Pages
Categories
Issues
Category Archives: Reviews
Review of Jonathan Gottschall's Literature, Science, and a New Humanities
Book under Review: Literature, Science, and a New Humanities, by Jonathan Gottschall. N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillian, 2008. xvi + 217 pp. Abstract Gottschall aims to connect two undeniable patterns in contemporary literary intellectual life: the slow decline into seeming irrelevancy of much of the humanities and the inexorable growing into cognitive dominance of the sciences, physical, [...]
Review of Blakey Vermeule's Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?
Book under Review: Why Do We Care about Literary Characters? by Blakey Vermeule. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 296 pp. Abstract Why Do We Care about Literary Characters? answers the question of its title with a solid understanding of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. Vermeule posits that our capacity for paying attention evolved in an [...]
Review of Three Books on Evolution and Religion
Books under Review: The Faith Instinct. How Religion Evolved and Why it Matters by Nicholas Wade. New York: Penguin Press, 2009. 310 pp. ISBN 978-1-59420-228-5. The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques edited by Joseph Bulbulia, Richard Sosis, Erica Harris, Russell Genet, and Karen Wyman. Santa Marguarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press, 2008. 406 pp. [...]
Review of Clinton Machann's Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics: A Darwinist Reading
Book under Review: Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics: A Darwinist Reading by Clinton Machann. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010. 166 pp. ISBN 978-0-7546-6687-5. $89.95. Abstract Clinton Machann employs the methods of literary Darwinism to analyze Victorian epic poems by Tennyson, Barrett Browning, Clough, and Browning. This review of his book focuses on the ways Machann bridges [...]
Review: Social Philosophy after Adorno
Lambert Zuidervaart Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. By David Brian Howard “It is not the portrayal of reality as hell on earth but the slick challenge to break out of it that is suspect. If there is anyone today to whom we can pass the responsibilities for the message, we bequeath it not to the [...]
Review: Media Discourse and the Yugoslav Conflicts. Representations of Self and Other
Pål Kolstø (Ed.) Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2009. by Paul C. Bott The relevance of mass media in conflicts has got much attention by the academia over the last years. The anthology edited by Pål Kolstø presents important findings of a research project conducted by The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at the [...]
Review: Political representation
Frank Ankersmit Stanford: Stanford U Press, 2002 By Peter Csigo In this book review, my aim is to present Frank Ankersmit’s aesthetic theory of democratic representation, as it has been deployed in his book ‘Political Representation’. The reason why I have undertaken the unconventional task of reviewing a seven years old work is my conviction [...]
Review: Screening sex
Linda Williams Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008 By Frederik Dhaenens Linda William’s Screening Sex is undoubtedly indebted to the legacy of Michel Foucault. In 1976, he stressed that there is no essential truth and fixed meaning in relation to human sexuality. How one experiences and/or expresses sexual desires depends upon a specific time [...]
Review: Modes of Spectating
Alison Oddey and Christine White Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2009 By Joke Beyl Modes Of Spectating offers the reader a refreshing look on the way art and research can converge. Given the fact that most of the contributions originate from, on the one side, researchers who are also artistically active and, on the other side, [...]
Review of Two Books on Snakes