Books to look out for in December 2018

Herder’s Essay on Being

A Translation and Critical Approaches

In recent years, Johann Gottfried Herder has been the focus of much interest in the English-speaking world. While he was long disregarded, current scholarship in both German and English is revisiting his importance as an early theorist of the limits of Enlightenment. Noyes presents the first English translation of Herder’s foundational essay along with critical responses to it by today’s leading Herder scholars.

Debussy’s Resonance

The music of Claude Debussy has always been widely beloved by listeners and performers alike, more perhaps than that of any of the other pioneers of musical modernism. The book treats a large swath of the composer’s music, from previously unexplored mélodies of his early years to late pieces such as the ballet Jeux and the Douze Études, and takes into consideration the numerous contexts that helped shape the works and the different ways that musicologists and critics have explained them.

The Fifteenth Century XVI

Examining Identity

The vitality and diversity of research into the late medieval period are exemplified by the contents of this volume. “This series pushes the boundaries of knowledge and develops new trends in approach and understanding.” A central theme of the book is the medieval Church: examinations of the process of ordination, the parishioners of Dartford in Kent and the influence of their learned vicar, how monastic chroniclers changed their focus as the century progressed, the perhaps unjustified reputation of Bishop Ayscough of Salisbury, and the significance of Edward IV’s charter of ecclesiastical liberties.

Ngugi

Reflections on his Life of Writing

This collection of essays reflects on the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018. Drawing from a wide range of contributors, including writers, critics, publishers and activists, the volume traces the emergence of Ngugi as a novelist in the early 1960s, his contribution to the African culture of letters at its moment of inception, and his global artistic life in the twenty-first century.

Renaissance Papers 2017

Renaissance Papers collects the best scholarly essays submitted each year to the Southeastern Renaissance Conference. This year’s volume offers many contributions on early modern drama alongside essays probing identity, iconography, and devotional imagery in religious spaces and artworks.