The Spiritual Geography Of Modern Writing

This collection of essays deals with the spiritual crisis in modern society and focusses in particular on European writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The essays trace themes of spiritual unease, narrowing of inner human space, impoverishment of the self, growing human isolation, dehumanization, and the writers' attempts to overcome this malaise. The essays also try to show how inhuman political and social environments and feelings of cultural impasse can become mitigated and reclaimed by socially conscious acts of creative writing. Obsession, self-delusion, creative frustration and personal tragedy are seen to haunt this kind of modern writing which is at the same time infused with the writers' profound sense of moral responsibility to society and marked, on occasion, by that rare experience of Epiphany and transcendence.

Werewolves, witches, vampires, demons, gods, zombies, and shape-shifters; these are just a few examples of the monstrous that society is confronted with. Most people have some knowledge about these creatures, and have had fleeting contact with ghosts, fairies, vampires and goblins, either in their imagination, or while reading, watching, or interacting with other people (whether in reality or the online world). From Beowulf and Buffy, to Freddy Krueger and Frankenstein’s Monster, this collection highlights different aspects of the monstrous, and discusses various ways in which they can be read, discussed, and understood. What does the mother in Beowulf really represent? How can the character of Zoey Redbird really be understood? What is the importance of memories in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? And what should we make of Terry Pratchett’s undead creatures? And what role does the children-friendly vampire play? Beyond the Night offers a range of insights into these topics, as well as many more. It presents the reader with a vast array of old and new creatures in popular culture, analysing the significance they have for wider society. This collection will also help readers to understand their favourite monsters better in relation to questions concerning sexuality, gender, social change, and otherness.

“A deeply spiritual, deeply moving book” about life on the Great Plains, by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Cloister Walk (The New York Times Book Review). “With humor and lyrical grace,” Kathleen Norris meditates on a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth (San Francisco Chronicle). A combination of reporting and reflection, Dakota reminds us that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.

The main thrust of this collection of essays, excluding those on Russian literature, is to visualize the European Holocaust from a number of different vantage points - the historical and cultural, the political and individual, the psychological and social, and the critical and literary. This wider perspective, especially as it relates to the range and extent of human suffering, suggests that a redefinition of the twentieth-century Holocaust is now timely.

This collection of fifteen essays deals with the literary memoirs of major twentieth-century writers and focuses on the spiritual, physical and moral devastation of 20th century life. They are comparative and cross-cultural. There is no other collection of essays with this range brought under one cover.

Canada is known for its wild and diverse physical geography. But do Canadians have a spiritual geography- an identity uniquely shaped by their land, their history, their people? This first-of-its-kind collection brings together writings from within the Christian heritage to help Canadians explore that question. The forty-six contributors include award-winning literary figures, religious and political leaders, and social activists from one end of Canada to the other. Their traditions range from evangelical to Catholic, mainline Protestant to Orthodox, Pentecostal to Mennonite. Some still have family connections beyond Canada's borders; others have ancestors who were her long before Europeans came. These writers do not analyze, define, or argue about Christianity in Canada. They simply showcase it through their memoir or poetry, fiction or meditation -mapping into words something of what it means to be Christian in this country. The spiritual landscape they paint is diverse, inspiring, and provocative. It's a colourful dance of words, a wonderful Canadian celebration.

Over the past twenty years, geography as an academic discipline has become more and more reflective, asking the key questions 'What are we doing?' 'Why are we doing it?'. These questions have, so far, been more enthusiastically taken up by human geography rather than physical geography. Contemporary Meanings in Physical Geography aims to redress the balance. Written and edited by a distinguished group of physical geographers, Contemporary Meanings in Physical Geography comprises of a collection of international writer's thoughts which reveal personal motivations, and look at tensions in the worlds of meaning in which physical geography is involved. How are the meanings of the physical environment derived? Is the future of physical geography one where the only, or at least the dominant, meanings are framed in the contexts of environmental issues. Covering a diverse and lively selection of topics, the contributors of this book offer guides to the contemporary debates in the philosophy of physical geography, and introduce the reader to its wider cultural significance. This book is an essential companion to anyone studying, or with an interest in, physical geography.

Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe is an interdisciplinary collection of 24 essays which brings together leading international scholarship on Hakluyt and his work. Best known as editor of The Principal Navigations (1589; expanded 1598-1600), Hakluyt was a key figure in promoting English colonial and commercial expansion in the early modern period. He also translated major European travel texts, championed English settlement in North America, and promoted global trade and exploration via a Northeast and Northwest Passage. His work spanned every area of English activity and aspiration, from Muscovy to America, from Africa to the Near East, and India to China and Japan, providing up-to-date information and establishing an ideological framework for English rivalries with Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands. This volume resituates Hakluyt in the political, economic, and intellectual context of his time. The genre of the travel collection to which he contributed emerged from Continental humanist literary culture. Hakluyt adapted this tradition for nationalistic purposes by locating a purported history of 'English' enterprise that stretched as far back as he could go in recovering antiquarian records. The essays in this collection advance the study of Hakluyt's literary and historical resources, his international connections, and his rhetorical and editorial practice. The volume is divided into 5 sections: 'Hakluyt's Contexts'; 'Early Modern Travel Writing Collections'; 'Editorial Practice'; 'Allegiances and Ideologies: Politics, Religion, Nation'; and 'Hakluyt: Rhetoric and Writing'. The volume concludes with an account of the formation and ethos of the Hakluyt Society, founded in 1846, which has continued his project to edit travel accounts of trade, exploration, and adventure.