This cutting-edge book explores Shakespeare’s negotiation of Reformation controversy about theories of salvation. While twentieth century literary criticism tended to regard Shakespeare as a harbinger of secularism, the so-called “turn to religion” in early modern studies has given renewed attention to the religious elements in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Nevertheless, there remains an aura of uncertainty regarding some of the doctrinal and liturgical specificities of the period. This historical gap is especially felt with respect to theories of salvation, or soteriology. Such ambiguity, however, calls for further inquiry into historical theology. The author explores how the language and concepts of faith, grace, charity, the sacraments, election, free will, justification, sanctification, and atonement find expression in Shakespeare’s plays. In doing so, this book contributes to the recovery of a greater understanding of the relationship between early modern religion and Shakespearean drama. While the author shares David Scott Kastan’s reluctance to attribute particular religious convictions to Shakespeare, in some cases such critical guardedness has diverted attention from the religious topography of Shakespeare’s plays. Throughout this study, the author’s hermeneutic is to read Shakespeare through the lens of early modern theological controversy and to read early modern theology through the lens of Shakespeare.

Catholic themes and imagery in the work of writers including Toni Morrison, Leon Forrest, Phyllis Alesia Perry, and Charles Johnson  Sacraments of Memory is the first book to focus on Catholic themes and imagery in African American literature. Erin Michael Salius discovers striking elements of the religion in neo-slave narratives written by Toni Morrison, Leon Forrest, Phyllis Alesia Perry, and Charles Johnson, among others. Examining the emergence of this major literary genre following Vatican II and amidst the Black Power and civil rights movements, she uncovers the presence of Catholic rituals and mysteries—including references to the Eucharist, Augustinian theology, spirit possession, and stigmata. These textual references occur alongside and in tension with criticisms of the Church's political and social policies.  Salius offers a nuanced reading of Beloved that interprets the novel in light of Toni Morrison's affiliation with the religion. She argues that Morrison, and the other novelists in this study, draw on a Catholic countertradition in American literature that resists Enlightenment rationality. She highlights allusions to Catholic tropes such as the connections between spirit possession and the hijacking of Jane's narrative voice in Ernest Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Salius also identifies Augustinian theology on the prescience of God in the flash-forward narrative techniques used in Edward P. Jones's The Known World.  These authors use Catholicism to challenge the historical realism of past slave autobiographies and the conventional story of American slavery. Ultimately, Salius contends that this tradition enables these novelists to imagine and express radically different ways of remembering the past.   Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The longstanding challenge and problem of living through tragedy, as opposed to living beyond it or simply carrying on in spite of it, is highlighted in this extensive and in-depth scholarly study. Shakespeare was able to live through tragedy and consequently could come into those higher evolutionary states of mind and being, until now so little known, that are so impressively represented in his last plays. Remembering Shakespeare, in this year of the 400th anniversary of his death, would seem to call especially for this most far-reaching aspect of his achievement, for so long unrecognized, to be at last duly noted and laid open to view.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Ophelia tells King Claudius, "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be," she implies more than that we can never know what will happen next, that we have no grounds on which to make significant decisions in the conduct of our lives. She herself had done little or nothing to bring about her present state. Now she is quite mad. Claudius, too, could never have guessed where he would end. Yet the rest of us, although not significantly more knowing than they, profess to think we can actually make Me decisions which genuinely good reasons will support.Experience seems to have convinced us that, deficient in self-knowledge though we may be, sometimes the arrow of decision reaches its mark. Kadish examines how decisions hi the conduct of our lives are possible, how they may be justified, and what the limits of that justification might be for a self that defines itself in a context of social change. Although the need for self-justification tends to be regarded as a weakness, this book suggests that it may also be regarded as the inevitable outcome of the desire to make justifiable decisions, those for which on reflection one can approve oneself.The prime problem of the conduct of life, according to Kadish, is to say when one can and when one cannot justify oneself for one's conduct not to others but to oneself. He proposes that through self judgment individuals develop that very self-interest in virtue of which they endeavor to choose one course of action rather than another. He proposes also that they justify and form themselves through their self-identification as members of communities in conflict and in process of transformation. From this difficult social and human condition the basic problems of ethical and social theory, together with the possibility of a theory of good reasons, are held to arise.In the present time of discontent and emphasis on change hi social, economic, and political life, The Ophelia Paradox has a particular pertinence to the prospects for resolving the basic issues of conduct. It should be of interest to philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists, and of special relevance to anyone concerned with the interrelationships of ethics, art, and law.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! If you think you know Ophelia and Hamlet's story, think again... "A spellbinding tale of love, murder, and revenge." -- VOYA As ambitious and witty as she is beautiful, Ophelia is quick to catch the eye of the captivating prince Hamlet. Their love blossoms in secret, but bloody deeds soon turn Denmark into a place of madness, and Ophelia may be forced to choose between her relationship and her own life. In desperation, she devises a plan to escape from Elsinore Castle forever... with one very dangerous secret. Ophelia takes center stage in this bold and thrilling reimagining of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, the story of a young woman falling in love, searching for her place in the world, and finding the strength to survive.

No other book on Hamlet has yet to consider the way in which the play in its four major aspects of Sorrow, Sexuality, Revenge, and Death, consistently reflects the otherworldly direction of Hamlet's thought and experience ... the elegant and subtle prose lends force and dignity to the argument ... a remarkable and provocative contribution to Shakespeare Studies. {Corona Sharp, English Studies in Canada}

A wrenching psychological thriller in the vein of Tana French’s In the Woods, Jon Bassoff’s Beneath Cruel Waters reminds us that the sins of the mothers are the sins of the sons. Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter? And what role did his sister, institutionalized since she was a teenager, play in this act of violence? As his own traumatic memories begin to resurface, Holt begins an investigation into his mother’s and sister’s pasts—as well as his own.

For more than a decade, Americanists have been concerned with the problem of ideology, and have undertaken a broad reassessment of American literature and culture. This volume brings together some of the best work in this area.

Having already proven himself victorious over the first battle of New Frontier City, Art along with Samantha and her 7 Generals are now trying to reintegrate themselves back into society and prove that they have their best interest as their new leaders. Of course, this all happens when the Immortan Amare decided to kidnap Art and have him fully embrace his immortal heritage, leaving everyone worried as to what might come without the presence of their hero.