"In the first book devoted to the impact made by Borges on the contemporary aesthetic imagination, Aizenberg brings together specially commissioned essays from international scholars in a variety of disciplines to provide a wide-ranging assessment of Borges's influence on the fiction, literary theory, and arts of our time."--Publishers website.

Reads the oeuvre of the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges as a radically globalized model for reimagining our relationship with the classical past. The first in-depth exploration of Borges' engagement with classical antiquity in any language and a major contribution to the field of global classics and to Borges studies.

Reverse Tradition invites the reader of postmodern fiction to travel back to the nineteenth-century novel without pretending to let go of contemporary anxieties and expectations. What happens to the reader of Beckett when he or she returns to Melville? Or to the enthusiast of Toni Morrison who rereads Charlotte Bronte? While Robert Kiely does not claim that all fictions begin to look alike, he finds unexpected and illuminating pleasures in examining a variety of ways in which new texts reflect on old. In this engaging book, Kiely not only juxtaposes familiar authors in unfamiliar ways; he proposes a countertradition of intertextuality and a way to release the genie of postmodernism from the bottleneck of the late twentieth century. Placing the reader's response at the crux, he offers arresting new readings by pairing, among others, Jorge Luis Borges with Mark Twain, and Maxine Hong Kingston with George Eliot. In the process, he tests and challenges common assumptions about transparency in nineteenth-century realism and a historical opacity in early and late postmodernism.

In this groundbreaking book, Jorge J. E. Gracia explores the artistic interpretation of fiction from a philosophical perspective. Focusing on the work of Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most celebrated literary figures of Latin America, Gracia offers original interpretations of twelve of Borges's most famous stories about identity and memory, freedom and destiny, and faith and divinity. He also examines twenty-four artistic interpretations of these stories—two for each—by contemporary Argentinean and Cuban artists such as Carlos Estévez, León Ferrari, Mirta Kupferminc, Nicolás Menza, and Estela Pereda. This philosophical exploration of how artists have interpreted literature contributes to both aesthetics and hermeneutics, makes new inroads into the understanding of Borges's work, and introduces readers to two of the most vibrant artistic currents today. Color images of the artworks discussed are included.

Meets the needs of today's teachers and students Gathered to meet the upsurge of interest in Latin America, this collection features major critical articles dealing with the authors and texts customarily taught in colleges and universities in the United States. The articles are in English and Spanish, with a predominance of the former. Surveys a dynamic and exciting area of research Four Latin American writers have won the Nobel Prize for Literature: Guatemalan Miquel Angel Asturias, Chilean Gabriela Mistral, Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Chilean Pablo Neruda. Also internationally recognized are the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, the Mexican Carlos Fuentes, and the Chilean Isabel Allende, to name only a few. Moreover, the sociopolitical circumstances of the past four decades of Latin American history, and the growing importance of the region have resulted in the creation of Latin American studies programs in numerous American universities. All of this literary activity hasinspired innumerable dissertations, theses, books, and journal articles. Explores contemporary Latin Americanissues and concerns In the face of such an enormous proliferation of commentary, students of Latin America and its literature need a body of basic texts that will provide them an orientation in the various research areas and new schools of thought that have emerged in the field. Particularly important are the essays and articles that have appeared in periodicals and other sources that Anglo American readers often find difficult to obtain. Individual volumes available: Vol. 1 Theoretical Debates in Spanish American Literature 448 pages, 0-8153-2676-9 Vol. 2 Writers of the Spanish Colonial Period 456 pages, 0-8153-2678-5 Vol. 3 From Romanticism to Modernismo in Latin American Literture 352 pages, 0-8153-2680-7 Vol. 5 Twentieth-Century Spanish American Literature Since 1960 416 pages, 0-8153-2681-5

Gay and lesbian themes in Latin American literature have been largely ignored. This reference fills this gap by providing more than a hundred alphabetically arranged entries for Latin American authors who have treated gay or lesbian material in their works. Each entry explores the significance of gay and lesbian themes in a particular author's writings and closes with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The figures included have a professed gay identity, or have written on gay or lesbian themes in either a positive or negative way, or have authored works in which a gay sensibility can be identified. The volume pays particular attention to the difficulty of ascribing North American critical perspectives to Latin American authors, and studies these authors within the larger context of Latin American culture. The book includes entries for men and women, and for authors from Latin American countries as well as Latino writers from the United States. The entries are written by roughly 60 expert contributors from Latin America, the U.S., and Europe.

"The face of Borges most widely known is that of the blind, patrician man of letters in whose writings emotion is subjected to the play of ideas. Yet Borges, born in Buenos Aires in 1899, did not become virtually blind until the 1950s, and in the decades before this affliction and before his books were widely translated and internationally celebrated, he wrote, loved and engage in local polemics with adventurous passion." "In Jorge Luis Borges, Jason Wilson explores Borges' tumultuous early life in the streets and cafes of Buenos Aires and charts his literary friendships, love affairs and travels. Borges claimed never to have invented a character: 'It's always me, subtly disguised.' Illuminating the connections running between the biography and the fictions, Wilson reminds us that Borges was always a poet whose life was recreated in his work - but never in confessional ways - and restores his Argentine roots. This book will be an invaluable resource for all who treasure the modern master."--BOOK JACKET.

A comprehensive, encyclopedic guide to the authors, works, and topics crucial to the literature of Central and South America and the Caribbean, the Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature includes over 400 entries written by experts in the field of Latin American studies. Most entries are of 1500 words but the encyclopedia also includes survey articles of up to 10,000 words on the literature of individual countries, of the colonial period, and of ethnic minorities, including the Hispanic communities in the United States. Besides presenting and illuminating the traditional canon, the encyclopedia also stresses the contribution made by women authors and by contemporary writers. Outstanding Reference Source Outstanding Reference Book

Until recently, Spinoza's standing in Anglophone studies of philosophy has been relatively low and has only seemed to confirm Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's assessment of him as a dead dog. However, an exuberant outburst of excellent scholarship on Spinoza has of late come to dominate work on early modern philosophy. This resurgence is due in no small part to the recent revival of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy and to the increased appreciation of Spinoza's role as an unorthodox, pivotal figure - indeed, perhaps the pivotal figure - in the development of Enlightenment thinking. Spinoza's penetrating articulation of his extreme rationalism makes him a demanding philosopher who offers deep and prescient challenges to all subsequent, inevitably less radical approaches to philosophy. While the twenty-six essays in this volume - by many of the world's leading Spinoza specialists - grapple directly with Spinoza's most important arguments, these essays also seek to identify and explain Spinoza's debts to previous philosophy, his influence on later philosophers, and his significance for contemporary philosophy and for us.

Homeland, Exile, Imagined Homelands are features of the modern experience and relate to the cultural and historical dilemmas of loss, nostalgia, utopia, travel, longing, and are central for Jews and others. This book is an exploration into a world of boundary crossings and of desired places and alternate identities, into a world of adopted kin and invented allegiances.