Books in the Transitions series

This exciting volume in the Transitions series explores both history and contemporary ideas, pushing forward the boundaries of what we understand by 'modernity'. This book is distinguished from its competitors by its clear focus on close readings of commonly-studied texts and a strict policy on writing for an undergraduate readership.

This essential introductory guide explores and aggressively expands the provocative new field of sexual identity studies.

Julian Wolfreys introduces students to the central concept of transgression, showing how to interpret the concept from a number of theoretical standpoints. He demonstrates how texts from different cultural and historical periods can be read to examine the workings of 'transgression' and the way in which it has changed over time.

This study of the history of the idea of race provides a broad historical overview of the concept from its inception to 2002. Brian Niro introduces key theorists and philosophers and a wide variety of literary and theoretical concepts.

By examining this tumultuous era as an age in its own right, Pater to Forster, 1873-1924 offers the reader a rather different history of the late Victorians and Modernists, and retells that history from a new perspective.

Engaged debate among feminist, political, and psychoanalytic thinkers has secured Julia Kristeva's status as one of the most formidable figures in twentieth-century critical theory.

In her wide-ranging study, Haslett reads key texts - including The Dunciad, Gulliver's Travels and Pamela - in their literary and cultural contexts, and examines such genres as the periodical, the familiar letter, the verse epistle and the novel as textual equivalents of coterie culture.

This comprehensive introduction to the work of Homi K. Bhabha, a key figure in both postcolonial and post-structuralist theory, is accessible and engaging. It places Bhabha's work in context, considers his effect on contemporary criticism, offers readings of a range of texts to illustrate his theories, and features an interview with the theorist.

How have developments in literary and cultural theory transformed our understanding of narrative? What has happened to narrative in the wake of poststructuralism? What is the role and function of narrative in the contemporary world? In this revised, updated and expanded new edition of an established text, Mark Currie explores these central questions and guides students through the complex theories that have shaped the study of narrative in recent decades. Postmodern Narrative Theory, Second Edition:* establishes direct links between the workings of fictional narratives and those of the non-fictional world* charts the transition in narrative theory from its formalist beginnings, through deconstruction, towards its current concerns with the social, cultural and cognitive uses of narrative* explores the relationship between postmodern narrative and postmodern theory more closely* presents detailed illustrative readings of known literary texts such as Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and now features a new chapter on Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man.Approachable and stimulating, this is an essential introduction for anyone studying postmodernism, the theory of narrative or contemporary fiction.

Abigail Bray offers a lucid and accessible introduction to Helene Cixous and her theorisation of writing and sexual difference. Reading Cixous alongside Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze and Derrida, Bray argues for a recognition of Cixous as one of the important thinkers of our times.

This essential guide explores and celebrates the rise and development of modernist and avant-garde literatures and theories in the period 1910-1945, from Imagism to the Apocalypse movement.

As with other books in the Transitions series, Formalist Criticism and Reader-response Theory includes readings of a range of widely-studied texts, including Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and F.

Claire Colebrook places the term in its historical contexts and traces its development from the Enlightenment to the present, before moving on to the evolution of the concept of gender from within the various stances of feminist criticism, and exploring recent developments in queer theory and post-feminism.

Roland Barthes was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. In this new book, Martin McQuillan provides students with a fresh and stimulating perspective on Barthes' work, his lasting contribution to the formation of critical cultural studies and his continuing relevance today.

With chapters focusing on particular novels, this book charts the transitions of Victorian literary and cultural concerns across the Nineteenth century. Julian Wolfreys questions how the Victorians identified themselves in their modernity and discusses how literature mediated the construction of identities through notions of cultural memory.

This text offers examples of ways of reading literary and cultural texts in the light of Bataille's work. The chapters explore Bataillean notions such as heterology, transgression and eroticism, demonstrating their significance for both contemporary and futural modes of cultural analysis.

Texts include: - Toni Morrison's Sula - William Faulkner's 'Barn Burning' - George Orwell's 1984Compact and easy-to-follow, Decker's study finally asks: are we now in a 'post-ideological' era?

Amongst other things, Wynne-Davies discusses sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poetry in its political and cultural contexts, considers Renaissance drama in terms of performance space, and uses the early modern map to explain the prose works of writers such as Bunyan and Cavendish.

Literary Feminisms provides a map for charting the difficult waters that feminist theories have created in literary studies. A wide range of theorists is discussed, ranging from Wollstonecraft to Kristeva, showing the ways in which materialist, psychoanalytic and literary accounts of feminist thinking creatively intersect.

Rabate offers a systematic genealogy of Lacan's theory of literature, reconstructing a doctrine based upon Freudian insights, and revitalised through close readings of authors as diverse as Poe, Gide, Shakespeare, Plato, Claudel, Genet, Duras and Joyce.

Subjectivity is a multiple and complex term; it moves between theoretical or philosophical abstractions and the apparently empirical evidence of lived experience. In Subjectivity, Ruth Robbins examines the diverse factors which shape the self in language.

A critical survey of the principal themes and styles of literature in England since 1945. John Brannigan examines the complex nature of the relationship between literature and history, society and place, and argues that postwar literature is concerned with themes of social and cultural change.

In this introductory study to the work of Jacques Derrida, Julian Wolfreys introduces the reader to a range of Derrida's interests and concerns, while offering readings, informed by Derrida's thought, of canonical and less well-known literary works.

New historicism and cultural materialism emerged in the early 1980s as prominent literary theories and came to represent a revival of interest in history and in historicising literature.

Postcolonial theory is a prominent approach in English Studies today. This introductory guide presents both the theory and practice to students in accessible and attractive ways. It includes contextualised discussion of a range of influential theorists, and applies postcolonial theory to a variety of key literary texts.