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Georges Ngal's pathbreaking satire Giambatista Viko explores the vexed relations between metropolitan centers and peripheral former colonies through its titular antihero, an African professor at an African studies institute divided between European-focused cosmopolitans and Africanists. Struggling to write the great African novel and subject to abuse, Viko realizes he can no longer separate the African and the European parts of his multilayered, African francophone culture. Viko's fate is a warning about the perils of artistic creation in a world where power is not shared. Part of the wave of African novels of the 1960s and 1970s that grappled with the disenchantments of decolonization, Giambatista Viko can be read at once as a Congolese novel, a francophone novel, and a work of world literature.
The Plum in the Golden Vase (also known as The Golden Lotus) was published in the early seventeenth century and may be the first long work of Chinese fiction written by a single (though anonymous) author. Featuring both complex structural elements and psychological and emotional realism, the novel centers on the rich merchant Ximen Qing and his household and describes the physical surroundings and material objects of a Ming dynasty city. In part a social, political, and moral critique, the novel reflects on hierarchical power relations of family and state and the materialism of life at the time.
The essays in this volume provide ideas for teaching the novel using a variety of approaches, from questions of genre, intertextuality, and the novel's reception to material culture, family and social dynamics, and power structures in sexual relations. Insights into the novel's representation of Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, legal culture, class, slavery, and obscenity are offered throughout the volume.
Before children's stories came to exemplify the French fairy tale, early modern audiences read the works of women writers known as conteuses. From the late seventeenth century through the Revolution, the conteuses published rich, complex tales that were popular in literary salons and elite courtly settings.
These unpredictable works feature candid representations of female desire, strong support for the education of women, and surprising twists on the fairy tale formulas familiar to readers of Charles Perrault. Not only witty and entertaining, the tales also comment on the unfair treatment of women that the authors saw in society, history, and myth.
Brief biographies introduce to new audiences writers who challenged social conventions, won popular and critical acclaim, and defined the fairy tale genre in their own time.
Taking up the idea that teaching is a political act, this collection of essays reflects on recent trends in ecocriticism and the implications for pedagogy. Focusing on a diverse set of literature and media, the book also provides background on historical and theoretical issues that animate the field of postcolonial ecocriticism. The scope is broad, encompassing not only the Global South but also parts of the Global North that have been subject to environmental degradation as a result of colonial practices. Considering both the climate crisis and the crisis in the humanities, the volume navigates theoretical resources, contextual scaffolding, classroom activities, assessment, and pedagogical possibilities and challenges. Essays are grounded in environmental justice and the project to decolonize the classroom, addressing works from Africa, New Zealand, Asia, and Latin America and issues such as queer ecofeminism, disability, Latinx literary production, animal studies, interdisciplinarity, and working with environmental justice organizations.
The author of Comentarios reales and La Florida del Inca, now recognized as key foundational works of Latin American literature and historiography, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was born in 1539 in Cuzco, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan princess, and later moved to Spain. Recalling the family stories and myths he had heard from his Quechua-speaking relatives during his youth and gathering information from friends who had remained in Peru, he created works that have come to indelibly shape our understanding of Incan history and administration. He also articulated a new American identity, which he called mestizo.
This volume provides guidance on the translations of Garcilaso's writings and on the scholarly reception of his ideas. Instructors will discover ideas for teaching Garcilaso's works in relation to indigenous thought, European historiography, natural history, indigenous religion and Christianity, and Incan material culture. In essays informed by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, scholars draw connections between Garcilaso's writings and contemporary issues like migration, multiculturalism, and indigenous rights.
Based on real events of the French Resistance during World War II, Édith Thomas’s stories explore how ordinary people respond to the extraordinary conditions of political occupation. The stories, first published under the title Contes d’Auxois (Auxois Stories) by an underground press in 1943, were written to oppose Vichy-Nazi propaganda and to offer encouragement to civilians who felt resigned to defeat.
Whether lining up to wait for food, tuning in to a forbidden radio broadcast, adapting to living side by side with German soldiers, or preparing for an act of sabotage, the characters in these stories must make choices in highly compromised circumstances on a daily basis. As the characters confront their own suffering and that of others, their actions inspire readers to consider the nature of heroism, the idea that people can share a common humanity with their enemies, and the possibility for individuals to find solidarity in an overwhelming, isolating world.
Based on real events of the French Resistance during World War II, Édith Thomas’s stories explore how ordinary people respond to the extraordinary conditions of political occupation. The stories, first published under the title Contes d’Auxois by an underground press in 1943, were written to oppose Vichy-Nazi propaganda and to offer encouragement to civilians who felt resigned to defeat.
Teaching Writing in the Twenty-First Century is a comprehensive introduction to writing instruction in an increasingly digital world. It provides both a theoretical background and detailed practical guidance to writing instructors faced with novel and ever-changing digital learning technologies, new approaches to access needs and usability design, increasing student diversity, and the multiliteracies of reading, alphabetic writing, and multimodal composition. A companion volume, Administering Writing Programs in the Twenty-First Century, considers the role of administrators in addressing these issues.
Covering all aspects of teaching online, various composition genres, and the technologies available to teachers, Teaching Writing in the Twenty-First Century addresses composing processes and approaches; designing and scaffolding assignments; providing response, feedback, and evaluation; communicating effectively; and supporting students. These strategic and practical ideas are prefaced by a history of the relation between composition and rhetoric and a guide to diversity, inclusion, and access. The volume ends with a chapter on envisioning the future of composition.
This book is a comprehensive guide to administering writing programs at a moment when communication, and thus the teaching of writing, is always changing. A companion to Teaching Writing in the Twenty-First Century, which considers how writing instructors can successfully adapt to new challenges, this volume addresses the concerns of both novice and experienced writing program administrators. It includes guidance on building and assessing writing programs; on hiring, training, evaluating, and mentoring instructors; on eliminating cultural bias; on encouraging the well-being of administrators and instructors; on assignments and instructional tools; and on access, diversity, and inclusion. Aiming to help administrators develop thoughtful, effective approaches to using technology in writing programs, the book also provides information designed to support instructors in their teaching of rhetorical literacy strategies regardless of the environment or medium in which students compose and communicate.
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