Pennsylvania Books

Genetic Criticism: Texts and Avant-Textes edited by Jed Deppman, Daniel Ferrer, Michael Groden (University of Pennsylvania Press) introduces English speakers to genetic criticism, arguably the most important critical movement in France today. In recent years, French literary scholars have been exploring the interpretive possibilities of textual history, turning manuscripts study into a recognized form of literary criticism. They have clearly demonstrated that manuscripts can be used for purposes other than establishing an accurate text of a work.
Although its raw material is a writer's manuscripts, genetic criticism owes more to structuralist and poststructuralist notions of textuality than to philology and textual criticism. As Genetic Criticism demonstrates, the chief concern is not the final text but the reconstruction and analysis of the writing process. Geneticists find endless richness in what they call the "avant-texte": a critical gathering of a writer's notes, sketches, drafts, manuscripts, typescripts, proofs, and correspondence. Together, the essays in this volume reveal how genetic criticism cooperates with such forms of literary study as narratology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, sociocriticism, deconstruction, and gender theory.
Genetic Criticism contains translations of eleven essays, general theoretical analyses as well as studies of individual authors such as Flaubert, Proust, Joyce, Zola, Stendhal, Chateaubriand, and Montaigne. Some of the essays are foundational statements, while others deal with such recent topics as noncanonical texts and the potential impact of hypertext on genetic study. A general introduction to the book traces genetic criticism's intellectual history, and separate introductions give precise contexts for each essay.
An important and timely examination of the interpretive possibilities of textual histories, Genetic Criticism provides a comprehensive survey of an increasingly significant form of contemporary literary criticism.
The volume ends with essays on topics of recent interest to geneticists. Philippe Lejeune addresses the paradox of reading autobiographies for their avant-textes, and Jean-Louis Lebrave argues that the theory of hypertexts has now reached the point where it can provide new and more accurate models for genetic studies, even of centuries-old manuscripts.
Jed Deppman has written separate introductions that outline each author's career and discuss each essay's specific purposes, methods, and arguments.
The collection begins with Louis Hay's overview of genetic criticism and continues with jean Bellemin-Noël's essay on the value of a psychoanalytic approach to genetic study. Pierre-Marc de Biasi's encyclopedia article, which spells out the principles and procedures of genetic study, closes the opening trio of general studies.
Next come six essays on the texts and avant-textes of specific authors. Raymonde Debray Genette studies the manuscripts of Flaubert's "A Simple Heart° to see how he crafted its ending; Jacques Neefs compares and contrasts the ideas Chateaubriand, Montaigne, and Stendhal had about the posthumous fate of their writings; Henri Mitterand inscribes Zola's Rougon-Macquart writings into their author's personal circumstances as well as broader cultural contexts; Daniel Ferrer and Jean-Michel Rabaté study the way Joyce manipulated and modernized the structure of the literary paragraph; closing this middle section, Almuth Grésillon and Catherine Viollet use concepts from linguistics to analyze Proust's manuscripts, Grésillon taking up issues of temporality and Viollet concentrating on gender and sexuality. Jed Deppman teaches comparative literature and English at Oberlin College. He has published articles on Flaubert, Valéry, Joyce, Dickinson, and other writers.
Daniel Ferrer is Director of Research at the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. He is the author of Virginia Woolf and the Madness of Language and coeditor of Post-Structuralist Joyce, Pourquoi la critique génétique? Méthodes, théories, and the ongoing "Finnegans Wake" Notebooks at Buffalo project.

The Khmer Rouge held power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and aggressively pursued a policy of radical social transformation that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians through mass executions and physical privation. In January 1979, the government was overthrown by former Khmer Rouge officials, with substantial backing from the army of Vietnam. In August of that year the new government of Cambodia set up a special court, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal, to try two of the Khmer Rouge government's most powerful leaders, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. The charge was genocide as defined in the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948. At the time, both men were in the Cambodian jungle leading the Khmer Rouge in a struggle to regain power; they were, therefore, tried in absentia.Genocide in Cambodia assembles documents from this historic trial and contains extensive reports from the People's Revolutionary Tribunal. The book opens with essays that discuss the nature of the primary documents, and places the trial in its historical, legal, and political context. The documents are divided into three parts: those relating to the establishment of the tribunal; those used as evidence, including statements of witnesses, investigative reports of mass grave sites, expert opinions on the social and cultural impact of the actions of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, and accounts from the foreign press; and finally the record of the trial, beginning with the prosecutor's indictment and ending with the concluding speeches by the attorneys for the defense and prosecution.The trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary was the world's first trial based on the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948 aswell as the first trial of a head of government on a human rights-related charge. This documentary record is significant for the history of Cambodia, and it will be of the highest importance as well to the international legal and human rights communities.

In the year 1290 in Paris, a poor Christian woman was tempted by a Jew to whom she owed money. The debt would be canceled if she would merely bring him from Easter communion the host, the sanctified bread. She may have simply kept the host in her mouth and removed it secretly. The Jew, once he had the host, applied to it various tests to see of what it was made. He knew that Christians of the time believed that it had quite literally transubstantiated into the body of Christ, but he wished to see "whether the insane things which Christians prattle about are true." He stabbed at it with his knife, but it remained uncut. Even so, it began to bleed. He tortured it in various ways, nailing it to a board, throwing it into a fire, and boiling it. The host remained whole and bleeding, until the boiling, when it turned into a crucifix above the pot. The Jew may have been amazed, but he was stubbornly unconvinced, although seeing such a spectacle immediately converted his wife and children.

This is a legend told repeatedly with many variations in _Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews_ (Yale University Press) by Miri Rubin. Such stories were widespread throughout medieval Europe as a part of accepted folklore, and were held as true by even the educated in the priesthood. Not only were the stories believed, but they formed the incitement to action against Jews, resulting in torture, death, forfeiture of lands and goods, and banishment. The picture of Jews given in the various versions of the tales were of unredeemable brutality and greed, at least on the part of the male Jews; the females were less vicious and more tractable. Jews insisted on kidnapping little Christian children, for instance, to drink their blood in grotesque ceremonies in the synagogues. The stories reinforced themselves and made clear to medieval Christians what sort of people they were dealing with.

It is perplexing to try to make sense of such things eight centuries later. Sometimes investigations of bleeding hosts did discover simple fraud; a priest could sprinkle a host with blood and hide it in the house of Jews he wished to betray. Usually, of course, no such fraud would be found, the wrath of Christians in a village would turn into a riot, and pious mobs would extract what they saw as justice. A mob in 1306 in St. Polten, near Vienna, was so violent and indignant, that it trampled some of its own members. Rubin shows how the story from Paris traveled around Europe like a spark lighting a series of fires, making trouble for Jews wherever it went.

_Gentile Tales_ shows the horror stories from contemporary plays and poems, but does special service in reproducing illustrations of the nasty Jews torturing the host from illustrated manuscripts, altar pictures, oil paintings, and stained glass windows, as a show of how nearly universal such tales were. The illustrations would be lovely, if they weren't so grotesque, but even so, Yale University Press has put out a good looking volume on glossy paper with many color plates. It is a good book for anyone with an interest in medieval times, but ought to be required reading for those who wish to see one of the lamentable foundations for the relations between Christians and Jews.

There was a Revolutionary War sailor who was captured by the British and was offered British citizenship instead of being a prisoner. He insisted he was a loyal American. He went on, as if in a Horatio Alger story, to become a successful Philadelphia businessman, but he was nonetheless encouraged, because of his heroic service in the war, to apply for the pension that he deserved from the country he had helped make. He replied that he did not want money from his country. He wanted only one thing from America, and if any American deserved it, he surely did. What James Forten wanted was to become an American citizen, and he never in his long life got his wish. The simple reason was that he was black. Forten has largely been forgotten, which is too bad, since as a war hero, businessman, and abolitionist, he played commendable roles which one doesn't have to be of any particular race to admire. He is now rescued from obscurity by a large, detailed, and well-researched biography, _A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten_ (Oxford University Press) by Julie Winch. Winch has dug deep inside such ephemera as the social history of Philadelphia, the economic forces of the time, and even the trade of sailmaking by which Forten made his living, to give the first complete picture of one of the first outstanding black Americans.

After his service in the war, Forten was apprenticed by the white, slave-owning sailmaker who had employed his father. He did so well that upon retirement, the owner left him the business. He branched out into real estate and money-lending. As a successful businessman, he became a civic leader, helping to administer his church and assisting in creating schools for black youth. He administered a mixed-race workforce, with some black managers supervising white workers. He could not vote, but he had no compunction about telling his workers how they were to vote and making sure they did so. He knew that he had an easier life in Philadelphia than he would in other parts of the nation, but he endured the contempt of many white people, a contempt that cycled inversely with prosperity; when times got tough, it was easy to blame blacks for taking jobs. Such blame could easily take the form of violence against the person or the property of blacks. There was a kidnapping ring that could spirit black children to Delaware and ship them into slavery in the south. Forten served in the American Anti-Slavery Society and lent his considerable finances and managerial skill to various abolitionist causes. He lent Garrison the money by which the famous abolitionist paper _The Liberator_ was begun. He wrote for the paper. He campaigned against the use of alcohol. He had a lifetime fight against blacks and whites who were pushing to move black people back to Africa, for he wanted America to be a nation without regard to color. He was not without controversy, even among blacks, but when he died in 1842, thousands of black and white mourners turned out to the funeral of an American original. Winch's biography, hefty and academic but not ponderous, brings that original back to us in his proper place in history.

This monumental work, the culmination of Sachse's investigations on two continents during the late 19th century, kept extant information on the remarkable story of the fascinating and influential mystics that helped lay the foundations for much of American society in the late 17th century. Without this book, information for which was partially obtained from the author's personal collections, this extraordinary story would be virtually lost. The book is also richly illustrated with photos and copies of authentic and unforgettable pieces of one of America's most interesting and least known mysteries.

Esteemed historian Frank Klement reviews little-known
aspects of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the ceremony
in which it played a part. This book, thoroughly and
professionally researched and written, is a must for anyone
interested in Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln, or the Gettysburg
Address itself.

Isbell has won many awards for his outstanding work as a photo journalist crossing many genres'. The Civil War is a particular passion of his and this work, along with his equally superb Vicksburg:Sentinels of Stone, was years in the making.

Study his photographs and note the stunning detail as Isbell captures not only color but shades, shadows, and unique lighting.

Each photograph is accompanied by excellent, meticulously researched historical information that is informative and very readable which makes these works much, much more than a book of photographs. Excellent for students and teachers as well as Civil War buffs. Highly recommended.

Elsie Singmaster, "Gettysburg's Poet Laureate," has long been neglected, her books forgotten and out-of-print.
This volume remedies this injustice and brings her work back into the public eye. Her spare, direct prose will strike a chord with the modern reader, as will her stories of everyday folk stricken by the terrible battle and its seemingly neverending consequences. Many thanks are due to the editor and publisher for returning this fine writer to the notice
of modern readers and the Civil War community. Her stories, once read, will not soon be forgotten; they will return to the reader at intervals and provoke more thought.
Buy and read this book!

When it comes to ghost stories, few states can boast the kind of rich tradition that Pennsylvania can. From the pre-Revolutionary colonial period through the Civil War's bloodiest battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania can boast over 250 years of spectral tales guaranteed to chill the spines of the most avid ghost hunters. Dan Asfar's book is laid out in various chapters with accounts of haunted houses, theaters, taverns, battlefields, even mundane items such as paintings which make Pennsylvania a prime spot for ghost hunters to visit.

In New Hope you will find the Aaron Burr house. Oddly named because the house was built after Burr died. But after killing Alexander Hamilton in their fateful duel, Burr fled to New Hope where he had friends and hid in a cellar where the current house now stands. Visitors often feel the piercing glare as if someone is staring at them intently. And Burr's spirit is known to tug on the clothes of visitors as they try to leave and they are advised to kindly say to the spirit, "Mr. Burr, please let me leave."

Gettysburg has long been considered the most haunted spot in the United States, and the site where over 50,000 men lost their lives during that climactic battle of the Civil War. Asfar first gives a short but concise history of the battle before delving into some of the strange occurrences and sightings that have been reported in the area for well over a hundred years. Ghostly lights and sounds are often heard as the spirits of the dead soldiers replay the battle over and over. Cameras have often been reported to malfunction around Gettysburg but work perfectly fine once you've left the area. Gettysburg should be the very first stop for any ghost hunter visiting Pennsylvania.

The Tate House has stood for well over 200 years and was formerly home to Anthony Tate who died in 1781 and left the house to his son James who was a surgeon. James had a fanatical interest in anatomy and experimented as much as he could on various animals but he really wanted a human body to research. He got his chance when he dug up the body of a recently deceased Hessian mercenary, took it back to his cellar and dissected it. Tate buried what was left in the dirt of the cellar but shortly after strange things began to happen. When he would walk over the spot where the remains were buried his candle would blow out although there was no draft. At night he would seem to hear footsteps coming up the stairs from the cellar. Even today, the building is used as a teachers quarters for a boarding school, residents report hearing the strange sounds from the cellar.

Haunted painting? You can find that in Pennsylvania, too. Nellie Tallman was three years old when she fell off a stool and broke her neck while posing for the portrait. Her father adored the portrait of his late daughter but every time he hung it up, he would invariably find it lying face down on the floor a short time later. The portrait would be given to a museum many decades later who experienced the same problems keeping Nellie on the wall.

From the ghostly hounds of Lebanon County, to the Eastern State Penitentiary to the famous Mishler Theater, Pennsylvania's rich and chilling hauntings are a banquet for any fans of ghost stories. Asfar provides a lively narrative and knows just the right buttons to push to get your hair standing straight up. A wickedly fun book!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

I live in Girard so i enjoyed the book the pictures of history of things that aren't there any more I would recommend this book to anyone who likes history. The author is also a very good teacher!!