Critical Companion Research Articles

Daniel Terkla / Nick Millea (Eds.), A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. (Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture.) Woodbridge, Boydell Press 2019

Article Daniel Terkla / Nick Millea (Eds.), A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. (Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture.) Woodbridge, Boydell Press 2019 was published on April 1, 2021 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 312, issue 2).

Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber, Kathleen Irwin, and Moira J. Day, eds., Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage

Performing Turtle Island curates experiences with and philosophies of Indigenous theatre. Critical Companion to Native American Theatre and Performance provides brief overviews of important events, artists, and organizations in North American Indigenous theatre. The former ranges in tone and topic; the latter is introductory and especially useful in undergraduate classrooms.

Review: Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion, by Ann George

Review: <i>Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion</i>, by Ann George

The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities by Eamonn Jordan

Reviewed by: The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities by Eamonn Jordan Susan Cannon Harris THE THEATRE AND FILMS OF CONOR McPHERSON: CONSPICUOUS COMMUNITIES. By Eamonn Jordan. Critical Companions series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 248. What exactly does one want from a “critical companion”? That is the question I was left with after finishing The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities (2019), the most recent entry in the Critical Companions series published by Bloomsbury for its Methuen Drama imprint. Edited by Patrick Lonergan and Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., the series runs to about thirty volumes, some dedicated to genres, movements, or histories, and others to single authors. Eamonn Jordan’s contribution follows the series formula: about 85 percent of the book is written by him, with the remaining 15 percent made up of a cluster of short pieces by other authors who provide “alternative perspectives”—in this case, an interview with McPherson, critical essays by Lisa Fitzpatrick and Maha Alatawi, and a brief musing by New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley. Although Jordan is listed as sole author, this book is thus neither a scholarly monograph nor an edited collection, but a kind of lopsided hybrid. Possibly this model was designed for the volumes that synthesize a large body of disparate material into a coherent narrative, with the critical essays [End Page 125] then rectifying some of that narrative’s omissions. Even so, as I worked my way through The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson, I began to wonder about the purpose of the book-length, single-author survey. If the goal is to gather all the information a scholar might need about a particular figure in one place, it seems to me that something digital and easily updated would do a better job, at least for authors who are still alive and productive. If the purpose is to lay down a baseline for future critical readings of that author’s work, then at some point analysis and interpretation have to take precedence over the collection of information. If the purpose is to provide instructors with contextual material to assign to students along with the plays and films, then we would expect whatever chapter we are assigning to make a clear argument about the work that could then be expanded on or debated in discussion. The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson only really fulfills the first of these expectations. It provides a comprehensive overview of McPherson’s career in theatre, film, and television, from the early monologue plays of the 1990s through the Bob Dylan–inspired musical Girl from the North Country (2017). It is organized thematically around McPherson’s favorite modes and preoccupations, some familiar (monologue plays, the supernatural) and some more surprising (there is a chapter on “Apocalyptic Dispossessions” and another on Christmas). Even readers familiar with McPherson’s catalog will be introduced to new works, whether it be the profoundly unsettling two-hander Come on Over or the differently disturbing BBC miniseries Paula. As in his earlier Dissident Dramaturgies, Jordan provides valuable accounts of first productions. He also helpfully collates the first round of critical responses to many of these plays and films. Jordan notes in his introduction that he tried “to be as comprehensive as possible about each work” he discusses (5), and in this he has very much succeeded. Jordan also promises readers an analysis and interpretation of McPherson’s work that will take in “gendered arguments” (11) but focus on McPherson’s engagement with neoliberalism. Here the results are mixed. Jordan argues that McPherson’s fascination with small-time crooks is a critique of “the ‘commodification of everything’” that avoids “being simplistically hostile to contemporary capital, which most critics of neoliberalism seem to be” (11–12). This is a reasonable and promising approach. But here as in so many of the later chapters, Jordan marches the reader plot point by plot point through each of the works discussed until analysis is overwhelmed by summary. Chapter after chapter strikes out in a promising direction, only to lose its way in a forest of information and wander into anticlimax. For instance, Jordan devotes a section of his...

Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion by Ann George

Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion by Ann George

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries ed. by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries ed. by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea

Finn Jensen, Henry Miller and Modernism: The Years in Paris, 1930-1939

Finn Jensen, Henry Miller and Modernism: The Years in Paris, 1930-1939 Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Wayne E. Arnold, Ph.D. The University of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan During an interval as a graduate student, I recall a course in which the professor included various novels in tandem with an academic publication covering the same novels. The combination of texts, critical companion, and the professor’s lecture has remained in my mind as the most proficient trifectas for an academic course desig...

A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets, edited by Jared C. Hartt

Book Review| December 01 2020 A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets, edited by Jared C. Hartt A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets, edited by Jared C. Hartt. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2018. xx, 397 pp. Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel TAMSYN MAHONEY-STEEL is Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Central Lancashire. Her research interests include medieval French music and literature and the use of text mining and text encoding. She has published on the application of the Text Encoding Initiative for editing the works of Guillaume de Machaut, medieval motets, and soundscapes in medieval narratives. She is an editor of the new complete works edition of Machaut. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2020) 73 (3): 800–806. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2020.73.3.800 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel; A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets, edited by Jared C. Hartt. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 December 2020; 73 (3): 800–806. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2020.73.3.800 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search Motet scholars see the world in terms of motets: that which is complex, beautiful, and multivalent can be deemed motet-like. Jared Hartt claims this esteemed identifier for his own volume on medieval motets, and he has earned the right to do so. Like those of medieval motets, the contributing voices are competing yet harmonious, working together to provide a rich understanding of the genre, but never attempting to reduce these pieces to a common core. Hartt's A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets is what the field of motet studies needs: a volume that captures the complexity of the evolution of motets in a manner that is satisfying for scholars yet accessible for students. The introduction contains the best summary of medieval motets I have read, alerting the reader to all the traditional definitions, while acknowledging outliers and edge cases—such as the monophonic motet—that may in fact allow us to reorient... You do not currently have access to this content.

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, edited by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea

<i>A Critical Companion to English</i> Mappae Mundi <i>of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries</i>, edited by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea

Review of A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Review of A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

From isolated labels and nudges to sustained tinkering: assessing long-term changes in sustainable eating at a lunch restaurant

PurposeThe critical role of diet in climate change mitigation has raised behavioural approaches to the top of the agenda. In this paper, the authors take a critical look at these behavioural approaches and call for a more dynamic, practice-oriented understanding of long-term changes in sustainable food consumption and supply.Design/methodology/approachThis approach is based on the experiences from a long-term experiment promoting sustainable eating in a workplace lunch restaurant using a series of informational and nudging techniques. In the experiment, the authors found that focussing solely on eating behaviours did not help to capture the multi-level change processes mobilised. The authors therefore propose a more dynamic, practice-oriented methodology for examining long-term changes in sustainable eating. The emprical data of the experiment are based on qualitative and quantitative data, consisting of customer survey, customer and kitchen personnel focus group discussions and monitoring data on the use of food items in the restaurant and their climate impacts.FindingsThe results draw attention to a series of practical challenges restaurants face when promoting sustainable eating. Directing analytical attention to tinkering helped to reveal the tensions brought about by labelling and nudging in menu planning and recipe development. The results show how tinkering required attentiveness to customers' wishes in both cases. Nudging offered more freedom for the restaurant to develop menus and recipes. In the case scrutinised, however, nudging customers towards tastier and more satiating vegetarian dishes included the use of dairy. This partly watered down the climate benefits gained from reduced meat consumption.Originality/valueRather than looking separately at changes in consumer behaviour and in the supply of food, the authors show how we need analytical concepts that enable the evaluation of their mutual evolution. Tinkering can assist us in this endeavour. Its adaptive, adjustive character, however, calls for caution. The development of praxis in food services and catering requires critical companions from the transdisciplinary research community. Research can provide systematic knowledge on the impacts of labels and nudges on kitchen praxis. However, research itself also needs to tinker and learn from experiments. This necessitates long-term speculative research strategies.

Pride and Prejudice (radio broadcast)

<i>Pride and Prejudice</i> (radio broadcast)

Critical Companions: Using Literary Theories to Negotiate Controversial Topics in Young Adult Novels

Preview this article: Critical Companions: Using Literary Theories to Negotiate Controversial Topics in Young Adult Novels, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/vm/27/3/voicesfromthemiddle30534-1.gif

Book Review: Microeconomics: A Critical Companion by Ben Fine

Book Review: <i>Microeconomics: A Critical Companion</i> by Ben Fine

Potentiality and Possibility: An Overview of Beowulf and Queer Theory

In 1990, Teresa de Lauretis coined “queer theory”, which subsequently sparked discussion of non-normative gender and sexuality in literature. Despite the theory’s codification nearly 30 years ago, there are few queer approaches to the foundational Old English poem Beowulf. The two primary handbooks on Beowulf, A Beowulf Handbook (1997) and A Critical Companion to Beowulf (2003) make no mention of queer theory. In 2009, David Clark’s article “Old English Literature and Same-Sex Desire: An Overview” gave a historiography for studies of early medieval English same-sex relationships and concluded future work should integrate queer theory in their approach. This essay aims to update all three reference-works by enumerating queer theoretical approaches to Beowulf since 1990 through two thematic strands: transgressive human behavior and queer monsters. By examining queer readings of Beowulf, I submit this theory’s usefulness in problematizing long-held assumptions and presenting new possibilities for understanding the Old English heroic world as diverse and plural.

A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets. Ed. by Jared C. Hartt

A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets. Ed. by Jared C. Hartt

Festschriften and Collected Essays

Festschriften and Collected Essays Christopher T. Begg, Fred W. Guyette, Christopher T. Begg, and Eric F. Mason 1543. Sean A. Adams (ed.), Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras: Greek, Latin, and Jewish (Transmissions: Studies on Conditions, Processes, and Dynamics of Textual Transmission 2; Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2019). Pp. 230. €74,72. ISBN 978-3-11-065787-6. This volume presents three important findings regarding its title topic. First, book culture and materiality were central to the practice of scholarship in antiquity. Second, there was a clear link between scholarship and educational practices in the period covered by the volume. And third, scholastic influence in the Hellenistic-Roman period was not unidirectional. Although Greek practices influenced the scholarly habits and literary approaches of newly conquered peoples, the Greeks were in turn influenced by the peoples they conquered. [Adapted from published abstract.] The volume opens with an introduction by editor A. that includes summaries of the component articles and concludes with a general bibliography, plus indexes of subjects, authors, and works cited. The ten component essays—all of which are in English—are as follows: Gaëlle Coqeuginot, "Scholastic Research in the Archive? Hellenistic Historians and Ancient Archival Records"; Myrto Hatzimichali, "Circulation of Lexica in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Period"; Matthew Nicholls, "'Bookish Places' in Imperial Rome: Bookshops and the Urban Landscape of Learning"; Serena Ammirati, "Towards a Typology of the Ancient Latin Legal Book"; Stephanie Roussou, "New Readings in the Text of Herodian"; Eleanor Dickey, "What Does a Linguistic Expert Know? The Conflict between Analogy and Atticism"; R. M. A. Marshall, "Suetonius as Bibliographer"; Sean A. Adams, "Translating Texts: Contrasting Roman and Jewish Depictions of Literary Translations"; and Catherine Hezser, "Rabbis as Intellectuals in the Context of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Christian Scholasticism." For abstracts of the two essays of most direct interest to OTA readers, see ##840, 975. 1544. David Allen and Steve Smith (eds.), Methodology in the Use of the Old Testament in the New: Context and Criteria (LNTS [JSNTS] 597; London/New York/Oxford/ New Delhi/Sydney: T&T Clark, 2020). Pp. xiii + 226. $114. ISBN 978-0-567-67604-1. This volume commemorates the 40th anniversary of the so-called "Hawarden Seminar," an annual gathering of scholars focused on the use of the OT in the NT. It opens with a foreword concerning the history of the Seminar by Susan Docherty and an introduction to the volume and its component essays by the two editors. The ten essays that follow are divided into three "sections": Methodological Insights for OT/NT Studies from Outside the NT (4 essays); The Role of OT Context in OT/NT Studies (4 essays); and The Role of Criteria for OT/NT Studies. It includes as well two responses to the preceding essays by, respectively, Rikki Watts ("Rethinking Context in the Relationship of Israel's Scriptures to the NT: Character, Agency, and the Possibility of Genuine Change") and Steve Moyise ("Concluding Reflection"). The volume's end-matter comprises a general bibliography and indexes of authors and references. For abstracts of the ten essays, see ##995, 1002, 1003, 1007, 1008, 1015, 1017, 1021, 1506, 1535. [End Page 529] 1545. John Barton (ed.), The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). Pp. xii + 613. $45. ISBN 978-06-91-15471-8. This book has been designed to be accessible to "non-specialists" and to readers from any religious background. OT scholars from around the world have contributed twenty-three essays. Each of the essays is approximately 25 pages in length. They are grouped together in four parts: Part 1 is "The Hebrew Bible in Its Historical and Social Context," with essays on "The Historical Framework: Biblical and Scholarly Portrayals of the Past" (Francesca Stavrakopoulou); "The Social and Cultural History of Ancient Israel" (Katherine Southwood); and "Israel in the Context of the Ancient Near East" (Anthony J. Frendo). Part 2 covers "Major Genres of Biblical Literature"; the essays in this section are: "The Narrative Books of the Hebrew Bible" (Thomas Römer); "The Prophetic Literature" (R. G. Kratz); "Legal Texts" (Assnat Bartor); "The Wisdom Literature" (Jennie Grillo); and "The Psalms and...

Review: A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

Review: A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene

Reviewed by: The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer by Nicholas Grene Adam Goldstein The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer. By Nicholas Grene. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. Pp. xv + 233. $102.00, hardcover. In a more than fifty-year career of diverse creations ranging from productions at iconic international theatres to Broadway, Hollywood, and beyond, Irish playwright Tom Murphy carved a long journey to establish himself as one of world’s most vital and dynamic playwrights. Recognized as an invaluable cultural voice in the exploration of Irish identity, Murphy’s canon explodes assumptions of colonial, postcolonial, and an ever-evolving Ireland through a myriad of dramatic forms, structures, and voices. Cementing Murphy’s cultural significance, Irish president Michael D. Higgins wrote in his official statement following the playwright’s passing in May 2018, “The importance of Tom Murphy’s contribution to Irish theatre is immeasurable and outstanding. We have had no greater use of language for the stage than in the body of work produced by Tom Murphy since his earliest work in the 1960s. His themes were not only those which had influenced the very essence of Irishness, emigration, famine and loss—they were universal in their reach.” This notion of “universality” represents the exciting launchpad for Nicholas Grene’s [End Page 250] extraordinary critical companion book, The Theatre of Tom Murphy: Playwright Adventurer. This wonderfully comprehensive “deep-dive” into the vast landscape of Murphy’s storytelling endeavors to analyze each of Murphy’s works—both major and minor—in the hopes of granting universal viability for the playwright’s work, not only to his native Ireland but to the world of theatre at large. Grene loads the beginning of his work with an assertion that Murphy’s writing, particularly in comparison to his contemporary, the globally lauded Irish icon Brian Friel, is “understudied and undervalued” (xiv). Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid Theatre Company, echoes this sentiment in the 2018 New York Times report of Murphy’s death, that non-Irish audiences often struggle with his plays because Murphy does not gift his audience easy thematic, narrative, or personal access points. Murphy’s plays are challenging for global audiences to penetrate because as Hynes states, he is “unflinching in his rage about the way things were. He wrote with a very raw essence.” This rawness of essence sparks the subtitle of the work “playwright adventurer,” which identifies both the greatness and the challenge of the playwright in critique. Grene proposes that Murphy is an “adventurer” in that he discovers a story as it emerges and adapts form to fit this emergence rather than write to a predetermined style, outline, structure, or theatrical vocabulary. Through an exhaustive exploration of archival information as well as via significant direct interviews with the playwright himself, Grene guides us into the heart of a writer who follows impulse, delves into the visceral of the moment, and who does not need to know in advance where a story is heading to arrive at powerful catharsis. The author skillfully implies that the challenge for Murphy’s work in achieving “universality” lies in the sheer difficulty in pinning down the playwright’s voice. Murphy’s worlds jump from the page as individual moments in the playwright’s mind that transcend one voice and instead mine numerous the-atrical vocabularies, sounds, tones, and tools in the pursuit of complex truths. Grene examines Murphy’s plays thematically rather than chronologically. He groups works under linking categories that denote important connective tissues that span Murphy’s career. This structure allows the reader to view Murphy’s narrative complexity through a lens of recurring questions, themes, and ideas rather than through a basic linear chronology. Further, by looking at the playwright’s creative process in crafting each story, the book’s framework observes Murphy’s work as incredibly political by identifying it as utterly personal. Grene sees Murphy’s work as universal because it is so universally human despite its often-localized vantage point. The first chapter, “Retrospectives,” lays out the playwright’s biographical [End Page 251] information as well Grene’s key strategy of exploring Murphy’s process rather than just product. Through this refreshing method of analysis...

A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets ed. by Jared C. Hartt

A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets ed. by Jared C. Hartt