Friendship serves as a metaphor for citizenship and mirrors the individual’s participation in civic life. Friendship Fictions unravels key implications of this metaphor and demonstrates how it can transform liberal culture into a more just and democratic way of life. A criticism often leveled at liberal democratic culture is its emphasis on the individual over community and private life over civic participation. However, liberal democratic culture has a more complicated relationship to notions of citizenship. As Michael Kaplan shows, citizenship comprises a major theme of popular entertainment, especially Hollywood film, and often takes the form of friendship narratives; and this is no accident. Examining the representations of citizenship-as-friendship in four Hollywood films (The Big Chill, Thelma & Louise, Lost in Translation, and Smoke), Kaplan argues that critics have misunderstood some of liberal democracy’s most significant features: its resilience, its capacity for self-revision, and the cultural resonance of its model of citizenship. For Kaplan, friendship—with its dynamic pacts, fluid alliances, and contingent communities—is one arena in which preconceptions about individual participation in civic life are contested and complicated. Friendship serves as a metaphor for citizenship and mirrors the individual’s participation in civic life. Friendship Fictions unravels key implications of this metaphor and demonstrates how it can transform liberal culture into a more just and democratic way of life.
This book explores the reciprocal influence of friendship ideals and narrative forms in eighteenth-century British fiction. It examines how various novelists, from Samuel Richardson to Mary Shelley, drew upon classical and early modern conceptions of true amity as a model of collaborative pedagogy. Analyzing authors, their professional circumstances, and their audiences, the study shows how the rhetoric of friendship became a means of paying deference to the increasing power of readerships, while it also served as a semi-covert means to persuade resistant readers and confront aesthetic and moral debates head on. The study contributes to an understanding of gender roles in the early history of the novel by disclosing the constant interplay between male and female models of amity. It demonstrates that this gendered dialogue shaped the way novelists imagined character interiority, reconciled with the commercial aspects of writing, and engaged mixed-sex audiences.
How might our friendships shape our politics? This book examines how contemporary American fiction has rediscovered the concept of civic friendship and revived a long tradition of imagining male friendship as interlinked with the promises and paradoxes of democracy in the United States. Bringing into dialogue the work of a wide range of authors – including Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, and Teju Cole – this innovative study advances a compelling new account of the political and intellectual fabric of the American novel today.
Prose Fiction and Early Modern Sexuality, 1570-1640 brings together twelve new essays which situate the arguments about the multiple constructions of sexualities in prose fiction within contemporary critical debates about the body, gender, desire, print culture, postcoloniality, and cultural geography. Looking at Sidney's Arcadia , Wroth's Urania , Lyly's Euphues ; fictions by Gascoigne, Riche, Parry, and Brathwaite; as well as Hellenic romances, rogue fictions, and novelle, the essays expand and challenge current critical arguments about the gendering of labour, female eroticism, queer masculinity, sodomy, male friendship, cross-dressing, heteroeroticism, incest, and the gendering of poetic creativity.
When online friendship turns into a long distance relationship between painter Alex and bookworm Scarlet, late night conversations becomes a daily matter and blaming time every times becomes a habit the God thinks for give a little twist to the relationship of London’s Alex and Berlin’s Scarlet. Scarlet’s dad had to shift in London because of his business with his whole family and Scarlet was over the moon about. Scarlet rushed to tell it to Alex but, before that Scarlet thinks for knowing Alex’s house’s location and innocent Alex shares his house’s location while thinking that, Scarlet is just asking for fun. Scarlet was astonished with surprise and shock that Chris’s house will be Scarlet’s neighbour house in London! Scarlet decides to give Alex a surprise and not to tell anything about it to Alex yet and Scarlet stays silent about it, till one day Scarlet gets in London. Alex was living his daily normal London life till the day when Alex heard truck’s sounds from the neighbourhood and Alex wonders that which new neighbours are coming and how they will be. Scarlet surprised Alex by her sudden appearance and they share a perfect hug and their first kiss in the eve of New Year to be their first Love Year. Days pass by and Alex and Scarlet gets more close to each other and both souls became more attached to each other. One day when Scarlet was reading her favourite books from the 1900s and 1800s era, she finds out about a mystery which was pretty triggering to her. Scarlet notices a same pattern in the romantic books of some authors who belonged from a same village and the authors used the same line to compare their written love story with the ‘Holy Love of Mary and Austin’ Now who are Mary and Austin? Thoughts started to come in Scarlet’s mind and she started to researched about it in the internet and there she found out about a tomb made in 1600s to 1700s for remembering the love sacrifice of Marry and Austin. Scarlet gets to know that there’s a village where the tomb is and the village exists in real and the distance is only 20 minutes in car from Scarlet’s house and Scarlet decided to see the tomb of Love and Sacrifice. Scarlet tells it to Alex and Alex also agrees but, Scarlet’s mom comes in middle and destroys their plan by telling that Scarlet and Alex’s family both are going to Paris next week together for vacation! In Paris, Alex and Scarlet gets a surprise by seeing the beauty of Eifel Tower and other Parisian places. There when Alex was resting on his bed with the excitement to go to the castle museum in the evening, Scarlet comes in and started to have fun with Alex. Soon their having fun turns into a beautiful romance with kisses and cuddling and Alex in main time thinks about taking the romance in next level by taking clothes off. Alex takes off his t shirt while Scarlet is sitting on Alex and they are having their best moments in their life and Alex tells Scarlet to undress too but, Scarlet smiles and says nothing and then both started to kissing but- “Room...Service...” The room service lady muttered and being witnessed of instance hotel romance in front of her eyes. Alex and Scarlet both gets red with embarrassment while trying to figure out what to do next. Days passes and Scarlet and Alex both comes back in London but the burning desire of finding the mystery about the love story of Mary and Austin stays the same. When Scarlet and Alex studies more about the love story they find out about so many things more but suddenly- The electricity goes off and the whole room gets filled into darkness and Scarlet gets fear of darkness and right at this time for making Scarlet more sacred Alex says loudly, “Look there is a cockroach near your leg!!! And they are climbing up!!!” Scarlet Jumps on Alex while screaming with fear and suddenly trouble in paradise! Alex’s mom came inside the room for give candles to Alex and Scarlet and again Alex forgot to lock the door and became red with embarrassment while trying to find a word how to describe the current situation while Scarlet is hanging by Alex because of the fear of cockroaches. Days pass more and more cute and embarrassing moments like it happens with our lovers and one day they found out a diary which was written in 1700s by a Austrian traveller who came to Great Britain’s love place and got to know about the Love of Mary and Austin. Alex and Scarlet decides to go in the place and read the diary near the tomb of Mary and Austin. The next day Alex and Scarlet goes there and sat on a bench together and starts to read the diary and they got to know about Mary and Austin’s love story, the love story of 1500s-1600s Great Britain which was sacrificed due to different religions and more hardships. Tears comes out of Scarlet’s eyes while reading about the condition of Austin and Mary but, suddenly in middle of everything Alex notices a beautiful lady wearing white dress is standing near Austin’s tomb and white pigeons are around her and the moon has started to rise. “Who are you?” Alex and Scarlet goes closer to the lady and asked her. “Do you want to know?” The lady asked them back. “Yes” Alex and Scarlet says in unison while being confused. The lady gives her hands towards Alex and Scarlet and Alex and Scarlet touches the lady’s hand and suddenly they both lost their consciousness. Scarlet and Alex started to see everything by their eyes this time, which they were reading in the diary. The Great Britain of 1500s and 1600s, the people, Mary and Austin, Knight David, King and Queen everything! Scarlet and Alex were astonished with seeing that this is all happening in front of their eyes as they are watching a forbidden love story in front of their eyes, which was forbidden because of the social norms of that era and the religious rules. The historical love story was touching Scarlet and Alex’s heart as they were knowing more about it and more but suddenly Alex recognised that Mary is the same lady who told Scarlet and Alex to hold her hands and so is that means? Scarlet and Alex met with Mary’s spirit who wanted to show them how the societal norms has forbidden their relationship? ‘Love in Second Language’ is not only a single love story but a mix of two love stories, first one is today’s modern love story and another one is historical forbidden love story of Mary and Austin. Drive into a world while witnessing the hot and cold and how they were connected to each other in the conspiracy of time and life. Want to know what will happen next? Don’t waste your time, looking for other books with shirtless male heroes in the cover! Read, ‘Love in Second Language’ by Somnath Bhattacharjee and gets into an exciting world, made with unexpected surprises, cute romantic moments, and historical love.
This book shows how the Aristotelian-Ciceronian notion of perfect male friendship operates as an independent poetic force within the development of Spanish literature in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
What is fanfiction, and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important to the future of literature? Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology—about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why. With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction—not only how fanfiction is transforming the literary landscape, but how it already has. Fic features a foreword by Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) and interviews with Jonathan Lethem, Doug Wright, Eurydice (Vivean Dean), and Katie Forsythe/wordstrings. Cyndy Aleo (algonquinrt; d0tpark3r) V. Arrow (aimmyarrowshigh) Tish Beaty (his_tweet) Brad Bell Amber Benson Peter Berg (Homfrog) Kristina Busse Rachel Caine Francesca Coppa Randi Flanagan (BellaFlan) Jolie Fontenot Wendy C. Fries (Atlin Merrick) Ron Hogan Bethan Jones Christina Lauren (Christina Hobbs/tby789 and Lauren Billings/LolaShoes) Jacqueline Lichtenberg Rukmini Pande and Samira Nadkarni Chris Rankin Tiffany Reisz Andrew Shaffer Andy Sawyer Heidi Tandy (Heidi8) Darren Wershler Jules Wilkinson (missyjack) Jen Zern (NautiBitz)
Scope: theology, philosophy, ethics of various religions and ethical systems and relevant portions of anthropology, mythology, folklore, biology, psychology, economics and sociology.
