Death and Representation (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801846277 ISBN 13: 9780801846274

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993

Synopsis

Death is a subject of increasing interest in virtually all academic disciplines, yet there is surprisingly little theoretical work on the representation of death in literary contexts. Death and Representation offers a unique collection of international and interdisciplinary essays, rich in cultural perspectives but sharing a relatively common vocabulary. It provides models for a number of interrelated approaches—including psychoanalytic, feminist, and historical—with essays by prominent and promising scholars. All the contirbutions combine theory with textual readings, whether of literature, paintings, historical sources, or—in one case—a passage from Freud.

The essays in Death and Representation trace the multifarious ways in which death in both unknowable and repeatably constructed. In so doing, the colection shows how thematics—as an issue in scholarly research—can servce as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions. Essays are organized in three sections: "REading Death: Sign, Psyche, Text"; "Death and Gender"; and "History, Power, Ideology." Contributors are Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Regina Barreca, Elisabeth Bronfen, Carol Christ, Sander Gilman, Sarah Webster Goodwin, Margaret Higonnet, Regina Janes, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Ronald Schleifer, Charles Segal, and Garrett Stewart.

About this title

About the Authors

Sarah Webster Goodwin is associate professor of English at Skidmore College and is the author of Kitsch and Culture: The Dance of Death in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Graphic Arts.

Elizabeth Bronfen is professor of English at the University of Zurich and the author of Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and Aesthetics.

From the Back Cover

The essays in Death and Representation trace the multifarious ways in which death is both unknowable and repeatedly constructed. In so doing, the collection shows how thematic--as an issue in scholarly research--can serve as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801846277
• ISBN 13: 9780801846274
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344
• Editor: Goodwin Sarah Webster