Search

"Brownstein examines how the stories we read influence our notions of how we should live. In fresh, wonderfully nuanced readings of works by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf, she considers woman-centered novels as rewritings of romance, and analyzes the thematic links and echoes that connect these works not only to each other but to women's lives. This splendidly provocative book shows how good novels, intelligent heroines, and careful readers are skeptical of the romantic ideal of a perfected, integral self"--Publisher's description, back cover.

"American Born is Rachel Brownstein's incisive memoir of a seemingly quintessential Jewish Mother-her own-who lived life as the heroine of her own story. When she arrived alone in New York at age eighteen, in 1924, Reisel Thaler resembled the other Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe who accompanied her. Yet she already had an American passport tucked in her scant luggage. She was, as she would boast to the end of her days, "American-born." Reisel Thaler had drawn her first breath on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1905, then was taken back to Galicia (in what is now Poland) by her father before she turned two. So it was that Reisel could truly say, when she immigrated years later, that she was American-born. That proud insistence, Brownstein writes, "was about citizenship and status as well as birthplace. Also, it seems to me now, about talent. She was born an American the way another girl might be born a figure-skater." Brownstein began writing about her mother during the Trump years, dwelling on the stories she told about her life and on the questions they raised about nationalism and immigration and stories generally. For most of the twentieth century, Brownstein's mother gracefully balanced her identities as an American and a Jew. Her values, her language and her sense of timing, inform the imagination of the daughter who recalls her in her own old age. The memorializing daughter interrupts, interprets, and glosses, sifting through alternate versions of the same stories. Cousins from the old world and other more and less American Jews fill out the picture. But the central character of this book is Reisel, who eventually becomes Grandma Rose, watching and judging, singing, baking, and bustling"--

"Brownstein examines how the stories we read influence our notions of how we should live. In fresh, wonderfully nuanced readings of works by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf, she considers woman-centered novels as rewritings of romance, and analyzes the thematic links and echoes that connect these works not only to each other but to women's lives. This splendidly provocative book shows how good novels, intelligent heroines, and careful readers are skeptical of the romantic ideal of a perfected, integral self"--Publisher's description, back cover.

Rachel Felix (1821-58), the homely daughter of poor Jewish peddlers, was the first stage actress to achieve international stardom - and the last person one would have expected to resurrect the cultural patrimony of France. Yet her passionate, startling performances of the works of Racine and Corneille saved them from almost certain obsolescence after the fall of Napoleon (who had relished classical French tragedy) and the emergence of Romanticism. Audiences in Paris, London, Boston, and Moscow thrilled to her voice, and devoured the rumors of her offstage promiscuity and extravagance. Her fame - equal parts popularity and notoriety - was so great that she could nonchalantly dispose of her last name. La grande Rachel virtually invented the role of the superstar, while remaining a symbol of the highest art and most serious cultural pursuits. Indeed, her identity was fraught with such contradictions - which intrigued the public all the more. From the moment she was discovered playing the guitar on the streets of Lyons, to her debut on the Parisian stage at the age of fifteen, to her critical and commercial triumphs as Camille, Phedre, and other tormented women, Rachel's career was exhaustively "managed." A series of theater gurus, influential reviewers, and impresarios - including her brash and opportunistic father - claimed the credit for her astonishing success. What this abundance of male managers has always obscured is Rachel's own decisiveness and control over her time and money - not only did she play her various champions (and high-profile lovers) against one another, she openly defied them. Some called her stubborn, even perverse; in these pages, we come to recognize her as a woman ahead of her time, a charismatic individual very much in charge of her own destiny. As her fascination with all things Napoleonic suggests, Rachel liked power - both personal and professional - and had the talent to command it.

"American Born is Rachel Brownstein's incisive memoir of a seemingly quintessential Jewish Mother-her own-who lived life as the heroine of her own story. When she arrived alone in New York at age eighteen, in 1924, Reisel Thaler resembled the other Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe who accompanied her. Yet she already had an American passport tucked in her scant luggage. She was, as she would boast to the end of her days, "American-born." Reisel Thaler had drawn her first breath on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1905, then was taken back to Galicia (in what is now Poland) by her father before she turned two. So it was that Reisel could truly say, when she immigrated years later, that she was American-born. That proud insistence, Brownstein writes, "was about citizenship and status as well as birthplace. Also, it seems to me now, about talent. She was born an American the way another girl might be born a figure-skater." Brownstein began writing about her mother during the Trump years, dwelling on the stories she told about her life and on the questions they raised about nationalism and immigration and stories generally. For most of the twentieth century, Brownstein's mother gracefully balanced her identities as an American and a Jew. Her values, her language and her sense of timing, inform the imagination of the daughter who recalls her in her own old age. The memorializing daughter interrupts, interprets, and glosses, sifting through alternate versions of the same stories. Cousins from the old world and other more and less American Jews fill out the picture. But the central character of this book is Reisel, who eventually becomes Grandma Rose, watching and judging, singing, baking, and bustling"--

Rachel M. Brownstein considers Jane Austen as heroine, moralist, satirist, romantic, woman, and author, along with the changing notions of these categories over time and texts. She finds echoes of many of Austen's insights and techniques in contemporary Jane-o-mania, a commercially driven, erotically charged popular vogue that aims to preserve and liberate, correct and collaborate with old Jane.

The Marriage of Minds examines the implications of the common Victorian claim that novel reading can achieve the psychic, ethical, and affective benefits also commonly associated with sympathy in married life. Through close readings of canonical texts in relation to the histories of sympathy, marriage, and reading, The Marriage of Minds begins to fill a long-standing gap between eighteenth-century philosophical notions of sympathy and twentieth-century psychoanalytic concepts of identification. It examines the wide variety of ways in which novels were understood to educate or reform readers in the mid-nineteenth century. Finally, it demonstrates how both the form of the Victorian novel and the experience supposed to result from that form were implicated in ongoing debates about the nature, purpose, and law of marriage.

Rachel M. Brownstein considers Jane Austen as heroine, moralist, satirist, romantic, woman, and author, along with the changing notions of these categories over time and texts. She finds echoes of many of Austen's insights and techniques in contemporary Jane-o-mania, a commercially driven, erotically charged popular vogue that aims to preserve and liberate, correct and collaborate with old Jane.

The ingestion of feed containing mycotoxins has serious adverse effects on the health of farm animals, contributing to reduced weight gain, lower reproductivity, damage to the immune system, severe illnesses, and even death. Mycotoxins formed in animal feedstuffs depend on the presence of specific strains of filamentous fungi or molds and are strongly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and humidity. This book considers the biological nature of mycotoxin formation, the chemical and biological methods of analysis, as well as the extensive range of substrates capable of supporting the growth of toxigenic fungi. The book also provides extensive coverage of the mycotoxicoses of farmed animals and the current state of research into the control and detoxification of mycotoxins. All researchers interested in mycotoxins and their effects on animals will find important information in this book.