In the early 1980s Donald Barthelme was widely recognized in the United States as one of the major figures in contemporary postmodernism, a key and central experimental writer. In this study, originally published in 1982, two leading critics present Donald Barthelme’s work in its most radical and innovative aspects. Their essay combines textual analysis, critical theory and cultural awareness and aims at investigating the impact of Barthelme’s fictions on the reader and at defining the type of reading experience and pleasure such fictions can produce. Included in the aspects of Donald Barthelme’s work discussed here are his use of language, his sense of comedy, his parody, his vision of the modern self as fragmented and displaced, and his relation to psychoanalysis and other forms of art.
First published in 1991, Textual Communication examines the character and development of the novel from Richardson to Nabokov in relation to the printing and publishing industry. The book blends literary theory with a historical analysis of communication, carrying the debate on the novel beyond the pioneering work of Booth and Genette, while responding to and taking issue with the writings of Foucault, Baudrillard, McLuhan, and Barthes. It analyses the structures of the industry which manufactured and marketed novels to show how novelists solved the communication problems that they faced in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. It also pinpoints critical moments in the history of the novel when new narrative strategies appeared, and places them in the context of the communication environment in which the texts were produced. Using Lacan’s theory of the divided subject, the book defines textual communication as a form of interaction in which two divided subjects, the author and the reader, try to communicate with each other under or against the law of the book market, censorship, literary conventions, and language.
First published in 1991, Textual Communication examines the character and development of the novel from Richardson to Nabokov in relation to the printing and publishing industry. The book blends literary theory with a historical analysis of communication, carrying the debate on the novel beyond the pioneering work of Booth and Genette, while responding to and taking issue with the writings of Foucault, Baudrillard, McLuhan, and Barthes. It analyses the structures of the industry which manufactured and marketed novels to show how novelists solved the communication problems that they faced in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. It also pinpoints critical moments in the history of the novel when new narrative strategies appeared, and places them in the context of the communication environment in which the texts were produced. Using Lacan’s theory of the divided subject, the book defines textual communication as a form of interaction in which two divided subjects, the author and the reader, try to communicate with each other under or against the law of the book market, censorship, literary conventions, and language.
In the early 1980s Donald Barthelme was widely recognized in the United States as one of the major figures in contemporary postmodernism, a key and central experimental writer. In this study, originally published in 1982, two leading critics present Donald Barthelme’s work in its most radical and innovative aspects. Their essay combines textual analysis, critical theory and cultural awareness and aims at investigating the impact of Barthelme’s fictions on the reader and at defining the type of reading experience and pleasure such fictions can produce. Included in the aspects of Donald Barthelme’s work discussed here are his use of language, his sense of comedy, his parody, his vision of the modern self as fragmented and displaced, and his relation to psychoanalysis and other forms of art.
Dr. Vautrin, as he was commonly addressed, retired on January 1, 2001. He did not know what he would do to occupy his time. He briefly considered a new hobby, painting, until he realized the space it would require and the messy environment it would create. In 2002, his astute wife, Thecla, registered them both in the Taproot workshop at their community library, Half Hollow Hills, New York. Taproot is a nonprofit organization for senior writers where the craft of writing is learned, practiced, and critiqued among the group. Maurice was not sure where to begin. Thanks to Thecla, who suggested he write short stories about his life and reflections, his enthusiasm took off and he wrote his memoirs. Here, he leaves his legacy, spanning nearly nine decades for his French and American families, his patients, and all his descendants. He wishes every family would leave to their loved ones such testimonies so rich for us all.
A noted critic explores the legacy of Jews in France and what it means for today’s French minority communities in a “beautifully written, accessible book” (Journal of Modern History). Universal equality is a treasured political concept in France, but recent anxiety over the country’s Muslim minority has led to a new conception of universalism, one promoting loyalty to the nation above all ethnic and religious affiliations. This timely book offers a fresh perspective on the debate by showing that French equality has not always demanded an erasure of differences. Through close and contextualized readings of the way that major novelists, philosophers, filmmakers, and political figures have struggled with the question of integrating Jews into French society, Maurice Samuels draws lessons about how the French have often understood the universal in relation to the particular. Samuels demonstrates that Jewish difference has always been essential to the elaboration of French universalism, whether as its foil or as proof of its reach. He traces the development of this discourse through key moments in French history, from debates over granting Jews civil rights during the Revolution, through the Dreyfus Affair and Vichy, and up to the rise of a “new antisemitism” in recent years. By recovering the forgotten history of a more open, pluralistic French culture, Samuels points toward new ways of moving beyond current ethnic and religious dilemmas and argues for a more inclusive view of what constitutes political discourse in France
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
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