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This book examines the transformation of the figure of the stranger in the literature of the modern age in terms of liminality. As a ‘spectral monster’ that has a paradoxical and liminal relationship to both the sacred and the secular, the figure of the modern stranger has played a role in both adapting and shaping a culturally determined understanding of the self and the other. With the advent of modernity, the stranger, the monster, and the spectre became interconnected. Haunting the edges of reason while also being absorbed into ‘normal’ society, all three, together with the cyborg, manifest the vulnerability of an age that is fearful of the return of the repressed. Yet these figures can also become re-appropriated as positive symbols, able to navigate between the dangerous and chaotic elements that threaten society while serving as precarious and ironic symbols of hope or sustainability. The book shows the explanatory potential of focusing on the resacralizing – in a paradoxical and liminal manner – of traditionally sacred concepts such as ‘messianic’ time and the ‘utopian,’ and the conflicts that emerged as a result of secularized modernity’s denial of its own hybridization. This approach to modern literature shows how the modern stranger, a figure that is both paradoxically immersed and removed from society, deals with the dangers of failing to be re-assimilated into mainstream society and is caught in a fixed or permanent state of liminality, a state that can ultimately lead to boredom, alienation, nihilism, and failure. These ‘monstrous’ aspects of liminality can also be rewarding in that traversing difficult and paradoxical avenues they confront both traditional and contemporary viewpoints, enabling new and fresh perspectives suspended between imagination and reality, past and future, nature and artificial. In many ways, the modern stranger as a figure of literature and the cultural imagination has become more complicated and challenging in the (post)modern contemporary age, both clashing with and encompassing people who go beyond simply the psychological or even spiritual inability to blend in and out of society. However, while the stranger may be altering once again the defining or essentializing the figure could result in the creation of other sets of binaries, and thereby dissolve the purpose and productiveness of both strangeness and liminality. The intention of “Monstrous Liminality” is to trace the liminal sphere located between the secular and sacred that has characterized modernity itself. This space has consequently altered the makeup of the stranger from something external, into a figure far more liminal, which is forced to traverse this uncanny space in an attempt to find new meanings for an age that is struggling to maintain any.

Strangers in literature. --- Secularism --- Monstrous --- Modernity --- Resacralization --- Liminality --- Modern Stranger

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This study explores the consequences of being marked an outsider in the Russian-speaking world through a close study of several seminal works of Russian literature. The author combines the fields of literary studies, linguistics, and sociology to interpret these works for both the specialist and the general reader.

Russian literature --- Outsiders in literature. --- Svoe (The Russian word) in literature. --- Chuzhoe (The Russian word) in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Demons. --- Dostoevsky. --- Fitting In. --- Griboedov. --- Groups. --- Outsider. --- Russia. --- Society. --- Stranger. --- Woe from Wit.

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Sex and the Second-Best City deals with the topics of sex and society in the Laws of Plato with recourse to historical context and modern critical theory. It examines reconstructions of ancient "sexuality" with a view to increased clarification. The text of the Laws is considered, along with many of its literary qualities, its influences and the utopian plan that it proposes.

Sex --- Sex role --- Homosexuality --- History --- Plato. --- Same-sex attraction --- Gender role --- Gender (Sex) --- Human beings --- Human sexuality --- Sex (Gender) --- Sexual behavior --- Sexual practices --- Sexuality --- Plato --- Sexual orientation --- Bisexuality --- Sex (Psychology) --- Sex differences (Psychology) --- Social role --- Gender expression --- Sexism --- Sexology --- Greece --- Social conditions --- Gender roles --- Gendered role --- Gendered roles --- Role, Gender --- Role, Gendered --- Role, Sex --- Roles, Gender --- Roles, Gendered --- Roles, Sex --- Sex roles --- plato's --- narrator --- athenian --- stranger --- era --- vigilance --- committee --- magnesian --- state --- citizens

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This volume presents selected papers read at the first meeting of the Society for Jewish and Biblical Studies in Central Europe, in Piliscsaba, Hungary, February 2009, but does not publish the proceedings of this meeting (for a clarification see here). The papers investigate various aspects of the concept "Stranger" in Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to Mediaeval Jewish thought. The bulk of the material focuses on Early Jewish literature, which mirrors an intensive interaction with the Hellenistic system of thought, and the development of concurring Jewish interpretations of traditional values.The papers of the volume provide insightful case studies about the formation of Jewish identity in diverse periods of Israelite and Jewish history, as well as the different attitudes to strangers, being either outsiders, or belonging to opposing sects of Judaism itself. The reader finds essays of historical, literary, and hermeneutical attention; of interest also to scholars of various forms of ancient and mediaeval Judaism.

Strangers in the Bible --- Strangers in rabbinical literature --- Rabbinical literature --- Jewish philosophy --- Philosophy, Medieval --- Hebrew literature --- Jewish literature --- History and criticism --- Bible. --- Dead Sea scrolls --- Jerusalem scrolls --- ʻAin Fashka scrolls --- Jericho scrolls --- Scrolls, Dead Sea --- Qumrân scrolls --- Rękopisy z Qumran --- Shikai bunsho --- Megilot Midbar Yehudah --- Dodezee-rollen --- Kumránské rukopisy --- Documentos de Qumrán --- Textos de Qumrán --- Rollos del Mar Muerto --- Manuscritos del Mar Muerto --- Manuscrits de la mer Morte --- Dödahavsrullarna --- Kumranin kirjoitukset --- Kuolleenmeren kirjoitukset --- Qumranhandskrifterna --- Qumranin kirjoitukset --- Qumran Caves scrolls --- Antico Testamento --- Hebrew Bible --- Hebrew Scriptures --- Kitve-ḳodesh --- Miḳra --- Old Testament --- Palaia Diathēkē --- Pentateuch, Prophets, and Hagiographa --- Sean-Tiomna --- Stary Testament --- Tanakh --- Tawrāt --- Torah, Neviʼim, Ketuvim --- Torah, Neviʼim u-Khetuvim --- Velho Testamento --- Criticism, interpretation, etc. --- Strangers in Rabbinical literature --- Strangers in the Bible - Congresses. --- Strangers in Rabbinical literature - Congresses. --- Rabbinical literature - History and criticism - Congresses. --- Jewish philosophy - Congresses. --- Philosophy, Medieval - Congresses. --- Biblical Studies. --- Early Judaism. --- Mediaeval Jewish Thought. --- Stranger.