Suburban/Absurd: Subjects of Anxiety in the Fiction of John Cheever and Richard Ford.

<p>One aspect of the common ground between the work of Richard Ford and John Cheever is their careful depiction of domestic life. It was this attention to the middle class suburbs of America that led some of Cheever's contemporary critics to dismiss his work, seeing his subject matter as inappropriate to serious critical enquiry. By altering the terms on which Cheever's work is approached, and reading Cheever's and Ford's suburban fiction in light of some of the tenets of existentialism, post-structuralism, and neo-pragmatism, it is possible to affirm their works as central to contemporary concerns surrounding subjectivity, identity, and agency.</p>

Suburban/Absurd: Subjects of Anxiety in the Fiction of John Cheever and Richard Ford.

<p>One aspect of the common ground between the work of Richard Ford and John Cheever is their careful depiction of domestic life. It was this attention to the middle class suburbs of America that led some of Cheever's contemporary critics to dismiss his work, seeing his subject matter as inappropriate to serious critical enquiry. By altering the terms on which Cheever's work is approached, and reading Cheever's and Ford's suburban fiction in light of some of the tenets of existentialism, post-structuralism, and neo-pragmatism, it is possible to affirm their works as central to contemporary concerns surrounding subjectivity, identity, and agency.</p>

'Au meilleur de soi': Yves Bonnefoy and the Making of Baudelaire

Yves Bonnefoy has singled out Baudelaire as a primary formative influence. The breadth and depth of critical enquiry afforded by Bonnefoy to his predecessor over the decades are attested by two substantial collections of his essays compiled in later years, as well as by verse resonating on occasion with the other’s name and voice. Bonnefoy’s goal is at once scholarly and creative: not only does he explore the full import of Baudelaire’s poetic legacy and lend it lasting pertinence within the history of literary endeavour, he also seeks to enter actively into its struggle, uncovering in its contradictions and aporias a corrective and recuperative dynamics that is played out anew in his own poetic writing as part of a larger and pressing ‘refondation de l’être’.

The Value of Biblical Criticism

Biblical criticism is the application to the biblical text of critical enquiry such as can be applied to any other text, and especially to obscure or puzzling ones. This is illustrated through a short analysis of some of the background and context of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’, and the same questions are then put to 1 Corinthians 13. In both cases it is shown that we understand the text better by attending to its original context, its genre and the thought-world within which it was written. Such criticism gives depth to the study of the text, and does not reduce its power or profundity as is sometimes feared. Biblical criticism is an exciting pursuit, and even if not essential for all Bible readers it is very much to be recommended.

In Search of Respect in Criminal Justice

The principal aim of the chapter is to examine the merits of respect as a concept of critical enquiry. This is an ambitious task, not least because it involves a challenge to the definitional self-evidence of respect to which criminal justice scholars and practitioners routinely subscribe. The chapter pursues three distinct lines of enquiry and reflection. What is respect? The first task is to attend to this deceptively simple question. In so doing, the chapter assembles materials on respect from philosophy and elsewhere in the social sciences. Second, having explored what respect means in general terms—though this is hotly contested—the chapter sketches and filters the most prominent classic and contemporary works into an understanding of respect for criminal justice. By initiating a dialogue with related disciplines in this way, the aim is to build a strong conceptual platform from which to engage with the substantive material on policing and imprisonment in subsequent chapters. Third, the chapter situates respect in criminal justice in contextual and methodological terms. Much of this work must be justificatory both of respect and of my own methodological choices. Having explained in some detail what respect means and why it has been selected for examination, the chapter considers why policing and imprisonment have been selected as contexts for that examination, and how an interpretive approach offers a means by which to conduct that examination.

1 Scritture meticce – Narrazioni diasporiche

This essay introduces the main themes of Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora. It focuses on the historical, cultural and literary encounter between Italy and Somalia with a particular emphasis on Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s life and literary career. It also discusses the impact of immigration literature on the Italian literary and cultural field. The analysis presents collaboration as a decolonial practice, which can produce unconventional outcomes such as a hybrid text like Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora. Collaboration between writers and scholars can enrich critical enquiry and create texts and activities that potentially have a broader impact on a general audience.