The Empire of Twilight

Two new scholar books:

Empire in Question 
Reading, Writing, and Teaching British Imperialism 
Antoinette Burton
ISBN: 9780822349020 
Publisher: Duke University Press

Featuring essays written by the influential historian Antoinette Burton since the mid-1990s, Empire in Question traces the development of a particular, contentious strand of modern British history, the “new imperial history,” through the eyes of a scholar who helped to shape the field. In her teaching and writing, Burton has insisted that the vectors of imperial power run in multiple directions, argued that race must be incorporated into history writing, and emphasized that gender and sexuality are critical dimensions of imperial history. Empire in Question includes Burton’s groundbreaking critiques of British historiography, as well as essays in which she brings theory to bear on topics from Jane Eyre to nostalgia for colonial India. Burton’s autobiographical introduction describes how her early encounters with feminist and postcolonial critique led to her convictions that we must ask who counts as a subject of imperial history, and that we should maintain a healthy skepticism regarding the claims to objectivity that shape much modern history writing. In the coda, she candidly reflects on shortcomings in her own thinking and in the new imperial history, and she argues that British history must be repositioned in relation to world history. Much of Burton’s writing emerged from her teaching; Empire in Question is meant to engage students and teachers in debates about how to think about British imperialism in light of contemporary events.

Includes: "Recapturing Jane Eyre: Reflections on Historicizing the Colonial Encounter in Victorian Britain" (1996).

Bringing Light to Twilight 
Perspectives on a Pop Culture Phenomenon 
Edited by Giselle Liza Anatol
ISBN: 9780230110687
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

The astounding commercial success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, not just with adolescent girls (as originally intended), but with a large and diverse audience, makes interpreting their underlying themes vital for understanding the ways that we perceive and interact with each other in contemporary society.  Literary critics have interpreted vampires from Stoker's Dracula to Rice's Lestat in numerous ways - as symbols of deviant sexuality; as transgressive figures of sexual empowerment; as xenophobic representations of foreigners; as pop culture figures that reveal the attitudes of the masses better than any scholarly writing - and the Twilight saga is no exception. The essays in this collection use these interpretative lens and others to interrogate the meanings of Meyer's books, making a compelling case for the cultural relevance of Twilight and providing insights on how we can "read" popular culture to our best advantage.  The volume will be of interest to academic and lay readers alike: undergraduates, graduate students, and instructors of children's and young adult literature, contemporary U.S. literature, gothic literature, and popular culture, as well as the myriad Twilight fans who seek to explore and re-explore the novels from a variety of angles.

Includes "Textual Vampirism in the Twilight Saga: Drawing Feminist Life from Jane Eyre and Teen Fantasy Fiction" by Kristen Deffenbacher and Mikayla Zagoria-Moffet.