Ancient Persia provides a mine of folk lore and myth as rich as its civilization. This volume covers a range of Persian myths, and the place of these myths in political, ritual and personal life.

Now in its fifth edition, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature has become both a standard introduction to the close reading of literature and an invaluable resource for English graduate students. It offers students and other readers a variety of ways to interpret a piece of literature, ranging from historical/biographical and moral/philosophical approaches through the formalist, the psychological, the mythic and archetypal, and into such contemporary perspectives as feminist criticism and cultural studies. The book applies these diverse approaches to the same six classic works--"To His Coy Mistress," Hamlet , Huckleberry Finn , "Young Goodman Brown," "Everyday Use," and, new to this edition, Frankenstein --showing students how various methods offer different insights and enriching their response to and understanding of the individual works. The fifth edition is enhanced by the addition of Frankenstein , a complex work that lends itself to multiple levels of interpretation and is familiar in both its cinematic and literary forms. The coverage of Frankenstein incorporates material on popular culture--discussions of various fiction, stage, film, and television appearances of the work--as well as several photographs. This edition also features organizational and content changes that bring the volume up-to-date with contemporary literary criticism. Offering a valuable combination of theory and practice, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature , Fifth Edition, is ideal for courses in literary criticism or theory and can also be used in introduction to literature courses.

آگاهی‌های ما درباره‌ی ایران، ایرانی، ایرانیت و نیز درباره‌ی فارسی دری در سده‌های نخست اسلام هنوز مه‌آلود و ازهم‌گسیخته است. از روند عمومی تاریخ و مسکن‌گزیدن عرب‌ها در ایران آگاهیم، اما درست نمی‌دانیم جامعه‌ی عرب‌نژادِ تازی‌زبان چگونه با توده‌ی ایرانیان فارس‌زبان رابطه برقرار می‌کرد، چگونه دسته‌های بی‌شمار عرب در جامعه‌ی ایران تحلیل رفتند، چرا زبان عربی، با همه‌ی توانمندی‌های دینی و ادبی و علمی و سیاسی، نتوانست جای زبان فارسی را بگیرد، فارسی کجا بود و پیش از آن‌که سربرکشد چرا دیرزمانی در تاریکی پایید. کی و کجا به نگارش درآمد و چگونه زبان رسمی ایران شد، این زبان نوپا که پشتوانه‌ای بس کهن داشت چگونه می‌توانست زبان نیرومند و مقدس عربی را در کنار خود تحمل کند، یا چه شد که عربیِ فراگیر، اندک‌اندک دامن درمی‌کشید تا زبان رقیب، همه‌جا پا بگیرد و عربی را در حوزه‌ی دین و دانش محدود سازد؟ با تغییر اندک، برگرفته از پیشگفتار مؤلف در این کتاب مؤلف در پی طرح پرسش‌های بنیادین درباره‌ی زبان فارسی به‌عنوان مهم‌ترین گنجینه و سرچشمه‌ی هویت ایرانی و آغاز پژوهشی شایسته‌تر یا پاسخ به این پرسش‌ها و دامن زدن به استمرار چنین پژوهش‌هایی است. مؤلف کتاب دکتر آذرتاش آذرنوش استاد دانشکده‌ی الهیات و معارف اسلامی دانشگاه تهران است. برگزیده‌ی شانزدهمین دوره‌ی کتاب سال دانشگاهی؛ تقدیر شده از سوی بیست و پنجمین دوره‌ی کتاب سال جمهوری اسلامی ایران

What can Sociology add to our understanding of art? This volume brings together a range of respected scholars in the field who demonstrate the many ways in which sociology can add to our understanding of artistic issues. Covering all the major schools of thought, and dealing with many different art forms, the book offers the reader a comprehensive and accessible guide to an often complex area. It will be an invaluable resource for students seeking to understand sociology's contributions to the study of artistic and aesthetic issues.

Written with clarity, wit, and rigor, The Philosophy of Art provides an incisive account of the core topics in the field.

By exploring central issues in the philosophy of literature, illustrated by a wide range of novels, poems, and plays, Philosophy of Literature gets to the heart of why literature matters to us and sheds new light on the nature and interpretation of literary works.

Ancient Persia provides a mine of folk lore and myth as rich as its civilization. This volume covers a range of Persian myths, and the place of these myths in political, ritual and personal life.

This Handbook is a current, comprehensive single-volume history of Iranian civilization. The authors, all leaders in their fields, emphasize the large-scale continuities of Iranian history while also describing the important patterns of transformation that have characterized Iran's past. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific epoch of Iranian history and surveys the general political, social, cultural, and economic issues of that era. The ancient period begins with chapters considering the anthropological evidence of the prehistoric era, through to the early settled civilizations of the Iranian plateau, and continuing to the rise of the ancient Persian empires. The medieval section first considers the Arab-Muslim conquest of the seventh century, and then moves on to discuss the growing Turkish influence filtering in from Central Asia beginning in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The last third of the book covers Iran in the modern era by considering the rise of the Safavid state and its accompanying policy of centralization, the introduction of Shi'ism, the problems of reform and modernization in the Qajar and Pahlavi periods, and the revolution of 1978-79 and its aftermath. The book is a collaborative exercise among scholars specializing in a variety of sub-fields, and across a number of disciplines, including history, art history, classics, literature, politics, and linguistics. Here, readers can find a reliable and accessible narrative that can serve as an authoritative guide to the field of Iranian studies.