Daniel Wright

The gritty story of working-class lads in Bradford, at the heart of Northern Monkeys is The Ointment — a football firm built on pride and reputation. But behind the matchday clashes are deeper struggles: addiction, poverty, broken homes, love, revenge, and the fight to stay above water. As the firm rises, the police close in, determined to bring them down. Some lads are just trying to escape their mundane lives. Others are chasing power and a reputation. And some just want a few beers, a laugh with their mates, and a bit of casual violence. But what happens on the streets is only half the story. Northern Monkeys goes beyond the terraces — deep into the lives, relationships and choices that shape these men when the crowds are gone, and the doors are shut. A brutal, honest look at life on the edge, when the lines between good and bad start to blur — and then start to cross.

What grounds the fictional world of a novel? Or is such a world peculiarly groundless? In a powerful engagement with the latest debates in novel theory, Daniel Wright investigates how novelists reckon with the ontological status of their works. Philosophers who debate whether fictional worlds exist take the novel as an ontological problem to be solved; instead, Wright reveals the novel as a genre of immanent ontological critique. Wright argues that the novel imagines its own metaphysical "grounds" through figuration, understanding fictional being as self-sufficient, cohesive, and alive, rather than as beholden to the actual world as an existential anchor. Through philosophically attuned close readings of novels and reflections on writerly craft by Thomas Hardy, Olive Schreiner, Colson Whitehead, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Henry James, and Akwaeke Emezi, Wright shares an impassioned vision of reading as stepping into ontologically terraformed worlds, and of literary criticism as treading and re-treading the novel's grounds.

What grounds the fictional world of a novel? Or is such a world peculiarly groundless? In a powerful engagement with the latest debates in novel theory, Daniel Wright investigates how novelists reckon with the ontological status of their works. Philosophers who debate whether fictional worlds exist take the novel as an ontological problem to be solved; instead, Wright reveals the novel as a genre of immanent ontological critique. Wright argues that the novel imagines its own metaphysical "grounds" through figuration, understanding fictional being as self-sufficient, cohesive, and alive, rather than as beholden to the actual world as an existential anchor. Through philosophically attuned close readings of novels and reflections on writerly craft by Thomas Hardy, Olive Schreiner, Colson Whitehead, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Henry James, and Akwaeke Emezi, Wright shares an impassioned vision of reading as stepping into ontologically terraformed worlds, and of literary criticism as treading and re-treading the novel's grounds.

The art of fire-writing is a returning trend, and there is no better way to learn the technique and inspire yourself than through this up-to-date edition of Daniel Wright's ultimate introduction to pyrography. Daniel Wright's enthusiasm for his subject is beautifully captured in a sequence of clear, easy-to-follow step-by-step photographs and unique projects. Taking his inspiration from pen-and-ink, engraving and watercolour techniques, he demonstrates many exciting methods and traditional ways of woodburning to create myriad patterns, pictures and motifs including landscapes, trees, flowers, animals and buildings. Information is included on the types of wood to use, how to prepare surfaces, working with the grain and enhancing designs. He goes on to illustrate shading and faux marquetry, and there's a section on using photographs and sketches to produce your own designs. With each new technique, a project is introduced by Daniel to help you learn and explore your new skill – from burning your own chessboard to a stunning fairytale stool design for your little one's bedroom. Finally, advice and demonstrations are provided on decorating old wooden objects, revitalizing much-loved pieces by working patterns into their worn, textured surfaces. This book will inspire, entertain and instruct you, whether you are a complete beginner or an experienced pyrographer.

How did the Victorians think about love and desire?“Reader, I married him,” Jane Eyre famously says of her beloved Mr. Rochester near the end of Charlotte Brontë’s novel. But why does she do it, we might logically ask, after all he’s put her through? The Victorian realist novel privileges the marriage plot, in which love and desire are represented as formative social experiences. Yet how novelists depict their characters reasoning about that erotic desire—making something intelligible and ethically meaningful out of the aspect of interior life that would seem most essentially embodied, singular, and nonlinguistic—remains a difficult question.In Bad Logic, Daniel Wright addresses this paradox, investigating how the Victorian novel represented reasoning about desire without diluting its intensity or making it mechanical. Connecting problems of sexuality to questions of logic and language, Wright posits that forms of reasoning that seem fuzzy, opaque, difficult, or simply “bad” can function as surprisingly rich mechanisms for speaking and thinking about erotic desire. These forms of “bad logic” surrounding sexuality ought not be read as mistakes, fallacies, or symptoms of sexual repression, Wright asserts, but rather as useful forms through which novelists illustrate the complexities of erotic desire.Offering close readings of canonical writers Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Henry James, Bad Logic contextualizes their work within the historical development of the philosophy of language and the theory of sexuality. This book will interest a range of scholars working in Victorian literature, gender and sexuality studies, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature and philosophy.

Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools addresses the contemporary issues of quantification and measurement in educational settings. The authors draw on the research of the Jubilee Centre at the University of Birmingham in order to investigate the concern that the conventional wisdom, sound judgement and professional discretion of teachers is being diminished and control mistakenly given over to administrators, policymakers and inspectors which in turn is negatively effecting pupils’ character development.The books calls for subject competence to be complemented by practical wisdom and good character in teaching staff. It posits that the constituent virtues of good character can be learned and taught, that education is an intrinsically moral enterprise and that character education should be intentional, organised and reflective. The book draws on the Jubilee Centre’s expertise in support of its claims and successfully integrates the fields of educational studies, psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology in its examination of contemporary educational practices and their wider effect on society as a whole. It offers sample lessons as well as a framework for character education in schools.The book encourages the view that character education is about helping students grasp what is ethically important and how to act for the right reasons so that they can become more autonomous and reflective individuals within the framework of a democratic society. Particularly interested readers will be educational leaders, teachers, those undertaking research in the field of education as well as policy analysts with a keen interest in developing the character and good sense of learners today.

This text supports student teachers, NQTs and practitioners in implementing the Citizenship Order in secondary schools - to be introduced in September 2002. With a practical, clear focus, the authors provide an intellectual challenge; argument and evidence to help the reader come to an informed view on the complex and controversial issues in each chapter; well-focused examples; and strategies for use in the classroom.

Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools addresses the contemporary issues of quantification and measurement in educational settings. The authors draw on the research of the Jubilee Centre at the University of Birmingham in order to investigate the concern that the conventional wisdom, sound judgement and professional discretion of teachers is being diminished and control mistakenly given over to administrators, policymakers and inspectors which in turn is negatively effecting pupils’ character development.The books calls for subject competence to be complemented by practical wisdom and good character in teaching staff. It posits that the constituent virtues of good character can be learned and taught, that education is an intrinsically moral enterprise and that character education should be intentional, organised and reflective. The book draws on the Jubilee Centre’s expertise in support of its claims and successfully integrates the fields of educational studies, psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology in its examination of contemporary educational practices and their wider effect on society as a whole. It offers sample lessons as well as a framework for character education in schools.The book encourages the view that character education is about helping students grasp what is ethically important and how to act for the right reasons so that they can become more autonomous and reflective individuals within the framework of a democratic society. Particularly interested readers will be educational leaders, teachers, those undertaking research in the field of education as well as policy analysts with a keen interest in developing the character and good sense of learners today.

This text supports student teachers, NQTs and practitioners in implementing the Citizenship Order in secondary schools - to be introduced in September 2002. With a practical, clear focus, the authors provide an intellectual challenge; argument and evidence to help the reader come to an informed view on the complex and controversial issues in each chapter; well-focused examples; and strategies for use in the classroom.