representations of the body in middle english biblical drama combines epistemological enquiry, gender theory and foucauldian concepts to investigate the body as a useful site for studying power, knowledge and truth. intertwining the conceptualizations of violence and the performativity of gender identity and roles, estella ciobanu argues that studying violence in drama affords insights into the cultural and social aspects of the later middle ages. the text investigates these biblical plays through the perspective of the devil and offers a unique lens that exposes medieval disquiets about christian teachings and the discourse of power. through detailed primary source analysis and multidisciplinary scholarship, ciobanu constructs a text that interrogates the significance of performance far beyond the stage.

in his prose fiction, memoirs, poetry, and drama, thomas bernhard (1931-1989)-one of the twentieth century's most uniquely gifted writers-created a new and radical style, seemingly out of thin air. his books never "tell a story" in the received sense. instead, he rages on the page, he rants and spews vitriol about the moral failures of his homeland, austria, in the long amnesiac aftermath of the second world war.

yet this furious prose, seemingly shapeless but composed with unparalleled musicality, and taxing by conventional standards, has been powerfully echoed in many writers since bernhard's death in 1989. these explorers have found in bernhard's singular accomplishment new paths for the expression of life and truth.

thomas bernhard's afterlives examines the international mobilization of bernhard's style. writers in italian, german, spanish, hungarian, english, and french have succeeded in making bernhard's austrian vision an international vision. this book tells that story.

in the last half-century ludwig wittgenstein's relevance beyond analytic philosophy, to continental philosophy, to cultural studies, and to the arts has been widely acknowledged.

wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus was published in 1922 - the annus mirabilis of modernism - alongside joyce's ulysses, eliot's the waste land, mansfield's the garden party and woolf's jacob's room. bertolt brecht's first play to be produced, drums in the night, was first staged in 1922, as was jean cocteau's antigone, with settings by pablo picasso and music by arthur honegger. in different ways, all these modernist landmarks dealt with the crisis of representation and the demise of eternal metaphysical and ethical truths. wittgenstein's tractatus can be read as defining, expressing and reacting to this crisis. in his later philosophy, wittgenstein adopted a novel philosophical attitude, sensitive to the ordinary uses of language as well as to the unnoticed dogmas they may betray. if the gist of modernism is self-reflection and attention to the way form expresses content, then wittgenstein's later ideas - in their fragmented form as well as their "ear-opening" contents - deliver it most precisely.

understanding wittgenstein, understanding modernism shows wittgenstein's work, both early and late, to be closely linked to the modernist geist that prevailed during his lifetime. yet it would be wrong to argue that wittgenstein was a modernist tout court. for wittgenstein, as well as for modernist art, understanding is not gained by such straightforward statements. it needs time, hesitation, a variety of articulations, the refusal of tempting solutions, and perhaps even a sense of defeat. it is such a vision of the linkage between wittgenstein and modernism that guides the present volume.