"One of contemporary America's leading critics and scholars offers a provocative reassessment of the lives and work of eight influential twentieth- century American writers: Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, W.H. Auden, William Maxwell, Saul Bellow, Alfred Kazin, Norman Mailer,…
Hayden White borrows the title for The Practical Past from philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who used the term to describe the accessible material and literary-artistic artifacts that individuals and institutions draw on for guidance in quotidian affairs. The Practical Past, then, …
"Taking its cue from recent theories of literary geography and fiction, Genealogical Fictions argues that narratives of familial decline shape the history of the modern novel, as well as the novel's relationship to history. Stories of families in crisis, Jobst Welge argues, refl…
"Ghostwriting provides the first comprehensive analysis of the fictional prose narratives of one of contemporary Germany's most recognized authors, the émigré writer W.G. Sebald. Examining Sebald's well-known published texts in the context of largely unknown unpublished works, a…
The historical novel is not only an immensely popular genre, but also one that raises fascinating questions about the nature of key foundational concepts such as fact and faction, history, reading and writing.
In Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, Janine Barchas makes the bold assertion that Jane Austen's novels allude to actual high-profile politicians and contemporary celebrities as well as to famous historical figures and landed estates. Barchas is th…
Re-figuring Hayden White
by Ankersmit, F. R., Domanska, Ewa, Kellner, Hans
fromCultural memory in the present
This anthology of new essays by an international group of preeminent scholars explores the ground-breaking work of Hayden White, whose thought, beginning with his seminal Metahistory (1973), has revolutionized the way we think about the philosophy of history, historiography, nar…
"Excavating Victorians examines nineteenth-century Britain's reaction to the revelations about time and natural history provided by the new sciences of geology and archaeology. The Victorians faced one of the greatest paradigm shifts in history: the bottom dropped out of time, a…