During the latter part of the nineteenth century, so-called esoteric movements became increasingly popular in cultural and intellectual circles in Europe, not least in Sweden. Secret teachings, rituals and practices in alchemy, astrology, occultism and theosophy were predominant, with a belief in correspondences in the cosmos, living nature and transmutations.But esotericism goes back much further in time in Swedish history. Although such esoteric ideas were long considered heresy by the Church and thus driven underground, they have had a significant impact on Swedish culture. In this anthology, we bring together some of Sweden’s foremost experts on the subject to explore the history of esotericism in Sweden and how its rituals, practices and traditions came to influence writers and artists such as August Strindberg, Selma Lagerlöf, Viktor Rydberg, Hilma af Klint, Tyra Kleen and Carl Milles.

Six decades of writing on literature and art by one of the most significant poets of our timeMeditations gathers together in one volume for the first time an extensive collection of the prose work of Barbara Guest (1920-2006), one of the major voices of twentieth century American literature. Known primarily as a poet, Guest worked in many styles, all represented herein: essays, lectures, art criticism, literary and art reviews, as well as forms of fiction, biography, poetic prose, drama, comics, and other mixed-genre pieces. This collection of the poet's prose illuminates Guest's singular genius, highlighting her structural awareness of language and placing her within the vanguard of American poetry. Much of her writing initially appeared in special editions, often through collaborations with visual artists. Lyrical and intellectually soaring, this collection is a treasure of insights into the relationship between language, image, and imagination. Joseph Shafer's introduction provides a meaningful context for sixty years' worth of critical and creative prose by one of America's finest poets.

How a passion for translation fueled the development of a great American poetSo Much Secret Labor is a window into the work of the great American poet, James Wright, whose love of languages and quest for the "true imagination" helped transform American poetry. The book draws on memoir, archival research, interviews, letters, and previous unpublished journal excerpts, presenting a scrupulous and intimate reading of Wright's work and the translations he insisted were as redemptive in his life as they were crucial to his poetics. At its center is a selection of Wright's translations, both from German and Spanish: poems by Trakl, Rilke, Heine, Vallejo, Lorca, and Neruda, among others, including draft versions discovered among his collected papers that have never been published. It also provides an important assessment of the little known formative influence of German poetry on Wright's own poems. Wright's literary relationship with another great mid-century American poet, Robert Bly, is featured here in a portfolio of unpublished letters, typescripts and holographs. These tell the story of their ardentfriendship and earliest translation collaborations, and situates them in the history of the emergence of poetry of the "true imagination" that they were beginning to explore at that time.

From Homer to Hatzi-Yavrouda provides a multidisciplinary discussion of the concept of orality in the framework of Greek narrative tradition, from Antiquity to the 21st century.

Hans Christian Andersen is an cultural icon. But what is an icon exactly? And how did Hans Christian Andersen become one? In Denmark and abroad. This book looks into the different meanings and uses of the word icon and into the making of the cultural icon that is Hans Christian Andersen. In branding of businesses, as a cultural heritage, in the ability to transcend culturers.

In Literacy as Conversation, the authors tell stories of successful literacy learning outside of schools and inside communities, both within urban neighborhoods of Philadelphia and rural and semi-rural towns of Arkansas. They define literacy not as a basic skill but as a rich, broadly interactive human behavior: the ability to engage in a conversation carried on, framed by, or enriched through written symbols. Eli Goldblatt takes us to after-school literacy programs, community arts centers, and urban farms in the city of Philadelphia, while David Jolliffe explores learning in a Latinx youth theater troupe, a performance based on the words of men on death row, and long-term cooperation with a rural health care provider in Arkansas. As different as urban and rural settings can be—and as beset as they both are with the challenges of historical racism and economic discrimination—the authors see much to encourage both geographical communities to fight for positive change.

Rhetoric and composition scholar Donna LeCourt combines theoretical inquiry, qualitative research, and rhetorical analysis to examine what it means to write for the “public” in an age when the distinctions between public and private have eroded. Public spaces are increasingly privatized, and individual subjectivities have been reconstructed according to market terms. Part critique and part road map, Social Mediations begins with a critical reading of digital public pedagogies, then turns to developing a new theory that can guide a more effective writing pedagogy. LeCourt offers a theory based in embodied relationality that uses information economies to develop public spheres. She highlights how information commodities generate value through circulation, orchestrate relationships among people, and support unequal power structures. By demonstrating how we can use information capital for social change rather than market expansion, writers and readers are encouraged to seek out encounters with cultural and political impact.

South Sea Island. The Geography of Pleasure is a literary history of European, Russian and American travelogues, films, paintings, philosophical treatises, all fascinated by the Polynesian islands. Our ideas of nature, growth and sustainability are currently being challenged by climate change and sea level rise, with major identity and security policy implications that are particularly evident in the Pacific, but will also have consequences for the entire planet. The book is a contribution to a new global literary history and provides a historical in-depth perspective for highly topical discussions in interdisciplinary areas such as Pacific Studies, Island Studies, Ocean Studies and Planetary Studies.The Danish version of the book was nominated for 'Book of the year' in one of Denmark's most prominent newspaper and in another described as "epoch-making literary history" and shortlisted among the 5 non-fiction books in 2018, "which has made a difference". In addition, it was awarded the prestigious 'Georg Brande's Award' because it is "pioneering" and as the committee wrote: "Sydhavsøen [South Sea Island] is a book that conveys fascinating knowledge and theory in an exemplary way".

The 499 letters in the fourteenth volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall cover a number of particularly intense and acrimonious disputes. More notably, this volume spans the period of the composition, delivery, and furious reaction to Tyndall’s famous—or, more accurately, infamous—Belfast Address. This prestigious lecture, which he delivered as the newly inaugurated president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, has long been heralded as one of the most momentous events of the nineteenth century. The letters in this volume provide a new, and unprecedentedly detailed, account of all aspects of the era-defining address. For Tyndall himself, it afforded a new level of prominence as a public intellectual, and he deployed his position to engage directly with some of the most contentious issues in Victorian society, especially the role of religion in relation to science. But Tyndall’s expertise was also required on more practical matters, and the letters in this volume document his extensive role in determining official government policy on urgent questions such as safety at sea and public health. Additionally, they chart a dramatic shift in his personal life, with his initial correspondence with Louisa Hamilton, with whom he had previously communicated only through her family, marking the point where their burgeoning friendship developed into a formal relationship.

The Poetics of Plants in Spanish American Literature examines the defining role of plants in cultural expression across Latin America, particularly in literature. From the colonial georgic to Pablo Neruda’s Canto general, Lesley Wylie’s close study of botanical imagery demonstrates the fundamental role of the natural world and the relationship between people and plants in the region. Plants are also central to literary forms originating in the Americas, such as the New World Baroque, described by Alejo Carpentier as “nacido de árboles. ” The book establishes how vegetal imaginaries are key to Spanish American attempts to renovate European forms and traditions as well as to the reconfiguration of the relationship between humans and nonhumans. Such a reconfiguration, which persistently draws on indigenous animist ontologies to blur the boundaries between people and plants, anticipates much contemporary ecological thinking about our responsibility towards nonhuman nature and shows how environmental thinking by way of plants has a long history in Latin American literature.

A new addition to the University of Pittsburgh Press Illuminations series.

No time like the present, not even the glorious pioneering decades between 1870 and 1930, has seen such a high number of able and enthusiastic contributors to Syriac studies. 'Syriac Lexis and Lexica: Compiling ancient and modern vocabularies' brings together contributions from many different corners of lexicology and lexicography, and testifies to the richness of such subjects, which still offer scholars many possible approaches and research trajectories. This volume is the result of a round table 'Lexicologie et lexicographie syriaque', which took place at the 13th Syriac Symposium, held in Paris in July 2022.

The Journal of Language Relationship is an international periodical publication devoted to the issues of comparative linguistics and the history of the human language. The Journal contains articles written in English and Russian, as well as scientific reviews, discussions and reports from international linguistic conferences and seminars.