The Falklands War

The Falklands War

As wars go, the battle between Britain and Argentina for supremacy in the Falklands Islands was little more than a skirmish. Yet few wars have been asked to bear such a heavy and polarized burden of meaning. In this book, David Monaghan employs literary critical methods in developing a comprehensive analysis of the political speeches and journalism through which the Thatcherite myth of British greatness reborn in the Falklands along neo-conservative lines was communicated. He then assesses some of the many dissident films, plays, travel books, and cartoon strips which, in the years since 1982, have used the Falklands War as the basis for national metaphors.

The Falklands War

Victorian Freaks

Victorian Freaks

While freaks have captivated our imagination since well before the nineteenth century, the Victorians flocked to shows featuring dancing dwarves, bearded ladies, missing links, and six-legged sheep. Indeed, this period has been described by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson as the epoch of consolidation for freakery: an era of social change, enormously popular freak shows, and taxonomic frenzy. Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, edited by Marlene Tromp, turns to that rich nexus, examining the struggle over definitions of freakery and the unstable and sometimes conflicting ways in which freakery was understood and deployed. As the first study centralizing British culture, this collection discusses figures as varied as Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man; Daniel Lambert, King of the Fat Men; Julia Pastrana, The Bear Woman; and Laloo The Marvellous Indian Boy and his embedded, parasitic twin. The Victorian Freaks contributors examine Victorian culture through the lens of freakery, reading the production of the freak against the landscape of capitalist consumption, the medical community, and the politics of empire, sexuality, and art. Collectively, these essays ask how freakery engaged with notions of normalcy and with its Victorian cultural context.

Victorian Freaks

Steles of the Sky

Steles of the Sky

Elizabeth Bear concludes her award-winning epic fantasy trilogy, The Eternal Sky, with Steles of the Sky.

Steles of the Sky