David Hawkes

The concept of ‘performativity’ has risen to prominence throughout the humanities. The rise of financial derivatives reflects the power of the performative sign in the economic sphere. As recent debates about gender identity show, the concept of performativity is also profoundly influential on people’s personal lives. Although the autonomous power of representation has been studied in disciplines ranging from economics to poetics, however, it has not yet been evaluated in ethical terms. This book supplies that deficiency, providing an ethical critique of performative representation as it is manifested in semiotics, linguistics, philosophy, poetics, theology and economics. It constructs a moral criticism of the performative sign in two ways: first, by identifying its rise to power as a single phenomenon manifested in various different areas; and second, by locating efficacious representation in its historical context, thus connecting it to idolatry, magic, usury and similar performative signs. The book concludes by suggesting that earlier ethical critiques of efficacious representation might be revived in our own postmodern era.

Performance in Postmodernity

The Reign of Anti-logos

This book is a clear, even-handed overview of the broad subject of ideology. Hawkes considers all the various meanings and definitions, and traces the history of the debates surrounding ideology from Martin Luther through to modern approaches.

Ideology

The Songs of the South, an Ancient Chinese Anthology

Chʻu Tzʻŭ

Richard G. Newhauser

Nathaniel Bump

Some modern commentators welcome the alleged approach of the 'post-human' era as a liberation from the constraints of essentialist identity. Others lament it as a harbinger of the death of the soul. But both groups will find it instructive to consider that the nature of humanity has always been a contested topic. The chapters collected here suggest that the emergence of the modern idea of the human was at least as fraught a process as its putative demise. David Hawkes and Richard G. Newhauser have selected a wide array of contributions for this volume. Renowned scholars from several disciplines have produced a series of fascinating essays, which concentrate on the relation between humanity and nature as it was understood in the medieval and early modern periods. The issues they examine range from poaching to flatulence, from Aztec animal symbolism to Jesus's grandmother, from tulips to the Trinity. Some chapters examine a wide variety of popular texts, from the bloody legend of Robert the Devil to the sinister magic of the Anglo-Saxon 'wen charm, ' from Lutheran Books of Nature to Emperor Maximillian's wedding.The result is a book that raises intriguing implications for the modern struggle over the meaning of mankind.

The Book of Nature and Humanity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Lisa Hopkins

Douglas Bruster

This volume considers three powerful ideological forces in early modern England: money, magic and the theatre. With the authorization of usury, financial value was developing into an independent, effective power. The mysterious, invisible nature of money's power struck many contemporaries as magical and contributed to the hysteria behind the great witch-hunts. At the same time, the public theatre emerged as a popular medium well-suited to representing the powers of magic. All the essays in this book examine the convergence of these three forces in a wide range of early modern drama. Part One considers the works of a broad array of figures ranging from Plautus through John Lyly to Christopher Marlowe - discussing plays such as Midas, The Alchemist and The Jew of Malta - while remaining tightly focussed on the nexus of money and magic. While Part Two concentrates on Shakespeare, whose diagnosis of the relations between finance, witchcraft and the stage is particularly acute in plays such as Timon of Athens, The Tempest and A Winter's Tale. The volume is especially timely in the current era of financial deregulation and derivatives, which often seem just as mysterious and occult in their operations as did the burgeoning financial system of 16th-century London.

Money and Magic in Early Modern Drama

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The deepest and most varied of the Tang Dynasty poets, Tu Fu (Du Fu) is, in the words of David Hinton, the “first complete poetic sensibility in Chinese literature.” First published in 1967, this book presents thirtyfive Chinese poems with a pinyin transliteration, a characterbycharacter translation, and commentaries on the subject, form, and historical background. Hawkes gives us a nutsandbolts account of how the poems of one of the world's greatest poets are constructed. It's an irresistible challenge for readers to invent their own translations.

A Little Primer of Tu Fu

An introduction to economic literary theory as applied to Shakespeare, concentrating on the shifting relations between economics and literature in both the Renaissance and postmodern eras.

Shakespeare and Economic Theory

Any literary student who is new to the terminology and uses of critical terms will welcome David Hawkes' Ideology, a comprehensive and concise overview. In refreshingly clear and jargon-free prose, Hawkes: * Considers the myriad definitions and meanings of ideology * Traces the history of the term and the debates which surround it, from Martin Luther and Machiavelli to present-day debates in feminism and psychoanalysis * Provides literary examples and illustrations to illuminate and clarify his argument * Asks whether, in the face of post-war capitalism and postmodernism, the ideology debate is obsolete, or is still very much relevant in contemporary debates

Sami H. Atassi

Gale Researcher Guide for: Mystery and Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

Gale Researcher Guide for: Mystery and Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie

Over the last 20 years, the concept of 'economic' activity has come to seem inseparable from psychological, semiotic and ideological experiences. In fact, the notion of the 'economy' as a discrete area of life seems increasingly implausible. This returns us to the situation of Shakespeare's England, where the financial had yet to be differentiated from other forms of representation. This book shows how concepts and concerns that were until recently considered purely economic affected the entire range of sixteenth and seventeenth century life. Using the work of such critics as Jean-Christophe Agnew, Douglas Bruster, Hugh Grady and many others, Shakespeare and Economic Theory traces economic literary criticism to its cultural and historical roots, and discusses its main practitioners. Providing new readings of Timon of Athens, King Lear, The Winter's Tale, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest, David Hawkes shows how it can reveal previously unappreciated qualities of Shakespeare's work.

Chu ci : the songs of the South, an ancient Chinese anthology, by David Hawkes

Xiang Liu

An Ancient Chinese Anthology

Ch'u Tz'ŭ: the Songs of the South

The deepest and most varied of the Tang Dynasty poets, Tu Fu (Du Fu) is, in the words of David Hinton, the “first complete poetic sensibility in Chinese literature.” Tu Fu merged the public and the private, often in the same poem, as his subjects ranged from the horrors of war to the delights of friendship, from closely observed landscapes to remembered dreams, from the evocation of historical moments to a wry lament over his own thinning hair. Although Tu Fu has been translated often, and often brilliantly, David Hawkes’s classic study, first published in 1967, is the only book that demonstrates in depth how his poems were written. Hawkes presents thirty-five poems in the original Chinese, with a pinyin transliteration, a character-by-character translation, and a commentary on the subject, the form, the historical background, and the individual lines. There is no other book quite like it for any language: a nuts-and-bolts account of how Chinese poems in general, and specifically the poems of one of the world’s greatest poets, are constructed. It’s an irresistible challenge for readers to invent their own translations.

David Hawkes

About

Books

Join the club