Postmodern Traces and Recent Hindi Novels

Veronica Ghirardi, University of Turin, Italy

Postmodernism is a notoriously elusive concept and still the object of critical debates among scholars across a range of different disciplines. In literature, in particular, these debates are complicated by “postmodern” styles emanating from outside the concept’s Western origins. By analyzing contemporary Hindi novels, and drawing on both Western and Hindi literary criticism, "Postmodern Traces and Recent Hindi Novels" aims to understand some of the manifestations of postmodernism in contemporary Hindi fiction, including ways the latter might challenge the traditional parameters of postmodern literature. This book is essential reading for scholars and students specializing in South Asian studies and both postcolonial and comparative literature. It will also interest the general reader curious to know more about one of the less explored areas of world literature.

The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer

Frances Jones

‘The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer’ is the first and definitive book to be written about the alphorn in English. It has been written with English-speaking readers in mind, as it examines the extensive interest of primarily non-Swiss composers, writers and artists in the alphorn as a symbol of the Alps, the influence and significance of the alphorn in culture, literature and the arts across the globe, and the ways in which the instrument has been specifically utilised by the Swiss as the iconic representation of their country. This book also explores the use of the musical language of the alphorn call, to ascertain why and how such references as those of Berlioz or Beethoven can convey so much meaning. Dr Jones seeks out what it is that a composer brings into the concert hall, the theatre, the opera house, the church, or the drawing room by such a quotation, to what heritage they are referring, and upon what basis there are grounds for an assumption that such a reference will be understood by an audience. The book, which will be of interest to researchers in Swiss cultural studies and ethnomusicology, builds on Dr Jones’s research and PhD thesis. The six chapters deal with a variety of topics, including a basic introduction to the alphorn and an exploration of the promotion of the instrument as the symbol of Switzerland, as well as the reasons behind symbolic references to alphorn motifs by European and British composers in concert repertoire, jazz and film.

The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer

Frances Jones

‘The Alphorn through the Eyes of the Classical Composer’ is the first and definitive book to be written about the alphorn in English. It has been written with English-speaking readers in mind, as it examines the extensive interest of primarily non-Swiss composers, writers and artists in the alphorn as a symbol of the Alps, the influence and significance of the alphorn in culture, literature and the arts across the globe, and the ways in which the instrument has been specifically utilised by the Swiss as the iconic representation of their country. This book also explores the use of the musical language of the alphorn call, to ascertain why and how such references as those of Berlioz or Beethoven can convey so much meaning. Dr Jones seeks out what it is that a composer brings into the concert hall, the theatre, the opera house, the church, or the drawing room by such a quotation, to what heritage they are referring, and upon what basis there are grounds for an assumption that such a reference will be understood by an audience. The book, which will be of interest to researchers in Swiss cultural studies and ethnomusicology, builds on Dr Jones’s research and PhD thesis. The six chapters deal with a variety of topics, including a basic introduction to the alphorn and an exploration of the promotion of the instrument as the symbol of Switzerland, as well as the reasons behind symbolic references to alphorn motifs by European and British composers in concert repertoire, jazz and film.

The Careers of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as Referenced in Literature

A Study in Film Perception

Henryk Hoffmann

The Careers of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as Referenced in Literature is a study of the perception of these two Hollywood megastars and their work, as presented in the text and context of references and allusions found in world literature. This book also aims to establish the impact factor of the two actors and their major films, as well as to provide extensive data for further studies of the complex and bilateral relationships between film and literature. The pertinent quotations have been extracted from over 150 works—novels, short stories, plays, poems and some nonfiction biographies and memoirs (excluding those focused on film celebrities)—by more than 120 authors. The main body of the book consists of two parts, each devoted to one actor and each having five identical sections. In the first section, references to the actor’s films are discussed while the second section presents references to the actor himself. The third section shows the complete list of references found to the actor and his films, including references not mentioned in the first two sections—either because of their relative insignificance, the lack of an English translation in case of foreign-language works or repetitiveness and/or abundance in a given work. The fourth section offers the credits of the films referenced, and the fifth section presents the actor’s complete monographic bibliography. The third part of the book, ‘Epilogue: Final Remarks and Conclusions,’ provides an analysis and classification of all the references and allusions presented in the main body, and it elaborates on the friendship of the two actors. College professors and students interested in film studies, particularly film analysis and criticism, film perception and film genres, will find this book of great interest. It will also appeal to people interested in biographical books on movie personalities and movie fans, especially those interested in westerns, film noir and the careers of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation

Emily Williams, Durham University

*Co-Winner of the Historic Preservation Book Prize 2021* In 1866, Alexander Dunlop, a free black living in Williamsburg Virginia, did three unusual things. He had an audience with the President of the United States, testified in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, and he purchased a tombstone for his wife, Lucy Ann Dunlop. Purchases of this sort were rarities among Virginia’s free black community—and this particular gravestone is made more significant by Dunlop’s choice of words, his political advocacy, and the racialized rhetoric of the period. Carved by a pair of Richmond-based carvers, who like many other Southern monument makers, contributed to celebrating and mythologizing the “Lost Cause” in the wake of the Civil War, Lucy Ann’s tombstone is a powerful statement of Dunlop’s belief in the worth of all men and his hopes for the future. Buried in 1925 by the white members of a church congregation, and again in the 1960s by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the tombstone was excavated in 2003. Analysis, conservation, and long-term interpretation were undertaken by the Foundation in partnership with the community of the First Baptist Church, a historically black church within which Alexander Dunlop was a leader. “Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation” examines the story of the tombstone through a blend of object biography and micro-historical approaches and contrasts it with other memory projects, like the remembrance of the Civil War dead. Data from a regional survey of nineteenth-century cemeteries, historical accounts, literary sources, and the visual arts are woven together to explore the agentive relationships between monuments, their commissioners, their creators and their viewers and the ways in which memory is created and contested and how this impacts the history we learn and preserve.