Books by "Sarah W. Nelson"
4 books found
Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction
by Sarah E. Chinn
2024 · Cambridge University Press
The book is a study of the ways that white radicals deployed the physical and literary image of amputation during the Civil War and Reconstruction to argue for full Black citizenship and against a national reconciliation that reimposed white supremacy. It gives readers a new way to think about the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman provides a detailed account of one of the central personified figures in William Langland's Piers Plowman. Previous critical accounts of Conscience either focus on discussions of the faculty conscience in scholastic discourse, or eschew personification allegory as a useful category in order to argue for the figure's development or education as a character during the poem. But Conscience only appears to develop as he is re-presented, in the course of Piers Plowman, within a series of different literary modes. And he changes not only during the composition of the various episodes in different modes that make up the single version, but also during the composition of the poem as a series of three different versions. The versions of Piers Plowman form, this book argues, a single continuous narrative or argument, in which revisions to Conscience's role in one version are predicated upon his cumulative 'experiences' in the earlier versions. Drawing on a variety of materials in both Middle English and Latin, Sarah Wood illustrates the wide range of contemporary discourses Langland employed as he composed Conscience in the three versions of the poem. By showing how Langland transformed Conscience as he composed the A, B and C texts, Conscience and the Composition of Piers Plowman offers a new approach to reading the serial versions of the poem. While the versions of Piers Plowman have customarily been presented and read in parallel-text formats, Wood shows that Langland's revisions are newly comprehensible if the three versions are read in sequence.
Having won a considerable victory at Fredericksburg only months earlier, Gen. Robert E. Lee would again be tested by Gen. Joseph Hooker and the Federal Army at Chancellorsville. Hooker and the bulk of his army crossed the Rappahannock River at dawn on April 27, 1863, in conjunction with cavalry raids from Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. But Lee boldly divided his army, leaving a small force to defend Fredericksburg and attacking Hooker with the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia. As the battle wore on, Lee launched multiple attacks on Hooker’s defenses resulting in massive casualties for both sides. Lee divided his army again, sending Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps on a flanking maneuver that infamously resulted in the general’s injury by friendly fire and eventual death. Though the Confederate Army’s victory was assured, Lee equated the loss of Stonewall Jackson to the loss of his right hand, and as many months later Lee would find his army in a tide-turning defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg. Decisions at Chancellorsville explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the campaign and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the operation, Sarah Bierle hones in on a sequence of decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contest to provide a blueprint of the campaign at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened. Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions at Chancellorsville is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the battles can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself. Decisions at Chancellorsville is the twenty-second in a series of books that explores the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
Presents a guide to the city of Toronto, looking at several of its distinctive neighborhoods and recommending hotels, restaurants, local points of interest, and nearby side trips to Niagara Falls, Niagara Wine Region, and Stratford.