Novelist Zakes Mda has made a name for himself as a key chronicler of the new, post-apartheid South Africa, casting a satirical eye on its claims of political unity, its rising black middle class, and
A poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright, actor, and director, Antonin Artaud was a visionary writer and a major influence within and beyond the French avant-garde. A key text for understanding his t
In this novel by the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mo Yan, a benign old monk listens to a prospective novice’s tale of depravity, violence, and carnivorous excess while a nice little family drama
One night in the middle of winter, as deep snow covers the mountains and forests, a doctor is crossing the ridge in Austria from Traich to Föding to see a patient. He stumbles over a body in the
For the last fifteen years, performance artist and writer Guillermo Gómez-Peña has led a series of ongoing conversations with cultural luminaries from both North and South America.
Remembered Rhythms explores the role of music and cultural memory in shaping and creating diasporic identities. With contributions from leading scholars in the fields of ethnomusicology, cultural stud
Guilty Males and Proud Females: Negotiating Genders in a Bengali FestivalFabrizio M. FerrariGuilty Males and Proud Females is the first complete study on the Bengali Gajan festival dedicated to the go
We live in a world where material products have increasingly become vehicles for intangible symbolic and aesthetic messages. A very sizeable marketing and advertising industry produces only images and
Circuses provide surreal, fantastic entertainment. At times magical and at others chilling, the circus is a world of magic and spectacle for the viewer, but for the performer, a career in the circus o
Tzvetan Todorov explores the complex relations between art, politics and ethics in the two essays that make up The Limits of Art. In the first essay, `Artists and Dictators', he traces the intimate re
Hans Magnus Enzensberger has mastered poetry, novels, and the intricate balance between history and fiction, but he’s never done anything quite like this before. For the writing of Unlikely Progeny, E
In 1965 Indonesia had the largest communist movement in the world outside of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Indonesian President Sukarno supported the movement and was edging Ind
The essays collected in Incidents, originally published in French shortly after Barthes' death, provide unique insight into the author's life, his personal struggles and his delights. Though Barthes q
According to political philosopher Frederic Gros, traditional notions of war and peace are currently being replaced by ideas of intervention and security. But while we may be able to speak of an end t
In this play by Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch, a middle-aged behavioral researcher Kürmann is given the opportunity to start his life over at any point he chooses and change his d
In Rebels, Wives, Saints, acclaimed scholar Tanika Sarkar continues her revolutionary scholarship on women, religion, and nationhood in colonial Bengal. The colonial universe Sarkar describes in Rebel
An anthology of seven contemporary Israeli plays, written by established and emerging Israeli playwrights and theatre creators. The collection offers a look into the variety of Israeli drama, theatre,
The idea of communism, argues Ali, was simple and noble - the creation of a society based on the principle of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need' rather than a system b
Indian nationalists have a great project in hand. Their work-in-progress is the recovery of India's proud past and it's rightful place at the centre of human civilization. In pursuit of this, history
From the Greeks and Shakespeare to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, war has often been a major theme of dramatic performances. However, many of the most extraordinary theater projects in recent years
Located on the west coast of India along the Arabian Sea, Goa was liberated in 1961, after 450 years of Portuguese rule. The ambivalence created by this transition of culture and political loyalty pr
Part of an ongoing series published in cooperation with the Index on Censorship that deals with religion and free expression, The Jewish Case is distinctive in several ways. To begin with, even callin
In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States government came to apply a practice outlawed in Europe in the eighteenth century and prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by the United Nations Conventi
The Popular and the Public brings together a range of international scholars to examine how popular culture has shaped the public sphere, providing an alternative space for political debate in 19th an
Artist meets writer; young woman meets older man; daughter meets father. All these encounters are played out in the arresting conversations between the artist Ninar Esper (b. 1971) and the fath
Art today is in deep crisis. Criticism seems to have abandoned any notion of evaluation, the public has been denied the possibility of understanding, and aesthetics have lost all legitimacy. Formerly,
In the autumn of 1924, two young men met in Paris for the first time. Georges Bataille was just 27 and had recently started working at the Bibliothèque nationale. Michel Leiris, 23, was beginnin
Bards, Ballads and Boundaries presents an atlas of one of the world´s richest historical musical traditions. The Atlas is a cartography and catalogue of musicians and music-making in the Western distr
The relationship between cinema and modernity in the Indian context is both complex and multifaceted. In this volume, some of the leading names in film and cultural studies explore its many dimensions
Two fathers with two daughters: Martin, professor of German, writes but is studying Earth Sciences at MIT; Tariq, a doctor in Baghdad and Muna, is studying the archaeology of a region that is seen a
Richard I (1157–99) was king of England from 1189 until his death, but he is best known as a soldier, not a monarch. He earned his moniker Richard the Lionheart as a knight and military leader
It’s Berlin in the summer of 2003—sunshine for weeks on end, weather to fall in love. And that’s just what Christian Eich, the main character in Ulrich Peltzer’s acclaime
Although Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, he began his career as a composer and successful music critic. Night Music presents the first
Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893-1953) was one of the leading Soviet film directors in the "golden age" of silent cinema in the 1920s. His films -- especially The Mother, The End of St Petersburg and
