We’re pleased to announce that we’re bringing some selected titles from our backlist back into print—if you have suggestions for more Cornell University Press titles that you’d like to see considered for this program, please send an e-mail to the Press’s Marketing Manager, Mr. Mahinder S. Kingra, at msk55@cornell.edu.
Here are some of the classics from Cornell that are available now:
The Prevalence of Humbug and Other Essays by Max Black
“Amusing and enlightening, these essays for the general reader deal with such topics as being reasonable, what it is to be humane, and P. T. Barnum’s delightful book on humbugs. Reading them, one is reminded of William James’s similar essays, not to adulterate philosophy into chit-chat but to elevate common sense.”—Key Reporter
“Black’s discussion is original, thorough, and interesting, and shows that political philosophy need not always be empty verbiage.”—Times Higher Education Supplement
Reading Lacan by Jane Gallop
The influence of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has extended into nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences—from literature and film studies to anthropology and social work. yet Lacan’s major text, Ecrits, continues to perplex and even baffle its readers. In Reading Lacan, Jane Gallop offers a novel approach to Lacan’s work based on his own theories of language.
“Operating like characters in a narrative, Gallop’s shifting reading strategies invigorate critical discourse by creating a theatre of interpretation. Rejecting the traditional endings of novels, the limited options of marriage and death, Gallop’s account moves toward the plural possibilities of a feminist reading practice.”—Women’s Review of Books
The Silence of Bartleby by Dan McCall
“The single most sensitive response to Melville’s genius since Warner Berthoff’s The Example of Melville.”—Andrew Delbanco
“The Silence of Bartleby is a sensitive and responsive work of criticism. An accomplished novelist in his own right, McCall—like the long list of artist-critics whose work has played such a formative role in the development of American literary study—adapts his compositional experience and instincts to the role of an accomplished reader. At the end of his book, McCall sets aside his own mediator’s role to reprint Melville’s story. The Silence of Bartleby dramatizes the extraordinary vitality of attentive reading and then steps aside to allow its own readers to practice their rejuvenated powers on a masterpiece.”—American Literary History
Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in Jeffersonian America by Linda K. Kerber
“Convinced that the Federalists have not had a fair shake from Jefferson-worshipping historians, Linda K. Kerber has set out to refurbish their image by examining their rhetoric and ideology. Concentrating on the ‘articulate Federalists’ (mostly New Englanders) who published orations, essays, and satirical literature, she examines their attitudes toward the arts, science, education, law, and the contemporary American social order. Her analysis will remain an indispensable introduction to Federalist thought.”—Journal of American History
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