Plebeian Prose is a key work by the pioneering Argentine Brazilian anthropologist, sociologist and poet Néstor Perlongher. Perlongher, whose work has been highly influential in the development of Latin American cultural theory and literature, represents an original critical ‘queer’ voice in Latin American thought. This book is an exploration of the politics of desire, questions of identity, Latin American neo-baroque aesthetics, sexual dissidence, violence and jouissance. Prompted by his reading of Gilles Deleuze, the link between politics and desire remains central to all Perlongher’s reflections and gives his writings a lasting topicality. A thinker of the streets with a keen interest in those on the margins of society, the ideas that are developed in this book offer a lucid critique of capitalism and institutional power. Perlongher’s approach also reflects a particular Latin American neo-baroque style, a mode of critique whose value endures today. Providing insight into Latin American culture and politics of the late twentieth century, Plebeian Prose will be of particular interest to anyone working on critical theory, literary theory, anthropology, sociology and gender studies.

Plebeian Prose is a key work by the pioneering Argentine Brazilian anthropologist, sociologist and poet Néstor Perlongher. Perlongher, whose work has been highly influential in the development of Latin American cultural theory and literature, represents an original critical ‘queer’ voice in Latin American thought. This book is an exploration of the politics of desire, questions of identity, Latin American neo-baroque aesthetics, sexual dissidence, violence and jouissance. Prompted by his reading of Gilles Deleuze, the link between politics and desire remains central to all Perlongher’s reflections and gives his writings a lasting topicality. A thinker of the streets with a keen interest in those on the margins of society, the ideas that are developed in this book offer a lucid critique of capitalism and institutional power. Perlongher’s approach also reflects a particular Latin American neo-baroque style, a mode of critique whose value endures today. Providing insight into Latin American culture and politics of the late twentieth century, Plebeian Prose will be of particular interest to anyone working on critical theory, literary theory, anthropology, sociology and gender studies.

Now reissued in an updated paperback edition, this groundbreaking account of the Medieval Revival movement examines the ways in which the style of the medieval period was re-established in post-Enlightenment England—from Walpole and Scott, Pugin, Ruskin, and Tennyson to Pound, Tolkien, and Rowling. “Medievalism . . . takes a panoramic view of the ‘recovery’ of the Medieval in English literature, visual arts and culture. . . . Ambitious, sweeping, sometimes idiosyncratic, but always interesting.”—Rosemary Ashton, Times Literary Supplement “Deeply researched and stylishly written, Medievalism is an unalloyed delight that will instruct and amuse a wide readership.”—Edward Short, Books & Culture

In this impressive study, David Rich demonstrates how the modernization of Russia's general staff during the second half of the nineteenth century reshaped its intellectual and strategic outlook and equipped the staff to play a strong, and at times dominant, role in shaping Russian foreign policy. Rich weaves together several levels of narrative to show how the increasingly sophisticated, scientific, and positivistic work attitudes and habits of the general staff acculturated younger officers, redefining their relationship with, and responsibilities to, the state. In time, this new generation of officers projected their characteristic notions onto the state and onto autocracy itself; professional concern for the security of the state eclipsed traditional unquestioning loyalty to the regime. Rich goes on to show how divergence between diplomatic and military aims among those responsible for making strategy cost the state dearly in terms of economic stability and international standing. The author supports his findings with original research in Russian foreign policy and military archives and wide reading in published sources. The Tsar's Colonels contributes to a number of debates in Russian military and social history and offers new insights on the structural roots of the Great War, and on the theoretical problems of modernization and professionalization.

Georg Lukács was one of the most controversial Marxist philosophers of this century. In this book, however, he appears in another guise: as a literary historian in the tradition of Sainte-Beuve and Belinsky, offering an advanced introduction to one of the richest periods of European literature. These previously untranslated essays - on Heinrich von Kleist, Joseph Eichendorff, Georg Büchner, Heinrich Heine, Gottfried Keller, Wilhelm Raabe, and Theodor Fontane - were written between 1936 and 1950. They illuminate Lukács's enduring love of German literature and his faith in the humanist tradition. In all of them, moreover, he can be seen actively intervening in the cultural debates of the time - on the role of literature, on the literary tradition in society, and on the relationship between literature and politics. Although his defense of realism against the crudities of socialist realism is implicit throughout these essays, Lukács's main purpose was to illuminate the intellectual, historical, and literary context in which these great writers worked, to attain a fuller understanding of what they wrote, and also to settle accounts with contemporary German critics who were attempting to create a fascist pantheon.