This is the first full-length study in English of Camus's life-long fascination with the works of the Russian writer Feodor Dostoevsky. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate the ways in which Dostoevsky's thought and fiction served to stimulate and crystallize Camus's own thinking. Davison lucidly identifies the lines of divergence and counter-arguments which Camus produced as answers to the challenge of Dostoevsky's Christian/Tzarist vision of life. The traditional methods of comparative literary criticism are jettisoned in favour of the more exciting claim that Camus's literary and philosophical texts can be read as precise and detailed replies to some of Dostoevsky's central beliefs about immortality, religion and politics. The study ranges freely over the entirety of the works of both major writers.

A New York Times Notable Book Filled with beautiful color art, dynamic storytelling, and insightful analysis, Hillary Chute reveals what makes one of the most critically acclaimed and popular art forms so unique and appealing, and how it got that way. “In her wonderful book, Hillary Chute suggests that we’re in a blooming, expanding era of the art… Chute’s often lovely, sensitive discussions of individual expression in independent comics seem so right and true.” — New York Times Book Review Over the past century, fans have elevated comics from the back pages of newspapers into one of our most celebrated forms of culture, from Fun Home, the Tony Award–winning musical based on Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking graphic memoir, to the dozens of superhero films that are annual blockbusters worldwide. What is the essence of comics’ appeal? What does this art form do that others can’t? Whether you’ve read every comic you can get your hands on or you’re just starting your journey, Why Comics? has something for you. Author Hillary Chute chronicles comics culture, explaining underground comics (also known as “comix”) and graphic novels, analyzing their evolution, and offering fascinating portraits of the creative men and women behind them. Chute reveals why these works—a blend of concise words and striking visuals—are an extraordinarily powerful form of expression that stimulates us intellectually and emotionally. Focusing on ten major themes—disaster, superheroes, sex, the suburbs, cities, punk, illness and disability, girls, war, and queerness—Chute explains how comics get their messages across more effectively than any other form. “Why Disaster?” explores how comics are uniquely suited to convey the scale and disorientation of calamity, from Art Spiegelman’s representation of the Holocaust and 9/11 to Keiji Nakazawa’s focus on Hiroshima. “Why the Suburbs?” examines how the work of Chris Ware and Charles Burns illustrates the quiet joys and struggles of suburban existence; and “Why Punk?” delves into how comics inspire and reflect the punk movement’s DIY aesthetics—giving birth to a democratic medium increasingly embraced by some of today’s most significant artists. Featuring full-color reproductions of more than one hundred essential pages and panels, including some famous but never-before-reprinted images from comics legends, Why Comics? is an indispensable guide that offers a deep understanding of this influential art form and its masters.

Sara B. Pritchard traces the Rhône’s remaking since 1945, showing how state officials, technical elites, and citizens connected the environment and technology to political identities and state-building, and demonstrating the importance of environmental management and technological development to the culture and politics of modern France.

Critics, theologians, philosophers, and psychoanalysts have written several thousand books, theses, and articles about Camus' fiction. His first published novel, L'Etranger, had a unique impact on a whole generation of readers, and is other fiction, although not as well known, has also been influential. However, Camus' fiction so far has not been judged by contemporary critical methods, and 'inter-textuality,' or the study of the interrelationship between Camus' own texts, has not been examined. The Narcissistic Text: A Reading of Camus' Fiction is the first book devoted to the whole of Camus' fiction to adopt this approach. Brian Fitch uses the critical tools elaborated in the writings of such French formalists as Barthes, Ricardou, and Todorov and draws upon the hermeneutic theory of literature developed by Gadamer and Ricoeur. As a result, the self-generating word-play or linguistic narcissism of 'Jonas' and the textual narcissism of La Peste are seen to give way, in L'Etranger, to a situation where the hermeneutic circle is itself contained within the circularity of autoreprésentation. As for the narcissism of La Chute, it concerns the reader himself, since what the text provides is a model of the hermeneutic process. Fitch thus demonstrates that Camus' fiction occupies a significant place in modern literature. This volume will be of particular interest to those involved in Camus studies or concerned with contemporary critical methodology and literary theory.

This book approaches literary existentialism (1935-1960) from a philosophical point of view and provides a semantic frame through which the primary works of this movement can be interpreted. Readings of Sartre, Sábato, Camus, Böll, De Beauvoir, Nooteboom, and others emphasize the place and themes specific to each writer within literary existentialism as a whole. One of the most original features of this study is its focus on the central notion of 'engagement' after 1960. Having highlighted its waning in postmodernism, van Stralen then demonstrates the vigorous resurgence of this pivotal concept in postcolonial discourses.