May 2023 MBR The Literary Studies Shelf

The Literary Studies Shelf

Race & Affect In Early Modern English Literature
Carol Mejia LaPerle
ACMRS Press
https://acmrspress.com
9780866986922, $29.95, HC, 180pp

https://www.amazon.com/Affect-Early-Modern-English-Literature/dp/0866986928

Synopsis: Compiled and edited by Carol Mejia Laperle, the contributors to "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" collectively put the fields of critical race studies and affect theory into dialogue.

Doing so opens a new set of questions: What are the emotional experiences of racial formation and racist ideologies? How do feelings (through the physical senses, emotional passions, or sexual encounters) come to signify race? What is the affective register of anti-blackness that pervades canonical literature? How can these visceral forms of racism be resisted in discourse and in practice?

By investigating how race feels, "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" offers new ways of reading and interpreting literary traditions, religious differences, gendered experiences, class hierarchies, sexuality, and social identities.

So far scholars have shaped the discussion of race in the early modern period by focusing on topics such as genealogy, language, economics, religion, skin color, and ethnicity. "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" however, offers something new: it considers racializing processes as visceral, affective experiences.

Critique: Deftly organized into three major sections (Racial Formations of Affective Communities; Racialized Affects of Sex and Gender; Feelings and Forms of Anti-Blackness), "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" will be of particular value to readers with an interest in literary criticism, race and ethnicity in literature, and the philosophy of race as reflected and influenced by literature and drama. A seminal work of collective scholarship, "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" is highly recommended for personal, professional, and academic library Literary Studies collections. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Race and Affect in Early Modern English Literature" is also available in a paperback edition (9780866986588, $19.95).

Editorial Note: Carol Mejia LaPerle (https://people.wright.edu/carol.mejia-laperle) is Professor and Honors Advisor for the English Department at Wright State University.

Tragic Encounters
Maksim Hanukai
University of Wisconsin Press
728 State Street, Suite 443, Madison, WI 53706-1418
www.uwpress.wisc.edu
9780299341404, $89.95, HC

https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6082.htm

Synopsis: Literary scholars largely agree that the Romantic period altered the definition of tragedy, but they have confined their analyses to Western European authors. Maksim Hanukai introduces a new, illuminating figure to this narrative, arguing that Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), can be understood as a tragic Romantic poet, although in a different mold than his Western counterparts.

Many of Pushkin's works move seamlessly between the closed world of traditional tragedy and the open world of Romantic tragic drama, and yet they follow neither the cathartic program prescribed by Aristotle nor the redemptive mythologies of the Romantics. Instead, the idiosyncratic and artistically mercurial Pushkin seized upon the newly unstable tragic mode to develop multiple, overlapping tragic visions.

Providing new, innovative readings of such masterpieces as The Gypsies, Boris Godunov, The Little Tragedies, and The Bronze Horseman, with the publication of "Tragic Encounters: Pushkin and European Romanticism", Professor Maksim Hanukai sheds light on an unexplored aspect of Pushkin's work, while also challenging reigning theories about the fate of tragedy in the Romantic period.

Critique: Very highly recommended for the personal reading lists of students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the life and work of Alexander Pushing, as well as a core addition to community, college, and university library 19th Century European Literary & Poetry Studies collections in general, and Alexander Pushkin curriculum studies lists in particular. It should be noted further that Professor Maksim Hanukai's seminal study, "Tragic Encounters: Pushkin and European Romanticism" is enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of a ten page informative Introduction, forty- four pages of Notes, and a fourteen page Index

Editorial Note: Maksim Hanukai (https://gns.wisc.edu/staff/hanukai-maksim) is an assistant professor of German, Nordic, and Slavic studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.

The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com

Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129

To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review