Celtic Culture : A Historical Encyclopedia

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Celtic Culture : A Historical Encyclopedia (Five Volume Set)

by John Koch

The most comprehensive reference resource on Celtic culture; an encyclopedia written by and for scholars, yet accessible to all. From the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth, John T. Koch, one of the world's foremost Celtic scholars, has assembled work from leading researchers worldwide to produce the first encyclopedic treatment of the Celts and Celtic scholarship. This encyclopedia covers the entirety of the Celtic world, both through time and across geography. Although emphasizing the areas where Celtic languages and traditions survive into the present, the work does not slight the reaches of the Celtic empire, which was the largest language and cultural group on earth prior to the rise of Rome. In some 1,500 articles, many representing original research by the finest Celtic scholars, the work covers the Celts from prehistory to the present, giving comprehensive treatment to all topics from myth to music, religion to rulers, literature to language, government to games, and all topics in between. Entry into the rich world of Celtic scholarship has been difficult: The available information must be teased out of dense scholarly tomes or lightweight books emphasizing such popular elements of Celtic tradition as wee people, Druids, and blue-painted pagans. While this work treats those topics within its broad scope, the information is presented as scholarship, without the pop patina.

Geometric Greece: 900-700 B.C.

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Geometric Greece: 900-700 B.C.

by J.N Coldstream

Geometric Greece has long been the standard work on this absorbing period, which saw the evolution of the Greek city-states, the composition of the Homeric poems, the rise of the great Panhellenic sanctuaries and the first exodus of Greek colonists to southern Italy and Sicily.Professor Coldstream has now fully updated his comprehensive survey with a substantial new chapter on the abundant discoveries and developments made since the book's first publication.The text is presented in three main sections: the passing of the dark ages, c. 900-770 BC; the Greek renaissance, c. 770-700 BC, covered region by region, and the final part on life in eighth century Greece. Its geographical coverage in the Mediterranean ranges from Syria to Sicily, and the detailed archaeological evidence is amplified by reference to literary sources.Highly illustrated, including images of several finds never previously published, this is the essential handbook for anyone studying early Greek antiquity.

Paul Virilio - The Original Accident

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The Original Accident

by Paul Virilio

The future once promised the certainty of a better life for all, but now the future is full of uncertainty, danger and fear. Our lives are surrounded by the threats, imaginary or real, posed by terrorist outrages, natural catastrophes and disasters of all kinds. The future is overshadowed by the nightmare of an outmoded humanity overwhelmed by a catastrophe of its own making, a kind of catastrophic grande finale that would mirror the original accident ndash; the Big Bang ndash; that some scientists believe created the universe. A biting meditation on Progress ndash; technoscientific progress, at any cost and without any limits ndash; this book defines the ways in which postindustrial science has merged with out-and-out hyperterrorism to threaten the foundations of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian civilisation, and the future of the planet with them, through innovation of mass catastrophes that are part and parcel of its panoply of inventions. Urging us to face up to the consequences of our brave-new-world technologies, Virilio calls for the creation of a Museum of the Accident to fight our habituation to horror and violence, and our daily overexposure to terror, in the name, not of some preventive war, but of a preventive intelligence that would help us deal with both natural and artificial disasters.

Media Culture

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Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern

by Douglas Kellner

Media Culture develops methods and analyses of contemporary film, television, music and other artifacts to discern their nature and effects, argueing that media culture is the dominant form of culture which socializes us and provides materials for identity, social reproduction and change. Through studies of Reagan and Rambo, horror films and youth films, rap music and African American culture, Madonna, fashion, television news and entertainment, MTV, Beavis and Butt-Head, the Gulf-War as cultural text, cyberpunk fiction and postmodern theory, Kellner provides a series of lively studies that both illuminate contemporary culture and provide methods of analysis and critique.
Many people today talk about cultural studies, but Kellner actually does it, carrying through a unique mixture of theoretical analyses and concrete discussions of some of the most popular and influential forms of contemporary media culture. Criticizing social context, political struggle, and the system of cultural production, Kellner develops a multi-dimensional approach to cultural studies that broadens the field and opens it to a variety of disiplines. He also provides approaches to the vexed question of the effects of culture and provides perspectives for cultural studies.

Critical Companion to James Joyce

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Critical Companion to James Joyce: A Literary Reference to His Life And Work

by A. Nicholas Fargnoli, Michael Patrick Gillespie (Authors)

The author of such classics as "Dubliners", "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", "Ulysses", "Finnegans Wake", and more, James Joyce is regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time. Known for his experimental use of language, Joyce endured controversy surrounding much of his work, including one of the most famous censorship trials in history. "Critical Companion to James Joyce" examines this groundbreaking Irish novelist by exploring his work and influences, including family, friends, relatives, and acquaintances, as well as important places where he lived and worked. In this single-volume reference, admirers, general readers, and lovers of literature will discover hundreds of entries covering every aspect of Joyce's life and work. Coverage includes: a biography of Joyce; synopses and critical discussions of all Joyce's published work, with extensive analyses of the major fiction titles; profiles of significant members of Joyce's family and social circle; discussions of intellectual and literary influences on Joyce; accounts of censorship and legal battles; and characters in his fiction. Additional material includes: a working outline of Finnegans Wake; and the Ulysses schema.

Critical Companion to Herman Melville

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Critical Companion to Herman Melville: A Literary Reference to His Life And Work

by Carl E. Rollyson, Lisa Olson Paddock, April Gentry (Authors)

"An excellent resource for scholars of Melville and for undergraduates and graduate students" - "Choice". "Critical Companion to Herman Melville" examines the life and work of a writer who spent much of his career in obscurity. Herman Melville has since become known as one of America's greatest novelists, short story writers, and poets. The author of "Moby-Dick", "Billy Budd", "Typee", "White-Jacket", "Bartleby the Scrivener," and many other classic works, Melville was rediscovered in the 1920s by a new generation of writers who saw in his writing an evolving sense of modernism. His work is now an integral part of the high school and college curriculum, and writers as diverse as Jack London, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, and Cormac McCarthy have paid homage to Melville's poetry and prose. Entries in this comprehensive volume examine the characters and settings of Melville's novels and short stories, the critics and scholars who commented on his work, and his friends and associates, including such prominent literary figures as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book also contains all the text of the previously published "Herman Melville A to Z", organized in a more user-friendly fashion. New to this edition are critical commentary essays on all Melville's major stories, poems, and novels; an expanded biography of Melville; new illustrations; and new appendixes, including contemporary reviews of Melville's work, bibliographies, a chronology, a genealogy, and more. Its coverage includes: a biography of Melville; synopses and critical assessments of Melville's major and minor works; details about family, friends, and associates; analyses of the culture, times, and places in which Melville lived and wrote; and, descriptions of whaling, South Seas travel, and other experiences that shaped Melville's work.

The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift

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The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
by Christopher Fox

The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift explores crucial dimensions of Swift's life and works. As well as ensuring a broad coverage of Swift's writing--including early and later works as well as the better known and the lesser known - the Companion also offers a way into current critical and theoretical issues surrounding the author. Special emphasis is placed on Swift's vexed relationship with the land of his birth, Ireland; and on his place as a political writer in a highly politicised age.