Results by title
67 books match the query 'Romance' and 4 start with a
A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue
Jennifer Pullen
Omnidawn, 2019
Helen of Troy and Aphrodite: two classical paragons of beauty and love. These two figures have served as the inspiration for innumerable works of art in the Western cannon. In the twenty-first century, however, what do their stories provide but a reminder of the predictable roles which sexism has assigned women throughout history and literature?
In this fresh new take on the two women’s stories, Jennifer Pullen takes us away from the familiar and deeper into their experiences. Rewriting Homer, Pullen revitalizes these two figures for the contemporary era. In A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue, Aphrodite maintains autonomy through her experience of her own body, even when forced into marriage. Helen of Troy, meanwhile, harbors a love for her maid, Esme, that no conquering hero can vanquish. Revisiting these classic stories with an inventive twist, Pullen shows that, with a little imagination, the classics may yet bear new insights.
In this fresh new take on the two women’s stories, Jennifer Pullen takes us away from the familiar and deeper into their experiences. Rewriting Homer, Pullen revitalizes these two figures for the contemporary era. In A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue, Aphrodite maintains autonomy through her experience of her own body, even when forced into marriage. Helen of Troy, meanwhile, harbors a love for her maid, Esme, that no conquering hero can vanquish. Revisiting these classic stories with an inventive twist, Pullen shows that, with a little imagination, the classics may yet bear new insights.
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Adventure, Mystery, and Romance
Formula Stories as Art and Popular CultureJohn G. Cawelti
University of Chicago Press, 1976
In this first general theory for the analysis of popular literary formulas, John G. Cawelti reveals the artistry that underlies the best in formulaic literature. Cawelti discusses such seemingly diverse works as Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors, and Owen Wister's The Virginian in the light of his hypotheses about the cultural function of formula literature. He describes the most important artistic characteristics of popular formula stories and the differences between this literature and that commonly labeled "high" or "serious" literature. He also defines the archetypal patterns of adventure, mystery, romance, melodrama, and fantasy, and offers a tentative account of their basis in human psychology.
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Against The Romance Of Community
Miranda Joseph
University of Minnesota Press, 2002
An unexpected and valuable critique of community that points out its complicity with capitalism
Community is almost always invoked as an unequivocal good, an indicator of a high quality of life, caring, selflessness, belonging. Into this common portrayal, Against the Romance of Community introduces an uncommon note of caution, a penetrating, sorely needed sense of what, precisely, we are doing when we call upon this ideal.
Miranda Joseph explores sites where the ideal of community relentlessly recurs, from debates over art and culture in the popular media, to the discourses and practices of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, to contemporary narratives of economic transformation or "globalization." She shows how community legitimates the social hierarchies of gender, race, nation, and sexuality that capitalism implicitly requires. Joseph argues that social formations, including community, are constituted through the performativity of production. This strategy makes it possible to understand connections between identities and communities that would otherwise seem disconnected: gay consumers in the United States and Mexican maquiladora workers; Christian right "family values" and Asian "crony capitalism." Exposing the complicity of social practices, identities, and communities with capitalism, this truly constructive critique opens the possibility of genuine alliances across such differences.[more]
An Incomplete History of the American West
Storiesurza
University of Nevada Press, 2026
An Incomplete History of the American West is a striking collection of twelve interconnected short stories that span 150 years across the stark, haunting landscape of the Great Basin. Moving chronologically through time, each story acts like a literary historical marker—pausing along the timeline to reveal a moment, a voice, a reckoning.
Rooted in the traditions of Western literature but unafraid to challenge them, author Gabriel Urza brings a fresh and unflinching perspective to stories that span race, class, and time. Unsentimental yet deeply humane, An Incomplete History of the American West asks readers to reconsider what the West truly means—and why the stories we tell about it still matter.
Rooted in the traditions of Western literature but unafraid to challenge them, author Gabriel Urza brings a fresh and unflinching perspective to stories that span race, class, and time. Unsentimental yet deeply humane, An Incomplete History of the American West asks readers to reconsider what the West truly means—and why the stories we tell about it still matter.
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