Literary history & criticism

One of England's most popular novelists, Jane Austen wrote about life amid the gentry of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In her fiction, Austen analyzed and satirized her world, particularly t

From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues―a powerful, life-changing examination of abuse and atonement―now in paperback, timed to its theatrical opening in New York.Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence activist, she decided she would wait no longer; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her. The Apology, written by Eve from her father’s point of view in the words she longed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, and an expansive vision for the future.Through The Apology, Eve has set out to provide a new way for herself and a possible road for others so that survivors of abuse may finally envision how to be free. She grapples with questions she has sought answ

Why would a devout Catholic, a committed Protestant, and a Maoist atheist devote their lives and work to the study of esoteric aspects of Islam? How are these aspects ‘good to think with’? What are th

With austerity biting hard and fascism on the march at home and abroad, the Britain of the 1930s grappled with many problems familiar to us today. Moving beyond the traditional focus on ‘the Auden gen