Shadow Work

Loneliness and the Literary Life

Emily Hodgson Anderson (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

288 Seiten

2025
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
978-0-231-21850-4 (ISBN)

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How is it that reading and writing can at once isolate us and bring us closer to others? Blending personal narrative with literary criticism, Emily Hodgson Anderson considers what a life spent with books has taught her about loneliness and human connection. She delves into the unseen labor of women, authors, and mothers, and she argues that we can reimagine intimacy through books. Herself a book lover and writer, a teacher of literature, and a single mom, Anderson reflects on the loneliness—and the strength—that can come from living, writing, and parenting alone.

Shadow Work puts writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Laurence Sterne, and Shakespeare into unexpected conversations with authors of children’s literature and contemporary fiction, among them Roald Dahl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Zadie Smith, and Lewis Carroll. Elegantly and poignantly written, this book examines what it means to revisit longtime literary companions and how literature can help us better understand what we show and hide about ourselves.

Emily Hodgson Anderson is professor of English and Dornsife College Dean of Undergraduate Education at the University of Southern California. She is the author of two books of literary criticism, and her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Air/Light, and LitHub. She lives in Los Angeles with her two young boys and one old dog.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Loneliness and the Literary Life
Part I. Losing
1. The Shadow Life of Books: William Shakespeare, William Hazlitt, Alexander Chee
2. Reading to a Child: Roald Dahl, Shakespeare, T. H. White
3. The Detective’s Mind: Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Shaking Hands: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Percival Everett
5. Pool of Tears: Lewis Carroll
6. Obedience Training: John Milton, William Koehler
Part II. Longing
7. Perfection and Platonic Love: Plato, Aristotle
8. (An Aside): Shakespeare
9. The One and Only Jane: Jane Austen
10. Of Pain, Paralysis, and Pursuit: Samuel Beckett, Mary Shelley
Part III. Loving
11. Shadow Work: J. M. Barrie, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain
12. Animal Love: Miguel de Cervantes, Jilly Cooper, Laurence Sterne
13. Pioneer Girl: Laura Ingalls Wilder
14. The Efficiency Expert: William Wordsworth, Frank and Ernestine Gilbreth
15. Invisible Labor, Invisible Hands: Adam Smith, Zadie Smith
16. No Room of One’s Own: Homer, Virginia Woolf
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	18.2.2025
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	140 x 216 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
ISBN-10	0-231-21850-8 / 0231218508
ISBN-13	978-0-231-21850-4 / 9780231218504
Zustand	Neuware