This volume of essays emphasizes the common theme that bodies of water may segregate, but, ironically, also unite nations and their readers through the literature that authors from various countries produce. It reveals the importance of valuing literature that, over time, has travelled down bubbling streams, across lakes, along ocean waves, and white-water rivers because fiction, drama, and poetry know neither actual nor artificial boundaries, and, therefore, they cross-fertilize, and even transform, beliefs, practices, and roles across cultures. Topics examined here range from South Africa’s on-going crises that, in part, mirror those of Somalia and Mozambique to poetry that has been reinvented as a literature in movement and to philosopher Henri Bergson’s influence on other philosophers, as well as Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek. The scholars contributing to this collection hail from across the globe, allowing the work to add to conversations on regional and international literary study, with special emphasis on writings from such places as Japan, Luxembourg, the Caribbean, the United States, Hungary, South Africa, Greece, and Turkey.

730 million people—almost 10% of the world’s population—inhabit islands. One quarter of the states represented at the United Nations are islands. Islands constitute almost twenty percent of the total land area of Greece, and exhibit more significant aspects of biodiversity than other global contexts. They are both occasions of triumph and occurrences of catastrophe. Islands are both open and enclosed communities, points of arrival and departure. Islands exert a fascination for the visitor and generate, in the islander, both positive and negative mindsets. The romantic fallacies about self-sufficiency and insularity of islands are constantly challenged. This collection of essays by scholars from some of the world’s most compelling islands—Jersey, Ireland, Tasmania, Corfu, Ereikousa, Prince Edward Island, Malta—explores the psychology of islands, islanders and their visitors, the literatures they stimulate, and the scientific, ethical and biogeographical issues they present in an increasingly globalised world. Corfu, the home of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell in the 1930s, and host to literary and scientific enquiry, is the place where this collection was conceived, and occupies a central place in its discussions.

"Shattering the Looking Glass is a thorough, comprehensive volume that defines, analyzes, defends, and often critiques the current state of Children's Literature within American Culture. The book is designed to tackle the major concerns revolving around Children's Literature today, including: the influence of politics and political agendas on the market, quality, and themes; the disagreements over the integration of diversity and diverse ideas into books for children; theoretical and academic discourses that are feeding topics, characters, and narrative structures; and, threaded throughout all of these topics, is a discussion of how these texts can be integrated into the classroom. This book is ideal for the in-service professional who wants insights into the current cultural mindset concerning children's literature, as well as professors who integrate theory and culture into undergraduate and graduate education courses."--pub. desc.