Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Death is a subject of increasing interest in virtually all academic disciplines, yet there is surprisingly little theoretical work on the representation of death in literary contexts. Death and Representation offers a unique collection of international and interdisciplinary essays, rich in cultural perspectives but sharing a relatively common vocabulary. It provides models for a number of interrelated approaches--including psychoanalytic, feminist, and historical--with essays by prominent and promising scholars. Contributors are Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Regina Barreca, Elisabeth Bronfen, Carol Christ, Sander Gilman, Sarah Webster Goodwin, Margaret Higonnet, Regina Janes, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Ronald Schleifer, Charles Segal, and Garrett Stewart.
-- "World Literature Today"
Synopsis
The essays in Death and Representation trace the multifarious ways in which death is both unknowable and repeatedly constructed. In so doing, the collection shows how thematic--as an issue in scholarly research--can serve as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions.
Table of Contents
Touching death / Ernst van Alphen -- A valediction forbidding mourning : death and the narratee in Brontèe's Villette / Garrett Stewart -- Lacan, the death drive, and the dream of the burning child / Ellie Ragland Sullivan -- Risky resemblances : on repetition, mourning, and representation / Elisabeth Bronfen -- Painting the dead : portraiture and necrophilia in Victorian art and poetry / Carol Christ -- Romanticism and the ghost of prostitution : Freud, Maria, and "Alice Fell" / Sarah Webster Goodwin -- Writing as voodoo : sorcery, hysteria, and art / Regina Barreca -- Women in the forbidden zone : war, women, and death / Margaret R. Higonnet -- Euripides' Alcestis : how to die a normal death in Greek tragedy / Charles Segal -- Beheadings / Regina Janes -- "Who kills whores?" "I do," says Jack : race and gender in Victorian London / Sander L. Gilman -- Representing Sati : continuities and discontinuities / Rajeswari Sunder Rajan -- Afterword : Walter Benjamin and the crisis of representation : multiplicity, meaning, and athematic death / Ronald Schleifer.