Recent theoretical and methodological innovations in the humanities, from queer theory to ecocriticism, have opened numerous new venues for a reexamination of the literatures and cultures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed they invite us to re-think early modernity. With a focus on the English and French traditions, the books in this series address the question of what early modernity is by pursuing an original approach to early modern literature and culture, putting them into a theoretically informed, productive dialogue with current concerns of humanistic inquiry.
Series editors: Marcus Keller, Ellen McClure and Feisal Mohamed
This book explores the sensations of haste and delay as represented in seventeenth-century French theater. Jennifer Eun-Jung Row proposes that these disruptive velocities—occasions when the tempos of desire subverted society's rhythms and norms—sparked new queer attachments and intimacies.
This book reappraises early modern French tragedy to provide a corrective to accounts of human rights that begin with the French Revolution. The study explores previously unrecognized models for collective action that emerge during the sixteenth century religious wars.
Informed by work in both classical philosophy and performance studies, this book argues that Stoicism infused the theatrical culture of early modern England. Plays written during this period instruct audiences to cultivate their virtue, self-awareness, and creativity in keeping with Stoic practice.
Contributions by Tracey Sedinger, Julia Lupton, Jennifer R. Rust, Andrew Sisson, Joan Pong Linton, Joel M. Dodson, Colby Gordon, Hugh Grady, Lydia Heinrichs and Russ Leo
This book examines the relationship between art and politics in Shakespeare and the early modern era, with a focus on the relation between aesthetics and sensory experience.
Contributions by Sarah Beckwith, Kent Cartwright, Brian Cummings, Margreta de Grazia, Rachael Deagman, Tobias Doring, Helga Duncan, Angela Heetderks, Robert Hornback, Jeanne McCarthy, Jennifer R. Rust, E. Maggie Solberg and William West
Sacred and Secular Transactions in the Age of Shakespeare is a collection of essays that argue that Shakespeare’s plays present “secularization” not only as a historical narrative of progress but also as a hermeneutic process that unleashes complex and often problematic transactions between sacred and secular.
In Absolutist Attachments, Chloé Hogg uncovers the affective and media connections that shaped Louis XIV’s absolutism. This book offers a view of another kind of absolutism—not the spectacular absolutism of an unbound king but the binding connections of his subjects.
Feeling Faint is a book about human consciousness in its most basic sense: the awareness, at any given moment, that we live and feel. Such awareness, it argues, is distinct from the categories of selfhood to which it is often assimilated, and can only be uncovered at the margins of first-person experience. What would it mean to be conscious without being a first person—to be conscious in the absence of a self?
In The Written World, Jeffrey N. Peters argues that geographic space may be understood as a foundational, originating principle of literary creation. By way of an innovative reading of the Platonic concept of chora, Peters shows that canonical literary works of the French seventeenth century are guided by what he calls a “chorological” approach to poetic invention.
In Tragedy and the Return of the Dead, John D. Lyons surveys a wealth of literary works from a wide range of periods and cultures to show how aspects of ancient and early modern tragedy continue to animate and inform popular culture.
Recent theoretical and methodological innovations in the humanities, from queer theory to ecocriticism, have opened numerous new venues for a reexamination of the literatures and cultures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed they invite us to re-think early modernity. With a focus on the English and French traditions, the books in this series address the question of what early modernity is by pursuing an original approach to early modern literature and culture, putting them into a theoretically informed, productive dialogue with current concerns of humanistic inquiry.
Series editors: Marcus Keller, Ellen McClure and Feisal Mohamed
