The Re Imagined Text

Shakespeare's plays were not always the inviolable texts they are almost universally considered to be today. The Restoration and eighteenth century committed what many critics view as one of the most subversive acts in literary history—the rewriting and restructuring of Shakespeare's plays. Many of us are familiar with Nahum Tate's "audacious" adaptation of King Lear with its resoundingly happy ending, but Tate was only one of a score of playwrights who adapted Shakespeare's plays. Between 1660 and 1777, more than fifty adaptations appeared in print and on the stage, works in which playwrights augmented, substantially cut, or completely rewrote the original plays. The plays were staged with new characters, new scenes, new endings, and, underlying all this novelty, new words. Why did this happen? And why, in the later eighteenth century, did it stop? These questions have serious implications regarding both the aesthetics of the literary text and its treatment, for the adaptations manifest the period's perceptions of Shakespeare. As such, they demonstrate an important evolution in the definition of poetic language, and in the idea of what constitutes a literary work. In The Re-Imagined Text, Jean I. Marsden examines both the adaptations and the network of literary theory that surrounds them, thereby exploring the problems of textual sanctity and of the author's relationship to the text. As she demonstrates, Shakespeare's works, and English literature in general, came to be defined by their words rather than by the plots and morality on which the older aesthetic theory focused—a clear step toward our modern concern for the word and its varying levels of signification.

Contemporary education research, policy and practice are complex and challenging. The political struggle over what constitutes curriculum and pedagogy is framed by quasi-markets and technocratic models of education. This has had a significant effect on larger issues of policy. But it has also had profound effects inside educational sites in terms of the economics and politics of what is and is not considered 'legitimate' knowledge, over what should be taught, how it should be taught, and by whom. Re-imagining Education for Democracy takes up the unfinished project of resisting the de-democratisation of education and growing levels of social and educational inequality. Where are the spaces for change and articulating hopeful alternatives? How might we imagine and produce different futures? What are the opportunities for affirmative interference, and how could we produce a more sustainable re-imagining and re-doing of the critical project of education? The work is framed within two complementary sections: the first addresses some key policy, political and philosophical concerns of contemporary educational contexts, while the second provides a series of empirical case studies and other local–global narratives of resisting and reframing dominant discourses in education around the world. The chapters provide a range of empirical, methodological and conceptual focuses, from different educational communities and international contexts, engaging with the proposition of re-imagining education for democracy in multiple and diverse ways. This book will be essential reading for researchers and students of education research, policy and practice.

Re-imagining Academic Staff Development: Spaces for Disruption, a book with a strong commitment to social transformation, is a welcome addition to the field of academic development studies. South Africa may have unique social challenges, but in highlighting higher education?s central role in responding to them, this book reminds academic developers everywhere of the intrinsic politicalness of our work. In a series of theoretically diverse chapters, all written by members of the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning at Rhodes University, we are provoked to reconsider the meaning of our practice and why we do it. An enlivening read! ? Barbara Grant, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The Mahabharata, one of the world's oldest and most celebrated Epics, has captivated generations with its timeless tales of honor, duty, destiny, and Karma. In this groundbreaking new book, the power of Text to Image, Artificial Intelligence tool is harnessed to provide a fresh and insightful perspective on this ancient masterpiece. The book offers unique insights into the characters, themes, and events of this timeless epic through AI-generated images. Readers will be transported to a world of kings and warriors, gods and demons, and the effects of good and bad Karma. They will witness the struggles and triumphs and gain a deeper appreciation for the complex moral dilemmas and ethical questions that the epic raises. The book provides an insight into the immense possibility of using AI tools to reimagine story-telling of the ancient past and events of Historical significance.

This collection of essays by experts in the field explores the place of the trust in the modern civil law.

(Re)Imagining the world: Children’s Literature’s Response to Changing Times considers how writers of fiction for children imagine ‘the world’, not one universal world, but different worlds: imaginary, strange, familiar, even monstrous worlds. The chapters in this collection discuss how fiction for children engages with some of the changes brought about by new technologies, information literacy, consumerism, migration, politics, different family structures, cosmopolitanism, new and old monsters. They also invite us to think about how memory shapes our understanding of the past, and how fiction engages our emotions, our capacity to empathise, and our desire to discover, and what the future may hold. The contributors bring different perspectives from education, postcolonial studies, literary criticism, cultural studies, childhood studies, postmodernism, and the social sciences. With a wide coverage of texts from different countries, and scholarly and lively discussions, this collection is itself a testament to the power of the human imagination and the significance of children’s literature in the education of young people. ​

Shakespeare and the Classics demonstrates that the classics are of central importance in Shakespeare's plays and in the structure of his imagination. Written by an international team of Shakespeareans and classicists, this book investigates Shakespeare's classicism and shows how he used a variety of classical books to explore crucial areas of human experience such as love, politics, ethics and history. The book focuses on Shakespeare's favourite classical authors, especially Ovid, Virgil, Seneca, Plautus and Terence, and, in translation only, Plutarch. Attention is also paid to the humanist background and to Shakespeare's knowledge of Greek literature and culture. The final section, from the perspective of reception, examines how Shakespeare's classicism was seen and used by later writers. This accessible book offers a rounded and comprehensive treatment of Shakespeare's classicism and will be a useful first port of call for students and others approaching the subject.

This book provides clear and concise discussions of key elements of contemporary social theories and their application to the field of comparative education.