This Week's Acquisitions
- Alison Lumsden, Walter Scott and the Limits of Language (Edinburgh, 2010). Explores the role of Enlightenment theorists like Lord Kames in shaping Scott's understanding of literary practice. I'm reviewing this for Choice (as part of my usual remit, not the bibliographical essay). (Review copy)
- Adrienne Williams Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England: Law and Jewishness in Marian Legends (D. S. Brewer, 2010). Links the miracles to England's attempt to manage its Jewish population, before and after the expulsion. (Review copy)
- Kristina Bross, Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America (Cornell, 2004). The figure of the "praying Indian" in missionary texts, fiction, and captivity narratives, among other things. (Review copy)
- Jill Galvan, The Sympathetic Medium: Feminine Channeling, the Occult, and Communication Technologies, 1859-1919 (Cornell, 2010). Examines the intersections of technological advances (e.g., phonographs, telegraphs), spiritualism, and gender in a variety of genres (gothic, mysteries, etc.). (Review copy)
- Beth Lynch, John Bunyan and the Language of Conviction (D. S. Brewer, 2004). Examines Bunyan's work through the lens of "conviction," in both its legal and theological meanings. (Review copy)