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No quiero salir de casa
by Daniel Titinger"Titinger parte de una foto fija -una teoría-, la clava contra una pared y, a través de un paciente trabajo de reportero, despelleja esa foto capa tras capa hasta dejarla en los huesos. Y luego vuelve a montarla. A su manera." Leila Guerriero No quiero salir de casa. Crónicas de viaje. Y otros viajes, es una aproximación al arte de irse y retornar. Cada texto implica no solo un desplazamiento geográfico, sino también un recorrido emocional que el autor construye con historias delirantes, datos precisos y personajes de alguna forma notables. Es en la trashumancia donde encontramos la génesis de esta escritura, en el tránsito y la exploración de paisajes disímiles, como el desierto del Sahara, la ciudad de Seattle o el ignoto trópico de Surinam. Hay un segundo traslado en estos textos, y es el abordaje de la topografía íntima de individuos excepcionales cuyas historias bordean la ficción. En cada persona retratada, como en cada lugar visitado, Titinger descubre verdades ocultas, cosmovisiones fragmentadas, mitos que se desdibujan y más de una paradoja. Al mismo tiempo, hay un tercer movimiento: una revisitada a la identidad de los peruanos. las vidas de Kina Malpartida, Sixto Paz o Maju Mantilla; la misteriosa muerte de una manada de camellos en la ciudad de Ica; el discutido origen del pisco y del cebiche; la historia de éxito de Inca Kola; las violentas batallas rituales de Tocto, en Cusco; entre otras historias, dan pistas de la idiosincracia nacional, así como de sus traumas y complejos, y de sus sueños y esperanzas.
No val a badar: Més de cent mots catalans intraduïbles
by Jordi Badia i PujolUn recull de més de cent mots catalans intraduïbles a altres llengües que hem de reivindicar perquè no caiguin en l'oblit. «Andròmina», «rai», «colla», «déu-n'hi-do», «coent», «petar», «cofoi», «patxoca», «nòmer», «somiatruites»... En aquest llibre hi trobareu més d'un centenar de mots d'aquesta mena. I què tenen en comú? Doncs que tots, per una raó o altra, són exclusius de la llengua catalana. I són únics perquè, si els cerquéssim en un diccionari bilingüe, ens costaria Déu i ajut trobar-ne la traducció a les altres llengües. Són allò que podríem anomenar «mots intraduïbles». Per aquest motiu no podem badar i cal que els preservem com un bé preuat. A No val a badar hi trobareu exemples de tots aquests mots usats pels nostres escriptors, al costat d'explicacions sobre els significats, l'origen i l'evolució de cadascun, a més d'una munió de derivats, frases fetes i refranys. La sensació que us deixarà la lectura d'aquest llibre és que tenim una llengua rica i variada però, sobretot, que té recursos per a continuar creixent.
No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
by Mark Twain John S. Tuckey William M. GibsonThis is the only authoritative text of this late novel. It reproduces the manuscript which Mark Twain wrote last, and the only one he finished or called the "The Mysterious Stranger." Albert Bigelow Paine's edition of the same name has been shown to be a textual fraud.
Noah Webster: Weaver of Words
by Pegi Deitz SheaThis picture book celebrates one of the most important patriots in post-Revolutionary times -- Noah Webster.Most readers know Noah Webster for his dictionary masterpieces and his promotion of a living "American Language" that embraces words and idioms from all its immigrant peoples. But he was also the driving force behind universal education for all citizens, including slaves, females, and adult learners. Speaker of twenty languages, he developed the new country's curriculum, writing and publishing American literature, American history, and American geography. He published New York City's first daily newspaper. As editor, Webster conducted a study and linked disease with poor sanitation. He created the country's first insurance company, established America's first copyright law, and became America's first best-selling author.NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book
Noah as Antihero: Darren Aronofsky’s Cinematic Deluge (Routledge Studies in Religion and Film)
by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch Jon MorganThis collection of essays by biblical scholars is the first book-length treatment of the 2014 film Noah, directed by Darren Aronofsky. The film has proved to be of great interest to scholars working on the interface between the Bible and popular culture, not only because it was heralded as the first of a new generation of biblical blockbusters, but also because of its bold, provocative, and yet unusually nuanced approach to the interpretation and use of the Noah tradition, in both its biblical and extra-biblical forms. The book’s chapters, written by both well-established and up-and-coming scholars, engage with and analyze a broad range of issues raised by the film, including: its employment and interpretation of the ancient Noah traditions; its engagement with contemporary environmental themes and representation of non-human animals; its place within the history of cinematic depictions of the flood, status as an ‘epic’, and associated relationship to spectacle; the theological implications of its representation of a hidden and silent Creator and responses to perceived revelation; the controversies surrounding its reception among religious audiences, especially in the Muslim world; and the nature and implications of its convoluted racial and gender politics. Noah as Antihero will be of considerable interest to scholars conducting research in the areas of religion and film, contemporary hermeneutics, reception history, religion and popular culture, feminist criticism, and ecological ethics.
Noah's Ark Animal ABCs
by ZondervanPlayful and educational, Noah&’s Ark Animal ABCs brings alphabet learning together with a family favorite: the animals of Noah&’s ark!With engaging and eye-popping illustrations of animals for each letter of the alphabet, young readers will love guessing which creature comes next. From Ant to Zebra, this delightful book introduces children to the alphabet and some of the interesting creatures aboard Noah&’s ark. Perfect for parents and children to enjoy together!Noah&’s Ark Animal ABCs:Features easy-to-learn alphabet words and interesting animalsOffers bright, eye-catching illustrations to enhance word memory
Noah's Arkive
by Julian Yates Jeffrey J. CohenA timely rethinking of the archetypal story of Noah, the great flood, and who was left behind as the waters rose Most people know the story of Noah from a children&’s bible or a play set with a colorful ship, bearded Noah, pairs of animals, and an uncomplicated vision of survival. Noah&’s ark, however, will forever be haunted by what it leaves to the rising waters so that the world can begin again.In Noah&’s Arkive, Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. They trace how the elements of the flood narrative were elaborated in medieval and early modern art, text, and music, and now shape writing and thinking during the current age of anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, the chapters draw on a range of sources, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid&’s tale of Deucalion and Pyrrah, to speculative fiction, climate fiction, and stories and art dwelling with environmental catastrophe. Noah&’s Arkive uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative written from the perspective of Noah&’s wife and family, the animals on the ark, and those excluded and so left behind to die. This book of recovered stories speaks eloquently to the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene.Following a climate change narrative across the millennia, Noah&’s Arkive surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. It is an intriguing meditation on how the story of the ark can frame how we think about environmental catastrophe and refuge, conservation and exclusion, offering hope for a better future by heeding what we know from the past.
Noble Subjects: The Russian Novel and the Gentry, 1762–1861 (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by Bella GrigoryanRelations between the Russian nobility and the state underwent a dynamic transformation during the roughly one hundred-year period encompassing the reign of Catherine II (1762–1796) and ending with the Great Reforms initiated by Alexander II. This period also saw the gradual appearance, by the early decades of the nineteenth century, of a novelistic tradition that depicted the Russian society of its day. In Noble Subjects, Bella Grigoryan examines the rise of the Russian novel in relation to the political, legal, and social definitions that accrued to the nobility as an estate, urging readers to rethink the cultural and political origins of the genre. By examining works by Novikov, Karamzin, Pushkin, Bulgarin, Gogol, Goncharov, Aksakov, and Tolstoy alongside a selection of extra-literary sources (including mainstream periodicals, farming treatises, and domestic and conduct manuals), Grigoryan establishes links between the rise of the Russian novel and a broad-ranging interest in the figure of the male landowner in Russian public discourse. Noble Subjects traces the routes by which the rhetorical construction of the male landowner as an imperial subject and citizen produced a contested site of political, socio-cultural, and affective investment in the Russian cultural imagination. This interdisciplinary study reveals how the Russian novel developed, in part, as a carrier of a masculine domestic ideology. It will appeal to scholars and students of Russian history and literature.
Nobody Knows But You
by Anica Mrose RissiThe nail-bitingly intense story of a summer at camp that ends in a disturbing death—and depicts a powerful friendship that won’t ever be forgotten. Perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying and Broken Things. Kayla is still holding on to Lainie’s secrets. After all, Lainie is Kayla’s best friend. And despite Lainie’s painful obsession with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, and the ways he has tried to come between them, friends don’t spill each other’s secrets. They don’t betray each other’s trust. The murder at the end of the summer doesn’t change all that. Besides—Kayla knows that the truth is not the whole story.
Nobody Knows My Name: Notes Of A Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name In The Street / The Devil Finds Work (Vintage International #1)
by James BaldwinFrom one of the most brilliant writers and thinkers of the twentieth century comes a collection of "passionate, probing, controversial" essays (The Atlantic) on topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society.Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this &“splendid book&” (The New York Times) offers illuminating, deeply felt essays along with personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers. &“James Baldwin is a skillful writer, a man of fine intelligence and a true companion in the desire to make life human. To take a cue from his title, we had better learn his name.&” —The New York Times
Nobody's Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture
by Elizabeth LanglandVictoria's accession to the throne in 1837 coincided with the birth of a now notorious gender stereotype-- the Angel in the House. Comparing the position of real women-- from the Queen of England to middle-class housewives-- with their status as household angels, Elizabeth Langland explores a complex image of femininity in Victorian culture. Langland offers provocative readings of nineteenth-century fiction as well as a rare glimpse into etiquette guides, home management manuals, and cookbooks. She traces the implications of a profound contradiction: although the home was popularly depicted as a private moral haven, running the middle-class household-- which included at least one servant-- was in fact an exercise in class management. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Benjamin, and Bourdieu, and of recent feminist theorists, Langland considers novels by Dickens, Gaskell, Oliphant, and Eliot, as well as the memoirs of Hannah Cullwick, a former domestic servant who married a middle-class man. Langland discovers that the middle-class wife assumed a more complex and important function than has ever been recognized. With her substantial power veiled in myth, the Victorian angel mastered skills that enabled her to support a rigid class system; at the same time, however, her achievements unobtrusively set the stage for a feminist revolution. Nobody's Angels reconstructs a disturbing picture of social change that depended as much on protecting class inequity as on promoting gender equality.
Nobody's Perfect
by Hendrie Weisinger Norman M. Lobsenz"I don't know how to tell you this, but..." If we don't actually use these words when we offer criticism, we think them. And implicit in these words is the assumption that however userful a particular criticism is meant to be, it is bound to deflate an ego, hurt someone's feelings or denigrate someone's ability. But there are ways to give positive criticism and get positive results, even in the most delicate situations. Nobody's Perfect will show you how.
Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670-1920 (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics #31)
by Catherine GallagherExploring the careers of five influential women writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century, Catherine Gallagher reveals the connections between the increasing prestige of female authorship, the economy of credit and debt, and the rise of the novel. The "nobodies" of her title are not ignored, silenced, or anonymous women. Instead, they are literal nobodies: the abstractions of authorial personae, printed books, intellectual property rights, literary reputations, debts and obligations, and fictional characters. These are the exchangeable tokens of modern authorship that lent new cultural power to the increasing number of women writers through the eighteenth century. Women writers, Gallagher discovers, invented and popularized numerous ingenious similarities between their gender and their occupation. The terms "woman," "author," "marketplace," and "fiction" come to define each other reciprocally.Gallagher analyzes the provocative plays of Aphra Behn, the scandalous court chronicles of Delarivier Manley, the properly fictional nobodies of Charlotte Lennox and Frances Burney, and finally Maria Edgeworth's attempts in the late eighteenth century to reform the unruly genre of the novel.
Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics
by Brian M. ReedSince the turn of the new millennium English-language verse has entered a new historical phase, but explanations vary as to what has actually happened and why. What might constitute a viable avant-garde poetics in the aftermath of such momentous developments as 9/11, globalization, and the financial crisis? Much of this discussion has taken place in ephemeral venues such as blogs, e-zines, public lectures, and conferences. Nobody's Business is the first book to treat the emergence of Flarf and Conceptual Poetry in a serious way. In his engaging account, Brian M. Reed argues that these movements must be understood in relation to the proliferation of digital communications technologies and their integration into the corporate workplace.Writers such as Andrea Brady, Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith, Danny Snelson, and Rachel Zolf specifically target for criticism the institutions, skill sets, and values that make possible the smooth functioning of a postindustrial, globalized economy. Authorship comes in for particular scrutiny: how does writing a poem differ in any meaningful way from other forms of "content providing"? While often adept at using new technologies, these writers nonetheless choose to explore anachronism, ineptitude, and error as aesthetic and political strategies. The results can appear derivative, tedious, or vulgar; they can also be stirring, compelling, and even sublime. As Reed sees it, this new generation of writers is carrying on the Duchampian practice of generating antiart that both challenges prevalent definitions or art and calls into question the legitimacy of the institutions that define it.
Noch Zukunft haben: Zum Werk Karoline von Günderrodes (Neue Romantikforschung #5)
by Frederike Middelhoff Martina WernliDie literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Forschung zu Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806) setzt seit gut zwei Jahrzehnten neue Akzente. Das Werk der Autorin wird in diesem Zuge als singulärer Beitrag zur Literatur-, Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte der Romantik profiliert, während der ‚Mythos Günderrode‘, der sich auf Leben, Lieben und vor allem Ableben der Autorin konzentriert, fundamental hinterfragt wird. Der vorliegende Band schließt an diese Re-Lektüren und neuen Perspektiven an. Er präsentiert wichtige Untersuchungen zu bislang wenig beleuchteten Facetten von Günderrodes Texten, die u.a. Poetologie, Ästhetik sowie ideengeschichtliche oder politische Aspekte umfassen, und legt zudem eine kommentierte Auswahl bislang kaum bekannter Briefe der Autorin in Transkription und Abbildung vor.
Noche sobre las aguas
by Ken FollettIntriga, pasión y aventura en un thriller de altísima tensión en el que los hilos se entrelazan a bordo de un Boeing 314, por el maestro indiscutible del género: Ken Follett. Septiembre de 1939. Gran Bretaña ha declarado la guerra a Alemania. Aventureros, artistas, hombres de negocios, ciudadanos que huyen de la vejación y la miseria embarcan en el último hidroavión que despega rumbo a Estados Unidos, abandonando un país sobre el que planea la incertidumbre... La noble y fascista familia de los Oxenford huye para evitar la detención del patriarca. A su vez, Diana Lovesey lo hace para escapar con su amante Mark, mientras su marido Mervyn la persigue junto con Nancy Lenehan, que quiere impedir que su hermano Peter malvenda su empresa. Reseñas y comentarios de los lectores:«Follett se eleva hacia un meticuloso final con precisión aeronáutica.»Publishers Weekly «La novela cautiva la atención y es difícil dejar de leerla una vez comenzada. Me ha gustado y lo recomiendo.» «Acción trepidante con episodios románticos conseguidos.» «Intrigante hasta la última página. Como siempre, ¡una novela adictiva! Final divertido e inesperado.»
Noche sobre las aguas
by Ken FollettSeptiembre de 1939. Gran Bretaña ha declarado la guerra a Alemania. Aventureros, artistas, hombres de negocios, ciudadanos que huyen de la vejación y la miseria embarcan en el último hidroavión que despega rumbo a Estados Unidos, abandonando un país sobre el que plantea la incertidumbre... Intriga, pasión y aventura en un thriller de altísima tensión, por el maestro indiscutible del género.
Nocturno de La Habana: Como la mafia se hizo con Cuba y la acabó perdiendo (Vintage Espanol Ser.)
by T.J. EnglishEl primer libro que analiza en profundidad el fenómeno de la mafia en Cuba. En Nocturno de La Habana, T.J. English nos ofrece un relato fascinante sobre el crimen organizado, la corrupción política, la bulliciosa vida nocturna, la revolución y el conflicto internacional en que se entretejen las historias de la mafia y la revolución cubana que terminará con ella. En la década de los cincuenta, mientras el pueblo cubano se encuentra sometido a un régimen represivo y violento, los jefes mafiosos Meyer Lansky y Lucky Luciano fijaron sus ojos en Cuba. Para ellos era un sueño dorado, la última esperanza para la mafia tras la bonanza de la Ley Seca. Lansky, el mafioso judío, ganó la partida y se hizo con el control de la isla tras haber cultivado estrechos lazos con el dictador Fulgencio Batista. En poco tiempo y con el corrupto gobierno en el bolsillo, Lansky y sus hombres se hicieron con los mayores hoteles y casinos de la ciudad, convirtiéndola en un centro de turismo sin precedentes: las fiestas más lujosas, los famosos de más relumbrón, las mujeres más hermosas, juegos de azar y apuestas sin límite. Pero no contaban con la llegada de Fidel Castro y Ernesto Guevara, empeñados en derrocar al gobierno corrupto y sus aliados extranjeros en una épica batalla que English capta en toda su belleza, gloria y decadencia. Reseñas:«Por fin, el libro definitivo sobre los años dorados de la Mafia en Cuba.»Sam Giancana «Dedicado a los fans de El Padrino II, pero con giros que ni siquiera ellos pueden prever.»Kirkus Reviews
Noctámbulos de medianoche: Sleepwalkers of midnight
by LuziusLa vida es corta, vive el momento. <P><P>Mis relatos os transportarán a otros mundos y universos paralelos a la tierra que nos alberga, seréis desde un humilde Marchante de arte, hasta vampiros sorbedores de libros, pasando por espías y viajes más allá de vuestra imaginación. <P><P>Mi libro os llevará a ser absorbidos sin piedad por mis escritos de tinta roja, escritos a golpe de fuego.
Noir Affect
by Christopher Breu and Elizabeth A. HatmakerNoir Affect proposes a new understanding of noir as defined by negative affect. This new understanding emphasizes that noir is, first and foremost, an affective disposition rather than a specific cycle of films or novels associated with a given time period or national tradition. Instead, the essays in Noir Affect trace noir’s negativity as it manifests in different national contexts from the United States to Mexico, France, and Japan and in a range of different media, including films, novels, video games, and manga.The forms of affect associated with noir are resolutely negative: These are narratives centered on loss, sadness, rage, shame, guilt, regret, anxiety, humiliation, resentment, resistance, and refusal. Moreover, noir often asks us to identify with those on the losing end of cultural narratives, especially the criminal, the lost, the compromised, the haunted, the unlucky, the cast-aside, and the erotically “perverse,” including those whose greatest erotic attachment is to death. Drawing on contemporary work in affect theory, while also re-orienting some of its core assumptions to address the resolutely negative affects narrated by noir, Noir Affect is invested in thinking through the material, bodily, social, and political–economic impact of the various forms noir affect takes.If much affect theory asks us to consider affect as a space of possibility and becoming, Noir Affect asks us to consider affect as also a site of repetition, dissolution, redundancy, unmaking, and decay. It also asks us to consider the way in which the affective dimensions of noir enable the staging of various forms of social antagonism, including those associated with racial, gendered, sexual, and economic inequality. Featuring an Afterword by the celebrated noir scholar Paula Rabinowitz and essays by an array of leading scholars, Noir Affect aims to fundamentally re-orient our understanding of noir.Contributors: Alexander Dunst, Sean Grattan, Peter Hitchcock, Justus Nieland, Andrew Pepper, Ignacio Sánchez Prado, Brian Rejack, Pamela Thoma, Kirin Wachter-Grene
Noise That Stays Noise: Essays
by Cole SwensenPraise for Cole Swensen: "One of the most assured voices in contemporary poetry. " ---Library Journal "Engaging and delightful. " ---Publishers Weekly A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. Ezra Pound famously said that literature is "news that stays news," but recent experiments in poetry and the sciences allow us to enlarge the statement to bring information theory and biology to bear on the issue---in particular, how the information theory–based model of self-organization from noise offers a way to look at language as an art material as well as a mode of communication. This concept directs these essays on poetry by contemporary poet Cole Swensen. Noise That Stays Noisecovers a variety of subjects relevant to contemporary poetry and will give the general reader a broad notion of the issues that inform discourse around poetry today. Space---the conceptual geometry of poetry and its concrete mise-en-page---is an underlying theme of this collection, sometimes approached directly through the work of other twentieth-century poets, sometimes more obliquely through considerations of the role of the visual arts in contemporary poetry. This question of space and the shapes it includes and acquires offers a different way to look at some familiar writers, such as Mallarmé and Olson, and a way to introduce several more recent writers who may not yet be known to the general public.
Noises in the Blood
by Carolyn CooperThe language of Jamaican popular culture--its folklore, idioms, music, poetry, song--even when written is based on a tradition of sound, an orality that has often been denigrated as not worthy of serious study. In Noises in the Blood, Carolyn Cooper critically examines the dismissed discourse of Jamaica's vibrant popular culture and reclaims these cultural forms, both oral and textual, from an undeserved neglect. Cooper's exploration of Jamaican popular culture covers a wide range of topics, including Bob Marley's lyrics, the performance poetry of Louise Bennett, Mikey Smith, and Jean Binta Breeze, Michael Thelwell's novelization of The Harder They Come, the Sistren Theater Collective's Lionheart Gal, and the vitality of the Jamaican DJ culture. Her analysis of this cultural "noise" conveys the powerful and evocative content of these writers and performers and emphasizes their contribution to an undervalued Caribbean identity. Making the connection between this orality, the feminized Jamaican "mother tongue," and the characterization of this culture as low or coarse or vulgar, she incorporates issues of gender into her postcolonial perspective. Cooper powerfully argues that these contemporary vernacular forms must be recognized as genuine expressions of Jamaican culture and as expressions of resistance to marginalization, racism, and sexism. With its focus on the continuum of oral/textual performance in Jamaican culture, Noises in the Blood, vividly and stylishly written, offers a distinctive approach to Caribbean cultural studies.
Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms
by Carmela CiuraruA literary history of eighteen authors from the 19th and 20th centuries and their famous pseudonyms.Exploring the fascinating stories of more than a dozen authorial impostors across several centuries and cultures, Carmela Ciuraru plumbs the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of fame.Only through the protective guise of Lewis Carroll could a shy, half-deaf Victorian mathematician at Oxford feel free to let his imagination run wild. The three weird sisters from Yorkshire—the Brontës—produced instant bestsellers that transformed them into literary icons, yet they wrote under the cloak of male authorship. Bored by her aristocratic milieu, a cigar-smoking, cross-dressing baroness rejected the rules of propriety by having sexual liaisons with men and women alike, publishing novels and plays under the name George Sand. Highly accessible and engaging, these provocative stories reveal the complex motives of writers who harbored secret identities—sometimes playfully, sometimes with terrible anguish and tragic consequences. Part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, Nom de Plume is an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity.Praise for Nom de PlumeA San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year“Each page affords sparkling facts and valuable insights into . . . the eternally mysterious, often tormented interface between life and literature.” —Elif Batuman“A richly documented literary excursion into the inner, secret lives of some of our favorite writers.” —Joyce Carol Oates“You are on the second to last page . . . and wishing you weren’t because this book is such great fun.” —San Francisco Chronicle“[An] engrossing, well-paced literary history. . . . It’s biography on the quick, and done well.” —Bookforum
Nominal Pluralization and Countability in African Varieties of English (Routledge Studies in World Englishes)
by Susanne MohrThis book is the first comprehensive analysis of nominal plural marking, its morphosyntax and semantics, across different African varieties of English. Mohr explores the rich diversity in the varieties and how different conceptualizations of the number category are realized across different cultures. The investigation of unstandardized noun plurals in Kenyan, Tanzanian, Ghanaian and Nigerian Englishes is based on a mixed methods design drawing on corpus linguistics, acceptability questionnaires and psycholinguistic experiments. In this vein, the book not only contributes to the description of each of these four varieties, but also sheds light on standardization processes and language change in New Englishes. Importantly, it is a plea for the triangulation of data and mixed methods approaches in World Englishes research, as the combination of these methods grants insight into unforeseen areas of language structures and use. This volume is a useful reference work for students and researchers in World Englishes, varieties of English and African Studies, as well as those interested in linguistic anthropology.
Nominal Things: Bronzes in the Making of Medieval China
by Jeffrey MoserHow the medieval study of ancient bronzes influenced the production of knowledge and the making of things in East Asia. This book opens in eleventh-century China, where scholars were the first in world history to systematically illustrate and document ancient artifacts. As Jeffrey Moser argues, the visual, technical, and conceptual mechanisms they developed to record these objects laid the foundations for methods of visualizing knowledge that scholars throughout early modern East Asia would use to make sense of the world around them. Of the artifacts these scholars studied, the most celebrated were bronze ritual vessels that had been cast nearly two thousand years earlier. While working to make sense of the relationship between the bronzes’ complex shapes and their inscribed glyphs, they came to realize that the objects were “nominal things”—objects inscribed with names that identified their own categories and uses. Eleventh-century scholars knew the meaning of these glyphs from hallowed Confucian writings that had been passed down through centuries, but they found shocking disconnects between the names and the bronzes on which they were inscribed. Nominal Things traces the process by which a distinctive system of empiricism was nurtured by discrepancies between the complex materiality of the bronzes and their inscriptions. By revealing the connections between the new empiricism and older ways of knowing, the book explains how scholars refashioned the words of the Confucian classics into material reality.