The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel, first published in 2004, provides a broad ranging introduction to the major trends in the development of the German novel from the 1890s to the present. Written by an international team of experts, it encompasses both modernist and realist traditions, and also includes a look back to the roots of the modern novel in the Bildungsroman of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The structure is broadly chronological, but thematically-focused chapters examine topics such as gender anxiety, images of the city, war, and women's writing; within each chapter, key works are selected for close attention. Unique in its combination of breadth of coverage and detailed analysis of individual works, and featuring a chronology and guides to further reading, this Companion will be indispensable to students and teachers.
This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the thought of the highly influential twentieth-century critic and theorist Walter Benjamin. The volume provides examinations of the different aspects of Benjamin's work that have had a significant effect on contemporary critical and historical thought. Topics discussed by experts in the field include Benjamin's relation to the avant-garde movements of his time, his theories on language and mimesis, modernity, his significance and relevance to modern cultural studies, and his autobiographical writings. Additional material includes a guide to further reading and a chronology.
Isaiah Berlin remains one of the seminal political philosophers of the twentieth century. This book explains his enduring relevance as we face the challenges of the twenty-first.
Berlin's traumatic past and vibrant present explored and explained in a guide to the culture, buildings and society of the city. Most people do not think of Berlin as a beautiful city, but it is filled with stunning sights, sounds and textures, all the more astonishing when the stories behind them are revealed. Today's Berlin is new and vibrant, but historyhas left its scars. A look in the right place is rewarded with glimpses of the glories of old Prussia as well as the abominations of Hitler's Third Reich and of the outer bulwark of the Soviet empire. Brian Ladd, a historian whohas been returning to Berlin for twenty-five years, pays homage to the familiar landmarks, but he also penetrates into obscure corners of the city and brings them alive with his shrewd and informed comment. He explains what the sights of Berlin have meant to Berliners who coped under kings and dictators, and who toiled, suffered and celebrated as their city was destroyed and rebuilt. This book invites you to share their passions as it draws you into the dynamic new capital that has risen from wreckage of post-war German history. BRIAN LADD is at the State University of New York at Albany. He has been a constant visitor to Berlin over a quarter of a century.
Best known for his great novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy remains one the most important nineteenth-century writers; throughout his career which spanned nearly three quarters of a century, he wrote fiction, journalistic essays and educational textbooks. The specially commissioned essays in The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy do justice to the sheer volume of Tolstoy s writing. Key dimensions of his writing and life are explored in essays focusing on his relationship to popular writing, the issue of gender and sexuality in his fiction and his aesthetics. The introduction provides a brief, unified account of the man, for whom his art was only one activity among many. The volume is well supported by supplementary material including a detailed guide to further reading and a chronology of Tolstoy s life, the most comprehensive compiled in English to date. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike.