How have developments in literary and cultural theory transformed our understanding of narrative? What has happened to narrative in the wake of poststructuralism? What is the role and function of narrative in the contemporary world? In this revised, updated and expanded new edition of an established text, Mark Currie explores these central questions and guides students through the complex theories that have shaped the study of narrative in recent decades. Postmodern Narrative Theory, Second Edition: - Establishes direct links between the workings of fictional narratives and those of the...

This introductory guide to Louis Althusser provides the first major overview of his work since the publication in French of thousands of pages of essays, books and letters unknown before 1990. Focusing on Althusser's writing on art, theatre and literature (as well of those of his collaborator, Pierre Macherey), Warren Montag traces the contradictory development of Althusser's thought from the early sixties to his autobiography, The Future Lasts Forever. Montag also explores how Althusser's reflections on reading can shed new light on well-known texts such as Heart of...

One of the characteristic features of the linguistic situation of contemporary Iran is the coexistence of two standards of Modern Persian: the written and the spoken. While literature is generally composed in the written variety, the typically "spoken" forms are also to be found in the literary text. Modern spoken Persian in Contemporary Iranian Novels is a study of these. A scrutinous analysis of five carefully selected novels with methods drawing mostly from the register analysis seeks answers to questions such as: what features are characteristic to the spoken variety of language, how are...

This book illustrates that the idea of a 'national' literature is profoundly problematic. Chapters on boundaries and crisscrossing show how a nation and its writers' works do not exist in isolation from their history. Stressing migration and (inter)cultural dialogue, authors explore how the characters in the texts establish a sense of belonging both within the context of migrations and within the context of Lithuania since its independence. The final series of essays in this book discusses Lithuanian literature abroad that is in translation.