Signs of the Signs

Signs of the Signs PDF Author: William Brevda
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 1611480434
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
This book is a study of signs in American literature and culture. It is mainly about electric signs, but also deals with non-electric signs and related phenomena, such as movie sets. The 'sign' is considered in both the architectural and semiotic senses of the word. It is argued that the drama and spectacle of the electric sign called attention to the semiotic implications of the 'sign.' In fiction, poetry, and commentary, the electric SIGN became a 'sign' of manifold meanings that this book explores: a sign of the city, a sign of America, a sign of the twentieth century, a sign of modernism, a sign of postmodernism, a sign of noir, a sign of naturalism, a sign of the beats, a sign of signs systems (the Bible to Broadway), a sign of tropes (the Great White way to the neon jungle), a sign of the writers themselves, a sign of the sign itself. If Moby Dick is the great American novel, then it is also the great American novel about signs, as the prologue maintains. The chapters that follow demonstrate that the sign is indeed a 'sign' of American literature. After the electric sign was invented, it influenced Stephen Crane to become a nightlight impressionist and Theodore Dreiser to make the 'fire sign' his metaphor for the city. An actual Broadway sign might have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In Manhattan Transfer and U.S.A., John Dos Passos portrayed America as just a spectacular sign. William Faulkner's electric signs are full of sound and fury signifying modernity. The Last Tycoon was a sign of Fitzgerald's decline. The signs of noir can be traced to Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd.' Absence flickers in the neons of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. The death of God haunts the neon wilderness of Nelson Algren. Hitler's 'empire' was an non-intentional parody of Nathanael West's California. The beats reinvented Times Square in their own image. Jack Kerouac's search for the center of Saturday night was a quest for transcendence. This book will interest readers who want to learn more about the city, the history of advertising, electric lighting, nightlife, architecture, and semiotics. In contrast to other cultural studies, however, Signs of the Signs is primarily a work of literary criticism. Lovers of literary light will appreciate this book the most.

Signs of the Signs

Signs of the Signs PDF Author: William Brevda
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 1611480434
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 435

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is a study of signs in American literature and culture. It is mainly about electric signs, but also deals with non-electric signs and related phenomena, such as movie sets. The 'sign' is considered in both the architectural and semiotic senses of the word. It is argued that the drama and spectacle of the electric sign called attention to the semiotic implications of the 'sign.' In fiction, poetry, and commentary, the electric SIGN became a 'sign' of manifold meanings that this book explores: a sign of the city, a sign of America, a sign of the twentieth century, a sign of modernism, a sign of postmodernism, a sign of noir, a sign of naturalism, a sign of the beats, a sign of signs systems (the Bible to Broadway), a sign of tropes (the Great White way to the neon jungle), a sign of the writers themselves, a sign of the sign itself. If Moby Dick is the great American novel, then it is also the great American novel about signs, as the prologue maintains. The chapters that follow demonstrate that the sign is indeed a 'sign' of American literature. After the electric sign was invented, it influenced Stephen Crane to become a nightlight impressionist and Theodore Dreiser to make the 'fire sign' his metaphor for the city. An actual Broadway sign might have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In Manhattan Transfer and U.S.A., John Dos Passos portrayed America as just a spectacular sign. William Faulkner's electric signs are full of sound and fury signifying modernity. The Last Tycoon was a sign of Fitzgerald's decline. The signs of noir can be traced to Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd.' Absence flickers in the neons of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. The death of God haunts the neon wilderness of Nelson Algren. Hitler's 'empire' was an non-intentional parody of Nathanael West's California. The beats reinvented Times Square in their own image. Jack Kerouac's search for the center of Saturday night was a quest for transcendence. This book will interest readers who want to learn more about the city, the history of advertising, electric lighting, nightlife, architecture, and semiotics. In contrast to other cultural studies, however, Signs of the Signs is primarily a work of literary criticism. Lovers of literary light will appreciate this book the most.

Misrule and Reversals

Misrule and Reversals PDF Author: Rozaliya Yaneva
Publisher: Herbert Utz Verlag
ISBN: 383164313X
Category : Carnival in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
How do Christopher Marlowe’s plays relate to interpretations of carnival as being either a beneficial repression inspired by anxiety or a deliberate expression of resistance towards all that is established and permanent? Where can one place carnival in his dramatic works? Renaissance drama invited a consideration of various forms of collective life and while great religious festivities of the Catholic calendar were affected by Reformation efforts to control festivity and detach it from religious worship, festive energies on Marlowe`s stage seem to have persisted. This book views Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta and Edward the Second through concepts of irreverence, clowning, the high and the low in culture, degradation, laughter and feasting while viewing the plays’ worlds in terms of misrule, inversion and reversal. Who are the clowns in the plays, is the time for revelries restricted and how do the principle of the grotesque and the forces of debasement work are some of the intriguing questions to be pursued.

A Carnival of Mimics

A Carnival of Mimics PDF Author: Max Kozloff
Publisher: powerHouse Books
ISBN: 9781576879641
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A Carnival of Mimics is a new photo essay from acclaimed photographer and art critic Max Kozloff. A street photographer on the lookout for miscellaneous piquancies, Kozloff gradually became aware that commercial effigies and statues, dummies and mannequins had begun to infiltrate his urban subject matter. He had accidentally documented a large selection of incredibly expressive naïve sculpture. Underfoot or overhead, these “mimics” comprise a subpopulation that begs for notice and often does not get it. Somewhere in the realm between banal and mysterious, in his hands this animistic spectacle acquires eerie overtones and beautiful presentation. A Carnival of Mimics is a late-career masterpiece, from one of modern photography’s most important minds.

On the Mystery

On the Mystery PDF Author: Catherine Keller
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451404999
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
With immediate impact and deep creativity, Catherine Kelleroffers this brief and unconventional introduction to theologicalthinking, especially as recast by process thought. Keller takes uptheology itself as a quest for religious authenticity. Through a marvelous combination of brilliant writing, story,reflection, and unabashed questioning of old shibboleths, Kellerredeems theology from its dry and predictable categories to revealwhat has always been at the heart of the theological enterprise:a personal search for intellectually honest and credible ways ofmaking sense of the loving mystery that encompasses even ourconfounding times.

Centennial Portrait and Biographical Record of the City of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio

Centennial Portrait and Biographical Record of the City of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio PDF Author: Frank Conover
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dayton (Ohio)
Languages : en
Pages : 1382

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Book Description


Jonestown

Jonestown PDF Author: Wilson Harris
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571283667
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
'I was obsessed - let me confess - by cities and settlements in the Central and South Americas that are an enigma to many scholars. I dreamt of their abandonment, their bird-masks, their animal-masks ... Did their inhabitants rebel against the priests, did obscure holocausts occur, civil strife, famine, plague? Was Jonestown the latest manifestation...?' Jonestown (1996), one of Wilson Harris's most acclaimed creations, is a fictional re-imagining of the real-life ritual mass suicide orchestrated by Reverend Jim Jones in the remote Guyana forest in 1978. The novel's narrator, Francisco Bone, has survived the suicide albeit in a traumatized condition. By way of a dream-book he tries to heal his psychic wound, under the influence of the Mayan concept of time that twins past and future. Faber Finds is devoted to restoring to readers a wealth of lost or neglected classics and authors of distinction. The range embraces fiction, non-fiction, the arts and children's books. For a full list of available titles visit www.faberfinds.co.uk. To join the dialogue with fellow book-lovers please see our blog, www.faberfindsblog.co.uk.

Angela Carter

Angela Carter PDF Author: Linden Peach
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137049308
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This revised new edition reviews Carter's novels in the light of recent critical developments and offers entirely new perspectives on her work. There is now extended discussion of Carter's most widely-studied novels, including The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus, and discussion of the long essay The Sadeian Woman. This revised new edition reviews Carter's novels in the light of recent critical developments and offers entirely new perspectives on her work. There is now extended discussion of Carter's most widely-studied novels, including The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus, and discussion of the long essay The Sadeian Woman.

V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad

V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad PDF Author: Nivedita Misra
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839989203
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
The book is about V. S. Naipaul who was born in Trinidad in 1932. At the age of 18, Naipaul left Trinidad on a scholarship to study literature at Oxford. He never returned to live in Trinidad. His first book was published in 1956, and by the time Trinidad achieved political independence in 1962, he had published four books and was firmly established as a writer in England. By the time Trinidad became a republic in 1976, Naipaul had written 13 books and had travelled through much of the postcolonial world. This book highlights how Trinidad and Naipaul were bound in a love-hate relationship where Naipaul continued to pass Trinidad off as a cynical island where “nothing was created” while Trinidad had its share by laying back a claim on him and his writing. It is generally perceived that Naipaul shunned his place of birth as he called his birth in Trinidad a “mistake,” Trinidad an “unimportant, uncreative, cynical” place and the Caribbean as the “Third World’s Third World.” His refusal to acknowledge Trinidad in his initial response to receiving the Nobel Prize added insult to injury. Yet, he was deeply bound to the island of Trinidad and his roots in the Indo-Trinidadian community. This book makes Naipaul’s connection to Trinidad more than evident and as such adds to the present body of knowledge.

Soldiers

Soldiers PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 716

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Book Description


In Scripture

In Scripture PDF Author: Lori Hope Lefkovitz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742547049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Applying psychoanalytic and gender theory to selected Biblical narratives from Genesis to the Book of Ruth, Lefkovitz interprets the Bible’s stories as foundation texts in the development of sexual identities. In Scripture is an exploration of the Biblical origins of a series of unstable ideas about the sexes, human sexuality, family roles, and Jewish sexual identities, in particular, and by extension, changing attitudes towards Jewish men and women.