Science in neo-Victorian poetry

This article considers the work of three contemporary poets and their engagement, in verse, with Victorian science. Beginning with the outlandish ‘theories’ of Mick Imlah’s ‘The Zoologist’s Bath’ (1983), it moves on to two works of biografiction – Anthony Thwaite’s poem ‘At Marychurch’ (1980), which outlines Philip Henry Gosse’s doomed attempts to unite evolution and Christianity, and Ruth Padel’s Darwin: A Life in Poems (2009). Starting off with John Glendening’s idea that science in neo-Victorian fiction, if fully embraced, provides an opportunity for self-revelation to characters, this article explores the rather less happy resolutions of each of these poems, while in addition discussing the ways in which these poems perform the formal changes and mutability discussed within them

White teeth

One of most talked about fictional debutes of recent years, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big hearted novel, adored by critics and readers a like.448 p.; 20 cm

White teeth

One of most talked about fictional debutes of recent years, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big hearted novel, adored by critics and readers a like.448 p.; 20 cm

White teeth

One of most talked about fictional debutes of recent years, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big hearted novel, adored by critics and readers a like.448 p.; 20 cm

Recall this Book 15: A Conversation with Zadie Smith

In this episode, John interviews the celebrated British writer Zadie Smith. Zadie's horror at the idea of rereading her own novels opens the show; she can more easily imagine rewriting one (as John's beloved Willa Cather once did) than having to go through them all again. From there the conversation quickly moves through Brexit (oh, the inhumanity!) and what it means to be a London-no, a Northwest London-writer before arriving at her case against identity politics. That case is bolstered by a discussion of Hannah Arendt on the difference between who and what a person is. As Zadie puts it, "When you say my people, you can['t] know for certain who those people are by looking at them and by hearing what they have to say. I think what fiction as a kind of philosophy always assumed is that what people make manifest is not all that people are. There's a great part of human selves which are hidden, unknown to the self, obscure, and that's the part that fiction is interested in." Zadie and John also touch on the purpose of criticism and why it gets harder to hate as you (middle) age. She reveals an affection for "talkies" (as a "90's kid," she can't help her fondness for Quentin Tarantino); asks whether young novelists in England need to write a book about Henry VIII just to break into bookstores; hears Hegel talking to Kierkegaard, and Jane Austen failing to talk to Jean Genet. Lastly, in Recallable Books, Zadie recommends Jean-Philippe Toussaint's The Bathroom

Recall this Book 15x: Afterthoughts on Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith touched down at Brandeis because Swing Time was this year's New Student Book Forum selection. It made for a busy day: on top of the podcast, she spoke to faculty and undergraduates at two different events. So, lots of material to discuss. We do our best to unpack Zadie Smith's take on sincerity, authenticity and human sacredness; the "golden ticket" dirty secret behind our hypocritical academic meritocracy; surveillance capitalism as the "biggest capital grab of human experience in history;" and her genealogy of the novel. If we had to sum the day up with a few adjectives (and we do): funny, provocative, resplendent, chill, generous, cantankerous

Warning signs: Postcolonial writing and the apprehension of Brexit

This article considers how postcolonial fiction anticipated, apprehended, and critically explored the political and cultural milieu which facilitated the outcome of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum. In suggesting that “Brexit Literature” existed before Brexit was formally pursued, it understands Brexit as driving an English nationalism that unnervingly appropriates the history of the British Empire and World War II. It uncovers the representation of these manoeuvres in a number of key texts. Caryl Phillips’s A Distant Shore both logs and challenges the malevolent imagining of newcomers that has deep roots in notions of war and empire. Zadie Smith’s NW represents post-crash austerity as proleptically exposing the complex politics of race and class which fuelled the pro-Brexit populism that lies latent in the novel. Ultimately, the article calls for a post-Brexit postcolonialism that harnesses the power of critical thought to continue the long-standing contestation of the prevailing political orthodoxy

The Translation strategy and meaning equivalence of idiomatic expressions in the teen lit Novel Big Boned

ix, 48 hlm,; ilus,; 30 cm