Books published by EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

Whether we consider the digitally created and manipulated faces of Hollywood cinema or the social media filters, face apps, and surveillance software of everyday life, reading face language has become the seemingly endless task of humans and machines alike. Recent facial controversies - from politicians in blackface to "deep fakes," casting debates, and facial data collection-- have made clear the need for a broader understanding of the face on screen and its varied techniques and effects. Faces on Screen: New Approaches will consider the screen face from a variety of perspectives, across time periods and media, bringing together essays on topics ranging from early cinema to contemporary digital media - from photogénie to facial recognition, celebrity culture to digital creatures. It explores how screen culture builds on and complicates our urge to search the face for answers to our most intractable questions. Edited by Dr Alice Maurice is Associate Professor of English and Cinema Studies at University of Toronto. She is the author of The Cinema and Its Shadow: Race and Technology in Early Cinema (2013). Her work has appeared in journals including Camera Obscura, JCMS, and The New Review of Film and Television Studies, among others, as well as in a number of anthologies. She was the Associate Producer for both A Healthy Baby Girl (1996) which won the Peabody Award, and Defending Our Lives (1993) which won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

Explores the social, cultural, legal and religious changes in modern Oman This book provides multiple perspectives on the modern history of Oman during the reign of Sultan Qaboos (1970-2020). It examines the theme of rebirth: of the connections between the past and the future pursued by Sultan Qaboos and his government in fields as diverse as health, religion, law, economy, heritage and diplomacy. Not overlooking the many challenges faced during Sultan Qaboos' reign - and still faced by Oman - the contributors engage various theories and perspectives about the country's remarkable economic, religious, educational and cultural transformations. Key Features - Examines the role of Sultan Qaboos and the transformations that took place in Oman during his 50-year reign - Delves into new research on an understudied part of the world and the Middle East - Explores important themes of transformation and preservation, modernisation and continuity across heritage and culture; religion and law; literature, health and education; economics and development; policy, society and diplomacy Allen James Fromherz is Professor of History at Georgia State University and Director of the Middle East Studies Centre. Abdulrahman al-Salimi is an Omani scholar.

The most extensive and up-to-date volume of essays on the Gothic mode in twentieth century culture. During the latter half of the twentieth century the Gothic emerged as one of the liveliest and most significant areas of academic inquiry within literary, film, and popular culture studies. This volume covers the key concepts and developments associated with Twentieth-Century Gothic, tracing the development of the mode from the fin de siècle to 9/11. The eighteen chapters reflect the interdisciplinary and ever-evolving nature of the Gothic, which, during the century, migrated from literature and drama to the cinema and television. The volume has both a chronological and thematic focus and particular attention is paid to topics and themes related to race, identity, marginality and technology. Chapters on ecogothic, Gothic Studies as a discipline, Medical Humanities, Queer Studies, African American Studies and Russian Gothic ensure that the collection is up-to-date and wide-ranging. Suggested further readings at the end of each chapter are intended to facilitate further independent research by readers and researchers. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and American Studies, and a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her recent books include Clive Barker: Dark Imaginer (2017) and Postmodern Vampires: Film, Fiction, and Popular Culture (2019). Bernice M. Murphy is an Associate Professor and Lecturer in Popular Literature at the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin. She has published extensively on topics related to Gothic and horror fiction and film. Her latest monograph is entitled The California Gothic in Fiction and Film.

The first systematic, critical and comparative assessment of new authoritarian practices in the MENA region This collection examines new authoritarian practices that 16 MENA countries have developed in the aftermath of major uprisings across the region. These span new forms of digital surveillance, new protest policing practices, new forms of control over the judiciary, civil society and media, through to new security and communication laws and state of emergencies. The book also emphasises continuities with past authoritarian practices such as intimidation, imprisonment, torture, extrajudicial killing and ill treatment of dissidents, as well as other practices to suppress dissents and control activists, opposition parties, the judiciary and the media. By focusing on micro-practices of repression, New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa balances macro-structural explanations of authoritarian persistence alongside widespread social discontent and opposition. Key Features - Identifies the continuities and discontinuities in the practice of authoritarianism in the MENA region - Promotes a comparative approach when analysing new forms of authoritarian control in 16 countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen - Brings together contributions from 18 academics specialising in different countries of the region Özgün E. Topak and Merouan Mekouar are both Associate Professors in the Department of Social Science at York University, Canada. Francesco Cavatorta is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l'Afrique et le Moyen Orient (CIRAM) at Laval University, Canada.

An inquiry into probabilistic modes of sensing and making sense of reality developed by avant-garde artists Konrad Wojnowski argues that the probabilistic revolution, while recognized and investigated by historians of science, has been largely overlooked in the field of art. He shows that the idea that one can perceive and comprehend reality in terms of shifting probabilities was clearly present in the work of many avant-garde artists working in Europe and North America. Exploring the probabilistic aspects of the avant-garde allows him to establish a dialogue between scientific and artistic forms of knowledge. This is particularly important now, as we become surrounded by probabilistic AIs and while the very nature of cognition is being reinterpreted as inherently probabilistic. Konrad Wojnowski is Assistant Professor of Performativity Studies at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

Examines the bicycle as a literary device and a cultural phenomenon at the turn of the century in Britain and France.

A comparison of tribal politics and the impact on governance in Kuwait, Oman and Qatar Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East - particularly in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship authority? Through a case comparison of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, Scott Weiner shows that variation in tribal access to limited resources before state building can account for these differences. Based on empirical data and over 50 interviews with former government officials, tribal leaders, civil society activists and students, the book reveals important new details about state formation on the Arabian Peninsula. Key features  Systematically connects the construction of kinship identity to state-level political outcomes  Emphasises the importance of pre-state conditions to post-state building politics  Assesses kinship politics in the ruling family, state ministries, parliaments, local governing institutions and interpersonal interactions Scott Weiner is a professorial lecturer in political science at George Washington University.

Explores advances in the fields of language documentation, language change and historical linguistics

Proposes naming as a criterion for classifying and evaluating theories of morphology

Lucrecia Martel has made only four feature films to date, but has nonetheless become one of the world's most admired directors. Her work is extraordinarily sensitive to the limits of sensory perception, the limits imposed by gender roles, and the limits of empathy and affect across social divisions. This edited collection broadens the critical conversation around Martel's work by integrating analyses of her features with the less frequently studied short films and her other artistic projects. This volume's fresh, holistic approach to Martel's career includes contributions from scholars in Latin America, Europe and the United States, and ends with a new interview with Martel herself. Edited by Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha is an independent film researcher and programmer specialising in Latin American cinema. She is the author of Espaços em conflito. Ensaios sobre a cidade no cinema argentino contemporâneo (2019) and A experiência do cinema de Lucrecia Martel: Resíduos do tempo e sons à beira da piscina (2014. Translation into Spanish: 2020). Julia Kratje is a researcher at Argentina's National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), and teaches at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is the author of Al margen del tiempo. Deseos, ritmos y atmósferas en el cine argentino (2019) and editor of El asombro y la audacia. El cine de María Luisa Bemberg (2020), among others. Paul R. Merchant is Senior Lecturer in Latin American Film and Visual Culture at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Remaking Home: Domestic Spaces in Argentine and Chilean Film, 2005-2015 (2022) and the co-editor of Latin American Culture and the Limits of the Human (2020).

Remaps the state of Scottish writing in the contemporary moment, embracing its uncertainty and the need to reconsider the field's founding assumptions and exclusions A provisional re-mapping of Scotland's post-devolution literary culture, these fifteen essays explore how literature, theatre and visual art have both shaped and reflected the 'new Scotland' promised by parliamentary devolution. Chapters explore leading figures such as Alasdair Gray, David Greig, Kathleen Jamie and Jackie Kay, while also paying particular attention to women's writing by Kate Atkinson, A. L. Kennedy, Denise Mina, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, and writers of colour such as Bashabi Fraser, Annie George, Tendai Huchu, Chin Li and Raman Mundair. Tracing continuities with 1990s debates alongside 'edges of the new' visible since Indyref 2014, these critics offer an in-depth study of Scotland's vibrant literary production in the period of devolution, viewed both within and beyond the frame of national representation. Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon is a Professor of Scottish Literature at Aix-Marseille University (AMU). Camille Manfredi is a Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Western Brittany (UBO). Scott Hames is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling, where he led the MLitt programme in Scottish Literature.

What is the relationship between filmmaking and mapping? Accounting for the unique characteristics of Taiwan's cinema from 2008 to 2020, this book examines how filmmakers have depicted and imagined the island's diverse environments. Drawing on cinema, cartography, and cultural studies, Christopher Brown argues that by refocusing attention on how films are shaped through a process of construction, the tradition of film poetics enables us to think about Taiwanese cinema differently: as a form of mapping. Wide-ranging in scope and drawing on original interviews with contemporary filmmakers, the analysis appraises case studies including works of popular entertainment, genre cinema such as comedies and horror, films about indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ cinema, and arthouse work. By asking what it means to map an environment onscreen, Brown offers new insights into a critically neglected, yet creatively dynamic, period in Taiwan's film history. Christopher Brown is Senior Lecturer in Filmmaking at the University of Sussex. A practitioner as well as a researcher, Chris has published work on contemporary Taiwanese film, practice-as-research, and American cinema.

Builds an ethical framework for responding to the urgent crisis of global displacement In this book Phillip Cole calls for a radical review of what international protection looks like and who is entitled to it. The book brings together different issues of forced displacement to provide a systematic overview. It draws attention to groups who are often overlooked when it comes to discussions of international protection, such as the internally displaced, those displaced by climate change, disasters, development infrastructure projects and extreme poverty. The study draws on extensive case studies, such as border practices by European Union states, the United States with regard to its border with Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Cole places the experiences of displaced people at the centre and argues that they should be key political agents in determining policy in this area. Phillip Cole teaches Politics and International Relations at the University of the West of England, Bristol

João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata are one of the most cosmopolitan duos in contemporary world cinema. Their films tell us stories of love and human desire, receiving a highly favourable reception among critics and at international festivals. Despite their high profile, Rodrigues and da Mata's work remains relatively understudied. ReFocus: The Films of João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata, paves the way for the study of the directors' work, critically analysing the various cinematic perspectives of their short and full-length feature films. In the first collection solely dedicated to their work, this book addresses the historical, political, stylistic, industry, and cultural dimensions of Rodrigues and da Mata's films, providing critical recognition for their contribution to world cinema. José Duarte teaches Cinema at the School of Arts and Humanities (UL) and he is a researcher at ULICES (University Lisbon Centre for English Studies). He co-edited the book The Global Road Movie: Alternative Journeys around the World (2018). Filipa Rosário is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Comparative Studies, University of Lisbon (CEC-UL). She co-edited the book New Approaches to Cinematic Space (2019), and is the author of O Trabalho do Actor no Cinema de John Cassavetes (2017).

The definitive text on floating charges by Scotland's leading experts The floating charge is vital to secured transactions in Scotland and plays a key role in access to finance and corporate insolvency. Bringing together leading commentators at the forefront of the topic, this book delivers wide-ranging coverage of the history, theory, practice, and potential reform of the floating charge. It presents diverse approaches, including examining floating charges from 'black letter', socio-legal, law and economics, and comparative perspectives. Key Features: - Covers the history, current law, practice and reform of this important area - Examines floating charges from a wide range of different perspectives, including doctrinal, policy-focused, theoretical and comparative approaches - Contributions from Ross G Anderson, Jennifer L L Gant, George L Gretton, Jonathan Hardman, Alisdair D J MacPherson, Donna McKenzie Skene, Magda Raczynska and Andrew J M Steven - Includes a foreword by Lord Drummond Young Jonathan Hardman is Lecturer in International Commercial Law at the University of Edinburgh Alisdair D J MacPherson is Lecturer in Commercial Law at the University of Aberdeen

This cumulative work brings together a range of research communities to contextualize and archive over a decade of work in new materialist theorising and knowledge-making practice. Combining a reflective genealogical approach along with productive avenues for future research, this volume is an essential collection for the field of new and feminist materialism. The collection uses the new materialist movements in thought of changing, intersecting, practicing and transforming. As methods, these movements have engendered the metaphysical questions that different new and feminist materialist practices engage. The volume follows these four movements for genealogical, interdisciplinary, arts-based and politics-orienting research in four parts, each of which is preceded by an introductory framing-essay. Rosi Braidotti's preface provides revelatory mappings to bring the book together and curated panels further offer co-authored texts which practise the collective nature of academic thinking advocated by the feminist new materialisms network. Key features: Consolidates new materialisms as a distinguished field of scholarship Brings together contributors from Central-, North-, and South-Eastern and Southern Europe, Australia and North America and is inclusive of Black Asian and indigenous scholarship Provides consonant, dissonant and feminist genealogies of the state of the field Focuses on the methodological nature of the materiality and meaning-making nexus. Felicity Colman is Professor of Media Arts at University of the Arts, London. Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Inquiry at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Together they chaired COST Action IS1307 New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on 'How Matter Comes to Matter' (2014-18).

The Edinburgh Edition of The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay Murray Pittock, General Editor In Enlightenment Edinburgh, Allan Ramsay (c. 1684-1758) was a foundationally important poet, dramatist, song collector, theatre owner, cultural leader in art and music and innovative entrepreneur in many spheres from language to libraries. This series, the result of an international research project, presents Ramsay's complete works in a dependable scholarly edition for the first time, thereby illuminating a body of work crucial in its own right and essential to both the Scottish Enlightenment and the Vernacular Revival associated with Fergusson, Burns and others. [headline]The first scholarly edition of Allan Ramsay's Ever Green (1724), which introduced the poets of Renaissance Scotland to a British audience Alongside the other volumes in this new Collected Works, Ever Green will transform academic and popular understanding of this pivotal but, until now, largely under-researched literary figure. It offers the first full and consistent edition of the text, based on Bannatyne and other texts, including printed works and even a reported oral recitation. The volume contains the entire text of the 1724 two-volume collection (including the prefatory material), comprehensive notes on the text and an introduction explaining Ramsay's relationship with the material, how he came to be acquainted with it, and an explanation of his strategy to both present and co-create a Scottish literary tradition from before the Union of the Crowns in 1603. [bios]Murray Pittock MAE FRSE is Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal at the University of Glasgow. He is the General Editor of the Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay. James J. Caudle is a Research Associate in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. From 2000 until 2017 he was Associate Editor of the Yale Boswell Editions.

Provides a guide for creating, exploring, and understanding fictional, imaginary, and invented languages

[headline]Considers the emotional and relational implications of portrait photographs for three modernist writers Portrait photography increased in popularity during the modernist period and offered new ways of seeing and understanding the human face. This book examines how portrait photographs appeared as literary motifs in the works of three modernist writers with personal experience of the medium: Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf. Combining perspectives from literary, visual and media studies, Marit Grøtta discusses these writers' ambivalent views on portrait photographs and the uncertain status of technical images in the early twentieth century more generally. In reconsidering the attention paid to analogue photographs in literature, this book throws light on both modernist reactions to portrait photography and on our relationships to photographs today. [author bio]Marit Grøtta is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics: The Gaze of the Flâneur and 19th-Century Media (2015) and a number of articles on Schlegel, Baudelaire, Proust, Kafka, Woolf, Queneau and Agamben. Her research interests are nineteenth-century and modernist literature, visual culture, media philosophy and aesthetic theory.

[headline]Examines Australian avant-garde poetry from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries Avant-garde poetry in the Antipodes causes all sorts of trouble for literary history. It is an avant-garde that seems to arrive too late and yet right on time. In 1897, Christopher Brennan made his own version of Un Coup de Dés, the same year Mallarmé published it in Cosmopolis. In the 1940s, the same period avant-gardism was declared dead or fatally injured due to the Ern Malley affair, Harry Hooton began writing a significant body of experimental poetry. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Australian Dada emerged 'belatedly' through figures like Jas H. Duke (Tristan Tzara had previously sung Aboriginal songs at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916). First Nations and Migrant poets then began reinventing avant-garde poetry in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book maintains that such a confounding literary history poses a distinct challenge to the theories of the avant-gardes we have become accustomed to and changes our perspective of avant-garde time. [bio]A. J. Carruthers is a poet-critic and Associate Professor in the English Department, Nanjing University, China. He is the author of Stave Sightings: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems (2017), and three volumes of the long poem AXIS Book 1 (2014), AXIS Book 2 (2019) and AXIS Z book 3 (2023).

[headline]Provides an intimate portrait of Victorian life - especially women's' lives - that uncannily anticipates the way we live now Offering a modern edition of an Anglo-Scottish epistolary classic, drawn from the authoritative scholarly edition, the letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle are works of art in themselves, but also shed light on the Victorian age and the experience of women within it. Arranging her letters chronologically alongside a biographical summary, this collection includes Jane's correspondence concerning a large range of Victorian intellectuals and other identities, from Mazzini to Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Ruskin and Tennyson to George Eliot. These letters are commonly regarded as among the liveliest in the language, alongside those of Byron, Keats, Henry James and Virginia Woolf, and are a key document in feminist history and the history of female authorship. [bio]Richard Lansdown is Adjunct Professor of English at the University of Tasmania. He is the author of Literature and Truth: Imaginative Writing as a Medium for Ideas (2018), A New Scene of Thought: Studies in Romantic Realism (2016), The Cambridge Introduction to Byron (2012), The Autonomy of Literature (2001) and Byron's Historical Dramas (1992). He is also editor of 21st-Century Authors: John Ruskin (2019), Byron's Letters and Journals: A New Selection (2015) and Strangers in the South Seas: The Idea of the Pacific in Western Thought (2006).

Lawrence Kasdan has created some of the most influential films in Hollywood history. He is the screenwriter of beloved blockbusters such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Bodyguard (1992) and The Force Awakens (2015). Simultaneously, he has gained critical acclaim as the director of pictures that dissect contemporary American society: Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Grand Canyon (1991). Frequently experimenting in different genres, Kasdan's filmography defies easy classification. Taking an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to examine all aspects of his eclectic canon, ReFocus: The Films of Lawrence Kasdan reveals a filmmaker who has helped shape modern American cinema, both through his screenplays for popular classics, and as the writer-director of films synonymous with the largest demographic in US history. Brett Davies is Associate Professor of English at Meiji University, Tokyo.

Examining the contemporary press, memoirs, travelogues and photographs - as well as the visitors' book - it uses the Alhambra to build a history of the complex and entangled relations between East and West, North and South, Islam and Christianity, centre and periphery during the heyday of Orientalism and Western hegemony.

Documentary films about individuals with a terminal illness, in hospice care, or desiring assisted death, redefine cultural expectations of what dying is and feels like. These films invite their viewers to witness the intimate and emotional moments of dying people, including moments on their deathbed. Filming Death explores these documentaries as ethical spaces, asking the viewers to learn how to engage with end-of-life through the experiences of others and to find ways to alleviate potential death anxiety. It argues that the diversity of documentary films resists simplified moral divisions between good and bad death, and instead, embellishes diverse realities where dying takes many forms, ranging from acceptance to rage. Outi Hakola is a Lecturer in the Department of Health and Social Management at the University of Eastern Finland.

How do past and present technologies affect how we perceive the world? As the symbiotic relationship between human and machine unfolds, robotic vision facilitates a reshaping and reconstitution of our perception of the world. This edited collection explores ways in which this is taking place and the implictions for these new ways of seeing ethically, politically, culturally and socially from an art and design perspective and through a critical theoretical lens. The contributors converge on the intersection of New Materialism, Media Studies and Cultural Theory and offer speculative approaches combining creative writing and visual interludes from artists and designers, all of which address the question: are we on the cusp of new ways of seeing? Nina Trivedi is Lecturer in Design: Race and Intercultural Studies Focus at Central St Martins, University of the Arts. Luci Eldridge is Lecturer in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.

How can political actors regain control and credibility in a world of constant challenges?

[headline]Offers a national approach to the issue of Europe as a geographical, political, cultural and ideological signifier during the Renaissance In this original study, Niall Oddy explores representations of Europe in sixteenth and early-seventeenth century French writing to argue that Europe as an idea evolved in productive dialogue with emerging national consciousness, not as an alternative to the nation state. Analysing literary texts alongside works of travel, geography, history and politics, this book demonstrates how ideas of Europe were shaped by real and imagined journeys across the globe and adapted across a range of discursive contexts for varied purposes. Using the notion of 'imagined geography' to present a conceptual map of what Europe looked like from different points across the globe, each chapter examines representations of the continent through the lens of one location (Brazil, Constantinople, Malta, Geneva). In a period of great intellectual transformation, as new interactions with cultures overseas reshaped how the wider world was understood, this focus on nationhood uncovers how, as the idea of 'Europe' developed, it emerged as a contested notion and an issue of debate. [bio]Niall Oddy is Associate Lecturer at The Open University, UK, where he teaches literature, early modern history and interdisciplinary humanities. His research is concerned with the literary and intellectual history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with a focus on travel and cross-cultural exchange.

Shows that while alienation poses serious problems to modern democracies, it is a form of social suffering that is particularly difficult for democratic theory - preoccupied by the political - to address.