First published in 1989, this collection of essays brings into focus the history of a specific form of violence that of representation. The contributors identify representations of self and other that empower a particular class, gender, nation, or race, constructing a history of the west as the history of changing modes of subjugation. The essays bring together a wide range of literary and historical work to show how writing became an increasingly important mode of domination during the modern period as ruling ideas became a form of violence in their own right. This reissue will be of...

In "The Ideology of Conduct," first published in 1987, " "scholars from various fields, from the medieval period to the present day, discuss literature in which the sole purpose is to instruct women in how to make themselves desirable.

This collection investigates how middle-class writers who had long emulated the behaviour of the aristocracy began to criticise that behaviour by formulating an alternative object of desire. They did so without appearing to breed political controversy because it seemed to concern only the female. But writing for and about women in fact became a powerful...