von Trotta and Pedro AlmodóvarIntervention in key debates in cultural theory and cultural history

Combining work from established film critics and the very freshest of voices, this collection brings to bear a wide range of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds on one of the most intriguing films of the twentieth century. Features contributions from a wide range of cultural and disciplinary backgroundsEssays are brought together to form the basis of a new analysis of one of the most intriguing films of the twentieth centuryIncorporates essays from students studying in the London Consortium, a partnership of five institutions including the Architectural Association, Birkbeck, University of London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Science Museum, and the TateContains an introduction and post-script from the editors