Islandology : geography, rhetoric, politics / Marc Shell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shell, Marc, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islands.

Islands in literature.

Cultural geography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (386 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Islandology is a fast-paced, fact-filled comparative essay in critical topography and cultural geography that cuts across different cultures and argues for a world of islands. The book explores the logical consequences of geographic place for the development of philosophy and the study of limits (Greece) and for the establishment of North Sea democracy (England and Iceland), explains the location of military hot-spots and great cities (Hormuz and Manhattan), and sheds new light on dozens of world-historical productions whose motivating islandic aspect has not heretofore been recognized (Shakespeare's Hamlet and Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung). Written by Shell in view of the melting of the world's great ice islands, Islandology shows not only new ways that we think about islands but also why and how we think by means of them.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preamble

1. Defining Islands and Isolating Definitions

2. Horizontal and Vertical

3. Animate Swimmers and Inanimate Floaters

4. Material Substance and State of Matter

5. Cities in Straits

6. Naming and Sovereignty

7. Utopias and Laboratory Hypotheses

8. Politics, Philosophy, Epic Drama

9. The Distracted Globe

10. Island Words

11. Dire Straits

12. Liberty

13. Hamlet Is Germany

14. The Region of Illusion

15. Building for a Future

Postamble

Acknowledgments

Notes

Name Index

Place Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780804789264

0804789266

OCLC:

923709270