CultureWork: A Book Series from the Center for Literacy and Cultural Studies at Harvard – serie

Coverage of such major news events as the Gulf War, the AIDS epidemic and the William Kennedy Smith rape trial is analysed by contributors who explore the languages of word and image that produce current events as spectacle.

The Seductions of Biography is an important volume which sheds new light on a flourishing literary form, the biography. In postmodern culture, new methods and intentions emerge, as well as new obstacles, towards our understanding of biography as a genre. This book provides a thorough exploration of this genre, from a wide range of postmodern perspectives. The Seductions of Biography brings together a number of essays which reflect in culturally critical as well as autobiographical terms on current themes and practices of contemporary biography. Issues addressed by these essays focus on the postmodern dilemma itself--as new voices from excluded communities make themselves heard in biographical works, the decentralization of new issues, such as gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, becomes problematic. Contributors question the responsibilities a biographer has, both to the subject and the public, and consider also questions of morality and taste; for example, is it fair to use private tapings made by your subject's analyst? And how much do we really need to know about Eleanor Roosevelt's sex life? The impact of sexuality on our reading of public figures is addressed, as well as other issues which explore the popular and provocative nature of biography. Interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in scope, The Seductions of Biography will appeal to biographers, historians, cultural critics, and the vast population of avid biography readers. Contributors: Kwame Anthony Appiah, Clark Blaise, Marilyn L. Brownstein, Blanche Wiesen Cook, John D'Emilio, Jeffrey Louis Decker, Michael Eric Dyson, Diana Fuss, Marjorie Garber, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Hayden Herrera, Maurice Isserman, Barbara Johnson, William S. McFeely, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Richard J. Powell, Phyllis Rose, Doris Sommer, Marita Sturken, Sherley Anne Williams, Jean Fagan Yellin

When the American Bar Association recreated the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg on the fortieth anniversary of their execution, the jury acquitted the "mock Rosenbergs," finding that in today's courts they would not have been convicted of espionage.The 1950s trial of the Rosenbergs on charges of "Atomic Spying" and "stealing the secrets of the Atomic bomb" was a major event of Cold War America, galvanizing public opinion on all sides of the question. Secret Agents presents essays by lawyers, cultural critics, social historians and historians of science, as well as a reconsideration of the Rosenbergs by their younger son, Robert Meeropol. Secret Agents gives new resonance to a history we have for too long been willing to forget.

What is culture? What are cultures? Are literary texts and cultural texts different? What do literature and other fields engaged in cultural work hav in common? What can literary studies profitably do with other disciplines? What can cultural studies tell us about culture? This volume of work, fresh from the dig, presents a timely account of current thinking on central issues within and beyond the humanities today. Field Work brings together such leading figures as Sacvan Bercovitch and Helen Vendler, Anthony Appiah and Barbara Johnson, Seyla Benhabib and Norman Bryson, Martha Minow and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Marjorie Garber and Susan Suleiman, as well as scholars in areas as diverse as legal studies and Renaissance literature. From a rich variety of perspectives, these scholars excavate and explore foundational questions in their fields. Contributors: K. Anthony Appiah, Seyla Benhabib, Sacvan Bercovitch, Svetlana Boym, Norman Bryson, Lawrence Buell, Patrick Ford, Paul B. Franklin, Marjorie Garber, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Mary Gaylord, Beatrice Hanssen, Barbara Johnson, David Kennedy, Joseph Koener, Laura Korobkin, Meredith McGill, Jeffrey Masten, Jann Matlock, Martha Minow, Gregory Nagy, Stephen Owen, Judith Ryan, Elaine Scarry, Doris Sommer, Mary Steedly, Susan Suleiman, William Todd, Helen Vendler, Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Irene Winter

What is culture? What are cultures? Are literary texts and cultural texts different? What do literature and other fields engaged in cultural work hav in common? What can literary studies profitably do with other disciplines? What can cultural studies tell us about culture? This volume of work, fresh from the dig, presents a timely account of current thinking on central issues within and beyond the humanities today. Field Work brings together such leading figures as Sacvan Bercovitch and Helen Vendler, Anthony Appiah and Barbara Johnson, Seyla Benhabib and Norman Bryson, Martha Minow and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Marjorie Garber and Susan Suleiman, as well as scholars in areas as diverse as legal studies and Renaissance literature. From a rich variety of perspectives, these scholars excavate and explore foundational questions in their fields. Contributors: K. Anthony Appiah, Seyla Benhabib, Sacvan Bercovitch, Svetlana Boym, Norman Bryson, Lawrence Buell, Patrick Ford, Paul B. Franklin, Marjorie Garber, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Mary Gaylord, Beatrice Hanssen, Barbara Johnson, David Kennedy, Joseph Koener, Laura Korobkin, Meredith McGill, Jeffrey Masten, Jann Matlock, Martha Minow, Gregory Nagy, Stephen Owen, Judith Ryan, Elaine Scarry, Doris Sommer, Mary Steedly, Susan Suleiman, William Todd, Helen Vendler, Rebecca L. Walkowitz, Irene Winter

First published in 2000. Did people in early modern Europe have a concept of an inner self? Carla Mazzio and Douglas Trevor have brought together an outstanding group of literary, cultural, and history scholars to answer this intriguing question. Through a synthesis of historicism and psychoanalytic criticism, the contributors explore the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising union of history and subjectivity in Europe centuries before psychoanalytic theory. Addressing such topics as "fetishes and Renaissances," "the cartographic unconscious," and "the topographic imaginary," these essays move beyond the strict boundaries of historicism and psychoanalysis to carve out new histories of interiority in early modern Europe.

First published in 2000. Did people in early modern Europe have a concept of an inner self? Carla Mazzio and Douglas Trevor have brought together an outstanding group of literary, cultural, and history scholars to answer this intriguing question. Through a synthesis of historicism and psychoanalytic criticism, the contributors explore the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising union of history and subjectivity in Europe centuries before psychoanalytic theory. Addressing such topics as "fetishes and Renaissances," "the cartographic unconscious," and "the topographic imaginary," these essays move beyond the strict boundaries of historicism and psychoanalysis to carve out new histories of interiority in early modern Europe.

One Nation Under God? is a remarkable consideration of how religion manifests itself in America today.

One Nation Under God? is a remarkable consideration of how religion manifests itself in America today.

What kind of turn is the turn to ethics? A Right turn? A Left turn? A wrong turn? A U-turn? Ethics is back in literary studies, philosophy, and political theory. The philosophers, political theorists, literary critics and physician whose essays are collected here bring the particularities of their disciplines and training to a vital complex of questions.

What kind of turn is the turn to ethics? A Right turn? A Left turn? A wrong turn? A U-turn? Ethics is back in literary studies, philosophy, and political theory. The philosophers, political theorists, literary critics and physician whose essays are collected here bring the particularities of their disciplines and training to a vital complex of questions.

In Cultures of Forgery, leading literary studies and cultural studies scholars examine the double meaning of the word "forge"-to create or to form, on the one hand, and to make falsely, on the other.

In Cultures of Forgery, leading literary studies and cultural studies scholars examine the double meaning of the word "forge"-to create or to form, on the one hand, and to make falsely, on the other.