The New English Dictionary was originally distinguished from an encyclopedia in reach and function by its proponent Richard Chenevix Trench and its principal editor James A. H. Murray as differing in responsibilities: a dictionary described the meanings of words, an encyclopedia described the nature of things. The distinction had philosophical and…[Read more]

The New English Dictionary was originally distinguished from an encyclopedia in reach and function by its proponent Richard Chenevix Trench and its principal editor James A. H. Murray as differing in responsibilities: a dictionary described the meanings of words, an encyclopedia described the nature of things. The distinction had philosophical and…[Read more]

Table of contents.

In the Arab world, Beckett’s plays or their adaptations have not only been popular with audiences and directors but have also inspired other literary and media genres. The Beckettian wait itself has become synonymous with the condition of the Arab person. It is a wait that offers an unrealized potential of hope that reverberates with the d…[Read more]

This article seeks to explore into the impact of 9/11 tragedy on the private lives of ordinary people and individuals and into the associated theme of identity crisis, as reflected in four important post-9/11 poems – “Someone Says They Looked Like Cartwheeling Birds” by Lyn Lifshin, “Making Love After September 11, 2001” by Aliki Barnstone…[Read more]

This review essay approaches Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller’s Thinking Literature across Continents (2016) from a set of questions about what it means to read in the age of hyperarchival accumulation. Written against the background of events in the United States and elsewhere during the fall of 2017, the essay tracks and assesses Ghosh and…[Read more]

“Excellence in Execution” and “Fitness for Teaching”: Assessments of Women at the Conservatoire Américain

This essay examines the Hindi Nayī Kahānī, or New Story, Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which was influential for the short stories, criticism, and literary history that its writers produced. Incorporating a view toward the larger “metaliterary” corpus in relation to which properly “literary” nayī kahānī texts were written, the essay shows h…[Read more]

Because it is all too easy to (accidentally) make assumptions about what first-year students know about language, in 2019-2020 my lit and comp type courses will begin with a segment on language, before moving on to sentences, paragraphs, and essays.

Our exploration of language will start by jumping into a story, to help us identify the 8 parts…[Read more]

This essay argues that William Morris’s work displaces an implicit youthful bias in theories of utopia and socialism by making senescence a structuring principle of his ideal society. For Morris, capitalist age ideology stratifies the lifespan into zones of youth and old age, usefulness and excess, and he perceived the rising reformist…[Read more]

This essay argues that William Morris’s work displaces an implicit youthful bias in theories of utopia and socialism by making senescence a structuring principle of his ideal society. For Morris, capitalist age ideology stratifies the lifespan into zones of youth and old age, usefulness and excess, and he perceived the rising reformist…[Read more]

In this article I ask what happens if we consider Jewett, who spent most of her adult life at the epicenter of New England intellectual culture, as a pivotal figure in the Western history of theorizing sexuality, and her 1884 novel, A Country Doctor, as a significant document in the history of theorizing sexual and gender deviation, perfectly…[Read more]

In this article I ask what happens if we consider Jewett, who spent most of her adult life at the epicenter of New England intellectual culture, as a pivotal figure in the Western history of theorizing sexuality, and her 1884 novel, A Country Doctor, as a significant document in the history of theorizing sexual and gender deviation, perfectly…[Read more]

Introduction to the literary theory, form, and style of Modernism, a literary movement that dominated the first half of the 20th century and continues to exert its influence over literature today, which, tellingly, is described by the label post-Modernism.

Explores ‘information history’, or the study of information and its practices, as a way to arrange investigations of past and present. An invited contribution for the volume, “Information and Power in History: Towards a Global Approach,” edited by Ida Nijenhuis, Marijke van Faassen, Joris Gijsenbergh, Wim de Jong, and Ronald Sluijter (London:…[Read more]