ARTS AND DESIGN
- The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain
Edited by Alden Cavanaugh, associate professor of art history, Indiana State University; and Michael E. Yonan, assistant professor of 18th- and 19th-century art, University of Missouri-Columbia. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754663867
This edited volume aims to present new interpretative frameworks in the study of 18th-century porcelain, featuring contributors who analyse its aesthetic qualities and look at how they reinforce and challenge the social processes within which the ceramic objects were viewed, collected and used.
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
- Plant Physiology
By Lincoln Taiz, professor emeritus in the department of MCD biology, University of California, Santa Cruz; and Eduardo Zeiger, professor emeritus in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, University of California, Los Angeles. Palgrave, £53.99. ISBN 9780878935659
The fifth edition of this text sees Taiz and Zeiger collaborate with leading plant biologists to produce an up-to-date work incorporating the most recent findings. It features new chapters on signal transduction, genome structure and gene expression.
- Cenozoic Mammals of Africa
Edited by Lars Werdelin, senior curator, Swedish Museum of Natural History; and William Joseph Sanders, research scientist, University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. University of California Press, £65.00. ISBN 9780520257214
African mammalian fossil records over the past 65 million years are reviewed in this edited volume, which offers detailed compilations of fossil site occurrences alongside information regarding the paleobiology, phylogeny and biogeography of the creatures.
ENGLISH
- Yeats's Poetry in the Making: Sing Whatever Is Well Made
By Wayne K. Chapman, professor of English, Clemson University. Palgrave, £60.00. ISBN 97802301913
Tracing the creative process in Yeats' writing, this book incorporates unpublished material to bring to light previously overlooked or inadequately presented findings in studies of the Irish poet. Chapman considers his lyrical and philosophical poetry, verse-drama, and the contexts of personal and political events, and offers a chronology of the composition of Yeats' poems.
HISTORY
- The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society: Global Perspectives from Early Modern to Contemporary Times
Edited by Beverly Lemire, founding director, Material Culture Institute, University of Alberta. Ashgate, £60.00. ISBN 97814094049
This volume analyses cultural, economic and political shifts in societies from the 17th to the 21st centuries from the perspective of fashion. In doing so, Lemire seeks to demonstrate the impact the industry has had on the production, distribution and circulation of goods in different societies.
- Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab
By Farina Mir, assistant professor of history, University of Michigan. University of California Press, £.95. ISBN 9780520262690
Mir examines how qisse literature flourished in colonial Punjab despite efforts by British imperial forces to marginalise the Punjabi language. Via an exploration of topics including Punjabi linguistic practices, print and performance, she finds that the resilience of the popular genre came from its old but dynamic corpus of stories, their representations of place, and the moral sensibility that suffused them.
- Technology and the American Way of War since 1945
By Thomas G. Mahnken, professor of strategy, US Naval War College. Columbia University Press, £18.50. ISBN 9780231123372
Tracing the development and integration of new technologies into the US military, Mahnken draws attention to their influence on the organisation, mission and culture of the armed services, and discusses how they may exploit opportunities from the information revolution in the future.
LITERARY STUDIES
- A.C. Swinburne and the Singing Word: New Perspectives on the Mature Work
Edited by Yisrael Levin, lecturer, department of English, University of Victoria, Canada. Ashgate, £50.00. ISBN 9780754669968
Focusing on the English poet's later writings, this collection looks to contextualise his work in the light of concepts such as Victorian mythography, positivism and empiricism. It seeks to present readers with a richer portrait of Swinburne's importance as a poet, critic and fiction writer.
MUSIC STUDIES
- Adrian Willaert and the Theory of Interval Affect
By Timothy R. McKinney, associate professor in the School of Music, Baylor University. Ashgate, £60.00. ISBN 9780754665090
McKinney explores the work of Willaert to reconstruct theories concerning music's ability to communicate extra-musical ideas. Engaging with the Venetian composer's landmark Musica nova collection, the author looks to demonstrate that they articulate a theory of musical affect more complex and forward-looking than has been recognised.
- She's So Fine: Reflections on Whiteness, Femininity, Adolescence and Class in 1960s Music
Edited by Laurie Stras, senior lecturer in music, University of Southampton. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9781409400516
This edited volume explores the music, reception and cultural significance of female singers and groups in the US and the UK during the 1960s, including artists such as Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Tina Turner and Marianne Faithfull.
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY
- Modern/Postmodern: Society, Philosophy, Literature
By Peter V. Zima, professor of general and comparative literature, University of Klagenfurt. Continuum, £65.00. ISBN 9780826424020
Zima offers a new definition of modernism and postmodernism by taking a contrastive approach to the two. Highlighting the core concepts of ambiguity, ambivalence and indifference in this study, he defines the two thoughts as problematics, as opposed to aesthetics, stylistics or ideologies.
- Theodicy and Justice in Modern Islamic Thought : The Case of Said Nursi
Edited by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, ECMC chair of Islamic studies, University of Alberta. Ashgate, £55.00 and £17.99. ISBN 9781409406181 and 6174
Exploring the theology and philosophy of the 20th-century Muslim scholar, theologian and founder of a "faith movement" in Turkey, this volume sheds light on the dimensions of theodicy and justice in his thought and compares it with the work of key Western philosophers and theologians.
- Foucault: His Thought, His Character
By Paul Veyne, honorary professor, College de France. Wiley, £50.00 and £15.99. ISBN 9780745646411 and 6428
Veyne offers a fresh look at the work of Foucault, and relaunches the debate surrounding his ideas and legacy. Investigating the crux of Foucault's thought, he seeks to dismiss any confusion and misunderstandings that have previously characterised the interpretation of his work.
SOCIAL SCIENCES
- Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories
Edited by Aleida Assmann, professor of English literature and literary theory, University of Konstanz; and Sebastian Conrad, professor of modern history, Free University of Berlin. Palgrave, £55.00. ISBN 97802302910
This volume assembles texts written from varying cultural positions and disciplinary backgrounds. Emphasising the positionality of memory production as it is negotiated locally and globally, it seeks to examine the problematics of memory in a global age.
- The Rey Chow Reader
Edited by Paul Bowman, teacher in cultural studies, Cardiff University. Columbia University Press, £58.50. ISBN 9780231149945
Bowman offers the first anthology to bring together key moments in the thought of the prominent postcolonial cultural critic, and presents readers with an introduction to some of her most forceful theoretical explorations of long-standing and new issues in literature, film and visual studies, sexuality and gender, ethnicity and cross-cultural politics.
See www.timeshighereducation.co.uk for more listings.