Writing Through Repression


Book Description

What does it mean to treat a dream as a censored text? Why does Freud turn to the realm of politics when attempting to describe dreams and the forces that shape them? What happens to the concept of censorship when it enters Freudian discourse? Is its political significance lost in translation or does Freud's borrowing somehow render enigmatic what we thought we understood under the name of censorship and under the name of borrowing? In Writing Through Repression, Michael Levine juxtaposes readings of psychoanalytic, literary, and critical texts to explore these questions. Rather than seeking to extract a particular notion of censorship from Freud in order to apply it elsewhere, he argues that it is more instructive to examine the difficulties Freud has in coming to terms with this notion. It is through such difficulties, he suggests, that Freud's text opens a different kind of dialogue with the writings of Heine, Benjamin, and Kafka - one that opens each to the challenge and solicitation of the other.







The Prevention of Literature


Book Description

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In The Prevention of Literature, the third in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell considers the freedom of thought and expression. He discusses the effect of the ownership of the press on the accuracy of reports of events, and takes aim at political language, which ‘consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together.’ The Prevention of Literature is a stirring cry for freedom from censorship, which Orwell says must start with the writer themselves: ‘To write in plain vigorous language one has to think fearlessly.’ 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times







A Battle of the Books, recorded by an unknown writer for the use of authors and publishers


Book Description

Step into the world of American literature and the publishing industry with Gail Hamilton's classic work. This narrative fiction unfolds in the bustling literary scene of Massachusetts, where authors and publishers like Ticknor and Fields play a pivotal role. Join the journey of William D. Ticknor and discover the intricacies of book publishing in the 19th century.







Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy


Book Description

Historiographical survey of inquisition texts, from lists of questions to inquisitor's manual, studies their role in the suppression of heresy.




A Practical Reader in Contemporary Literary Theory


Book Description

This introduction to practicing literary theory is a reader consisting of extracts from critical analyses, largely by 20th century Anglo-American literary critics, set around major literary texts that undergraduate students are known to be familiar with. It is specifically targeted to present literary criticism through practical examples of essays by literary theorists themselves, on texts both within and outside the literary canon. Four example essays are included for each author/text presented.




Jewish Responses to Persecution


Book Description

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum With its unique combination of primary sources and historical narrative, Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1944–1946, provides an important new perspective on Holocaust history. Covering the final year of Nazi destruction and the immediate postwar years, it traces the increasingly urgent Jewish struggle for survival, which included armed resistance and organized escape attempts. Shedding light on the personal and public lives of Jews, this book provides compelling insights into a wide range of Jewish experiences during the Holocaust. Jewish individuals and communities suffered through this devastating period and reflected on the Holocaust differently, depending on their nationality, personal and communal histories and traditions, political beliefs, economic situations, and other life history. The rich spectrum of primary source material collected, including letters, diary entries, photographs, transcripts of speeches and radio addresses, newspaper articles, drawings, and official government and institutional memos and reports, makes this volume an essential research tool and curriculum companion.