John Frow Livres

With the 'cultural turn', the concept of culture has assumed enormous importance in our understanding of the interrelations between social, political, and economic structures, patterns of everyday interaction, and systems of meaning-making. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis, the leading figures in their fields explore the implications of this paradigm shift. Addressed to academics and advanced students in all fields of the social sciences and humanities, this Handbook is at once a synthesis of advances in the field, with a comprehensive coverage of the scholarly literature, and a collection of original and provocative essays by some of the brightest intellectuals of our time.

Focusing on the relationship between fictional characters and the concept of personhood, this book delves into how these terms are constructed across various cultures. It addresses the theoretical gaps in understanding fictional characters, a prevalent yet underexplored notion in literary and cultural studies. By examining the interplay between character and person, it offers insights into the cultural significance and representation of identity in literature.

This second edition of John Frow's Genre offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the area. Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture, but it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. Frow's lucid exploration of this fascinating concept has become essential reading for students of literary and cultural studies, and the second edition expands on the original to take account of recent debates in areas such as cognitive science and pedagogy, and the emergence of digital genres.

“Interpretation” is a term that encompasses both the most esoteric and the most fundamental activities of our lives, from analyzing medical images to the million ways we perceive other people’s actions. Today, we also leave interpretation to the likes of web cookies, social media algorithms, and automated markets. But as John Frow shows in this thoughtfully argued book, there is much yet to do in clarifying how we understand the social organization of interpretation. On Interpretive Conflict delves into four case studies where sharply different sets of values come into play—gun control, anti-Semitism, the religious force of images, and climate change. In each case, Frow lays out the way these controversies unfold within interpretive regimes that establish what counts as an interpretable object and the protocols of evidence and proof that should govern it. Whether applied to a Shakespeare play or a Supreme Court case, interpretation, he argues, is at once rule-governed and inherently conflictual. Ambitious and provocative, On Interpretive Conflict will attract readers from across the humanities and beyond.