DRAMA & PERFORMANCE STUDIES - THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE
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192 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
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Arden Studies in Early Modern Drama
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
264 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
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UK February 2026 • US February 2026
312 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
The Texts of Shakespeare
The Transformation of Popular Theatre to Printed Book
Stephen Orgel, Stanford University, USA
How did plays from the popular theatre, written by an author better known as a poet, become the greatest literary monument in English? Renowned Shakespearean Stephen Orgel reveals how the transformation of Shakespeare’s scripts was a triumph of both editorial intervention and marketing.
By no means the most admired playwright of his time, Shakespeare’s most popular work during his lifetime and for decades afterwards was the long poem Venus and Adonis, first published in 1593 It wasn’t until 1598 that Shakespeare’s name appeared on the title page of a book, so how did Shakespeare’s plays become the benchmark of English Renaissance drama? By examining the process of transformation from performance script to published book Orgel provides an accessible story of the making of Shakespeare’s reputation in print and of how the publication of his plays in a grand folio in 1623 made a radical claim for his plays as literature, in effect declaring his plays modern classics
With chapters on the poems, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Pericles and Macbeth, this book offers a number of case studies illustrating a variety of problems of dealing with the quartos, as well as how different a ‘good’ text of a play was for Shakespeare’s readers and for modern scholars It closes with an account of the production of the first folio, which, with the precedent of the Ben Jonson folio of 1616, effectively conferred classic status on this popular dramatist
OPEN ACCESS
Mirrors in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Drama Power, Gender and the Magic of the Theatre
Valentina Finger, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Mirrors in the early modern playhouse function as figures of theatricality, reflecting gender dynamics and challenging sovereign power, in this open-access study of their use as stage props and rhetorical devices in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries
Valentina Finger highlights the rich complexity of mirrors and acts of mirroring on the early modern stage The case studies in this book traverse myths of monarchs and imperial mirrors in Richard II and Macbeth, explore acts of exemplary selfgovernment and court politics in Edward I and Bussy D'Ambois, constitute cosmetic mirrors as canvases for feminine selfauthorship in The Duchess of Malfi and The Devil's Charter and illuminate the interplay of scientific knowledge, magic and trick glasses in The Alchemist and A Game at Chess
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4 0 licence on bloomsburycollections com Open access was funded by the SFB 1369 Vigilanzkulturen (CRC 1369 Cultures of Vigilance) at Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität Munich with resources provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)
Festival Shakespeares
Networking Performance Across Europe
Rowena Hawkins, Independent Researcher
Rowena Hawkins develops an analysis of the European Shakespeare Festivals Network (ESFN) as a productive, intercultural space that destabilises traditional hierarchies in theatre This book argues that ESFN performances offer audiences opportunities to rethink, rewrite and, crucially, to ‘network’ Shakespeare through active and comparative spectatorship
Hawkins explores the locations in which Shakespeare Festivals are held and the dislocations that occur when festival Shakespeares move between them, asking what it means to host a range of global Shakespeare productions in historicallysignificant locations, such as castles or reconstructed early modern theatres She considers whether festivals hosted in such sites produce different meanings for festivalgoers than those hosted in modern theatre spaces Using two audience research studies, Hawkins draws out interesting facts about what international Shakespeare festivals mean to those who attend them, what they can offer a divided Europe and how modern retellings of early modern plays influence and complicate local political contexts
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Shakespeare and Adaptation
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
248 Pages 3 bw illus
PB 9781350337862 • £28 99 / $39 95
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The Arden Shakespeare
Classicizing Shakespeare
Jean-François Ducis and the First European Adaptations
Michèle Willems, University of Rouen, France
This book explores the nature and wide-ranging impact of the work of Jean-François Ducis (1733-1816), the first adaptor of Hamlet and of five other Shakespeare tragedies for the French theatre
Jean-François Ducis is anything but prominent in the histories of Shakespeare adaptation, yet he was pivotal in introducing French and European audiences to Shakespeare’s plays on the stage His Hamlet, tragédie imitée de l’anglais, performed at the Comédie française in 1769, was the first representation of a Shakespeare play on a French stage and was still performed in 1851 Despite his total ignorance of English, Ducis also adapted Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, King John and Othello, plays which were then translated, like his Hamlet, into a number of European languages
Classicizing Shakespeare studies Ducis’s Shakespearean corpusin the context of the neoclassical climate which, a century earlier, had set off a wave of adaptations in England Within the wider picture of the European representation of Shakespeare on the stage from 1660 to 1850, the study of Ducis’s emblematic case sheds further light on the rationale of these English adaptations as well as on the reception of Shakespeare’s plays in most Continental countries well into the 19th century Willems’ rich contextual study demonstrates why the translations of Ducis’s own ‘imitations’ were instrumental in exporting Shakespeare all over the Continent Through attention to the professional relationship with the renowned actor, François-Joseph Talma, Classicizing Shakespeare reveals too how collaborative practices in the theatre impact on the evolution of a text
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Shakespeare and Adaptation
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
288 Pages • 30 bw illus
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare and Ballet
Gender, Sexuality, Race and Politics on Stage
David Fuller, University of Durham, UK
This new and comprehensive study of Shakespearean ballets and their unique interpretive possibilities is also the first to foreground the importance of music to the aesthetics and meanings of Shakespeare dance-works
Organised around adaptations of key plays, each chapter offers close study of the contrasting interpretations and styles of a number of choreographers and illuminates issues of gender, sexuality, race and politics
While Shakespeare’s work is recreated in diverse forms in theatres all over the world, ballet is potentially one of the most international and inclusive forms of theatrical expression, based in the fundamental expressive potential of the body Since it moved into the avant-garde more than a century ago, it has been in the forefront of invention and experiment in the theatrical arts and yet the hundreds of ballets which have been based on Shakespeare’s work have received scant attention in Shakespearean scholarship and criticism
David Fuller explores a wide range of Shakespeare’s oeuvre as it has been recreated in this form, with studies of ballets based on some of his most famous works, including The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Sonnets, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and The Tempest With analysis of productions from the 1940s to the present by British, American and European choreographers, it reads these as forms of creative criticism which reflect wider developments in society and in so doing show Shakespeare as perpetually contemporary
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Shakespeare and Adaptation
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
270 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Race and Anglophone Popular Culture
Edited by Vanessa I Corredera, Baylor University, USA & L Monique Pittman, Andrews University, USA
This collection theorizes the intersections between race, Shakespearean adaptation and pop culture Chapters take a range of investigative approaches, some centring Shakespeare and others using Shakespeare to theorize pop culture, but all focusing on the ethical implications of the triangulation between Shakespeare, pop culture and race
Chapters explore the tensions between the ‘low’, racialized status of a pop culture form and Shakespeare’s ‘high’ status; the ways race informs a specific Shakespearean reference (in film, television, music, Young Adult literature and self-help manuals, among other forms); and the influence loop between Shakespeare and the systemic racism of creative industries, such as Hollywood and book publishing
As the analysis of race expands within Shakespeare studies, so too, this collection argues, should the archives for analyzing Shakespeare and race grow While it is now more common to consider race and embodiment in both early modern and contemporary Shakespearean performance and adaptation, pop culture remains underexplored and undertheorized As this collection demonstrates, rigorous theoretical and methodological approaches can illuminate how pop culture uses Shakespeare to uphold, contest and shape existing racial imaginaries for broad audiences
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Shakespeare and Adaptation
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
304 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
Macbeth in Modern European Culture
Edited by Juan F Cerdá, University of Murcia, Spain & Paul Prescott, University of Warwick, UK
This book explores the crucial role Shakespeare’s play has performed in European culture in the long 20th century
The story of regicide, ambition, civil war and tyranny has resonated across a continent ravaged by armed conflict and riven by competing political and ideological systems Equally, the play s acute explorations of gender dynamics, mental breakdown, guilt and suicide have spoken to the psychological and interpersonal pressures of European life in the ‘Age of Extremes’
This unique book gathers expert contributors from across the continent to explore adaptations of the play from 1870-2020 Each chapter explores the fascination Macbeth has exerted in a remarkable variety of places and contexts, from Stalin’s Russia to contemporary Catalonia, from the Scottish tourist industry to the French radio airwaves Throughout, we see how European adaptors have been liberated from the demands of fidelity to the original Anglophone text From a European perspective, Macbeth offers a powerful myth that is both flawed and somehow indispensable It demands to be re-told but it also requires fixing through adaptation
This collection is distinctive in the sheer range of adaptations it considers: while the stage is represented throughout, we also learn about Macbeth on radio, in novels, in poetry, in graphic art and photography, adapted for local political and personal resonances in private such as letters and diaries, but also in the public spheres of newspaper columns and highprofile court cases Anyone who reads this book will never see the play in the same way again
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Shakespeare in the Theatre
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
248 Pages 13 bw illus
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare in the Theatre: Reduced Shakespeare Company
Ronan
Hatfull, University of Warwick, UK
The first dedicated historical study of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, this book explores the troupe’s four major Shakespearean works over the past four decades
The Reduced Shakespeare Company represent an American tale of how a small-scale, open-air troupe specialising in fastpaced, irreverent reductions of prominent topics have, since their formation in 1981, gradually expanded into a global theatre brand whose first play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), ran continuously for nine years in London’s West End and has been translated into thirty-eight languages
Drawing on previously unexamined archival material, as well as author interviews with the company’s five key players and attendance at rehearsals and performances in America and Britain, this book stands as the first dedicated study of this other RSC, presenting a critical analysis of the company’s signature blend of audience interaction, metatheatre, parody, pop culture references, Shakespearean intertextuality and vaudevillian humour
Each chapter is arranged to address a specific period within the RSC’s history of Shakespearean adaptation, offering a detailed exposition of their four major Shakespearean works over the past four decades The book’s epilogue considers their influence and legacy, submits a blueprint for reduction and contextualises the company within the ecosystem of contemporary performance
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Shakespeare in the Theatre
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
272 Pages • 12 bw illus
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare in the Theatre: The Stratford Festival
Christie Carson, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
This analysis of the Stratford Festival examines the full history of one of the largest and oldest dedicated centres for the performance of Shakespeare in North America
In English-speaking Canada, the Festival has become the unofficial national theatre, drawing both praise and criticism Dividing its history into three distinct periods, the volume begins with the foundation of the company, moving through its middle years of expansion and securing stability, and ending with an exploration of staging Shakespeare in the 21st century Through case studies of productions, covering each artistic director from Tyrone Guthrie to Antoni Cimolino, it highlights issues of national identity but also the relationship between actor and audience on the Festival’s unique thrust stage It not only explores the work of international stars such as Christopher Plummer, but also that of longstanding company members William Hutt and Martha Henry, emphasizing the Festival's collective spirit
This book argues that the Stratford Festival holds an influential position in the theatre world generally and in the Shakespeare performance environment specifically Initially this was because of the original stage built for its opening, but increasingly it has been due to the way that it has used Shakespeare’s work to articulate complex questions about identity and utilized technology to reach new audiences The Festival and its collaborative working methods grew out of a particular social and political climate, and when the actors and directors who trained at the Festival took their training and its influences elsewhere, they spread its impact
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UK January 2026 • US January 2026
256 Pages
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Violence and the Early Modern Spectator
Rebecca Yearling, Keele University, UK
Shakespeare's plays feature events of extreme violence Investigating the ways in which the original early modern audiences might have reacted to their scenes of violence, this volume reveals too the complex web of factors that shape our present-day responses to violence and suffering.
Drawing on a mixed methodology, Rebecca Yearling combines close textual analysis with insights from the history of emotions, early modern theatre and cultural history, performance studies and contemporary psychological research to model a new way of approaching early modern audience response
The book focuses on four key moments of violence: the rape and mutilation of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, the beheading of Cloten in Cymbeline, the blinding of Gloucester in King Lear and the murder of Desdemona in Othello Individual chapters situate these acts within their wider contexts, exploring how the performance conditions of Shakespeare’s time and broader Renaissance discourses surrounding violence, morality and entertainment shaped audience reactions By reconstructing these layered dynamics, Yearling illuminates the deeply social nature of violent spectacle In addition, the book argues that responses to fictional violence can reveal insights into how people engage with real-world violence In both cases, viewers confront moral dilemmas about who deserves empathy and who does not, in ways that reflect underlying social values and power structures
Importantly, Yearling also looks forward, suggesting that studying early modern responses to violence can simultaneously shed light on our own In an age saturated with violent media and real-world brutality, understanding how and why audiences respond to violence as they do is both historically significant and urgently contemporary This book, therefore, is not only about Shakespeare’s audiences – it is also about us
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UK March 2026 • US March 2026
256 Pages • 21 bw illus
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The Arden Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s First Folio 1623-2023
Text and Afterlives
Edited by Matthias Bauer, University of Tübingen, Germany & Angelika Zirker, University of Tübingen, Germany
This wide-ranging collection reflects on the various motivations that caused the Folio to come into being in 1623, 7 years after Shakespeare’s death, and on how the now iconic book has been continually reimagined after its initial publication to the present day
In honour of its original publication, Shakespeare’s First Folio 1623-2023: Text and Afterlives brings together a remarkable set of ground-breaking essays by an international group of scholars From the beginning, the publication that came to be called the ‘First Folio’ was defined by the tension between the book as text and the book as a material object In this volume, the individual contributions move between these two meanings in that they consider precursors to the First Folio in the form of reader-assembled volumes; the poetic identity of Shakespeare; and how misfortunes and successes in the early modern printing house shaped Shakespeare’s text
Chapters examine the unpredictable and often surprising subsequent histories of the book that has even been given a sacred status and become the basis of Shakespeare’s unique position in the history of literature They consider: the afterlife of the text, in relation to the reception of Shakespeare’s First Folio in Spain; its presence in and influence on James Joyce’s Ulysses; the role that Meisei University of Japan’s Shakespeare Collection has played in the education and research of the institution; and what the collection of 82 copies at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, tells us about the ongoing role of these books within the study of Shakespeare and the early modern period
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UK February 2026 US February 2026
224 Pages • 35 bw illus
HB 9781350464377 £65 00 / $90 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK December 2025
• US December 2025
148 Pages • 12 b/w illustrations
PB 9798216380382 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781793635587 • £72 00 / $110 00
ePDF 9798216258100 • £64 80 / $99 00
ePub 9781978769410 £64 80 / $99 00
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
280 Pages 15 bw illus
HB 9781350412132 • £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350412170 £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350412149 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350412156 • £76 50 / $103 50 Bloomsbury Academic
Gulliver ’s Afterlives
300 Years of Transmedia Adaptation
Daniel Cook, University of Dundee, UK
The first deep dive into the cultural afterlives of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver ’s Travels, this book explores how the strange adventures of the 18th-century voyager have persisted over the past 300 years. Exploring sequels, spinoffs, elaborations and adaptations, among other things, Daniel Cook brings together an engaging account of how this literary classic has been reworked across different media throughout the world
Considerate of the major and unjustly neglected creators who have engaged with Travels, Gulliver ’s Afterlives covers: authors from Eliza Haywood to Alison Fell; poets as varied as Alexander Pope and Sylvia Plath; playwrights including David Garrick and H J Byron; leading graphic artists and scripters such as Martin Rowson and Alan Moore; pioneering filmmakers such as Georges Méliès; and it even explores Gulliver s appearances in the science fiction franchises Star Trek and Doctor Who Cook examines more than a hundred novels, short stories and satires, poems, plays and pantomimes, live-action and animated films and television series, games, entertainment ephemera, illustrated books, comics and graphic novels, as well as statues, playpark effigies and other objects Navigating this hefty body of Gulliveriana, this book delves into topics such as transmedial storytelling and characterization, different models of authorship and collaboration, the history of form and genre, visual culture, and the commercial contexts of literary adaptation
Materialist Romanticism
The Matter of the Marbles
Dewey
W Hall
A matter-based approach to the study of nineteenth-century Romantic artifacts centering on the removal of the Parthenon sculptures from Athens, Greece by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, and sale of the prized artifacts to the British Parliament for £35,000 in 1816
Dewey W Hall delves into the intrigue surrounding the famed sculptures by reaching back in time to Democritus (460–370 B C ), Aristotle (384–322 B C ), and Epicurus (341–271 B C ) who theorized about the atom the basis for the materialist tradition and Lucretius’s notion of the swerve in De Rerum Natura (Of the Nature of Things) (c 55–49 B C ) This study includes various artistic responses to the Parthenon sculptures via the verbal and visual as represented through George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Curse of Minerva (1811) and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), Benjamin Robert Haydon’s sketches of the horse of Selene (1809) held at the British Museum, and John Keats’s Endymion (1818) and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819)
British Writing, Propaganda and Cultural Diplomacy in the Second World War and Beyond
Edited by Beatriz Lopez, Durham University, UK, James Smith, Durham University, UK & Guy Woodward
This book offers the first sustained analysis of the interactions between British writers, propaganda and culture from the Second World War to the Cold War It traces the involvement of a series of major cultural figures in domestic and international propaganda campaigns and throws new light on the global deployment of British propaganda and cultural diplomacy in colonial and post-colonial theatres such as Cyprus, India and Sierra Leone
Chapters re-evaluate the propaganda work of prominent writers including Arthur Koestler and Dylan Thomas in the light of new archival research, study how organisations including the BBC, British Council and Ministry of Information engaged with new media forms, analyse cultural representations of propaganda service and investigate how British literature and culture was deployed and projected as a form of soft power across the globe
Featuring contributions from a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, visual culture, book history and radio history, this book brings together a constellation of established and emerging scholars to show the crucial role played in shaping and mediating the techniques and content of British information campaigns of the mid-twentieth century
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UK April 2026 US February 2026
248 Pages • 5 bw illus
HB 9781350377486 £65 00 / $90 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
232 Pages
HB 9781350453357 • £50 00 / $68 00
PB 9781350453340 • £16 99 / $22 95
ePDF 9781350453364 • £15 29 / $20 65
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Bloomsbury Academic
A Practical Companion to Children's Literature Studies
Conducting Research and Building a Career
Edited by Kimberley Reynolds, Newcastle University, UK, Matthew Grenby, University of St Andrews, St Andrews & Emily Murphy, Newcastle University, UK
This research guide is devoted to the specialist skills and complexities of studying and working with children’s literature, alongside childhood studies, at university level and beyond. A successor to Kimberley Reynolds's and Matthew Grenby's 2011 Children's Literature Studies: A Research Handbook, this work reflects on new directions and emphases in children’s literature studies as seen by all levels With a broad, international focus, this book includes:
- Contributions from scholars around the world, including the US, Chile, China, and the Philippines
- Outlines of the field and the careers possible with specialisms in children’s literature
- Sample research proposals from an MA dissertation to senior-level projects
- Guidance on locating grants, fellowships, collaborations and other opportunities
- A look at the ethical complexities of a field so close to children and young people
- Solutions to the problems researchers face entering the field
- Discussion of key archives, special collections and digital resources of international significance
- Advice on preparing for responsibilities within academia such as presentations and publication
- An exploration of how new, emerging and established scholars can maximise the impact of their work
An A-Z of Beatrix Potter
Penny Bradshaw, University of Cumbria,
UK
From Peter Rabbit to Mrs Tiggy-winkle, The Tailor of Gloucester to The Fairy Caravan, the works and characters of Beatrix Potter have bewitched children the world over for more than a century – and have never been out of print.
This lively and curious book explores Potter ’s works via a series of short, interlinked essays that take their starting point from 26 key words and phrases from her children’s books, her letters, journals and other writings For students and enthusiasts alike, this engaging collection of essays offers fresh angles on familiar Potter themes and topics (A is for Animal; C is for Clothes) whilst others cast light on uncharted corners of her imagination (D is for Dancing; U is for Uncanny; G is for Ginnett’s Circus) Entries like F is for Fairy, T is for Trees, S is for Seasons and R is for Rabbit Tobacco look at topics related to race, gender and the environment as other essays use key words to open up discussion of Potter ’s legacies and impact (L is for Lake District; P is for Peter Rabbit; H is for The Horn Book), including global reception, TV and film adaptations, and the development of Potter's beloved Lake District as a thriving tourist destination
Providing a close-up encounter with one of the most celebrated children’s authors, this book invites new recognition of the ways in which Beatrix Potter ’s writing explores ideas which remain deeply relevant today, including the relationship between humans and the natural environments they inhabit
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UK February 2026 • US February 2026
184 Pages 10 bw illus, 2 tables
HB 9798765136195 • £60 00 / $80 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
Hope in the Library
How Libraries Can Help Shape Our Future with Artificial Intelligence
Michael J Paulus, Jr , Creighton University, USA
What is the role of the library in an increasingly complex information environment filled with and redesigned for artificial intelligence?
Hope in the Library presents a compelling case for the continued relevance of libraries in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence Michael J Paulus, Jr , shows how libraries, as human-centered and human-scaled institutions, have enduring roles as archives for reflection and understanding, sites of imagination and hope, and catalysts for human agency
This book argues that, by providing an essential counterbalance to impersonal and automated systems, libraries are essential for not only surviving but thriving in our emerging information environment
Hope in the Library is structured as a series of essays organized by explorations of the library in the past, in imagined futures, and in our digitally-enhanced present Firsthand narrative and archaeological history are interspersed with literary meditations from writers including Mary Shelley, Ursula K Le Guin, and Jorge Luis Borges
Informed by over two decades of leading and studying libraries, these essays include the author ’s reflections and encourage a more radical reframing of how AI may be integrated into libraries and society to help create a better future
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Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
256 Pages • 11 bw illus
HB 9781350530461 • £65 00 / $90 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
296 Pages • 16 bw illus
HB 9781350340381 • £60 00 / $75 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures
UK April 2026 • US February 2026
336 Pages • 41 bw illus, 4 tables
HB 9781350406773 • £75 00 / $100 00
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ePDF 9781350406780 • £22 49 / $31 45
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Bloomsbury Academic
Drone Cultures
From Surveillance and Warfare to Literature and Art John Muthyala, University of Southern Maine, USA
The drone is an object of contradiction: at once a weapon of war and a medium of wonder Often linked to destruction and death, the drone also sparks creativity and enhances education.
Encouraging us to think critically about the drone, the book traces its emergence in twenty-first-century warfare and examines its entanglement with surveillance culture, biopolitics, and artificial intelligence, as well as its representations in literature and the arts Drones are instruments of power and tools of possibility the book challenges us to see them as both
Drones are reshaping how we understand war and peace, distance and time, privacy and surveillance, power and accountability, democracy and governance This book invites readers to use the drone as a lens on our evolving human condition
Listening In How Audio Surveillance Became Artificial Intelligence
Toby Heys, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, David Jackson, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK & Marsha Courneya, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
In 1945, W Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, was presented with a carved wooden plaque of the Great Seal of the United States as a 'gesture of friendship' by a delegation from the Soviet’s Young Pioneer Organization
Unbeknownst to him, one of the first covert listening devices, invented by Leon Theremin was hidden within it and was subsequently used to listen in on the ambassador ’s conversations for six years before being discovered This book uses remarkable tales like this to tell the story of how modern audio surveillance developed and its important role in the evolution of today's artificial intelligence
Beginning with post-WW2 monitoring devices, Listening In traces an arc through the Cold War era into the present day in which state and commercial spyware can record our calls, copy messages and secretly film us It subsequently moves into the near future where AI-assisted technologies can listen to things we have not yet said as well as digitally simulate and record our voices after we have died Ultimately Listening In reveals how the urge to listen and record everything that has ever been uttered is scored deeply into the technological operating systems of cultures from around the world
New Directions in Digital Textual Studies
Book History, Scholarly Editing and Curation in Conversation
Edited by Christopher Ohge, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK & Kristen Schuster, King’s College London, UK
The overlaps between the digital humanities and textual studies two major scholarly fields which share common interests and methods still demand further theoretical reflections This volume brings together an exciting collection of book historians, textual editors, curators, and new media theorists to provide templates for and methodological reflections on how digital textual studies research can be done
Featuring contributions from a variety of early career and experienced scholars and practitioners, this volume uses case studies and methodological provocations to open up digital textual studies, as well as taking a step back to consider the broader theoretical and pedagogical implications they raise In doing so, it sets the agenda for pragmatic, digital text-based scholarship and methods, providing useful tools and frameworks for anyone in need of an introduction to textual studies that is grounded in digital research and new media
Medievalia et Humanistica Series
UK March 2025 • US March 2025
192 Pages • 1 BW Photo
HB 9798881809065 • £69 00 / $90 00
ePDF 9798216365303 • £62 10 / $81 00
ePub 9798881809072 • £62 10 / $81 00
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Medievalia et Humanistica, No 50
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture: New Series
Edited by Reinhold F Glei, Maik Goth & Christoph Schülke
Volume 50 contains five articles ranging from medieval folklore (collection of mæren in a sample codex) and 13th century anti-heretical literature (St Peter of Verona) to Humanist discourse on leisure (Petrarch and Piccolomini) and polemical invectives (Ulrich von Hutten) One paper is on early humanist Ferrara (law and society 1350–1450) In addition, there are six book reviews which cover various epochs, genres, and discourses
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UK February 2026 • US February 2026
240 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Romantic Citizenship and the Transatlantic World Bordering on British Alison
Within the wide discursive arena of national identity in Romantic fiction, this book examines specific literary tropes and figures that consolidate and challenge the nascent, evolving concept of the British citizen
Alison Cotti-Lowell attends to the figure of the wanderer in the National Tale to reveal a mode of national belonging that was increasingly untethered to land, genealogy, and nativity in Romantic Britain Across the Atlantic, the author surveys how tropes of the “virtual” and disembodiment became central to burgeoning articulations of proto-bureaucratic citizenship in the Anglo-American revolutionary context The author analyzes sentimental novels of courtship and marriage in which struggles between dependence and independence reveal the citizenly potential of women living in Britain under the strictures and structures of couverture Cotti-Lowell examines literary repatriation to illuminate the relationship between Britain and its colonial East-Indian branch in the early post-abolition era Through close literary-critical interpretation, this book connects Romantic fiction to matters of nationalism, individual subject formation, and bureaucracy to reveal how forms of citizenship and the citizenly subject were forged in literary form and discourse with close ties to the gothic register, across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the English-speaking North Atlantic World
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UK January 2026 US January 2026
216 Pages • 4 b/w illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
Fantastic Creatures in Italian Literature From the Age of Dante to Modernity
Edited by Giulia M Cipriani & Paolo Rigo
This volume explores the mysterious relationship between imagination and creatures be they animals or hybrids through the field of Italian literary history from its origins through the early modern period
Animals and fantastic beings have become transfer figures, charged with signifying and expressing symbolic moments and emotional states Some of these creatures have achieved such fame that they have become true literary tropes The essays gathered in this volume explore the allegorical, cultural, or philosophical significance that specific creatures have assumed in the works of some of the most important authors of the Italian premodern tradition, from Chiaro Davanzati, through Dante and Boccaccio, all the way to Leopardi
Though grounded in different genres and historical contexts, each essay reveals how the animal or demonic figure becomes a site of philosophical reflection
Tasting
Studies in Medieval Literature
UK February 2026 US February 2026
208 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Religious Thought and Experience in Late-Medieval English Literature
Caleb D Molstad
Through an analysis of vernacular metaphors of food and consumption for religious experience and theology in late-fourteenth and early fifteenth century England, Caleb D Molstad explores what that language reveals about late-medieval religion during a time of swift religious and linguistic change
In the move from Latin to Middle English, medieval authors gave vibrant expression to religious ideas through the emerging literary language, a phenomenon Nicholas Watson has termed “vernacular theology ” Molstad places focus on poetic and prose works including William Langland’s Piers Plowman, Nicholas Love’s A Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, and Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Pearl-Poet’s Cleanness, and A Ladder of Foure Ronges Alimentary metaphors not only make religious concepts more accessible to a non-educated, lay audience, the language of food and consumption alters the shape of the religious content communicated through it This book employs cognitive linguistics and food studies to explore the transcultural, sociological, anthropological, and historical significance of the food and foodways behind the metaphorical language and the theological transformations the metaphors produce
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UK February 2026
• US February 2026
352 Pages • 1 b/w image
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Bloomsbury Academic
Violence and Rebellion in Contemporary French Women’s Autofiction “We Stand up and We Split”
Michèle Bacholle
This book breaks the silence on systemic violence against women in French society and showcases various forms of actual and/or literary rebellion
Blending auto-ethnography with the analysis of contemporary autofiction by French women writers and drawing portraits of other victims/rebels, Michèle Bacholle addresses physical, symbolic, cultural, institutional, and psychological forms of gender violence across different social spheres and within an intersectional framework (i e , age, class, immigration, race) She engages with established authors (Nina Bouraoui, Sophie Chauveau, Chloé Delaume, Virginie Despentes, Annie Ernaux, Camille Laurens, Linda Lê, Léonora Miano, Delphine de Vigan) and emerging voices in French literature (Mathieu Deslandes and Zineb Dryef, Rokhaya Diallo, Laure Gouraige, Bebe Melkor-Kadior, Samira Sedira), and bridges personal and scholarly discourse in an innovative manner #MeToo and its repercussions, as well as current social movements provide hope for deeper societal change, short of which, following Adèle Haenel’s lead, French women may have to “stand up and split ”
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UK January 2026 • US January 2026
224 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Thought as Experience in Bataille, Cioran, and Rosset
Joseph Acquisto, University of Vermont, USA
Examines how postwar French writers constitute the thinking subject and reshape its relation to the external social world
Joseph Acquisto analyzes the writings of three thinkers during and shortly after the Second World War who address the question of what it means to think, and what it means to constitute oneself as a thinking subject – at a time that seems to come "after everything"; with the ruins of attacked cities echoing the remains of a philosophical tradition that was confident in its establishment of human beings as rational, of reason leading to progress, and of both the self and the world as knowable
What Georges Bataille calls "inner experience" and Emil Cioran labels "thinking against oneself" is something akin to a drama; not a mere representation of the self in relation to the world, but a process of remapping the relation of subject to object of thought dialectically Acquisto argues that both writers adopt an anti-systematic approach to thinking that implicates fragmentary writing as a way of turning answers about subject-object relations into questions Acquisto contends that this stands in contrast to the approach of Clément Rosset, whose affirmation of the inaccessibility of the real leads to an anti-intellectual, grace-filled affirmation of life as it is given, under the guise of what he calls the "tragic "
Bringing together thinkers that have seldom been discussed in a comparative light, Thought as Experience in Bataille, Cioran, and Rosset examines the affective dimensions of thought as experience and considers the political stakes of postwar thought as "out of order" with the world from which it springs
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• US November 2025
UK December 2025
190 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Pushkin's Heroines and the Life-Art Connection Freedom in a Female Frame
Amanda F Murphy, Nazarbayev University
This book traces the development of Pushkin’s heroines from his youthful Southern Poems to his last published work The Captain’s Daughter, placing them within the context of the author ’s dominant genre models and his own life circumstances
Though Pushkin’s innovative depictions of female characters were to alter the course of Russian literature and lead to the development of the “strong woman” in Russian literature, the extensive scholarship of the poet’s oeuvre has remained largely herocentric While Tatiana Larina from Eugene Onegin has received a significant degree of scholarly attention, his other heroines have not been studied in a systematic way As a corrective, this book traces the development of Pushkin’s heroines from his youthful Southern Poems to his last published work The Captain’s Daughter, placing them within the context of the author ’s dominant genre models, focusing specifically on Byron, Shakespeare, and Scott, and his own life circumstances The overarching purpose of this revisionist feminist study is to examine the ways in which Pushkin broadened the possibilities for heroines within his art and used the freedom he found in inhabiting the female frame to escape from the social norms that constrained Russian noblemen in order to puzzle through his own personal concerns
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Kurdish Societies, Politics, and International Relations
UK February 2026 US February 2026
256 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Forms of Melancholy in Modern Kurdish Novels
Ahmet Atas
Forms of Melancholy in Modern Kurdish Novels presents a critical literary analysis of narrative forms used in Kurdish novels that articulate loss, mourning, and melancholia
Based on a range of perspectives on questions of loss, mourning, and melancholia, this study elucidates how melancholy is appropriated as a multi-functional literary device by Kurdish novelists to articulate a broad spectrum of subjectivities often mediated by political and socio-cultural reality Adapting an interdisciplinary approach, Ahmet Atas situates Kurdish melancholy narratives within broader scholarly discussions on loss and melancholia Atas demonstrates how melancholy is utilized as an effective artistic device by Kurdish writers to stage not only the grief of an oppressed nation, but its political and cultural resistances Providing an original case study, this book illuminates how melancholy literature acquires unique political and cultural functions, missions, and meanings in contrasting colonial and postcolonial settings
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Bloomsbury Handbooks
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
424 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
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UK February 2026 • US February 2026
226 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
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New Directions in Religion and Literature
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Philip Roth
Edited by Aimee Pozorski, Central Connecticut State University, USA & Maren Scheurer, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Philip Roth provides a comprehensive, must-have survey of interdisciplinary scholarship on one of the major American novelists of the 20th and 21st centuries
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Philip Roth presents state-of-the-art scholarship on new research methods, current debates, and future directions in Philip Roth studies It illuminates how Roth, one of the most influential American writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, not only reflected American history and culture in his important novels but uncannily anticipated our American future
Uniting scholars and artists who have built the field of Philip Roth studies from the ground up along with emergent scholars from around the world, this Handbook includes chapter summaries, study questions, and an author biography and timeline that includes key dates in Roth’s life and publication history It also contains a bibliography of secondary sources for further reading as well as an overview of film and television adaptations
232 Pages
HB 9781350400009
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Bloomsbury Academic
Disability and Rurality in American Literature
Ecosomatic Pastoralism
Matthew J C Cella
Matthew J.C. Cella examines the ways in which contemporary American writers deploy disability in order to deconstruct American pastoralism
An essential tenet of pastoralism is that encounters with rural landscapes quicken the human imagination by heightening awareness of and appreciation for the natural world This study examines the counterpart to this formulation by underscoring the ways in which disability as concept and experience complicates pastoralism’s exaltation of rurality and rural experience The texts examined in this book ultimately push back against the conventional pastoral ideal by exposing the ways in which dominant social constructions of rurality work to create disability Additionally, many of the writers Cella analyzes contribute to a counter-rurality that is ultimately more complex and inclusive than what is featured in conventional American pastoralism Ecosomatic pastoralism emphasizes the importance of locating an alignment between embodiment and emplacement through the space found between individual bodies and the landscapes they inhabit as well as the human and nonhuman bodies they interact with Ultimately, this book examines literary texts that challenge notions of rurality that proclaim that certain ways of being-in-the-world are more “natural” than others
Resistance and the Sermon in American Literature
The Cultural Work of Literary Preaching from Emerson to Morrison Matthew Smalley, Denison University
With seemingly obsessive regularity, American authors, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, evoke the sermon at culturally loaded moments in their works, deploying the form to underscore the cultural work they imagine their novels or poetry to perform Examining this longstanding tradition of “literary preaching,” this book draws on literary applications of design theory to provide a nuanced account of American literature’s complex, anxious, and persistent engagement with the Protestant sermon
Analyzing literary preaching as a transhistorical form that simultaneously attracts and repels authors, Smalley demonstrates how major US writers–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison–have subverted the sermon’s predominantly religious content in order to reimagine profound moments of reform in a political, cultural, and aesthetic mode This study elucidates new lines of literary kinship, offers fresh readings of familiar works, and establishes literary preaching as an undertheorized but significant tradition in American literature
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304 Pages • 17 bw illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
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Black Literary and Cultural Expressions
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
224 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
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Black Literary and Cultural Expressions
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
248 Pages • 2 b&w illustrations
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Bloomsbury Academic
Language, Translation, and Poetic Realities
The Poetry (Àfàìmò Àti Àwon Àròfò Mìíràn) of Akínwùmí Ìsòlá
Akinloyè Òjó, University of Georgia, USA
Akínwùmí Ìsòlá (1940–2018), renowned writer, scholar, and sentinel of indigenous African languages, contributed to the development of Yorùbá literary traditions by producing most of his literary works in Yorùbá.
His artistic pacesetting in Yorùbá literature included his anthology, Àfàìmò Àti Àwon Àròfò Mìíràn (1978), which contains poems composed over a significant period in his life Language, Translation, and Poetic Realities considers Ìsòlá’s language use in this anthology; his contributions to the promotion of Yorùbá and African linguistic and cultural values; and the procedures, benefits, and challenges of translating his poetry into English
In so doing, Akinloyè Òjó examines the understudied relationship between African oral traditions and contemporary African literature, addressing in particular the influential role of traditional forms of praise-singing in contemporary Yorùbá poetry
Irony, Agency and the Global Imaginary in Post-2000 Nigerian and Kenyan Literature Penny Cartwright, University of Oxford, UK
An examination of alternate imaginaries of ‘the global’ in post-millennium anglophone African literature and the differing forms of agency that these imaginaries produce
Irony, Agency and the Global Imaginary in Post-2000 Nigerian and Kenyan Literature provides deft and detailed readings of writers’ perspectives that theorize ‘the global’ as experienced through vectors of globality such as the tourism industry, development agencies, multinational media, NGOs and consumerism Penny Cartwright develops a conceptual distinction between two types of global imaginaries: ‘territorial’ imaginaries that treat privileged spaces or locations as ‘global’, thus demanding strategies of physical access and mobility; and ‘orientational’ imaginaries that treat ‘globality’ as a disposition or attitude that individuals perform or embody
Drawing detailed case studies from the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya), Chris Abani, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani and A Igoni Barrett (Nigeria), Cartwright shows how these different kinds of imaginaries are combined, contrasted and ironized in literary texts By analyzing Africa-based representations of ‘the global’, from the millennium period onward, this book considers how global imaginaries are shaped by and inflect distinctive regional experiences, including of postcoloniality, Structural Adjustment, oil economics, multilingualism and humanitarianism
Literature of the Somali Diaspora Space, Language and Resistance in Somali Novels in English and Italian Marco Medugno, Newcastle University, UK
The first study of Anglophone and Italian novels by Somali diasporic authors, offering a new critical framework for multilingual and transnational analysis of Somali literature
Building on the latest scholarship about multilingual contexts, diaspora studies and the rapidly expanding field of Italian postcolonial studies, Marco Medugno examines Somali diasporic literature with a comparative perspective Considering works written in English and Italian, he argues that Somali diasporic authors share similar themes and aesthetics, thus creating an interliterary community within the diaspora space
Literature of the Somali Diaspora is organized around three themes: spatiality, language and resistance help to contextualize authors, forced by the decades-long Somali Civil War, to write outside Somalia and in different languages – including Somali, Italian, English, German, Dutch and Arabic – within global literary circuits Their work thus creates a literature not confined within national borders but an interliterary global community, a transnational and multilingual space in which they share world aesthetic ideologies, challenge and engage with literary traditions in different languages and show an interplay between diverse cultures
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New Horizons in Contemporary Writing
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
200 Pages
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HB 9781350500235 • £85 00 / $115 00
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ePub 9781350500259 • £76 50 / $103 50 Bloomsbury Academic
J M Coetzee and Christianity
Alicia Broggi, Independent scholar, UK
This book explores the nexus between religion and literature in J M Coetzee’s writings, as they relate to his readings of key Christian thinkers and ideas In the process, it examines Coetzee’s extensive efforts at revising and reimagining a variety of Christian legacies across his full corpus.
Inspired by Coetzee's more overt, recent engagement with Christianity, this book excavates the prior subterranean developments across his early and middle works It provides the most comprehensive study to date of his rewriting of Christian mores and rhetoric from eighteenth-century English novels; his frequent revisiting of the Christian author Fyodor Dostoevsky; and his pervasive re-imagining of traditional Christian subjects such as grace, redemption, and Jesus
Informed by original archival material, this book illuminates Coetzee’s writing process, especially from Dusklands to the Jesus trilogy It provides a sustained exploration of the contexts from which his abundance of Christian allusions and concepts were drawn, how they change in his hands, and how they effect changes in the “new” contexts of his innovative novels
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New Horizons in Contemporary Writing
UK March 2026 US March 2026
240 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
New Global Realism Thinking Totality in the Contemporary Novel Gabriele Lazzari, University of Surrey, UK
Shortlisted for the BACLS Monograph Prize 2025
A comparative study of contemporary realist novels that employ totality as a method and a formal principle to represent the social and economic inequalities of the present, this book examines writing in English, Italian, Kannada, and Spanish by authors from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Italy, India and Mexico
By theorizing four modalities of totalization employed by contemporary realist writers, this book explores the current resurgence of realism and challenges critical approaches that consider it naive or formally unsophisticated Instead, it argues that realist novels offer a self-conscious and serious representation of the world we inhabit while actively envisioning new social designs and political configurations Through comparative studies of novels by Fernanda Melchor, NoViolet Bulawayo, Vivek Shanbhag, Nicola Lagioia, Igiaba Scego, Yaa Gyasi and Roberto Bolaño, this book further explains why realism can be a powerful antidote to the skepticism about the possibility of making truth-claims in humanist research
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UK November 2025 • US November 2025
268 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Adapting Transgressive Fiction to Film
Sharpening the Critical Edge with a Golden Age
Christopher Burlingame
This book examines the role that the film and publishing industries play in promoting narratives that preserve and consolidate power among society’s elite, drawing explicit focus on a betrayal of intention where the forces of postmodernism and late capitalism subsume the legitimacy of transgression in adaptations of transgressive fiction
Analyzing the work of authors Bret Easton Ellis, Hubert Selby, Jr , Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh along with their film adaptations, Christopher Burlingame reveals the sociopolitical and cultural trends between 1996 and 2001 that enabled a Golden Age and saw the rise of a variety of film techniques employed to promote empathy for the characters, thereby reaffirming anti-patriarchal capitalist messaging However, the failure to preserve this messaging in lieu of reflecting the status quo is evident in seemingly subtle changes to the plot and subplots as well as cinematic techniques that divert attention away from the source material's original message
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Contemporary Critical Perspectives
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
200 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Rachel Cusk
Contemporary Critical Perspectives
Edited by Roberta Garrett, University of East London, UK & Liam Harrison, University of Birmingham
Rachel Cusk is one of the most critically acclaimed and controversial contemporary British authors Her diverse body of work offers a striking portrait of trends in 21st-century literature, and the history of Cusk’s literary output is one of experimentation and a desire to push against established cultural models
Rachel Cusk: Contemporary Critical Perspectives is the first critical guide to Cusk's work, spanning novels including Saving Agnes, A Country Life, and Second Place, her 'autofictional' Outline trilogy, and her nonfiction A Life's Work, The Last Supper, Aftermath and the Coventry essays Rigorous and wide-ranging, this book provides an accessible and lucid introduction to Cusk's work, exploring themes of gender relations, class dynamics, maternal identity and creative freedom The collection concludes with an in-depth interview with Cusk, conducted by Merve Emre, reflecting on her influences, writing and experiences
Mapping the formal and stylistic shift across her career and locating them within their specific contexts, this collection provides a crucial analysis of Cusk's influences, politics, and literary techniques that speak to many of the most pressing issues in contemporary literature
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Literatures, Cultures, Translation
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
304 Pages 18 bw illus, 8 color plates
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Bloomsbury Academic
Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR
Sarah D Phillips, Indiana University, USA
Why, at the height of the Cold War, was Kurt Vonnegut freely published in Russian translation in the top literary journals and book series in the USSR?
Sarah D Phillips explores a fascinating yet little-known chapter in the history of literary and cultural diplomacy during the Cold War: the popularity of the American author Kurt Vonnegut in the Soviet Union during the 1970s Drawing from previously untouched archives of manuscripts, letters, and FBI files, along with her interviews of literary and cultural figures active then in the USSR, Phillips investigates several key yet little-explored questions about Vonnegut's "Soviet Chapter " What was it about Vonnegut’s writing that so appealed to readers and literary critics in the 1970s Soviet Union? Were Vonnegut’s works censored, and if so, what exactly fell prey to the infamous “Red Pencil”? How much was Vonnegut aware of his cult status in the land of Lenin?
Alongside an account of Cold War politics and literary cultural diplomacy, Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR is also a book about relationships between Vonnegut and the Soviet reading public, between Vonnegut and the Soviet literary establishment, and most especially, between Vonnegut and the woman whose masterful translations were devoured by readers of Russian: the famous Soviet translator Rita Rait (1898-1989)
A work at the intersection of anthropology, history, and literary, translation, American, and Slavic studies, Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR is a close look at the unique contexts around an author and his readers, and the legacies of this literary cultural diplomacy in American and post-Soviet literary cultures today
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Literatures, Cultures, Translation
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages • 47 full color illustrations
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Bloomsbury Academic
Translating Warhol
Edited by Reva Wolf, SUNY New Paltz,
USA
The first study of the translations of Andy Warhol's writing and ideas, Translating Warhol reveals how translation has alternately censored, exposed, or otherwise affected the presentation of his political and social positions and attitudes and, in turn, the value we place on his art and person
Andy Warhol is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and a vast global literature about Warhol and his work exists Yet almost nothing has been written about the role of translations of his words in his international reputation Translating Warhol fills this gap, developing the topic in multiple directions and in the context of the reception of Warhol’s work in various countries
The numerous translations of Warhol’s writings, words, and ideas offer a fertile case study of how American art was, and is, viewed from the outside Both historical and theoretical aspects of translation are taken up, and individual chapters discuss French, German, Italian, and Swedish translations, Warhol’s translations of his mother ’s native Rusyn language and culture, the Indian artist Bhupen Khakhar ’s performative translations of Warhol, and Warhol as translated for documentary television
Translating Warhol offers a fascinating multi-faceted perspective on Warhol, contributing to our understanding of his place in history as well as to translation theory and inter-cultural exchange
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UK March 2026 US March 2026
224 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Baudelaire's Objects
Joseph Acquisto, University of Vermont, USA
Examines Baudelaire’s multifaceted use of natural, domestic, urban, and esthetic objects in his verse and prose poetry, as well as the ways his poems reshape our understanding of objects and how those objects destabilize, yet preserve, the subject-object relation
Charles Baudelaire’s representation of objects in the natural world establishes a relation that is neither one of identity between human subject and nature nor a relation of domination; he reveals both the natural world and the human subject to be characterized by an irreducible doubleness and nonidentity to itself Likewise, everyday domestic objects in his poems overflow their boundaries as simple metaphors; their often uncanny aspect highlights their quasi-agency as they define and shape the subject who interacts with them
Baudelaire’s Objects shows how paying attention to objects differently, as Baudelaire’s poems impel readers to do, is to reorient ourselves in the world by giving objects their due, recognizing the mediating qualities both of objects and of the language with which we represent or create them We can thus reinvent our understanding of the limits and potential of human subjectivity as it is inextricably intertwined with the world around us
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UK February 2026 • US February 2026
• 3 bw illus
256 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Parasitical Logic in Culture and Society
Edited by Peter Hitchcock, Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York, USA
In essays on literature, film, capitalism, and the university, this book illuminates and deepens the understanding of the parasite as a metaphor for cultural and social critique.
While symbiosis may harm the host to the benefit of the parasite, humans have nonetheless developed complex networks to rationalize intra-species parasitism From influence to borrowing to the “creativity” of AI, and from more obvious historical discourses of appropriation, like colonialism and imperialism, parasitical logic has distinct cultural genealogies The ubiquity of parasites seems to cheat substantial theorization, but this collection offers lively and suggestive essays on parasitical logic from global and interdisciplinary perspectives with a particular spotlight on its human and posthuman impress
Authors in this collection ask how ideas dedicated to the diminution of exploitation might confront the power of parasitism in the production and reproduction of inequality in everyday life Should one fight parasitical social and cultural structures or aim to live their contradictions as a universal norm? Or, does a force of nature simply condemn humanity to prey on itself?
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UK January 2026 • US November 2025
162 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature
Jill Goad
Through the lens of a feminist psychoanalytic framework, Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature re-evaluates the mother-child dynamic as one far more complicated than what is present in typical psychoanalytic readings.
Under this framework, Jill Goad explores the figure of the mother through Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, William Faulkner ’s Light in August, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples, Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard and other poems, and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing The author argues that the Freudian concept of castration occurring at birth rather than a child’s early years, contrasting the Freudian-influenced theorists dominate the notion of psychoanalysis in literature Goad's approach to analyzing mothers and the consequences of birth classifies mother figures as powerful and complex instead of weak, frightening, or two-dimensional Re-Envisioning the Freudian Mother in Southern Literature encourages a complete re-evaluation of the mother as one who gives birth to selfhood and subjectivity as opposed to a lack of agency
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Literatures as World Literature
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages
PB 9798765126721
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026
• US February 2026
288 Pages • 20 bw illus
PB 9798765113738
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Bloomsbury Academic
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Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
288 Pages • 1 b&w illustration
PB 9798765132067 • £28 99 / $39 95
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Bloomsbury Academic
Short Story as World Literature
The Deep History and Modern Lives of an Impure Genre
Edited by Delia Ungureanu, Harvard University, USA & Amândio Reis, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Global in scope, this volume uncovers the deep history of the short story as an "impure" genre by challenging the commonplace understanding in contemporary literary studies that the short story is primarily a product of Western modernity.
Genres do not have rigid, timeless, once-and-for-all definitions, and the short story is no exception Short Story as World Literature invites the reader to reflect on the historical becoming of this impure genre, analyzing various forms of the short story throughout its deep history It also challenges established ideas about the genre that limit its history to the prose form practiced by Edgar Allan Poe and canonized in Western Europe following Charles Baudelaire’s influential translation
The story of the short story presented here goes into a much deeper history throughout time and space: its earliest forms include dreams and visions in ancient religious texts, parables, poems, maxims, but also more recently poem-objects and films The authors examine how the short story evolves across different forms of art, genres, and media, as well as through translation and circulation – with effects on institutions, educational politics, and the construction of a moral system of values
Socialist Transnationality in Translation
Dutch-Language Literature in East Central Europe and the Balkans, 1945–1990
Edited by Wilken Engelbrecht, Univerzita Palackého, Krížkovského, Czech Republic, Ton van Kalmthout, Center for the Arts in Society, Leiden University, Netherlands & Pawel Zajas, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
The first study examining the translation and reception of Dutch literature in Eastern and Central Europe during the restrictive era of socialist and totalitarian political systems
In nearly all Central Eastern European and Balkan countries in the years between 1945-1990, there was a considerable increase in the number of titles translated from Dutch into the respective native languages this book explores how translators and publishers in Central East Europe and Yugoslavia were able to present a rather representative picture of Dutch and Flemish literature to readers notwithstanding restrictions caused by the official political doctrine of Socialist Realism as well as censorship and economic difficulties posed by a lack of foreign currency to pay translation rights
Understanding Cixous, Understanding Modernism
Edited by Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California, USA
Hélène Cixous is well-known as a reader of ‘modernist’ writers: Joyce, Beckett, Kafka, Faulkner, Bachmann and others, while her own fiction writing forges many new directions in literature
Foremost readers of the work of Hélène Cixous consider new interpretations of her vast literary and theoretical work, examining its relation and non-relation to modernism Understanding Cixous, Understanding Modernism features an extended new interview with Cixous, conducted for the volume, in which she reflects on her relation to the critical category of 'modernism,' alongside a previously untranslated piece by the author
As with other volumes in the series, Understanding Cixous, Understanding Modernism follows a three-part structure Essays in the first section examine individual works by Cixous and the varied approaches her work has taken towards literature and art The second section examines critical and aesthetic parameters of her writing practices The final section contains a glossary of key terms and Cixous's neologisms recurrent throughout her work
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 US February 2026
256 Pages • 16 bw illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
304 Pages
HB 9798765100912 • £95 00 / $130 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
208 Pages
HB 9798765108703 • £75 00 / $100 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
Wise Women for Loving Nature
Or, Femopolitical Ecology
Rod Giblett, Deakin University, Australia
From Rachel Carson and Julia Kristeva to Rebecca Solnit and Nandi Chinna, the writers and artists featured here are ‘patron saints’, Rod Giblett shows, of a special aspect or approach to environmental conservation and contemplation: femopolitical ecology.
Through their bodies of work, these women make a collective call and create a compelling case and manifesto for loving nature, especially its fertile and life-giving functions This is ‘femopolitical ecology’, the political ecology women create in writing or artworks for all people that deconstruct and decolonize the gendered construction of reality, not only of living beings, but also of processes, places and spaces, and nurtures love for them
The truly transnational group of women come from a vast range of backgrounds across the north-south divide Their work comes from a variety of disciplines and approaches, including psychoanalysis and feminism, and uses different materials, media and genres, such as poetry, painting, novels, essays, textiles and baskets
Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction
Redefining the Philosopher in Multi-cultural Contexts
Edited by Anway Mukhopadhyay, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Saptarshi Mallick, University of Graz, Austria and Sukanta Mahavidyalaya, University of North Bengal, India & Debashree Dattaray, Jadavpur University, India
A cross-cultural study that explores and redefines what philosophy, philosophizing, and philosophers are through the lens of literature
The academic discipline of philosophy may tell us, too rigidly, what a philosopher is or should be; but fictional narration often upholds the core conundrums of humankind in which philosophy germinates This collection of essays explores whether a study of ‘philosophers’ at a planetary scale, or at least on a broad cross-cultural spectrum, can decouple philosophy from its academic aspect and lend it a more inclusive domain
Contributors to this volume play with three conceptual poles, making them interact with each other and get modified through this interaction: ‘fiction’, ‘narrative’ and ‘philosopher ’ How do these three terms get semantically modified and broadened in scope when we speak of the figures of philosophers in imaginative writing? How do these terms assume different connotations in different cultural contexts, interacting with the multiplicity of not just ‘thought’, but also the media and tools of ‘thought’? Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction insists on the need to ‘de-elitize’ and democratize the concept of a ‘philosopher ’ by reflecting on the possibility of seeing a philosopher as one who sees things clearly, from any vantage point
Prosaic Times
Time as Subject in Wordsworth, Richardson, Flaubert, and Melville John Park, New College of Florida, USA
Analyzing the stylistic innovations most characteristic in pivotal works of literary realism, Prosaic Times shows how their styles are not merely ornamental but fundamental to building their own temporalities
By capturing the temporal dimensions in Wordsworth’s The Prelude, Richardson’s Clarissa, Flaubert’s “Un Coeur Simple,” and Melville’s Moby Dick, John Park argues that these literary works of realism do not necessarily depend upon the plotline of the story they tell The reduced significance placed on plot is counterbalanced by something else: an experience of duration, a sheer extension of time in reading, a sense of time stemming from the unique stylistic innovations in each work
Contrasting with the view that realism represents social conditions, this book claims that while realist works represent society, they themselves are not bound to social conditions Instead, literary realism accounts for ways of configuring history that render social conditions understandable The active quality of language, of what narrative discourse says and does in forming our understanding of real things and events, is brought directly to the reader ’s attention in these works
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
184 Pages
HB 9798765119112
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Bloomsbury Academic
Rediscovering Rubén Darío through Translation
Carlos F Grigsby, University of Bristol, UK
A long overdue examination of Rubén Darío's multilingual work and influences alongside the contexts and politics of canonization in world literature
Rediscovering Rubén Darío through Translation addresses the peculiar obscurity of Darío by asking these questions: How can one of the most important writers of a major world language be almost entirely unknown in the English-speaking world? How is it that other writers of the same language (e g , Lorca or García Márquez) achieve widespread recognition in the anglophone world, while he remains unnoticed? What role does translation play in this? What can it tell us about the way in which world literature is articulated?
Carlos F Grigsby approaches Darío’s oeuvre through translation In doing so, he explores not only the place of Darío in the translation of Spanish American literature into English, but also the place of translation in Darío’s own writing The result is a double-sided painting, as it were: the recto is titled “Translation in Darío” and the verso “Darío in Translation ”
This book challenges the field of world literature by revealing some of the biases present in its representation of Spanish American literature It adopts a multilingual framework – chiefly using English, Spanish, French, and to a lesser degree Latin and Catalan – in analyzing Darío’s writing alongside that of his contemporaries As a result, it reveals the multilingualism of Darío’s own writing, opening new avenues for the study of his work and of Spanish American modernismo more generally
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
232 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Transnational Literature of Resistance Guyana and Palestine, 1950s-1980s
Salam Darwazah Mir, Independent Scholar, USA
Fills a gap in comparative studies, interrogating strategies of Empire in dominating the Indigenous and linking two modern cultures from the Global South. Transnational Literature of Resistance compares and contrasts resistance literatures from Guyana – a British exploitation colony – and Palestine – a settler colony – at a specific historical moment Salam Darwazah Mir contests the provinciality and Eurocentric focus of comparative literature; delivers the discipline’s universal objectives; and expands the discipline’s practice by comparing two literatures and histories from the Global South
Mir situates the literatures within their wider historical and literary heritage, a move that links the two countries from within the colonial/imperial framework She argues that the British invasion of the protectorate of British Guiana in 1953 and the founding of the settler colony in Palestine in 1948, with imperial Britain at the helm, are colonial acts to strengthen and sustain Empire The two colonial projects are evidence of the protean nature of Empire that evolves, reinvents itself, and reconstructs new comparable ploys and strategies of controlling the Global South
Within this context, the emergence of poetry of resistance in both countries at this historical juncture is part and parcel of other forms of resistance during decolonization, linking the formerly colonized and the presently colonized people in the Global South It is examined from within the framework of postcolonial theory, as Mir reads poetry as the voice of the people in their demands for freedom, equality, and national independence Resistance poetry is thus born out of the need to assert identity, redress invisibility and erasure, reclaim national space and land, and reconstruct the history of the Indigenous
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 US January 2026
224 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
272 Pages • 26 b&w illustrations
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
280 Pages 2 bw illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
Writing During the Apocalypse
Reflections on the Great Unraveling
Ed Simon, Independent Scholar, USA
All of American literature is a tragedy What we’re living through now isn’t a tragedy, however – it’s a horror novel Why bother writing when the world’s on fire?
Rising authoritarianism Covid Inflation Wealth disparity War Climate change While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren’t ill placed And yet, art and literature persist
In captivating and culturally savvy prose, Ed Simon grapples with the notion that writers and their work ought to distract readers from the dire situation we face in these fetid days of the Anthropocene He also addresses the wider question of what it's like to write during what could be the last decades of human civilization, arguing that to craft imaginative spaces through the magic of words isn’t superfluous Instead it exists at the core of human experience – as it always has and always will
The Rise of Rhythm Studies
Mediating Dimension, Discipline, and Scale
Edited by Mark Lussier, Arizona State University, USA & Richard C Sha, American University, Washington D C , USA
Rhythm is everywhere. Its ability to focus and unify interdisciplinary conversation begs the questions: What is rhythm and can different disciplines agree on its definition?
Rhythm studies have emerged as a key background form traversing cultural, natural, and social forms like cognition, communication, and even cosmology An added boon: this background can seem unifying Those who explore such entangled phenomena study the throbbing presence of rhythmic, oscillatory, and vibratory potentials: Neuroscientists turn to rhythm for novel explanations of why our cognitive capacities are so limited; physicists use it to cross time and space; scholars in various fields turn to it to rethink materialism and affect theory
This lively collection considers why rhythm currently functions as a form of mediation between disciplines, across widely different scales and dimensions The Rise of Rhythm Studies tests what rhythm can do through theoretical examinations and in case studies ranging from European literature to topology and media studies to Chinese visual art Established scholars, such as Nina Kraus, Anna Gibbs, and Caroline Levine, alongside rising scholars in the field, marshal transdisciplinary perspectives in order to understand rhythm as a boundary condition for living in and working through and with the world
The Death Drive Philosophy, Literature, Theory
Edited by Jeffrey R Di Leo, Texas A&M University-Victoria, USA & Paul Allen Miller, University of South Carolina, USA
The first collection to provide an overview of the well-known psychoanalytic theory of the death drive in literary and cultural theory, this book features contributions from a range of prominent scholars working in the area of literature, philosophy, and psychanalysis
After Freud’s initial theorization, the death-drive has been re-interpreted by various psychoanalytic thinkers (including Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj Žižek), philosophers (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean Baudrillard), political theorists (Judith Butler), queer theorists (Laurent Berlant, Lee Edelman), and posthumanists (Rosi Braidotti)
This volume brings together some of the leading thinkers and theorists of the death-drive as a psychological, aesthetic, and theoretical principle in literary and cultural theory, examining texts by writers such as Plato, Henry James, and Ezra Pound
COLLECTIONS
UK November 2025 • US November 2025
224 Pages • 3 b/w illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
Weaving Words, Shaping Worlds
Intertextual Echoes and Reader Evaluation in Pakistani Anglophone Fiction
Azka Khan
Weaving Worlds, Shaping Worlds explores how Pakistani Anglophone novels engage with prior texts to shape meaning, reinforce themes, and position narratives within larger ideological frameworks
The author argues that these literary references, whether historical, religious, or cultural, are not neutral but serve evaluative and often subversive functions Using corpus-assisted discourse analysis, the book uncovers patterns in how authors like Kamila Shamsie and Nadeem Aslam incorporate and reframe existing texts It highlights how certain motifs and allusions are repeatedly employed to construct narratives that align with or challenge dominant hegemonic discourses The study also examines how these references contribute to thematic ghettoization, reinforcing a recurring mold within Pakistani Anglophone fiction
COLLECTIONS
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
264 Pages • 10 bw illus
HB 9781350471832 • £85 00 / $115 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
Freudians and Schadenfreudians
Loving and Hating Psychoanalysis
Jeffrey Berman, University of Albany, USA
Sigmund Freud can be a polarizing figure, beloved by many and despised by some Focusing on eight key writers and scholars who either passionately loved or gleefully loathed Freud, this book represents Freud’s wide legacy, the reach of his ideas, their controversies, and their ability still to provoke, inspire, confound, outrage, and compel
The book begins by focusing on four highly prolific authors whose admiration for Freud is boundless: Lionel Trilling, Harold Bloom, Kurt R Eissler, and Peter Gay Berman then explores four more writers whose aim was not simply to debunk Freud and destroy his monstrous creation but to cast both into hell: D H Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Szasz, and Frederick Crews Each chapter discusses the author ’s involvement with Freud, exploring the continuities and discontinuities of his or her writings, as well as offering snapshots of the writers, suggesting how their personal and professional lives were inextricably related
Berman draws out some surprising commonalities between the Freudolaters and Schadenfreudians, going on to discuss the current state of psychoanalysis and the “psychoanalytic credos” by which contemporary analysts live
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Historicizing Modernism
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
240 Pages
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Bloomsbury Academic
Evelyn Waugh's Exterior Modernism
Cinema, Satire, Comedy
Yuexi Liu, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Drawing on literary manuscripts and the history of cinema, Evelyn Waugh’s Exterior Modernism examines systematically for the first time Waugh’s relationship with cinema in the context of modernism, a relationship crucial to the emergence and development of his strand of modernism
The term ‘exterior modernism’ refers to the work of a group of younger writers, such as Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Green, Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Powell, Elizabeth Bowen, and Patrick Hamilton, whose departure from high modernism took the form of an ‘outward turn’ privileging exteriority over the interiority of consciousness through foregrounding talk and drawing on cinema, comedy, and satire Relating to other exterior modernists, Evelyn Waugh’s Exterior Modernism focuses on Waugh by way of exemplification, considering his oeuvre, non-fiction as well as fiction To illuminate Waugh’s exteriority, Yuexi Liu develops an interdisciplinary framework, informed primarily by distributed cognition
COLLECTIONS
Historicizing Modernism
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
200 Pages • 4 bw illus
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Bloomsbury Academic
Great War Modernists
D H Lawrence, H D and Richard Aldington Lee M Jenkins, University College Cork, Ireland
Taking 44 Mecklenburgh Square as the focal point and springboard for a critical group study of D H Lawrence, H D and Richard Aldington, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship of modernist biofiction and poetry to the literature of the First World War
A group that Perdita Schaffner described as ‘another Bloomsbury set’, the Mecklenburgh Square writers, like the Bloomsbury Group proper, ‘lived in squares’ and ‘loved in triangles’, in Dorothy Parker ’s famous formulation Geographically adjacent, these sets intersected socially and, at points, in their aesthetics: both practiced innovative forms of what may broadly be defined as life writing’ But, demarcating the Mecklenburgh Square writers from the Bloomsbury Set, the former had its origins in the transatlantic avant-garde: Lawrence H D , Aldington (and John Cournos) were all associated with Imagism, the poetic movement which instantiated Anglo-American modernism
Considered as a pro-tem collective, these four poets, all of whom were also novelists and translators, contest the binaries that still obtain between modernist and First World War writing This group study of Lawrence, H D , Aldington and Cournos tracks the transition of Imagism from a pre-war mode to a war poetics which includes but is not confined to the trench lyric and it traces, in the transtextual relations between the Mecklenburgh Square novels, the traumatic imprint of the war on modernist life writing
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The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Modernism & the Avant-Garde
• US December 2025
UK December 2025
352 Pages
PB 9781683939962
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Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US November 2025
264 Pages • 2 b/w/ illus
PB 9781666916508 • £28 99 / $39 95
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Bloomsbury Academic
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Bloomsbury Handbooks
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
464 Pages
HB 9781350253742 • £140 00 / $180 00
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Bloomsbury Academic
Modernity Must Drive
The Motor Car, Material Cultures, and British Modernisms
Edited by Ann Martin & Christopher Townsend
A collection of essays delving into the textual representations and history of British and Irish car culture
Modernity Must Drive focuses on British and Irish literature from the first half of the twentieth century, exploring modernist accounts of the motor car according to its layered cultural significance Engaging with prose by Bowen, Joyce, Rhys, Woolf, Waugh, and others, the volume complicates a reading of the automobile as merely a metaphor for “the new ” Instead, chapters historicize the complexities of motoring as it is situated in the overlaps between tradition and innovation The collection comprises readings of the motor car as a lived object, where writers trace experiences of modernity through luxury marques, war-time ambulances, motoring guides, race cars, and roads In a series of interdisciplinary essays, based in literary and cultural studies, the authors employ new materialist and decolonizing approaches, providing new insights into the social forces that affected individual uses of technology and the modernists who responded to the driving force of machines
Modernism Revisited
Texts and Contexts
Edited by Amitayu Chakraborty
Modernism Revisited: Texts and Contexts offers a profound exploration of modernism, addressing its intricate relationship with the socio-political, philosophical, and cultural upheavals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
By revisiting key texts, this book provides fresh perspectives on the movement’s formal innovations and ideological contradictions It delves into themes such as fragmented identities, evolving perceptions of time, and challenges to traditional norms in an era marked by rapid industrialization and urbanization Each chapter situates seminal works, including those of T S Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, within their historical contexts while also showcasing underrepresented voices and transnational contributions The book critically examines subjects such as gendered narratives, mythological influences, linguistic experimentation, and the interplay between modernism and the cityscape Featuring insights from international scholars, this work integrates textual analysis with interdisciplinary approaches, encompassing literature, philosophy, and cultural studies By revisiting modernism’s complexities and contradictions, this collection underscores its enduring relevance in contemporary debates on identity, creativity, and cultural change Perfect for both scholars and students, Modernism Revisited invites readers to reconsider the movement’s lasting legacy and its implications for today’s intellectual and artistic discourses
The Bloomsbury Handbook to D H Lawrence
Edited by Annalise Grice
Showcasing the most exciting contemporary scholarship on D H Lawrence, this comprehensive collection serves as both an overview of the field at present as well as an examination of new approaches and directions in D H Lawrence studies.
Explicitly interdisciplinary in its focus and covering fields such as bibliotherapy, sustainability and animal studies, this book:
Provides new insights into Lawrence as a transnational figure whose work responds to global cultures; Considers Lawrence in light of broader developments within modernist studies; Examines Lawrence’s work in relation to material cultures and his engagements with print, publishing and literary networks
Contributors are comprised of established international experts in D H Lawrence studies as well as newer voices This collection provides a comprehensive resource for literature students at all levels, from undergraduates and postgraduates to scholars and advanced readers interested in developing their knowledge of D H Lawrence
COLLECTIONS
Perspectives on Fantasy
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
256 Pages 10 bw illus
PB 9781350502253 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350502215 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350502222 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350502239 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
Reading Length in Fantasy Fiction
Matthew Oliver, Campbellsville University, USA
Reframing debates surrounding long narratives to explore their impact, this book develops a critical vocabulary for discussing the formal, social, and political affordances of length and duration in fantasy novels, and by extension, other genres.
Beloved by fans, fantasy books frequently receive dismissive treatment from book reviewers and academics For literary critics, lengthy narratives have long posed problems: for aesthetic critics, they are too sprawling and unstructured; for the politically engaged, they are suspect as part of a culture industry that commodifies texts Reading Length in Fantasy Fiction switches up this discussion of long narratives, exploring their use of repetitions, narrative rhythms, and complexly ramifying structures to shape readers’ perspectives on such concepts as historical causation, group inclusion, the conflict between traditional values and innovation, and human agency in relation to a complex social totality
As the first book-length study of the length of fantasy novels, this book uses insights from aesthetic theory, phenomenology, and cognitive studies to ask both “what does length do for fantasy narratives?” and also “how does fantasy length help us understand the function of extended duration in narrative?” Calling upon readings from a diverse set of writers including J R R Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, George R R Martin, N K Jemisin, Marlon James, Barbara Hambly, Steven Erikson, Samuel Delany and Katharine Kerr, Matthew Oliver illustrates the breadth of approaches structuring long fiction and the impact of strategies for managing length on a range of issues including race, gender, and social class Finally, offering a critical vocabulary for the formal analysis of length and a set of tools for relating the duration of texts to their social and political consequences, this book presents a major intervention in criticism of the fantastic
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Global Crime Narratives
UK February 2026 US February 2026
224 Pages • 10 bw illus
PB 9781350529458 £28 99 / $39 95
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Bloomsbury Academic
Criminal Women in Contemporary French Crime Fiction
Gender, Genre and the Polar Féministe
Ciara Gorman, Maynooth University, Ireland
An exploration of representations of female criminality in contemporary French crime fiction, this book offers a literary, sociological and feminist analysis of the stereotypes surrounding women and crime. Surveying how these stereotypes are both invoked and disrupted, it covers Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex, Fred Vargas’s Quand Sort la Recluse (This Poison Will Remain), Leïla Slimani’s Chanson Douce (Lullaby) and Hannelore Cayre’s La Daronne (The Godmother) in their original French and their English translations Addressing the gap of scholarly interest in legal and cultural representations of female violence in French crime fiction, Ciara Gorman evaluates the subversive ways in which archetypes of female criminality ranging from the femme fatale to the witch, and from the mère fatale to the ‘bitch’ are deployed not as reductive shorthands about femininity, but as motors of innovation and resistance The form and plot of each text is examined for its potential as a polar féministe (feminist crime fiction), a crime novel which incorporates the concerns of feminism be that the prevalence of sexual and sexist violence in society, or the legacy of misogynist representations of women in the crime genre as a whole Criminal Women considers the female criminal character as a figure of opportunity, the point at which readers and writers alike may reassess their assumptions about female criminality, and about the feminist potential of crime fiction itself
COLLECTIONS
Explorations in Science and Literature
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
232 Pages • 4 bw illus
PB 9781350547612 • £28 99 / $39 95
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
376 Pages • 23 bw
PB 9798765117064 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781440874413
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Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
248 Pages 10 bw illus
HB 9781350433908 • £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350433946 £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350433915 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350433922 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
Forest Ecology and Fantasy Fiction
Morris, Tolkien, Le Guin
Dion Dobrzynski, Bath Spa University, UK
Examining books by William Morris, J R R Tolkien, and Ursula K Le Guin, three of the most influential writers of the modern fantasy tradition, this book explores how fantasy writers engage with forest ecologies, histories and futures – both real and imagined – at a time when fantasies of a more sustainable society must be realised
Focusing on themes of escape, enchantment, experiment and engagement, this book demonstrates the significance of forest environments in the fantastic imagination, brings together ecocritical and fantasy scholarship in conversation with the environmental and social sciences, and examines the ways in which the fantastic imagination may be used as a creative form of environmental engagement today
Angels, Demons, and Demigods
An Encyclopedia of Supernatural Beings in Story and on Screen
David A Salomon, Christopher Newport University, USA & Kelly A O'Connor- Salomon, Christopher Newport University, USA
Angels, demons, and demigods are ubiquitous in popular culture, functioning as protagonists, antagonists, and amused commentators on the folly (or glory) of human existence
Why do these celestial beings hold such enduring power in the human imagination? How do we conceive of angels and what do they mean to us? What are common characteristics of demons and devils, and how do they interplay with human beings? What are demigods, and how do they negotiate the world? This comprehensive reference work answers these and other questions through the lens of popular culture, helping us understand how and why these archetypes are so often used in storytelling
This resource surveys how these powerful archetypes have been presented in film, television, literature, and music Each entry provides essential information about the work in question, such as the plot, primary characters, and critical reputation, as well as perspectives on how these non-human characters have been used by their creators to comment on a wide array of issues related to human nature, religious belief, and the triumphs and tribulations of human existence
Steampunk London
Neo-Victorian Urban Space and Popular Transmedia Memory
Helena Esser, Independent Scholar, Germany
Tracing the genre through fiction, visual art, film and videogames from the 1980s to the present, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between neo-Victorianism, urban spaces and Steampunk
Characterised by its interplay between past and present and its anachronistic retro-speculation, Neo-Victorian-infused Steampunk remixes modern collective memory to produce a re-imagined vision of Victorian London Investigating how Steampunk’s re-calibrated Londons both source from and subvert Victorian discourse about the city, Steampunk London offers a deeper understanding of how a popular cultural memory of the Victorian past is shaped and transmitted in light of present-day identity politics
Covering key themes including retrofuturism, gender and sexuality, colonialism and postcolonialism, it considers such ideas as how early Steampunk synthesizes Victorian urban ethnography; how Victorian urban Gothic shapes shared transmedia memory to challenge reactionary, nostalgic meta-narratives; how Steampunk video games mobilize urban space as an immersive storytelling device with cities open to play; and how Steampunk interprets the modern metropolis as an opportunity for feminist and queer agency Helena Esser demonstrates how the works explored invite participatory consumption and considers the genre’s potential (and failures) to interrogate our relationship with the Victorian past
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Comics Studies
UK April 2026 • US February 2026
232 Pages 34 bw illus
HB 9781350453685 • £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350453678 • £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9781350453692 • £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9781350453708 • £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
Lynda Barry
A Critical Guide
Maaheen Ahmed, Ghent University, Belgium
A complete introduction to the comics and graphic narratives of Lynda Barry, this book maps the historical and biographical contexts, key texts, the critical themes and debates surrounding her publications and the lasting impact of her work on the comics medium With a distinctive body of work that unfolded during key moments in comics history from the much touted and criticized ‘coming-of-age’ of comics to the rise of underground and alternative comics and the establishment of graphic novels, Barry’s comics reflect the changing status of comics, while unpacking the very constituents of the medium and testing its limits
Comprehensive and conveying specialist knowledge while remaining highly readable, Lynda Barry: A Critical Guide covers:
- comics history from an alternative perspective, focusing on issues of intersectionality and representation
- Barry’s major works including One Hundred Demons, What It Is, Making Comics, Syllabus, Cruddy and her comic strip
Ernie Pook's Comeek
- broad and salient themes in Barry’s work including memory, girlhood/womanhood, childhood, art pedagogy, creativity, overcoming creative anxieties, visual paper culture and the possibilities of drawing and collaging
- Barry’s materialities and her use of collage and art brut practices
- Barry's prompts to creativity and connection and how they highlight the collaborative and accessible dimension of comics
Combining rich insights from comics studies, literary theory and visual culture, this is the ultimate guide to Lynda Barry and her oeuvre This critical guide exemplifies the diverse ways of approaching comics, combining existing methodologies with novel possibilities inspired from the originality of Barry’s work
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
272 Pages • 12 b/w illus
PB 9781666929171 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781666929157 • £80 00 / $110 00
ePDF 9798216266068 • £72 00 / $99 00
ePub 9781978759763 • £72 00 / $99 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Sexual Violence in Comics
The Ethics of Visualizing Trauma
Lee Okan
An examination of how comics represent, confront, and sometimes perpetuate gendered violence
Lee Okan argues that comics, with their hybrid form of image and text, possess an ability to express the unspeakable dimensions of trauma while also raising ethical questions about spectatorship, representation, and storytelling Through close analysis of contemporary and independent comics, as well as anthology collections, this book shows how artists navigate the tension between testimony and spectacle, visibility and exploitation
Rather than treating comics as an isolated medium, Okan situates these works within broader cultural and media discourses on sexual violence, arguing that comics shape and are shaped by feminist activism, visual culture, and reader response Sexual Violence in Comics traces how creators reframe the terms of witness, challenge dominant narratives, and reclaim narrative authority, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement and beyond
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women’s Writing
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages • 24 bw illus; 1 table; 1 line
drawing
PB 9781350512320 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350512283 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350512290 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350512313 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
Women and Transnational Cultural Exchange
1550–1850
Edited by Brianna E Robertson-Kirkland, Royal Conservatoire of
Scotland, UK & Louise Duckling, Independent
Scholar
Focusing on the international circulation of culture and ideas by women in the early modern period through the long eighteenth century, this book amplifies their presence in history, finding new ways to explore their transnational encounters and exchanges
Providing a rich introduction to the topic of women’s transnational interactions, the essays in this book build a diverse picture of female engagement with the wider world and consider how women interpreted, influenced, or transferred culture and ideas around the globe
Examining figures such as Aphra Behn, Charlotte Bonaparte and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, this book looks at novels, memoirs, poetry, translations, travel writing and plays, as well as considering the ways in which women’s public lives have been ‘written’ in music, portraits and printed images, and their roles in the international exchange of art and material culture
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women’s Writing
UK January 2026 US January 2026
232 Pages
PB 9781350405714 £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350405677 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350405684 £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350405691 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
Zora Neale Hurston and the Legacy of Black Feminism
Desire as Power
Chielozona Eze, Northeastern Illinois University, USA
The first extended examination into the structure of influence of Zora Neale Hurston’s work on major Black women writers, an idea that has been widely accepted, this book explores Hurston’s impact on such authors as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Rita Dove, and Tracy K Smith
Focusing specifically on the concept of desire as a liberatory idiom and as the highest expression of self-consciousness and personhood, Chielozona Eze delves into the ethical and social assumptions of Hurston’s aesthetics and feminist visions and their manifestations in the works of the Black women writers who came after her
Through philosophical conceptions of desire, and zoning in on Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God and its protagonist Janie Crawford, Eze unlocks crucial conceptual and analytic trajectories regarding debates on freedom, personhood and Black feminism, and how such rich interiority appears in key works by Black women Surveying fiction including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, and The Color Purple, and poetry collections such as Life on Mars, The Body’s Question The Yellow House on the Corner, Thomas and Beulah, this book is a remarkable intervention with important implications for our times
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women’s Writing
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
280 Pages
HB 9781350383470 • £90 00 / $120 00
PB 9781350383517 • £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350383487 • £81 00 / $108 00
ePub 9781350383494 • £81 00 / $108 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Experimental Subjectivities in Global Black Women's Writing Race and Narrative Innovation
Edited by Sheldon George, University of Massachusetts, Boston & Jean Wyatt, Occidental College, USA
In what innovative ways do novels by diasporic Black women writers experiment with the representation of Black subjectivity? This collection explores the inventiveness of contemporary Black women writers – Black British, African, Caribbean, African American – who remake traditional understandings of blackness As the title word “experimental” signals, these essays foreground the narrative form and stylistic innovations of the black-authored novels they analyze They also show how these experiments with form mirror the novels’ convention-breaking experiments with reimagining Black female subjectivities
While each novel, of course, represents the complexities of diasporic experiences differently, some issues emerge that are broadly shared not just within a regional group, but across geographical borders One feature of the collection is a comparative look at such linking themes across borders, under the rubrics: a return to precolonial systems of belief, reinventions of mothering, relational subjectivities, memory, history and haunting, and posthumanist revaluations These themes take different shapes across the multitude of diverse cultures studied in this book But together they establish a panglobal imaginative practice
Bloomsbury Studies in Global Women’s Writing
UK February 2026 US February 2026
240 Pages • 10 bw illus
HB 9781350404717 £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350404755 • £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350404724 £0 00 / $0 00
ePub 9781350404731 • £0 00 / $0 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Hélène Cixous’s Poetics of Voice
Echo Subjectivity Diffraction
Birgit M Kaiser, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Exploring the poetic fictions of prominent French, feminist writer Hélène Cixous, this open access book highlights rich and timely ideas of selfhood in her work With careful elaboration of the writer ’s relationship with Algeria, Birgit M Kaiser shows how Cixous reflects on experiences of colonial and patriarchal othering More than that, she crafts a voice –an autofictive "I" – that takes the figure of Echo as a guiding mythology to portray selfhood as diffractive, always already exceeding binary models of self/other that remain central to conceptions of subjectivity Putting forward the notion of ‘echology’, Kaiser examines how Cixous performs selfhood within ecologies of cohabitation, thereby critiquing and revising key tenets of psychoanalysis and its narrative of the subject
Drawing from famous texts such as The Laugh of the Medusa, The Newly Born Woman, and The Portrait of Dora, but also more recent titles like Osnabrück, So Close, Death Shall be Dethroned or Cixous's collaborations with Adel Abdessemed, Hélène Cixous's Poetics of Voice: Echo - Subjectivity - Diffraction offers fresh variations on familiar psychoanalytic and semiotic axes, and new ventures into dialogue with feminist new materialisms
Elegant, politically dynamic and providing exciting news ways into Cixous’s work and poetics, the concept of ‘echology’ lends new perspectives for feminist and postcolonial formations of selfhood and new imaginations of what it means to be human within planetary life
The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4 0 licence on bloomsburycollections com Open access was funded by Utrecht University
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 US January 2026
224 Pages • 9 bw diagrams and tables
PB 9798765121696
£28 99 / $39 95
HB 9798765121702 • £90 00 / $110 00
ePDF 9798765121726 £81 00 / $99 00
ePub 9798765121719 • £81 00 / $99 00
Bloomsbury Academic
The
Bonkbuster
Women's Popular Reading in the Long 1980s
Amy Burge, University of Birmingham, UK & Jodi McAlister, Deakin University, Australia
What were women reading in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s? This book presents a major study of the “bonkbuster,” an incredibly popular genre of women’s fiction in the late 20th century.
The bonkbuster was an explosively popular form of women’s popular fiction in the long 1980s Authors like Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Shirley Conran and Judith Krantz exemplified this genre, selling massive numbers of books over the course of their careers However, where concurrent forms in media like soap opera and the romance novel have received critical attention, the bonkbuster has been mostly ignored by scholarship The Bonkbuster: Women’s Popular Reading in the Long 1980s engages with these texts, their contexts, and their readers in order to explore the nature, impact, and history of the bonkbuster, offering the first in-depth critical definition of the genre
Drawing on focus group and book club research conducted with British and Australian readers of bonkbusters in the 1970s–1990s, the volume explores the industrial and cultural history of the bonkbuster, investigating its lasting impact on readers The books formed a significant part of sex and relationship education for many of them, providing their first notable textual representations of things ranging from sexism to the female orgasm
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US December 2025
232 Pages
PB 9781666950533 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781666950519 • £80 00 / $110 00
ePDF 9798216253846 • £72 00 / $99 00
ePub 9781978769038 £72 00 / $99 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Disappearance and Candor in Contemporary Women’s Writing
Lane Glisson
Using the example of Marcel Proust's character Albertine, this book argues that the trope of the disappeared woman stems from the male narrator's inability see beyond his own projections; women’s narratives challenge those constraints
Lane Glisson adopts a transnational, comparatist approach to examine the ways that authors Rachel Kushner, Elena Ferrante, Kamala Das, Liliana Heker, and Cristina Rivera Garza diverge from Proust’s model to contest the states of disappearance that hinder women Conversely, she also examines how these authors at times portray disappearance as a strategy of protection from domination or violence, a space to share ideas and create
Disappearance and Candor in Contemporary Women’s Writing examines these works in the context of each author ’s culture and history, drawing from the writing of philosophers, historians, artists, and activists In doing so, the author addresses broader questions of human rights by focusing on authoritarian governments’ use of gendered language and the feminization of enemies to justify the disappearance of political opponents or scapegoated minorities
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
186 Pages 6 B/W illus
PB 9781666979961 • £28 99 / $29 95
HB 9781666979947 £75 00 / $100 00
ePDF 9798216268413 • £67 50 / $90 00
ePub 9781978759534 • £67 50 / $90 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Women (Re)Writing Illness as Their Own The Processes and Products
Edited by Rachel N Spear
Women (Re)Writing Illness as Their Own illuminates ways in which writing processes and products enable women to create spaces of their own spaces that interrogate illness, challenge restitution (re)constructions, and work within and around various limitations associated with women writing illness
Bridging trauma studies with women’s studies, this collection blends creative writing and literary studies to explore how illness can weigh on the process of writing The chapters examine narrative products to better understand how women write illnesses in relation to identity (re)constructions, how they challenge triumphant tropes, how they work within and beyond narrative and linguistic limitations, how the very metaphors and/or genres selected work to aid in their narrating processes, and how their writing acts and products work in conjunction with their illness and (sometimes) healing journeys
COLLECTIONS
Environmental Cultures
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
304 Pages • 12 bw illus, 4 pg colour plate &
30 pgs of bw insets
HB 9781350467507
• £60 00 / $80 00
PB 9781350467491 • £18 99 / $24 95
ePDF 9781350467514 • £17 09 / $22 45
ePub 9781350467521 • £17 09 / $22 45
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Environmental Cultures
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
232 Pages
PB 9781350528406 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350528369 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350528376 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350528383 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Environmental Cultures
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
How to Weather Together
Feminist Practice for Climate Change
Astrida Neimanis, University of Sydney, Australia & Jennifer Mae Hamilton, New York University, Sydney, Australia
In How to Weather Together, Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton develop an innovative model for climate change mitigation and adaptation that brings together climate justice and community engagement. Translating feminist theory into practice, they demonstrate how we can gradually change the world as the world changes us
Drawing on a rich and varied history of feminist, queer and anticolonial scholarship, Neimanis and Hamilton propose 'weathering' as both a theoretical framework and a set of practical tools for responding to environmental catastrophe They ask how we can reckon with existential crisis through playful, low-tech practice by connecting the planetary to the personal With photographs and a series of illustrated weathering activities throughout, the book turns academic concepts into practical, hands-on guidance for community groups, artists, students, researchers, and others It shows how climate adaptation requires building better social infrastructures for our shared but different worlds
240 Pages
PB 9781350420564 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350420526 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350420533 • £0 00 / $0 00
ePub 9781350420540 • £0 00 / $0 00
Bloomsbury Academic
An Ecopoetics of Agency
Writing with the Nonhuman in Modernist and Contemporary Poetry
Sarah Bouttier, Ecole Polytechnique, France
Focusing on a category of poems from the Modernist and contemporary periods which give agency to nonhuman beings and texts themselves, Sarah Bouttier puts form, often neglected within ecocriticism, at the center of the definition of ecopoetics
Grounding ecopoetics in posthumanist ontologies (new materialism, flat ontology and Latour ’s work on agency), Bouttier explores how the poems collapse the human/nonhuman divide and re-instil wonder at the nonhuman world
By juxtaposing readings of Modernist poets such as D H Lawrence, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore with contemporary poets such as Les Murray, Pattiann Rogers, Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie, the book provides fresh insight into well-known works and offers a new perspective on contemporary ecopoetry
OPEN ACCESS
Anglophone Literature and the Fight Against Climate Change
Matthias Stephan, Aarhus University, Denmark
Offering a methodology for identifying particularly impactful literary narratives of climate change, this open access book examines a range of Anglophone fiction authors such as Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ian McEwan, Louise Erdrich, Octavia E. Butler and Sarah Hall, as well as films such as The Day After Tomorrow and Snowpiercer.
Firstly, this book looks at which narratives, historically, have had an impact on social consciousness Secondly, it considers the impact of popular and established strategies Finally, it suggests emphasizing alternative narrative strategies, which it suggests can have a greater impact by causing people to act This allows a more solid approach to assessing the effectiveness of literary narratives on global issues
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4 0 licence on bloomsburycollections com Open access was funded by Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective
COLLECTIONS
Environmental Cultures
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
168 Pages
HB 9781350401143 • £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350401181 • £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350401150 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350401167 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Environmental Cultures
UK February 2026
208 Pages
HB 9781350125773
• US February 2026
• £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350470224 • £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350125780 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350125797 • £76 50 / $103 50 Bloomsbury Academic
UK September 2025 • US September 2025
304 Pages Black and white images throughout
PB 9781399423090 £12 99 / $ 00
HB 9781399423083 • £20 00 / $28 00
ePDF 9781399423052 • £14 00 / $19 60
ePub 9781399423045 • £14 00 / $19 60
Bloomsbury Continuum
Magic, Literature and Climate Pedagogy in a
Sofia Ahlberg, Uppsala University, Sweden
Time of Ecological Crisis
Channeling the creative potential of humanity to transition towards joyous and just futures in times of lifethreatening climate change, this book uses metaphors of magic and shapeshifting to imagine liveable futures achievable through other-than-rational means
Focusing on a wide range of 20th and 21st-century novels from a diverse range of writers such as Madeline Miller, Jeff VanderMeer, Ursula LeGuin, N K Jemisin, Ambelin Kwaymullina and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, it suggests that readers take seriously the pedagogical potential of magic in literature for the classroom and beyond while providing them with contextualized, collective methods of climate action
Ecocriticism and Turkey
Meliz Ergin, Koç University, Turkey
Situated between Europe and Asia, and surrounded by three seas, Turkey comprises a diverse environmental and cultural tapestry Ecocriticism and Turkey is the first in-depth study to explore Turkish literary and cultural engagements with the environment Ergin examines a wide range of ecocritical issues across four thematically organized chapters: “Sea,” “Climate,” “Routes,” and “Animals ” Each chapter addresses various dimensions of anthropogenic ecological change and highlights the role of literature in inspiring hope and action
The book takes readers on various journeys from the coasts of the Aegean Sea to the mountains of Eastern Anatolia Ergin converses with both twentieth-century writers to shed new light on familiar texts and contemporary writers to capture emerging perspectives, including Rum, Laz, Kurdish, and Armenian voices in her discussion The study is further enriched by an interdisciplinary inquiry that brings literature into dialogue with climate science, political history, underwater photography, folk music, and bio-art
The Lines We Draw
The Journalist, the Jew and an Argument About Identity
Tim Franks
Tim Franks spent years as the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent covering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories During that time, he was attacked from both sides – sometimes accused of being a self-hating Jew, other times an Islamophobe – but he responded to it all with a reporter ’s detached curiosity, drawing a clear line between his identity and his work It wasn’t until years later that Franks asked himself, what does it mean to be Jewish? And how has it informed his journalism?
It was a question he struggled to answer As a child in 1970s Birmingham, Tim Franks had hardly any relations or sense of lineage - it wasn’t until he learnt about the history of diaspora Jews that he realised why his family history was so difficult to trace Setting out on a journey in search of his ancestral roots, Tim Franks’ research takes him from Constantinople to Cadiz and Auschwitz, Lithuania and even Downing Street
The ancestors he discovers each speak to a part of the Jewish story, from risk-taking rabbis and struggling artists to Benjamin Disraeli, a convert who became the Conservative Party’s “unlikeliest” ever leader This book is a moving, deeply empathetic memoir which encourages us all to confront the lines we draw In searching for what it means to be Jewish, Franks discovers what it means to take a stand and write about the world
COLLECTIONS
New Directions in Life Narrative
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
184 Pages • 10 bw illus
HB 9781350279988 • £85 00 / $115 00
PB 9781350280021 • £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9781350279995 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350280007 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
192 Pages
PB 9798765138069 • £15 99 / $21 95
HB 9798765138076 • £17 99 / $24 00
ePDF 9798765138083 • £16 19 / $21 60
ePub 9798765138090 £16 19 / $21 60
Bloomsbury Academic
Refugee Lives in the Archives
A Pacific Imaginary
Gillian Whitlock,
University of Queensland, Australia
This book introduces the unique archive of letters, textiles, hand-drawn maps, emails and photographs from asylum seekers held indefinitely in offshore detention at Topside Camp, Nauru 2001-5. These artefacts introduce the distinctive and creative forms of resistance produced by asylum seekers in the remote Pacific camps on Nauru and Manus Island, and they expose their experiential histories of radical suffering and trauma Paying due deference to the creative and aesthetic agency of these various documents and artefacts created by the undocumented here, Gillian Whitlock generates a cultural biography of the Nauru camp that humanizes those who have remained unseen and unheard, and features the activist campaigns and the political resistance that assert the agency of witnessing refugees Structured around the collections of various artefacts exchanged between detainees and humanitarian activists, Refugee Lives in the Archives draws on emerging theories from detention centres and the asylum seekers themselves in a distinctive and expansive Pacific imaginary of refugee life narrative
Building on Whitlock’s substantial body of work in testimonial, documentary and archive practices, this book focuses on the ‘testimony of things’ and probes an approach to archival studies that moves life writing in new directions, to respond collaboratively to the diverse materiality of story-telling and exchanges in the unique and creative forms of asylum seekers’ voices, stories and epistemologies
Banning Books in America
Not a How-to
Edited by Samuel Cohen, University of Missouri, USA
This is a book about banned books in the U.S. about reading them, teaching them, and lending them under the shadow of political pressure not to
Banning Books in America features novelists on banning and being banned, arguments about the histories and politics of book banning, readings of banned books in national and international contexts, and responses to new legislation by anticensorship advocates, teachers, and librarians Together, these writers and educators provide a view from the trenches of the wars on reading They offer, if not a single blueprint, models for how to think about what it means to ban books and how to fight back against the forces that would ban them
This book shows that at the heart of this issue is the question of what books mean to people Some Americans are determined to decide which books other Americans shouldn’t get to read Why these books? Why now? Anyone who seeks to answer these questions must examine the context, historical and current, in which Americans allow this to happen
This is a book about book banning in America, and so it is a book about America
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
192 Pages
HB 9798765112861 • £90 00 / $120 00
PB 9798765112854 £28 99 / $39 95
ePDF 9798765112885 • £81 00 / $108 00
ePub 9798765112878 • £81 00 / $108 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror Post-9/11 Narratives of Dissent and American War Literature M C Armstrong, North Carolina A&T State University, USA
Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror is the first study of the literature of dissent that has emerged from the veterans of the global War on Terror
Spencer Ackerman's Reign of Terror stated that “The most impactful activism against the War on Terror came from within the Security State itself low ranking soldiers and intelligence contractors whose exposure to the war prompted them to expose it to the world ” Veteran Activism and the Global War on Terror examines this subculture of veterans whose stories have dramatically shifted the conversation about literature and activism Author M C Armstrong introduces and explores America’s post-9/11 soldier-writers, a community that challenges pivotal contemporary assumptions about allegiance, democracy, geography, solidarity, and national identity
Chapters are organized around a triad of core concepts–parrhesia, cosmopolitanism, and dissensus–and discuss authors including Elliot Ackerman, Kristin Beck, Joseph Hickman, Phil Klay, Kevin Powers, and Edward Snowden
COLLECTIONS
Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities
UK February 2026
• US December 2025
• 51 bw illus
344 Pages
PB 9781350506374
• £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350506336
• £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350506343 • £0 00 / $0 00
ePub 9781350506350 • £0 00 / $0 00
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in the Humanities, Ageing and Later Life
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
240 Pages • 5 bw illus
PB 9781350374751 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350374713 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350374720 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350374737 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US December 2025
240 Pages 6 b/w illus
PB 9781666949216 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781666949193 £80 00 / $110 00
ePDF 9798216257790 • £72 00 / $99 00
ePub 9781978765856 • £72 00 / $99 00
Bloomsbury Academic
OPEN ACCESS
Art and the Critical Medical Humanities
Edited by Fiona Johnstone, Durham University, UK, Allison Morehead, Queen’s University, Canada & Imogen Wiltshire, University of Lincoln, UK
This agenda-setting edited volume makes a forceful case for the contribution that art – its practices and its histories – can make to debates and developments in critical medical humanities today
Whilst medical humanities previously emphasised an instrumental attitude towards art and art-making, recent work has opened up a dynamic space in which art can critically and imaginatively operate With urgent attention paid to constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality and disability, the artists, art historians, and scholars in related fields represented within this volume address new and pressing questions about structures and experiences of health, medical knowledge, care, therapy, and clinical research and education
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4 0 licence on bloomsburycollections com Open access was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Wellcome Trust
Fictions of Radical Life Extension
Living Forever from the Fin de Siècle to the First World War James Aaron Green, University of Vienna, Austria
In this major new study, James Aaron Green provides the first account of literary thought experiments published from 1878 to 1918 that speculate on the prospect of radically longer lives
Green argues that these fictions helped negotiate the emergent experiences and meanings of age and aging during years when long-established norms were being eroded and supplanted By recovering fictions by lesser-known writers and reevaluating those by more familiar writers like H G Wells and J M Barrie, the study reveals the surprising abundance and formal diversity of such speculative accounts Through readings supported by archival materials (anti-aging advertisements, medical treatises), these accounts are shown to have intervened on a wide range of scientific and social questions related to age and aging – from transfusion to colonialism, and second chances to apocalyptic demography
Ultimately, Green’s innovative historicist study proves how close attention to fictions of radical life extension can not only renovate our understanding of historical attitudes to age and aging, but also those of today
Illness, Literature, and Care
Vulnerable Lives
Robert Leigh Davis
At the heart of Illness, Literature, and Care is a view of care as attunement, a dynamic process of fragile rapport
Care in this mode does not abandon tradition and expertise, the collection of skills and practices built up over time Instead, it holds that expertise lightly in the face of each new encounter, rising to the possibilities of the present moment rather than deploying a preformed response Robert Leigh Davis shows how the open character of attunement situates care in spontaneous interactions, often with strangers, where abstract principles are less valuable than meeting people on their own terms, listening to them, being in sync with them and then, allowing that meeting to guide the choices that follow Davis develops this idea by examining scenes of care in Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Simone Weil, Flannery O’Connor, Nancy Mairs, Cortney Davis, graphic medicine, and the literature of nursing Davis shows that good care is not an abstract principle one might work out in universal terms, but an evolving set of practices tuned to the demands of a concrete occasion: a care moment
How To Think
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
320 Pages
HB 9781399408301 • £16 99 / $24 00
PB 9781399408318 • £10 99 / $18 00
ePDF 9781399408257 • £11 89 / $16 80
ePub 9781399408288 • £11 89 / $16 80
Bloomsbury Continuum
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Studies in Critical Poetics
UK January 2026
• US January 2026
224 Pages
PB 9781350419513 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350419476 • £90 00 / $120 00
ePDF 9781350419483 • £81 00 / $108 00
ePub 9781350419490 • £81 00 / $108 00
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
128 Pages
PB 9781666964240 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781666964226 £65 00 / $90 00
ePDF 9798216251866 • £58 50 / $81 00
ePub 9781978766334 • £58 50 / $81 00
Bloomsbury Academic
How
to Think Like a Poet
The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them
Dai George
'An entertaining guide to the rhyme and reason of poetry' -- The Idler
How history's most influential and inspiring poets – from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara –can teach us to better understand the world
How did the greatest poets in history make the world anew? And what can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? From the genius of the Ancient Greeks through to the love poetry and metaphysics of the Renaissance, through to the New York poets of the 20th century, this is the ultimate guide to the greatest writers of the human age
This book paints vivid pictures of a global selection of renowned poets throughout history: from Sappho, Li Bai and Rumi, to William Shakespeare and John Donne, to Frank O'Hara, Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath George also re-examines the canon, traditionally dominated by Western, white and male poets, and bring to light major figures from other important cultures and communities, including China, India and the Caribbean
American Objectivist Poetry Across the 20th Century
Xavier Kalck, University of Lille, France
Offering a new introduction to an important yet often overlooked group of 20th century American poets, this book re-examines their work as a group while giving special attention to their individual trajectories
Objectivist poets’ contribution to American literary history is no longer secret, but the nature of that specific contribution remains surprisingly unclear, and in need of serious revision Through a range of perceptive close readings, this book offers a detailed assessment of this group Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, Carl Rakosi, Charles Reznikoff and Louis Zukofsky from the 1930s Modernist era to the New American Poetry of the 1950s, all the way to the experimentations of the late 1970s and early 1980s In doing so, it presents a new critical history of 20th century American poetry and how to engage with it
Japanese Forms in American Poetry Beyond Haiku
Edited by Ce Rosenow
Analyzing the poetic forms of haibun, linked verse, senryu, and tanka, this collection argues that these traditional Japanese methods have established themselves in American poetry
Beginning with its Japanese origins and continuing through its development in the United States, the contributors demonstrate how these poetic forms have existed alongside haiku for more than a century while drawing attention to their use within contemporary poetry Over time, they have gained popularity among both haiku and non-haiku poets alike, leading to a wide variety of innovative approaches
BLOOMSBURY OPEN COLLECTIONS?
A new open access model for books
BLOOMSBURY OPEN COLLECTIONS is a collective-action approach to funding open access (OA) books. Through this model, we aim to make OA publication available to a wider range of authors by spreading the cost across multiple organisations, while providing additional benefits to participating libraries. By prioritising authors that are often underrepresented in scholarly publishing, including early-career and unaffiliated researchers and those based in/writing about low- and lower-middle- income countries, we hope to engage a more diverse author base, bringing their work to a wider global audience.
THE BOOKS
Following the success of our 2024-25 expansion, in 2025-26 we have continued to offer three collections of 20 titles each in:
• African Studies & International Development
• Environment & Climate Change
• Gender & Sexuality
BENEFITS TO LIBRARIES
• Contribute to a progressive OA funding model that aims to make 60 research titles available open access immediately on publication at no cost to the authors
• Receive guaranteed perpetual access to the 20 titles in each Open Collection you participate in
• Receive 1 year’s access to ~150 backlist titles in related areas for each Open Collection you participate in
• Be publicly acknowledged on our website
FIND OUT MORE
bloomsbury.com/bloomsbury-open-collections
COLLECTIONS
Object Lessons
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
160 Pages
PB 9798765126196 • £9 99 / $14 95
ePDF 9798765126219 • £8 99 / $13 45
ePub 9798765126202 • £8 99 / $13 45
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Object Lessons
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
160 Pages
PB 9781501376634 • £9 99 / $14 95
ePDF 9781501376658 • £8 99 / $13 45
ePub 9781501376641 • £8 99 / $13 45
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Object Lessons
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
160 Pages • 36 bw illus
PB 9798765135587 • £9 99 / $14 95
ePDF 9798765135600 • £8 99 / $13 45
ePub 9798765135617 • £8 99 / $13 45
Bloomsbury Academic
Ballot
Anjali Enjeti, Reinhardt University, USA
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things
Ballot examines the psychological, cultural, and political significance of voting in an increasingly anti-voting climate Armed with her personal experiences as a poll worker, electoral organizer, and activist, Anjali Enjeti unspools a timely narrative about the precarious state of the ballot during one of the most tumultuous political eras in US history, and recounts the astonishing events leading up to the 2024 presidential election
Enjeti lays out the growing challenges for voters in battleground states, where rightwing legislatures have introduced staggering numbers of voter suppression bills and redrawn district lines, all to disenfranchise as many Black and other marginalized voters as possible As her account of the history and stakes of election integrity shows, the aftershocks of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 have manifested most egregiously on the four corners of the ballot
Fist nelle mills, Freelance writer, St Louis, USA
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things
Our ability to make a fist is what distinguishes humans from every other species, including primates The fist has played a crucial role in the birth of language and appears in nearly every form of nonverbal communication We use our fist to protest oppression, give pleasure, knock on doors, give daps, and (inaccurately) measure our heart Yet the fist is also a sign of someone on the edge
This book asks what happens when we lean over the edge of what a fist can do and symbolize Fist uses historical moments and artifacts, interviews, and personal narratives to explore the fist's ambiguous and divisive nature Fist examines knuckle tattoos, the Black Power salute, Obama’s fist bumps, the Fig, and fisting, the last sexual taboo Fist uncovers what flexing our knuckles says, not just about us, but the world in which we live
Lipstick
Eileen G'Sell,
Washington University of St Louis, USA
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things
From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself
Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world’s most conspicuous – and contentious – tool of artifice Tossing expired ideas about femininity like so many tubes of melting wax, Lipstick explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation, as well as how lipstick can knock gender norms off balance
COLLECTIONS
Object Lessons
UK February 2026 • US January 2026
144 Pages
PB 9798765108840 • £9 99 / $14 95
ePDF 9798765108819 • £8 99 / $13 45
ePub 9798765108833 • £8 99 / $13 45
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Object Lessons
UK February 2026 • US January 2026
184 Pages • 15 b&w illustrations
PB 9798765108901 • £9 99 / $14 95
ePDF 9798765108895 • £8 99 / $13 45
ePub 9798765108918 • £8 99 / $13 45
Bloomsbury Academic
Snack
Eurie Dahn, Independent Scholar, USA
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things
In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial – perhaps even childish – especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and necessary The multiple aisles devoted to sweet and savory treats in supermarkets, and the availability of snacks even at places like home improvement and department stores, speak to the popularity of snacking But the ubiquity of snacks is relatively new and not common to all countries
Eurie Dahn traces the story of snacking culture through specific snacks, including Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, cheese crackers, and Choco Pies, and in the contexts of ethnicity, popular culture, diet culture, and even parenting Snack is an idiosyncratic cultural history that offers surprisingly filling food for thought
Stock Photo
Simona Supekar, Pasadena City College, USA
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Part memoir, part cultural criticism, Stock Photo mines the significance of the stock photo in our everyday lives, from the ads and websites we browse, to the menus and memes that we consume Through interviews with stock photography experts, photographers, models, consumers, and other stakeholders, Simona Supekar explores the evolution of the industry by tracing the creation of a stock photo from concept to usage while highlighting significant historical moments
Supekar weaves in her own experiences as a keyworder for a stock photography company while reckoning with her Asian American/South Asian identity in a post-9/11 world Stock Photo also addresses how these images have the power to shape our perceptions about race, class/caste, gender, ability, and more, thus underscoring the importance of representation even in something as innocuous as a stock photo
We want students to make the most of their time at university; to discover opportunities, succeed in their studies – and to enjoy the journey. Our books and resources support students in developing essential skills and empower them to achieve their goals.
Explore the full series at www.bloomsbury.com/pocketstudyskills
COLLECTIONS 2ND EDITION
UK January 2026 US January 2026
552 Pages
PB 9781350497795
£25 99 / $35 95
ePDF 9781350497801 • £23 39 / $32 35
ePub 9781350497818 £23 39 / $32 35
Bloomsbury Academic
A Creative Writing Handbook
Developing Dramatic Technique, Individual Style and Voice
Edited by Derek Neale, Heather Richardson, Open University, UK, Emma Claire Sweeney, Open University, UK & Siobhan Campbell, Open University, UK
An essential guide for writers of fiction, poetry, life writing and drama, A Creative Writing Handbook offers expert advice on structuring compelling narratives and cultivating distinctive voices. Writing, research and editing activities combine with rich and varied examples to help develop the skills and techniques a writer needs This hands-on approach examines scriptwriting for different media and considers how skills and techniques from one form of writing might usefully cross over to others: how does a short story become a film? How are techniques from scriptwriting employed in novels? And how might poets and life writers fruitfully engage with the strategies of dramatists and writers of prose fiction?
This second edition has been extensively updated with content that reflects current developments in forms such as life writing, flash fiction and audio drama It includes examples of work by a wide range of writers using a variety of styles and approaches, showcasing the diversity of contemporary writing
COLLECTIONS 3RD EDITION
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
296 Pages • 10 bw illus
HB 9781350467125
• £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350467132 • £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9781350467149
• £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9781350467156 £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026
• US February 2026
200 Pages
HB 9781350413122 • £70 00 / $95 00
PB 9781350413115 £22 99 / $30 95
ePDF 9781350413139 • £20 69 / $27 85
ePub 9781350413146 • £20 69 / $27 85
Bloomsbury Academic
The Bloomsbury Introduction to Creative Writing
Tara Mokhtari,
Bronx Community College, USA
Covering all of the major genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, dramatic writing and writing for digital media, this 3rd edition of the book is a practical, complete, introductory manual for students of creative writing The Bloomsbury Introduction to Creative Writing now features:
- new sections and exercises for editing and revising across the genres and hybrid forms
- a new chapter on intersectionality and writing alongside interviews with practitioners from a host of backgrounds and experiences
- an updated and expanded chapter on writing for digital media that explores the role of AI
- an updated and fully expanded glossary of key terms
Through a structured series of practical writing exercises – perfect for the classroom, the writer ’s workshop or the creative writing autodidact – the book helps build the new writer from the first explorations of voice and the relationship between writing and knowledge, through to mastery of a wide range of genres and forms With practical guidance on writing scholarly critiques of your own work, The Bloomsbury Introduction to Creative Writing is an essential guide for any introductory creative writing course and a practical companion for more advanced writers
Writing for Young People
Critical Readings and Discussions on Craft
Elen Caldecott
Applying the approach of ‘reading-as-a-writer ’ to the craft of writing for young people, this textbook combines critical analysis, unique author-insight and practical application of ideas to give writers the skills to create successful fiction for youth audiences Under the guidance of children’s author Elen Caldecott, compelling close readings dig deep into the construction of modern classics and contemporary middle grade, YA, picture books and more to explore how paragraphs, sentences and words engineer specific reader responses Interviews with the author of the extracted work follow before each chapter rounds off with writing exercises that prompt writers to engage with techniques and ideas discussed
Accessible and equipping writers with the valuable knowledge and skills to write in one of the fastest-growing fields in creative writing, Writing for Young People draws upon the works of prominent writers such as Jon Klassen, Patrick Ness, Liz Kessler, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and more
COLLECTIONS 2ND EDITION
Bloomsbury Writer's Guides and Anthologies
UK March 2026
• US March 2026
• 15 bw illus
336 Pages
HB 9781350459298
• £75 00 / $100 00
PB 9781350459304 • £23 99 / $32 95
ePDF 9781350459311 • £21 59 / $29 65
ePub 9781350459328 • £21 59 / $29 65
Bloomsbury Academic
Short-Form Creative Writing
A Writer's Guide and Anthology
H K Hummel, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA & Stephanie Lenox, Willamette College, USA
A complete introduction to the art and craft of extremely compressed works of imaginative literature, this book, now in its second edition, introduces both traditional and innovative approaches to the short form and demonstrates how it possesses structure, logic, and coherence while simultaneously resisting expectations.
With discussion questions, writing prompts, flash interviews, and illustrated key concepts, the book covers prose poetry, flash fiction, micro memoir, lyric essay, cross-genre/hybrid writing and much more With new additions such as a chapter on inspiration and expansions that now cover such concepts as shape, humour, time, revision and publishing, H K Hummel and Stephanie Lenox have produced the ultimate companion to writing short fiction
Featuring an extensive and wide-ranging anthology that offers inspiring examples of short-form writing in all of the styles covered by the book, it now includes micro dramas and flash comics alongside work from writers across the globe such as by Charles Baudelaire, Grant Faulkner, Jamaica Kinkaid, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Kevin Brockmeier, D E Hardy, Jose Hernandez, Diaz, Mihee Kim, Suzan-Lori Parks, Alyssa Quinn, and Claudia Rankine
COLLECTIONS 2ND EDITION
Bloomsbury Writer's Guides and Anthologies
UK March 2026 • US March 2026
408 Pages • 1 bw illus
HB 9781350346482 • £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350346499 • £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9781350346529 • £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9781350346512 • £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
Bloomsbury Writer's Guides and Anthologies
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages • 33 bw illus
HB 9781350408487 • £75 00 / $100 00
PB 9781350408494 • £23 99 / $32 95
ePDF 9781350408500 • £21 59 / $29 65
ePub 9781350408517 • £21 59 / $29 65
Bloomsbury Academic
Environmental and Nature Writing
A Writer's Guide and Anthology
Sean Prentiss, Norwich University, USA & Joe Wilkins, Linfield College, USA
Offering guidance on writing poetry, nonfiction, and fiction alongside an extensive anthology of models, Environmental and Nature Writing is a complete introduction to the art and craft of writing about the environment in a wide range of styles Now fully revised and updated throughout, this second edition features: a whole new chapter on place-based activities; a more international look at the genre with a completely revised anthology; and a greater focus on climate justice and sustainable transformation
The craft guide and anthology now wholly conversant to give an in-depth look at the various ways to write about the environment, the book also includes inspiring examples of work by Ross Gay, Mazimiliane Donicht, Nick Neely, Camille T Dungy, Amy Nezhukumatathil, John Hausdoerffer among many others!
Speculative Fiction
A Writer's Guide and Anthology
Benjamin Warner & Ron Tanner, Loyola University, USA
In a time defined by uncertainty, change and inequality, speculative fiction is fast-becoming the genre of the 21st century Straddling genres such as fantasy, science fiction, dystopia, alternative history, and horror, this book is a comprehensive introduction to the art of writing in this imaginative, fluid, and inclusive mode An all-in-one textbook combining a craft guide with an extensive, diverse anthology, Speculative Fiction explores the multiplicity of influences that the genre has consumed and incorporated, digs into techniques specific to speculative writing, and gives writers exercises and prompts to begin their own works
Featuring the works of such authors as George Saunders, Carmen Maria Machado, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Rebecca Roanhorse, and many more, this book gives writers the resources to write boldly, differently and freely
UK January 2026 US January 2026
296 Pages • 37 b/w figures, 11 tables, 3
textboxes
HB 9798881803667 • £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9798881803674 £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9798881867928 • £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9798881803681 • £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages • 41 bw illus
HB 9781350427716
• £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350427723 • £19 99 / $26 95
ePDF 9781350427730 • £17 99 / $24 25
ePub 9781350427747 £17 99 / $24 25
Bloomsbury Academic
Writing Reimagined
Bridging Critical Theories and Pedagogical Practices in Elementary Classrooms
Edited by Grace Y Kang & Sonia M Kline
This book invites educators to rethink writing instruction in ways that are joyful, purposeful, and justice-driven Grounded in humanizing pedagogy, critical literacy, and culturally sustaining pedagogy, this book affirms the brilliance of elementary children and their teachers, positioning them as powerful storytellers, thinkers, and changemakers
Focusing on elementary education a space often underrepresented in social justice education this volume features contributions from both emerging and established equity-centered educators and scholars Each chapter explores one of ten interrelated concepts: identity, translanguaging, raciolinguistics, trauma, multimodality, pop culture, play, activism, resistance, and love
This book is more than a collection of strategies it’s a flexible framework, a set of generative pathways, and a call to action Together, these elements honor teachers’ autonomy and local knowledge while inviting educators to examine assumptions, deepen understanding, and reimagine writing pedagogy in ways that are both critical and humanizing
A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing Supporting Inclusive Pedagogy
Bronwen Tate, University of British Columbia, Canada & John Vigna, University of British Columbia, Canada
A practical resource for creative writing instructors, this book brings together theoretical ideas with how progressive pedagogical and inclusive teaching practices can be implemented in a huge range of contexts For newcomers to seasoned instructors, teachers of undergraduate and postgrads, online, in-person or hybrid classes from 6 to 300+ students, creative writing teachers are guided through each step of designing and teaching courses With conceptually rich introductions, hands-on examples, and actionable interventions to help teachers challenge their students, A Creative Writing Teacher ’s Companion provides:
A diverse range of perspectives and approaches to active learning
Guidance on creating effective and meaningful exercises, next-level tips and suggestions to spur pedagogy, and teaching practices and care in the classroom
A wide selection of guest authors and instructors sharing classroom strategies, pedagogical provocations, and proven practices
Best practices for creating community while navigating the ever-evolving needs of students Exploration of fractious topics such assessment, capturing the process of creative writing and reading, and final pieces of creative work
An annotated bibliography and editable and updateable online models, templates and worksheets
COLLECTIONS
UK March 2026
• US March 2026
256 Pages 2 bw illus
PB 9781350497429 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350497382 £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350497399 • £76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350497405 • £76 50 / $103 50
Bloomsbury Academic
The Creative Writing Workshop in the 21st Century Practical Strategies for a Modern Era
Edited by Adrian Markle, Falmouth University, UK, Marshall Moore, Falmouth University, UK & Sam Meekings, Northwestern University in Qatar, Qatar
A critical interrogation of the creative writing workshop model, this collection of essays provides practical suggestions for contemporary approaches to this contentious method and how it might be reimagined Since the inception of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1936, the workshop model pioneered there has become the bedrock of creative writing instruction around the world, with much existing scholarship on the subject rightly focusing on matters of inclusivity and social justice or dismissing the workshop altogether With contributions from senior scholars in the field of creative writing pedagogy and authors ranging from the US, Australia and the UK to China, The Creative Writing Workshop in the 21st Century offers specific, actionable recommendations for ways the model can be reinvigorated Covering topics such as module design, diversity and inclusion, facilitation and teaching style, assessments, internationality, and the integration of modern technology, each chapter surveys perspectives on the workshop and provides concrete strategies to help instructors and workshop facilitators update and bolster their pedagogical practice
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 US February 2026
184 Pages
HB 9781350444676
£65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350444683 • £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9781350444690 £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9781350444706 • £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
Fiction in the Field
Creative Writing Across Disciplines
Jacqueline Yallop, Aberystwyth University, UK
Through a series of discussions with practitioners in fields beyond the Humanities, this book explores how key creative writing techniques inspire and inform other disciplines In turn, this new multidisciplinary view of the mechanics of storytelling sparks new ways of approaching the writing, reading and teaching of fiction in and beyond the writing workshop
A personal voyage of discovery, the book revolves around conversations with specialists in archaeology, genetics, architecture, medicine, law and botanical science to consider how specific techniques – narrative time, characterisation, fictional structures, plotting, point of view and place – inform their work Through a series of reflections, short fictions, practical exercises and prompts, these case studies then suggest new insights and methods for investigating key writing techniques, which in turn advocate for closer interactions between STEM, the humanities and arts practice
With creative arts subjects increasingly under pressure to justify their significance in contemporary work and life, Jacqueline Yallop makes a case for the re-evaluation of the importance of narrative writing craft in the world beyond personal practice and student assignment
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
192 Pages
HB 9781350444768 • £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350444775 • £21 99 / $29 95
ePDF 9781350444782 • £19 79 / $26 95
ePub 9781350444799 £19 79 / $26 95
Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 • US January 2026
144 Pages
HB 9781350455443 • £55 00 / $75 00
PB 9781350455450 £17 99 / $24 95
ePDF 9781350455467 • £16 19 / $22 45
ePub 9781350455474 • £16 19 / $22 45
Bloomsbury Academic
The Black Writers' Toolbox
A Practical Guide to Writing Fiction
Muli Amaye, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Presenting a new way of thinking about the practice of writing fiction for Black writers and any writer who includes non-white characters in their work, The Black Writer ’s Toolbox is a practical guide to crafting authentic Black characters and fictional worlds
For Black writers, there are connotations within description, language, setting, characterisation and voice when they approach the page that are often overlooked in creative writing instruction This book seeks to address this gap, offering writers the tools to decolonise their own minds, banish stereotypes and caricatures from their writing and address important contemporary cultural questions
Helping writers articulate their fully formed characters as well as guiding readers to understand the nuances of writing while Black, the book considers the effect of stereotypes on Black writers and readers, explores the historical implications of language, voice and power, and explains why all writing is not the same With consideration of sentence structure, senses, scene, point of view, plot, emotion, writing 'self' and ‘other ’ and more, each chapter employs examples of literature from Black authors that explore narrative perspective within the cultural, racial and historic contexts of the work, and features writing prompts and exercises around the topics discussed
Stay
With
Writing
Practices for Sustaining the Writer's Work and Life
Cindy Shearer, CIIS, USA
With rejection and intense commitment such integral parts of the writing life, many struggle to stay with the creative process Combining explorations of perseverance, intention, riding through failure, and meaning-making with bringing oneself fully into one’s art, Stay With Writing offers writers practices to sustain their writing and their creative life Through a hybrid of craft, pedagogy, memoir and personal essay that call upon reflective exercises and prompts, Cindy Shearer helps writers understand themselves as artists as well as the nature of writing as an artistic process and practice Drawing on knowledge from art forms beyond writing, from dancing to visual art, this book shows writers how to:
- Develop their own tools for sustaining their practice that are adaptable and unique to them
- See rules as opportunities and that there is no right or required process
- Recognize failure as a way to probe what they really want as writers
- Ask questions to understand their markets and create sustainable processes based on external drivers
- Discern their true goals focused around what they truly want to create
Moving, illuminating and inspiring, Stay With Writing will help writers discover and claim a process they can rely on for support again and again
COLLECTIONS
UK January 2026 US January 2026
272 Pages • 5 bw illus
PB 9781350522701
£28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350522664 • £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350522671
£76 50 / $103 50
ePub 9781350522688 • £76 50 / $103 50 Bloomsbury Academic
COLLECTIONS
UK April 2026 • US February 2026
272 Pages • 140 bw illus
HB 9781350477483 • £65 00 / $90 00
PB 9781350477490 • £19 99 / $26 95
ePDF 9781350477506 • £17 99 / $24 25
ePub 9781350477513 £17 99 / $24 25 Bloomsbury Academic
Creativity
and Contingency
in Literary Writing
Karin Kukkonen, University of Oslo, Norway
The first book to investigate, analyze and theorize the creative processes of literary writers, Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing uses author interviews, manuscript genetics and textual evidence to explore creativity from the authorial perspective
Studying an author ’s practice, literary form and contextual contingencies as elements that affect literary creativity, Karin Kukkoken develops theoretical models for examining the age-old problem of artistic creation and how it has been put to works by authors from the nineteenth century to the age of digital fiction, across a range of languages With insights from the cognitive sciences, anthropology and philosophy of mind as well as literary studies, the book calls upon interviews with Siri Hustvedt, Marina Warner, Anne Weber, Camille Laurens, Gwenaëlle Aubry, Kate Pullinger, Gunnhild Øyehaug, Maria Stepanova and György Dragomán and studies the manuscripts of Charlotte Brontë, Cora Sandel, Elsa Morante and Italo Calvino
Overcoming the traditional distinction between creative agent, process and creative product, Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing is as accessible and illuminating as it is important to understandings of human creativity
BOR
Creating the Interactive Digital Narrative
An All-at-Once Guide to Collaborative Planning, Production, and Beyond Bradford Gyori, Bournemouth University, UK
A practical, step-by-step guide to creating digital interactive projects, this book will help you and a creative team realise, plan and produce the most imaginative ideas and living stories Written in an accessible style with dashes of humour and drawing on deep knowledge of its subject matter, Brad Gyori offers this invaluable aid for creators wanting to approach storytelling in an exciting new way Designed around collaborative organisation but with ideas for those working on solo projects, Creating the Digital Interactive Story is for those lacking expensive equipment and an advanced knowledge of production techniques
Looking at digital journalism, interactive fiction, and locative storytelling, as well as how to use mediums such as film, text, audio, still images, polling, gaming and quizzes, this book also considers how creators might use virtual, augmented and mixed reality for totally immersive user experiences Featuring model production schedules, definitions of key terms, guidance on assigning tasks and calling upon case studies, anecdotes and ‘pro-tips’ in-book and online, this book contains everything a creative team needs to make a digital interactive story come to life
COLLECTIONS
UK February 2026 • US February 2026
256 Pages
PB 9781350266247 • £28 99 / $39 95
HB 9781350266209 £85 00 / $115 00
ePDF 9781350266216 • £76 50 / $103 50
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Bloomsbury Academic
Literary Advice, British Fiction 1880-1914 and the Birth of the Creative Writing Industry
Paul Vlitos, University of Surrey, UK
An exploration into the development of the literary advice industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this book examines popular author guides of the period, offering insight into the origins of writing advice, and reconstructing debates about the relationship between the author and their public, literary value and the teaching (and teachability) of creative writing
Making clear connections with the advice offered to aspiring writers today, Paul Vlitos historicizes the fields of creative writing and literary criticism, tracing to their origins some of the enduring platitudes of pedagogy whilst studying the matrix of attitudes and circumstances out of which they emerged Works explored include George Bainton s The Art of Authorship (1890), Arnold Bennett’s How to Become an Author (1903), Walter Besant’s The Pen and the Book (1899), E H Lacon Watson’s Hints to Young Authors (1902), Percy Russell’s The Literary Manual; or, A Complete Guide to Authorship (1886) and The Author ’s Manual (1890) and Leopold Wagner ’s How to Publish a Book (1898)
In addition, Vlitos places the period’s writing advice in dialogue with contemporary, fictional depictions of the literary life, demonstrating how authors each presented their own versions of what it might mean to be a writer in a changing economic and cultural landscape
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