San Antonio College Library

Often regarded as the quintessential American author, Mark Twain in fact mined his knowledge and experience of Europe as assiduously as he did his adventures on the Mississippi and in the American West. In this challenging and original study, J.D. Stall looks closely at various Twain works with European settings and traces the manner in which the great writer redefined European notions of class into American concepts of gender, identity, and society....

"The term "Western esotericism" refers to a wide range of spiritual currents including alchemy, Hermeticism, Kabbala, Rosicrucianism, and Christian theosophy. There are also various practical forms of esotericism including forms of divination like cartomancy, geomancy, and necromancy, as well as alchemy, astrology, herbalism, and magic. All of these were widespread in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and made their way...

Focusing on the comic genius of Flannery O'Connor, Anthony Di Renzo reveals a dimension of her work that has been overlooked by both her supporters and her detractors, most of whom have concentrated exclusively on her use of theology and parable. Di Renzo compares the bizarre comedy in O'Connor's stories and novels to that of medieval narrative, art, folklore, and drama. Noting an especial kinship between her characters and the grotesqueries that...