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Death and Representation

edited by Sarah Webster Goodwin and Elizabeth Bronfen

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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...

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.

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Reviews

Scholarly, sensitive, and provocative inquiries into ways of revisioning and broadening people's understanding of the final exit.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
344
ISBN
9780801846274
Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Sarah Webster Goodwin

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.
Featured Contributor

Elizabeth Bronfen

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