A collection of essays on the everyday workings of language and how language shapes our social and political existence.
For more than a century, critics of the Aeneid have assumed that all or most of its episodes must propound something about Aeneas and his mission to found the Roman people, and through them about Rome and Augustus; whether that is their positive aspects, or their brutality and d…
This book is about the ambition. in a set of paradigmatic writers of the twentieth century. to simultaneously enlist and break the spell of the real--their fascination with the spectacle of violence and suffering--and the difficulties involved in capturing this kind of excess by…
This book is about the ambition. in a set of paradigmatic writers of the twentieth century. to simultaneously enlist and break the spell of the real--their fascination with the spectacle of violence and suffering--and the difficulties involved in capturing this kind of excess by…
The idea that one can soak up someone else's depression or anxiety or sense the tension in a room is familiar. Indeed, phrases that capture this notion abound in the popular vernacular: "negative energy", "dumping", "you could cut the tension with a knife". This book deals with …
