A comprehensive case for a fresh literary approach to the New Testament For at least a half century, scholars have been adopting literary approaches to the New Testament inspired by certain branches of literary criticism and theory. In this important and illuminating work, Michal Beth Dinkler uses contemporary literary theory to enhance our understanding and interpretation of the New Testament texts. Dinkler provides an integrated approach to the relation between literary theory and biblical interpretation, employing a wide range of practical theories and methods. This indispensable work engages foundational concepts and figures, the historical contexts of various theoretical approaches, and ongoing literary scholarship into the twenty-first century. In Literary Theory and the New Testament, Dinkler assesses previous literary treatments of the New Testament and calls for a new phase of nuanced thinking about New Testament texts as both ancient and literary.

Literary Research and British Postmodernism is a guide for scholars that aims to connect the complex relationships between print and multimedia, technological advancements, and the influence of critical theory that converge in postwar British literature. This era is unique in that strict boundaries between fiction, nonfiction, multimedia and print are not useful. Postmodern literature is defined by the breaking down of boundaries as a reaction to modernism and requires an innovative, multifaceted approach to research. In this guide the authors explore these complex relationships and offer strategies for researching this new period of literature. This book takes a holistic approach to postmodern literature that recognizes the way in which digital media, film, critical theory, popular music and more traditional print sources are inextricably linked. Through this approach, the authors present a broad view of “postmodernism” that includes a wide variety of British authors writing in the last half of the twentieth century. The book’s definition of “postmodern” includes any British literature following World War II that engages issues central to postmodern theory, including the social construction of gender, sexuality, and power; the subjectivity of truth; technology as a social force; intertextuality; metafiction; post-colonial narrative; and fantasy. This guide aims to aid researchers of postwar British literature by defining best practices for scholars conducting research in a period so broadly varied in the way it defines literature.

There is a longstanding scholarly debate on the nature of prophecy in ancient Israel. Until now, no study has based itself on the semantics of the Hebrew lexeme nābîʾ ("prophet"). This investigation by William L. Kelly discusses the nature and function of prophecy in the corpus of the Hebrew book of Jeremiah. It analyses all occurrences of nābîʾ in Jeremiah and performs a close reading of three primary texts, Jeremiah 1.4–19, 23.9–40 and 27.1–28.17. The result is a detailed explanation of how prophecy works, and what it meant to call someone a nābîʾ in ancient Israel. Combining the results of the semantic analysis and close readings, the study reaches conclusions for six main areas of study: (1) the function and nature of prophecy; (2) dreams and visions; (3) being sent; (4) prophets, priests and cult; (5) salvation and doom; and (6) legitimacy and authority. These conclusions explain the conceptual categories related to nābîʾ in the corpus. I then situate these findings in two current debates, one on the definition of nābîʾ and one on cultic prophecy. This study contributes to critical scholarship on prophecy in the ancient world, on the book of Jeremiah, and on prophets in ancient Israel. It is the first major study to analyse nābîʾ based on its semantic associations. It adds to a growing consensus which understands prophecy as a form of divination. Contrary to some trends in Jeremiah scholarship, this work demonstrates the importance of a close reading of the Masoretic (Hebrew) text. This study uses a method of a general nature which can be applied to other texts. Thus there are significant implications for further research on prophecy and prophetic literature.

"A comprehensive encyclopedia of literary and cultural theory. Covers Literary Theory from 1900 to 1966, Literary Theory from 1966 to the present, and Cultural Theory. This encyclopedia provides accessible entries on the important concepts, theorists and trends in post-1900 literary and cultural theory. With explanations of complex terms and important theoretical concepts, and summaries of the work and ideas of key figures, it is a highly informative reference work for a multi-disciplinary readership"-- Nota de l'editor.

Russian Formalism is widely considered the foundation of modern literary theory. This book reevaluates the movement in light of the current commitment to rethink the concept of literary form in cultural-historical terms. Jessica Merrill provides a novel reconstruction of the intellectual historical context that enabled the emergence of Formalism in the 1910s. Formalists adopted a mode of thought Merrill calls the philological paradigm, a framework for thinking about language, literature, and folklore that lumped them together as verbal tradition. For those who thought in these terms, verbal tradition was understood to be inseparable from cultural history. Merrill situates early literary theories within this paradigm to reveal abandoned paths in the history of the discipline—ideas that were discounted by the structuralist and post-structuralist accounts that would emerge after World War II. The Origins of Russian Literary Theory reconstructs lost Formalist theories of authorship, of the psychology of narrative structure, and of the social spread of poetic innovations. According to these theories, literary form is always a product of human psychology and cultural history. By recontextualizing Russian Formalism within this philological paradigm, the book highlights the aspects of Formalism’s legacy that speak to the priorities of twenty-first-century literary studies.

Imagined States examines representations of the law in British and Nigerian high-brow, middle-brow and popular fiction and journalism. It reads works by Chinua Achebe, Joyce Cary, Cyprian Ekwensi and Edgar Wallace, together with a range of Nigerian market literature and journalism.