By Jean H. Hagstrum (NHC Fellow, 1985–86; 1986–87) A discussion about the period of English literature and culture from the Restoration to Romanticism (1660 to 1827, the year of Blake’s death). The quest by literary leaders for integrity within themselves and their culture is the underlying preoccupation of the period and also of the essays … Continued
By Hollis Robbins (NHC Fellow, 2017–18) Forms of Contention argues for the centrality of sonnet writing to African American poetry, focusing on significant sonnets, key anthologies, and critical debates about poetic form to show that the influence of black sonnet writers on each other challenges long-standing claims that sonnet writing is primarily a matter of European … Continued
By Jonah Siegel (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) For centuries, southern Europe, and Italy in particular, has offered writers far more than an evocative setting for important works of literature. The voyage south has been an integral part of the imagination of inspiration. Haunted Museum is a groundbreaking, in-depth look at fantasies of Italy from the late eighteenth to … Continued
By Winfried Fluck (NHC Fellow, 1987–88)
By Linda Dégh (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) Legend and Belief is a descriptive and analytical study of the legend, the most prolific and characteristic form of folklore in contemporary Western civilization. Not that the legend does not have ancient roots; like the tale, the joke, the ballad, the proverb, and mummery, it was also a part … Continued
Edited by Barbara A. Hanawalt (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) and Michal Kobialka The contributors to this volume cross disciplinary and theoretical boundaries to read the words, metaphors, images, signs, poetic illusions, and identities with which medieval men and women used space and place to add meaning to the world.
By Ashraf H. A. Rushdy (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) NeoSlave Narratives is a study in the political, social, and cultural content of a given literary form–the novel of slavery cast as a first-person slave narrative. After discerning the social and historical factors surrounding the first appearance of that literary form in the 1960s, NeoSlave Narratives explores the complex relationship … Continued
Edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) and Reginald H. Pitts First published in 1859, Our Nig is an autobiographical narrative that stands as one of the most important accounts of the life of a black woman in the antebellum North. In the story of Frado, a spirited black girl who is abused and overworked as … Continued
By Rachel Blau DuPlessis (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) What is patriarchal poetry? How can it be both attractive and tempting and yet be so hegemonic that it is invisible? How does it combine various mixes of masculinity, femininity, effeminacy, and eroticism? At once passionate and dispassionate, Rachel Blau DuPlessis meticulously outlines key moments of choice and debate … Continued
By Alan C. Dessen (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) Alan Dessen focuses on the playtexts used for staging Shakespeare's plays, from almost three hundred productions of the last twenty five years. Dessen examines the process of rescripting–when directors make cuts to streamline the playscript, save running time, etc., and rewriting–when more extensive changes are made. He assesses … Continued