Kroeber argues that literary criticism needs to reestablish connections to a wide range of social activities, especially the thinking of contemporary scientists.

This new kind of criticism, "ecological literary criticism," sets out to correct the abstractions of current theorizing about literature, and to make humanistic studies more socially responsible. Though applicable to any writer of any period, Kroeber points out that the proto-ecological tendencies of the English Romantic poets make them especially useful as a starting point for this approach. Since the Romantics believed that...

The ultimate science fiction classic

For more than one hundred years this compelling tale of the Martian invasion of Earth has enthralled readers with a combination of imagination and incisive commentary on the imbalance of power that continues to be relevant today

Nine tales, selected and retold here by anthropologist and author Theodora Kroeber for the adult general-interest reader. The new foreword by her son, Karl Kroeber, provides context about the author's methods and describes his own personal connection to the stories themselves.

This challenging study analyzes nearly forty superb stories, from mythic narratives predating Columbus to contemporary American Indian fiction, representing every traditional Native American culture area. Developing recent ethnopoetic scholarship and drawing on the critical ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin and Pierre Bourdieu, Karl Kroeber reveals how preconceptions deriving from our hypervisual, print-dominated culture distort our understanding of essential functions and forms of oral storytelling. Kroeber demonstrates that myths do not merely preserve tradition but may transform it by...

This anthology fills the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date collection of the most important contemporary writings on the English romantic poets. It should replace the last anthology of essays on romantic poetry, which appeared almost twenty years ago when few women wrote about these poets, and gender studies of literature had barely begun.

This collection celebrates the resurgence of Native Americans within the cultural landscape of the United States. During the past quarter century, the Native American population in the United States has seen an astonishing demographic growth reaching beyond all biological probability as increasing numbers of Americans desire to admit or to claim Native American ancestry. This volume illustrates a unique moment in history, as unprecedented numbers of Native Americans seek to create a powerful, flexible sense of cultural identity.
Diverse commentators, including literary critics,...

This study provides the first detailed contrast between the experiences of reading a novel and watching a movie. Kroeber shows how fiction evokes morally inflected imagining, and how movies reveal through magnification of human movements and expression subjective effects of complex social changes.

The myths and legends in this book have been selected both for their excellence as stories and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling.

• A collection of Native American myths and legends.
  
• Selected for their excellence as stories, and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling.
  
• Drawn from the oral traditions of all major areas of aboriginal North America.
  
• Reveals the highly practical functions of myths and legends in Native American...

Ishi in Three Centuries brings together a range of insightful and unsettling perspectives and the latest research to enrich and personalize our understanding of one of the most famous Native Americans of the modern era-Ishi, the last Yahi. After decades of concealment from genocidal attacks on his people in California, Ishi (ca. 1860-1916) came out of hiding in 1911 and lived the last five years of his life in the University of California Anthropological Museum in San Francisco. Contributors to this volume illuminate Ishi the person, his relationship to anthropologist A. L. Kroeber and...

The myths and legends in this book have been selected both for their excellence as stories and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling.

• A collection of Native American myths and legends.
  
• Selected for their excellence as stories, and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling.
  
• Drawn from the oral traditions of all major areas of aboriginal North America.
  
• Reveals the highly practical functions of myths and legends in Native American...