Mixing cultural criticism, literary history, biography, and memoir, an exploration of Alice Walker’s critically acclaimed and controversial novel, The Color Purple Alice Walker made history in 1983 when she became the ï¬?rst black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Color Purple. Published in the Reagan era amid a severe backlash to civil rights, the Jazz Age novel tells the story of racial and gender inequality through the life of a 14-year-old girl from Georgia who is haunted by domestic and sexual violence. Prominent academic and activist Salamishah Tillet combines cultural criticism, history, and memoir to explore Walker’s epistolary novel and shows how it has influenced and been informed by the zeitgeist. The Color Purple received both praise and criticism upon publication, and the conversation it sparked around race and gender still continues today. It has been adapted for an Oscar-nominated ï¬?lm and a hit Broadway musical. Through archival research and interviews with Walker, Oprah Winfrey, and Quincy Jones (among others), Tillet studies Walker’s life and how themes of violence emerged in her earlier work. Reading The Color Purple at age 15 was a groundbreaking experience for Tillet. It continues to resonate with her—as a sexual violence survivor, as a teacher of the novel, and as an accomplished academic. Provocative and personal, In Search of The Color Purple is a bold work from an important public intellectual, and captures Alice Walker’s seminal role in rethinking sexuality, intersectional feminism, and racial and gender politics.

This selection of Oscar Wilde’s writings provides a fresh perspective on his character and thinking. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these pieces show that beneath the trademark wit, Wilde was a deeply humane and visionary writer, as challenging today as he was in the late 1800s. This edition includes essays on interior design, prison reform, Shakespeare, the dramatic dialogue Decay of Lying and the seminal Soul of Man.

In Grasslands Grown Molly P. Rozum explores the two related concepts of regional identity and sense of place by examining a single North American ecological region: the U.S. Great Plains and the Canadian Prairie Provinces. All or parts of modern-day Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba form the center of this transnational region. As children, the first postconquest generation of northern grasslands residents worked, played, and traveled with domestic and wild animals, which introduced them to ecology and shaped sense-of-place rhythms. As adults, members of this generation of settler society worked to adapt to the northern grasslands by practicing both agricultural diversification and environmental conservation. Rozum argues that environmental awareness, including its ecological and cultural aspects, is key to forming a sense of place and a regional identity. The two concepts overlap and reinforce each other: place is more local, ecological, and emotional-sensual, and region is more ideational, national, and geographic in tone. This captivating study examines the growth of place and regional identities as they took shape within generations and over the life cycle.

Womanist approaches to the study of religion and society have contributed much to our understanding of Black religious life, activism, and women's liberation. This volume explores the achievements of this movement, and evaluates some of the leading voices and different perspectives within this field.

This new novel begins an all-new story arc in Modesitt's popular Imager Portfolio.

An invaluable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling, a key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies.Presenting the deeply moving personal life stories of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees in Nairobi, Kenya alongside an analysis of the process in which they creatively engaged with two Bible stories - Daniel in the Lions' Den (Old Testament) and Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery (New Testament) - Sacred Queer Stories explores how readings of biblical stories can reveal their experiences of struggle, their hopes for the future, and their faith in God and humanity. Arguing that the telling of life-stories of marginalised people, such as of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, affirms embodied existence and agency, is socially and politically empowering, and enables human solidarity, the authors also show how the Bible as an authoritative religious text and popular cultural archive in Africa is often used against LGBTQ+ people but can also be reclaimed as a site of meaning, healing, and empowerment. The result of a collaborative project between UK-based academics and a Nairobi-based organisation of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, the book provides a valuable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling. A key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies, among others, the book expresses an innovative methodology of inter-reading queer life-stories and biblical stories.be reclaimed as a site of meaning, healing, and empowerment. The result of a collaborative project between UK-based academics and a Nairobi-based organisation of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, the book provides a valuable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling. A key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies, among others, the book expresses an innovative methodology of inter-reading queer life-stories and biblical stories.be reclaimed as a site of meaning, healing, and empowerment. The result of a collaborative project between UK-based academics and a Nairobi-based organisation of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, the book provides a valuable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling. A key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies, among others, the book expresses an innovative methodology of inter-reading queer life-stories and biblical stories.be reclaimed as a site of meaning, healing, and empowerment. The result of a collaborative project between UK-based academics and a Nairobi-based organisation of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, the book provides a valuable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling. A key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies, among others, the book expresses an innovative methodology of inter-reading queer life-stories and biblical stories.

A haunting tribute to the heroic pioneers who shaped the American Midwest This powerful novel by Willa Cather is considered to be one of her finest works and placed Cather in the forefront of women novelists. It tells the stories of several immigrant families who start new lives in America in rural Nebraska. This powerful tribute to the quiet heroism of those whose struggles and triumphs shaped the American Midwest highlights the role of women pioneers, in particular. Written in the style of a memoir penned by Antonia’s tutor and friend, the book depicts one of the most memorable heroines in American literature, the spirited eldest daughter of a Czech immigrant family, whose calm, quite strength and robust spirit helped her survive the hardships and loneliness of life on the Nebraska prairie. The two form an enduring bond and through his chronicle, we watch Antonia shape the land while dealing with poverty, treachery, and tragedy. “No romantic novel ever written in America...is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia.” -H. L. Mencken Willa Cather (1873–1947) was an American writer best known for her novels of the Plains and for One of Ours, a novel set in World War I, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943 and received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1944, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments. By the time of her death she had written twelve novels, five books of short stories, and a collection of poetry.