"Mental Calisthenics and Self-Reflexive Fiction" is chapter 27 of the The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies, edited by Lisa Zunshine and published by Oxford University Press.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies considers, via a variety of methodologies and combinations of interdisciplinary approaches, how the architecture that enables human cognitive processing interacts with cultural and historical contexts. Organized into five parts (Narrative, History, Imagination; Emotions and Empathy; The New Unconscious; Empirical and Qualitative Studies of Literature; and Cognitive Theory and Literary Experience), the volume uses case studies from a wide range of historical periods (from the fourth century BCE to the twenty-first century) and national literary traditions (including South Asian, postcolonial anglophone and francophone, Chinese, Japanese, English, Iranian, Russian, Italian, French, German, and Spanish).

In the aftermath of the fatal attacks on the cartoonists of Charlie Hebo, TEC affiliate faculty Cécile Alduy explores the French reaction to the violence in light of the competing ideologies of an inclusive, secular republican unity and a more traditional, fearful nationalist rhetoric.

At a time when Marine Le Pen gained momentum on the political and media scene and has garnered unprecedented electoral results, it is urgent to decipher the logic of her father's speech and the foundations of its rhetorical efficiency. For the first time, a lexical analysis and statistical literature of a corpus of nearly five hundred texts can measure the originality of this new Frontist word. Public speeches, editorials and interviews of two successive presidents of the National Front are screened with a double processing, IT and rhetoric, to identify as close continuities and differences. The battle of words is central to the strategy of "demonization" initiated by the new President of the National Front since 2011.

Yet is the speech of the girl so different from that of the father? Jean-Marie Le Pen is not sure it is enough to adopt the lexicon of the Republic to bring real values. Beyond the lexical dust, deep structures and underlying national novel continue to the sources of a long literary tradition and extreme right politics. This book begins to dismantle the springs of Marinist speech and to enlighten this new tributienne word that meets real needs for meaning and values ​​in a context of deep economic and identity crisis.

"Geography and Gridlock in the United States" is chapter 7 of the book Solutions to Political Polarization in America, edited by Nathaniel Persily and published by the Cambridge University Press.

Political polarization dominates discussions of contemporary American politics. Despite widespread agreement that the dysfunction in the political system can be attributed to political polarization, commentators cannot come to a consensus on what that means. The coarseness of our political discourse, the ideological distance between opposing partisans, and, most of all, an inability to pass much-needed and widely supported policies all stem from the polarization in our politics. This volume assembles several of the nation's top analysts of American politics to focus on solutions to polarization. The proposals range from constitutional change to good- government reforms to measures to strengthen political parties. Each tackles one or more aspects of America's polarization problem. This book begins a serious dialogue about reform proposals to address the obstacles that polarization poses for contemporary governance.

In the digital world there are no pauses. If one is not constantly involved, he risks becoming disconnected. With that in mind, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht began blogging for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2011, where he uses the digital format as a place of contemplation and intellectual debate. The compactness and rhythm of the genre afford him the opportunity to analyze everyday phenomena and philosophical questions. Gumbrecht explores the dissonances in self-understanding that confront his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic. In this embracing of complexity and provocation, the blog is like a thorn in the flesh that calls into question the cherished habits and conventional expectations of Western Europeans.

"Atlantik, Pazifik: die imaginäre ErschlieBung der Ozeane im Zeitalter der Segelschifffarht" is chapter 32 of the book Handbuch Literatur & Raum, edited by Jörg Dünne and Andreas Mahler and published by De Gruyter Reference.

This handbook examines the relationship between literature and space, taking into account particularly literary presentations of spatiality.

"Tracking the Travels of Adam Olearius" is chapter 9 of the book Word and Image in Russian History: Essays in Honor of Gary Marker, edited by Maria di Salvo, Daniel H. Kaiser, and Valerie A. Kivelson and published by Academic Studies Press.

Word and Image invokes and honors the scholarly contributions of Gary Marker. Twenty scholars from Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Ukraine and the United States examine some of the main themes of Marker’s scholarship on Russia—literacy, education, and printing; gender and politics; the importance of visual sources for historical study; and the intersections of religious and political discourse in Imperial Russia. A biography of Marker, a survey of his scholarship, and a list of his publications complete the volume.

Starting with 1964's Goldfinger, every James Bond film has followed the same ritual, and so has its audience: after an exciting action sequence the screen goes black and the viewer spends three long minutes absorbing abstract opening credits and a song that sounds like it wants to return to 1964. In The James Bond Songs authors Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold use the genre to trace not only a changing cultural landscape, but also evolving conceptions of what a pop song is. They argue that the story of the Bond song is the story of the pop song more generally, and perhaps even the story of its end.

Each chapter discusses a particular segment of the Bond canon and contextualizes it in its era's music and culture. But the book also asks how Bond and his music reflected and influenced our feelings about such topics as masculinity, race, money, and aging. Through these individual pieces the book presents the Bond song as the perfect anthem of late capitalism. The Bond songs want to talk about the fulfillment that comes from fast cars, shaken Martinis and mindless sex, but their unstable speakers, subjects, and addressees actually undercut the logic of the lifestyle James Bond is sworn to defend. The book is an invitation to think critically about pop music, about genre, and about the political aspects of popular culture in the twentieth century and beyond.

Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris, author of the best-selling Why the West Rules--for Now, explains why. The result is a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past--and for what might happen next.

Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need--from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. In tiny forager bands, people who value equality but are ready to settle problems violently do better than those who aren't; in large farming societies, people who value hierarchy and are less willing to use violence do best; and in huge fossil-fuel societies, the pendulum has swung back toward equality but even further away from violence.

But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out--at some point fairly soon--not to be useful any more.

Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by novelist Margaret Atwood, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, classicist Richard Seaford, and historian of China Jonathan Spence.