King James is well known as the most prolific writer of all the Stuart monarchs, publishing works on numerous topics and issues. These works were widely read, not only in Scotland and England but also on the Continent, where they appeared in several translations. In this book, Dr Stilma looks both at the domestic and international context to James's writings, using as a case study a set of Dutch translations which includes his religious meditations, his epic poem The Battle of Lepanto, his treatise on witchcraft Daemonologie and his manual on kingship Basilikon Doron. The book provides an examination of James's writings within their original Scottish context, particularly their political implications and their role in his management of his religio-political reputation both at home and abroad. The second half of each chapter is concerned with contemporary interpretations of these works by James's readers. The Dutch translations are presented as a case study of an ultra-protestant and anti-Spanish reading from which James emerges as a potential leader of protestant Europe; a reputation he initially courted, then distanced himself from after his accession to the English throne in 1603. In so doing this book greatly adds to our appreciation of James as an author, providing an exploration of his works as politically expedient statements, which were sometimes ambiguous enough to allow diverging - and occasionally unwelcome - interpretations. It is one of the few studies of James to offer a sustained critical reading of these texts, together with an exploration of the national and international context in which they were published and read. As such this book contributes to the understanding not only of James's works as political tools, but also of the preoccupations of publishers and translators, and the interpretative spaces in the works they were making available to an international audience.

Ward Allen's Translating for King James: Notes Made by a Translator of King James's Bible is a fascinating look at how the best-selling book of all time took shape and sound. The recovery of thirty-nine amazingly legible pages of John Bois's private notes reveals how a committee of scholarly translators urged and argued, bickered and shouted into being the most glorious document in the history of the English language. Book jacket.

What do people think of translation in the different historical, cultural and linguistic traditions of the world? How many uses has translation been put to? How distant from one another are the concepts of translation found in the different traditions? These are some of the questions A World Atlas of Translation addresses. Its twenty-one reports give us pictures taken from the inside, both from traditions that are well represented in the literature and from the many that (for now) are not. But the Atlas is not content with documenting – no map is this innocent. In fact, the wealth of information collected and made accessible by its reporters can be useful to gauge the dispersion of translation concepts across traditions. As you read its reports, the Atlas will keep asking “How far apart do these concepts look to you?” Finally and more ambitiously, the reports can help us test the hypothesis that a cross-cultural notion of translation exists. In this respect, the Atlas is mostly a proof of concept. It hopes to encourage further fact-based research in quest of a robust and compelling unifying notion of translation.

In a nuanced exploration of how Western cinema has represented East Asia as a space of radical indecipherability, Homay King traces the long-standing association of the Orient with the enigmatic. The fantasy of an inscrutable East, she argues, is not merely a side note to film history, but rather a kernel of otherness that has shaped Hollywood cinema at its core. Through close readings of The Lady from Shanghai, Chinatown, Blade Runner, Lost in Translation, and other films, she develops a theory of the “Shanghai gesture,” a trope whereby orientalist curios and décor become saturated with mystery. These objects and signs come to bear the burden of explanation for riddles that escape the Western protagonist or cannot be otherwise resolved by the plot. Turning to visual texts from outside Hollywood which actively grapple with the association of the East and the unintelligible—such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo: Cina, Wim Wenders’s Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and Sophie Calle’s Exquisite Pain—King suggests alternatives to the paranoid logic of the Shanghai gesture. She argues for the development of a process of cultural “de-translation” aimed at both untangling the psychic enigmas prompting the initial desire to separate the familiar from the foreign, and heightening attentiveness to the internal alterities underlying Western subjectivity.

The King's Body investigates the role of royal bodies, funerals, and graves in English succession debates from the death of Alfred the Great in 899 through the Norman Conquest in 1066. Using contemporary texts and archaeological evidence, Nicole Marafioti reconstructs the political activity that accompanied kings' burials, to demonstrate that royal bodies were potent political objects which could be used to provide legitimacy to the next generation. In most cases, new rulers celebrated their predecessor's memory and honored his corpse to emphasize continuity and strengthen their claims to the throne. Those who rose by conquest or regicide, in contrast, often desecrated the bodies of deposed royalty or relegated them to anonymous graves in attempts to brand their predecessors as tyrants unworthy of ruling a Christian nation. By delegitimizing the previous ruler, they justified their own accession. At a time when hereditary succession was not guaranteed and few accessions went unchallenged, the king's body was a commodity that royal candidates fought to control.

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES For fans of Tolkien-inspired fantasy and Arthurian mythos comes this prize-winning fantasy adventure about one knight’s battle against evil It is the dead of night. Sixteen-year-old Tiuri must spend hours locked in a chapel in silent contemplation if he is to be knighted the next day. But, as he waits by the light of a flickering candle, he hears a knock at the door and a voice desperately asking for help. A secret letter must be delivered to King Unauwen across the Great Mountains—a letter upon which the fate of the entire kingdom depends. Tiuri has a vital role to play, one that might cost him his knighthood. Tiuri's journey will take him through dark, menacing forests, across treacherous rivers, to sinister castles and strange cities. He will encounter evil enemies who would kill to get the letter, but also the best of friends in the most unexpected places. He must trust no one. He must keep his true identity secret. Above all, he must never reveal what is in the letter . . . The Letter for the King is the thrilling story of one boy’s battle against evil, set in an enchanted world of chivalry, courage, and true friendship.