CLA: Department of English

Department of English faculty have produced a bounty of books this fall. Professor Timothy Brennan published Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz (Verso), which "shows how the popular music of the Americas — the music of entertainment, nightlife, and leisure — is involved in a devotion to an African religious worldview that survived the ravages of slavery and found its way into the rituals of everyday listening." Professor Andrew Elfenbein's Romanticism and the Rise of English (Stanford University Press) "points to new directions in literary criticism by arguing for the need to reconceptualize authorial agency in light of a broadened understanding of linguistic history." Professor Ray Gonzalez published his third collection of nonfiction essays, Renaming the Earth (University of Arizona Press), reflecting on the American Southwest, where he was raised. Finally, Professor Nabil Matar's Europe Through Arab Eyes, 1578-1727 (Columbia University Press) "assembles a rare history of Europe's rise to power as seen through the eyes of those who were later subjugated by it." Congratulations to all!