Books in the Cambridge Critical Concepts series

This book reviews the evolution of the concept of Orientalism as it has been explored, imagined and narrated in literature. Building upon existing scholarship, it aims to give readers a comprehensive grasp of the origins and present contours of Orientalism, and to point out future directions in this field.

This collection provides a wide-ranging survey of where the field of literary animal studies currently stands. It will be a key resource for specialists who wish to keep current on developments in the field, and non-specialists who seek to understand how these fields have shaped the relationship between human and non-human animal life.

Time and Literature features twenty essays on topics from aesthetics and narratology to globalisation and queer temporalities, and showcases how time studies, often referred to as 'the temporal turn', cut across and illuminate research in every field of literature, as well as interdisciplinary approaches drawing upon history, philosophy, anthropology, and the natural sciences.

This book offers an overview of the origins of literary trauma theory, records the evolution of the concept of trauma in relation to literature, addresses the relevance of literary understandings of trauma, and examines how the concept has impacted the study of literature.

Law and Literature presents an accessible new study of the many ways in which law and literature interact by providing a multi-focused history of literature's critical interest in ideas of law and justice, ranging from classical tragedy to comics, and from East Africa to Elizabethan England.

Terrorism has long been part of our world, and the lack of understanding of its history is a major global policy problem. This book explores how literature has represented terrorism from the Renaissance to the present and what it can teach us about the issues we face.

Decadence and Literature explains how the concept of decadence has developed since Roman times into a major cultural trope with broad explanatory power. No longer just a term of opprobrium for mannered art or immoral behaviour, decadence today describes complex cultural and social responses to modernity in all its forms.

Appealing to research students and specialist scholars, this book brings fresh perspectives to many of Surrealism's enduring critical concepts and experimental practices by placing them within an expanded historical and geographical framework. The book's interdisciplinary focus makes it relevant for a range of arts and humanities disciplines.

"Nature and Literary Studies supplies a broad and accessible overview of one of the most important and contested keywords in modern literary studies. Drawing together the work of leading scholars of a variety of critical approaches, historical periods, and cultural traditions, the book examines nature's philosophical, theological, and scientific origins in literature, as well as how literary representations of nature evolved in response to colonialism, industrialization, and new forms of scientific knowledge. Surveying nature's diverse applications in twenty-first-century literary studies and critical theory, the volume seeks to reconcile nature's ideological baggage with its fundamental role in fostering appreciation of nonhuman being and agency. Including chapters on wilderness, pastoral, gender studies, critical race theory, and digital literature, the book is a key resource for students and professors seeking to understand nature's role in the environmental humanities"--