Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"In Troubled Memories, Oswaldo Estrada traces the literary representations of several iconic Mexican women in the midst of neoliberalism, gender debates, and the widespread commodification of cultural memory. Specifically, Estrada examines recent fictionalizations of Malinche, Hernâan Cortâes's indigenous translator during the Conquest of Mexico; Sor Juana Inâes de la Cruz, the famous baroque intellectual of New Spain; Leona Vicario, a supporter of the Mexican War of Independence; the soldaderas (women soldiers) of the Mexican Revolution, popularly known as Adelitas; and Frida Kahlo, the tormented painter of the twentieth century. Long associated with gendered archetypes and symbols, these women have achieved mythical status in Mexican culture and continue to play a complex role in Mexican literature. Focusing on contemporary novels, plays, and chronicles, Estrada interrogates how and why authors repeatedly recreate the lives of these historical women from contemporary perspectives, often generating hybrid narratives that fuse history, memory, and fiction. In so doing, he reveals the innovative and, sometimes, troublesome ways in which authors can challenge or perpetuate gendered conventions of writing women's lives. Consequently, this study highlights not only the central place of historical women in contemporary Mexican culture, but also the malleability of cultural memory, the role of affect in commercializing iconic figures, and the persistence of gender norms and violence in Mexico\"-- Provided by publisher.

What if the goddess Athena, who sprang fully-grown from Zeus's head and denied she had a mother, became aware of the compelling existence of her other parent?What if she discovered that her mother, Metis-first wife of Zeus and \"wiser than all gods and mortal men,\" according to Hesiod-was swallowed by her father and continued to impart her wisdom.

2019 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In Troubled Memories , Oswaldo Estrada traces the literary and cultural representations of several iconic Mexican women produced in the midst of neoliberalism, gender debates, and the widespread commodification of cultural memory. He examines recent fictionalizations of Malinche, Hernán Cortés's indigenous translator during the Conquest of Mexico; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the famous Baroque intellectual of New Spain; Leona Vicario, a supporter of the Mexican War of Independence; the soldaderas of the Mexican Revolution; and Frida Kahlo, the tormented painter of the twentieth century. Long associated with gendered archetypes and symbols, these women have achieved mythical status in Mexican culture and continue to play a complex role in Mexican literature. Focusing on contemporary novels, plays, and chronicles in connection to films, television series, and corridos of the Mexican Revolution, Estrada interrogates how and why authors repeatedly recreate the lives of these historical women from contemporary perspectives, often generating hybrid narratives that fuse history, memory, and fiction. In so doing, he reveals the innovative and sometimes troublesome ways in which authors can challenge or perpetuate gendered conventions of writing women's lives.

This article examines some of the historical, social and political oppositions to cross-cultural love in novels written by Assia Djebar and Anouar Benmalek. Franco-Algerian couples in 'Les amants désunis' and 'Les nuits de Strasbourg' are seemingly unable to love each other in the in-between territory that separates their national and cultural identities. Their love encounters end, for the most part, in separation, violence or death. The violence of the past is ever-present in these cross-cultural relationships, threatening to resurface and disrupt love, while the historic victims of this violence make claims on the lovers’ loyalties. Benmalek asserts an ethics of compassion that functions to transform enemies into friends or lovers. While language difference is revealed in these novels to be a site of separation, it is language that provides the means of reconciliation and loving proximity between historical enemies.

Born in Mexico City in 1914, writer, poet, and diplomat Octavio Paz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, eight years before his death in 1998. The Writing in the Stars explores Paz's life and ideas by establishing a dialogue between the structure and recurring images of his major poems and the ideas of Carl Jung. Although other literary critics have pointed to Jungian concepts in Paz, a comprehensive study on the subject has yet to be undertaken. Rodney Williamson takes up this challenge, adopting a Jungian perspective to explore successive phases of Paz's poetry. Williamson illustrates how archetypal images infuse Paz's early poetry and his surrealist period and shows how the circular structure of Paz's longer poems, such as 'Piedra de sol' and 'Blanco,' are based on the Eastern sacred circle or mandala, a major archetype of psychic wholeness in Jung. He argues that a grasp of the psychological importance of Jung's archetypes is essential to understanding the various syntheses of creative truth and existence sought by Paz at different defining moments of his career as a poet. The Writing in the Stars will prove fascinating to anyone interested in Latin-American literature, Jungian psychology, or critical theory.

What if the goddess Athena, who sprang fully-grown from Zeus's head and denied she had a mother, became aware of the compelling existence of her other parent? What if she discovered that her mother, Metis-first wife of Zeus and \"wiser than all gods and mortal men,\" according to Hesiod-was swallowed by her father and continued to impart her wisdom to him from inside his belly? Recent Spanish novels by women parallel this hypothetical situation based on Greek myth by featuring female protagonists who obsessively re-examine the lives of their mothers, seeking to know and understand them. In Mother and Myth in Spanish Novels, Sandra J. Schumm examines six narratives by Spanish authors published since 2000 that focus on a daughter's search to know more about her matriarchal heritage: Carme Riera's La mitad del alma, Lucía Etxebarria's Un milagro en equilibrio, Rosa Montero's El corazón del tártaro, Cristina Cerezales's De oca a oca, María de la Pau Janer's Las mujeres que hay en mí, and Soledad Purtolas's Historia de un abrigo. In each of these novels, the protagonist realizes that failure to integrate the loss of her mother into her life results in the inability to define her self. Without valorization of the maternal subject, the legacy of the daughter is at risk-she is also objectified and swallowed-and the whole society suffers. The daughters' attention to their mothers in these novels is as if Athena had finally recognized that her mother, Metis, had been ingested by Zeus. The myth of Metis and Athena becomes a metaphor of the daughter's quest toward wholeness and individuation in these works; she begins to understand that her maternal legacy is a source of wisdom that has been obscured. These novels by Spanish women strengthen the mother's voice, rescue her from anonymity, and rewrite the matriarchal archetype.

The Christian Goddess: Archetype and Theology in the Fantasies of George MacDonald, examines this British Victorian writer's employment of female figures to represent Deity. Such symbolism is extremely unusual for a Christian author of this period and anticipates the efforts of many modern theologians to develop an image of God as Mother. Bonnie Gaarden reads the goddess-figures in MacDonald's fantasies as both archetypes of the collective unconscious and as emblems articulating MacDonald's unique Christian theology, which is Trinitarian, Neo-Platonic, mystical and universalist. The goddesses become the central figures around which the author develops her interpretations of MacDonald's adult fantasy-novels, his children's books and some of his fairy tales. These readings discover MacDonald's ideas about God and the nature of good and evil, models of spiritual and psychological development that foreshadow the theories of Carl Jung and Eric Neumann, and acerbic commentary on the values and customs of Victorian society and religion. According to The Christian Goddess, MacDonald's Romantic belief in God's self-revelation in Nature led him to create Nature-mothers (such as the Green Lady in 'The Golden Key' and Lilith's Eve) which evoke both the Great Mother archetype described by Eric Neumann, and the modern neopagan Great Mother as developed in the works of James Frazer, Robert Graves, and Marija Gimutas. MacDonald dramatized his view of evil and its cure in the title character of Lilith, a Terrible Mother archetype historically embodied in the Hindu goddess Kali. MacDonald's notion of the world as Keat's 'vale of Soulmaking,' also elaborated by religious philosopher John Hick, is conveyed by Magic Cauldron archetypes in The Wise Woman, 'The Gray Wolf,' and Lilith. Muse-figures in Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind express MacDonald's conviction that a 'right imagination' is the voice of God, while Divine Children in The Wise Woman and 'The Golden Key' communicate his belief that 'true childhood' is the Divine nature. The great-grandmother in the Princess books, a personification of the multi-dimensional activity of Divine Wisdom, springs from the Judeo-Christian Sophia and the classical Athena, while Kore figures in The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, and Phantastes re-present the transforming descents of Persephone and Christ. This book shows MacDonald's fantasies as a chronological bridge, anchored in the traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, incorporating the teachings of Christian mysticism and theistic Romanticism, and linking to the contemporary concerns in Western society that have given birth to the New Age. The Christian goddess portrayed in these fantasies may strike the reader as a Deity whose time has come.

This article examines some of the historical, social and political oppositions to cross-cultural love in novels written by Assia Djebar and Anouar Benmalek. Franco-Algerian couples in Les amants désunis and Les nuits de Strasbourg are seemingly unable to love each other in the in-between territory that separates their national and cultural identities. Their love encounters end, for the most part, in separation, violence or death. The violence of the past is ever-present in these cross-cultural relationships, threatening to resurface and disrupt love, while the historic victims of this violence make claims on the lovers’ loyalties. Benmalek asserts an ethics of compassion that functions to transform enemies into friends or lovers. While language difference is revealed in these novels to be a site of separation, it is language that provides the means of reconciliation and loving proximity between historical enemies.

The art of China is as complex and multifaceted as the country itself, encompassing a broad range of materials and aesthetics that reflect an equally diverse assortment of peoples, philosophies and religions. Nevertheless, certain archetypes continue to shape our understanding of Chinese art and artists, of the past and present, that can obscure this diversity and complexity. The two most persistent of these archetypes, however, clearly illustrate the contradictions inherent in the assumption of a single 'Chinese art'.

King Arthur is perhaps the central figure of the medieval world, and the lore of Camelot has captivated literary imaginations from the Middle Ages to the present. Included in this volume are extended entries on more than 30 writers who incorporate Arthurian legend in their works. Arranged chronologically, the entries trace the pervasive influence of Arthurian lore on world literature across time. Entries are written by expert contributors and discuss such writers as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and Margaret Atwood. Each entry provides biographical information, a discussion of the author's use of Arthurian legend and contribution to the Arthurian literary tradition, and a bibliography of primary and secondary material. The volume begins with an introductory overview and concludes with suggestions for further reading. The central figure of the medieval world, King Arthur has captivated literary imaginations from the Middle Ages to the present. This book includes extended entries on more than 30 writers in the Arthurian tradition. Arranged chronologically and written by expert contributors, the entries trace the pervasive influence of Arthurian legend from the Middle Ages to the present. Each entry provides biographical information, a discussion of the writer's use of Arthurian legend and contribution to the Arthurian literary tradition, and a bibliography of primary and secondary material. The volume begins with an introductory overview and closes with a discussion of Arthurian lore in art, along with suggestions for further reading. Students will gain a better understanding of the Middle Ages and the lasting significance of the medieval world on contemporary culture.