Books by David Wills

Grounded in a deep ethical and political commitment to death penalty abolition, Wills's engaging and powerfully argued book pushes beyond the confines of legal argument to show how the technology of capital punishment defines and appropriates the instant of death and reconfigures the whole of human mortality.

This is an experiment in critical writing that both analyses and performs certain questions about the body as an "artificial" construction. The book deals with the mechanical (e.g., a mechanical prosthesis like an artificial leg) in that most humanistic of discourses, the artistic.

Hollywood's most beloved ingénue.From the films that made her famous to the photographers who immortalized her, Audrey: The 50s brings the actress's legacy into perfect focus.At a time of absolute glamour, no one embodied 1950s Hollywood quite like Audrey Hepburn. In this, her most distinguished decade, Hepburn's influence on fashion and film was ubiquitous?and everlasting. Gamine, doe-eyed, and irresistibly endearing, Hepburn delighted cinema audiences in classics like Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, and The Nun's Story. These films, along with the many magazine covers she graced and the photographers who adored capturing her charm, catapulted the sophisticated Hepburn to superstardom, placing her among the acting elite.From one of the world's largest private archives of original Audrey Hepburn photographs, renowned curator and photographic preservationist David Wills presents a stunning collection of images from Hepburn's most iconic period, accompanied by an insightful introduction and quotes from Hepburn's costars, directors, designers, photographers, and work associates. With more than 200 rare and classic images of Hepburn in character, on set, at home, behind the scenes, at award shows and photo shoots?some of which are being shown here for the first time and many digitally restored from their original photographic prints, negatives, and transparencies?Wills brings the 1950s back to life. Showcasing her glamour and incomparable style, Audrey: The 50s is a luxe testament to the actress's timeless appeal and celebrates her enduring legacy.

This book explores some of the ways in which contemporary literary theory can be used to read fiction. In particular, it focuses on Thomas Pynchon's three novels to date and his collection of early stories. The theories exploited are concentrated in the work of Jacques Derrida.

Matchbook consists of nine essays written around, or in response to, work published by Jacques Derrida since 1980. The focal point of the essays is the "Envois," which forms part of The Post Card (1980 in French). Particular attention is paid to how that text articulates with the ethical and political emphases of Derrida's more recent work, but also to its autobiographical conceit.