Books to Look out for in November 2019

This year African Literature Today celebrates its 50^th anniversary, and in this month’s new publication, the volume’s contributors recognize the foundations laid by pioneering African writers. This month you will also find publications focusing on costume, fabric and clothing in the Middle Ages, an examination of the history of arterial repairs, and investigations into the cultural significance of one of the most familiar and charismatic group of animals, the bears.

Enjoy this diverse list of books to look out for in November, and don’t forget: you can get 35% off all of our titles featured in the post with promo code BB685.

Until next time!

ALT 37

African Literature Today

Edited by Ernest N. Emenyonu

Contemporary African creative writers have confidently taken strides which resonate all over the world. The daring diversities, stylistic innovations and enchanting audacities which characterize their works across many different genres resonate with readers beyond African geographic and linguistic boundaries. Writers in Africa and the diaspora seem to be speaking with collective and individual voices that compel world attention and admiration. This volume’s contributors recognize the foundations laid by the pioneer African writers as they point vigorously to contemporary writers who have moved African imaginative creativity forward with utmost integrity, and to the critics who continue to respond with unyielding tenacity.

The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage

Edited by Owen T. Nevin, Ian Convery & Peter Davis

Bears are iconic animals, playing a variety of roles in human culture. The essays collected here provide a rich selection of views on the human/bear relationships. They explore how bears are an influence in contemporary art, and how they are represented in the illustrations in children’s literature and in museum exhibitions. The history of captive bears is brought into contemporary relief by considering the fate of captive bears held in Asian countries for bile production. Other pieces look at how bears feature in gay culture, and are an intrinsic component to research on the Yeti and Sasquatch.

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

Edited by Dan Terkla & Nick Millea

Mappae mundi (literally maps of the world), beautiful objects in themselves, give huge insight into how the medieval mind conceived of the world, and its place within it. They are a fusion of “real” geographical locations with fantasy and legendary material. Production reached its height in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with such well-known examples as the Hereford mappa mundi, the maps of Matthew Paris, and the Vercelli map. This volume provides a Companion to these maps. Its first part looks at wider questions of how, why, where and for whom they were made, and their physical characteristics, before studies of the individual maps themselves.

Of Life and Limb

Surgical Repair of the Arteries in War and Peace, 1880-1960

Justin Barr

In 1880, patients suffering from vascular disease faced amputation — or death. By 1960, revolutionary techniques and technologies empowered new surgeons to remedy aneurysms, mend damaged vessels, and treat diseased arteries, saving the lives and limbs of patients around the world. This book illustrates how social, technological, institutional, and martial dynamics interplay to catalyze surgical innovation. Justin Barr examines these phenomena, marshaling extensive research and incisive analysis into a broadly applicable model that helps frame, illuminate, and forecast change in surgery.

Refashioning Medieval and Early Modern Dress

A Tribute to Robin Netherton

Edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker & Maren Clegg Hyer

All those who work with historical dress and textiles must in some way re-fashion them. This fundamental concept is developed and addressed by the articles collected here, ranging over issues of gender, status and power. Topics include: the repurposing and transformation of material items for purposes of religion, memorialisation, restoration and display; attempts to regulate dress, both ecclesiastical and secular, the reasons for it and the refashioning which was both a result and a reaction.Taken together, they honour the costume historian and editor Robin Netherton, who has been hugely influential in the development of medieval and Renaissance dress and textile studies.

The Segovia Manuscript

A European Musical Repertory in Spain, c.1500

Edited by Wolfgang Fuhrmann & Cristina Urchueguía

The Segovia Manuscript (Cathedral of Segovia, Archivo Capitular) has puzzled musicologists ever since its rediscovery at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is unique: no other manuscript of the period transmits a comparable blend of late fifteenth-century music consisting of 204 sacred works and vernacular pieces in Flemish, French, Italian, and Spanish.The essays here aim to treat every dimension of this fascinating source. New discoveries help date the manuscript and explain how it came to Segovia; particular attention is paid to the main scribe, and his relation with northern composers and repertory; and the vexed question of the conflicting attributions is considered afresh.

The Sword

Form and Thought

Edited by Lisa Deutscher, Mirjam Kaiser & Sixt Wetzler

The sword is the most iconic of all weapons. Throughout history, it has connected various, sometimes conflicting, dimensions of human culture: physical combat and representation of political power, definition of gender roles and refinement of body techniques, evolution of craftsmanship and mythological symbolism.
The articles collected here explore these dimensions, from a variety of disciplines, covering topics from the production and combat use of Bronze Age swords to sword typologies and terminology.

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