Published December 2016
Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects
Tara Beaney
Germanic Literatures 9
- ‘In conclusion, this monograph is recommended to an academic readership with a general interest in the role of affect in fictional transformations, and in multidisciplinary, comparative approaches to transformative phenomena.’ — Elisabetta Leopardi, Modern Language Review 113.2, April 2018, 436-39 (full text online)
- ‘What is innovative is that the author links transformation to affect. Her corpus entails (as is to be expected) E.T.A. Hoffmann and Franz Kafka, discussing e.g. metamorphosis and utopia/dystopia. More original in this context are the case studies on Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Jenny Erpenbeck, and the trans-cultural Japanese German author Yoko Tawada.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 371-72
- ‘The book’s great merit is that it shows in close readings the prevalence of metamorphosis as a concept in German literature, and how metamorphosis in all its different iterations always questions stable identities and disrupts affective structures.’ — Tanja Nusser, German Studies Review 41.2, May 2018, 396-98 (full text online)
Comedy and Trauma in Germany and Austria after 1945: The Inner Side of Mourning
Stephanie Bird
Germanic Literatures 10
- ‘This study offers an original and distinctive approach which illuminates key aspects of the chosen works while also enhancing the highly complex nature of mourning.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.4, October 2018, 506 (full text online)
- ‘A fresh perspective on comedy and the complex roles comedic devices have played in postwar German-language literature and lm and in discussions of trauma.’ — Corey L. Twitchell, German Studies Review 42.1, February 2019, 176-178 (full text online)
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Orient: Romantic Aesthetics and the German Imagination
Joanna Neilly
Germanic Literatures 11
- ‘A thorough and innovative monograph... E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Orient is a well-written study that serves an indispensable function as a comprehensive and careful survey of the theme of orientalism in Hoffmann’s works. Neilly is ready to criticize Hoffmann’s orientalism when necessary, but what is more important, she is also receptive to those aspects of Hoffmann that cannot be reduced to orientalist discourse or are even critical of orientalism.’ — Asko Nivala, European Romantic Review August 2018 (full text online)
- ‘The book is written in a clear, crisp style... It is rich, dense, and full of insight and overall an important and original addition not only to the body of Hoffmann scholarship; it also adds an important facet to our understanding of the Romantic preoccupation with the Orient.’ — Juergen Barkhoff, Modern Language Review 114.4, October 2019, 886-87 (full text online)
- ‘Hoffmann has until now been presented as something of a peripheral Orientalist, with more attention typically being paid to Schlegel and Novalis. Neilly’s searching study serves as a thoughtful corrective, revealing across a series of close readings the range and variety of Eastern motifs that are implied and appropriated in Hoffmann’s fictions, or—as is most often, and most intriguingly, the case—critically reflected upon, in a way that turns his ironic mirror back onto German aesthetics and indeed onto the notion of the fixed self.’ — Polly Dickson, German Studies Review 43.3, October 2020, 607-10 (full text online)
Structures of Subjugation in Dutch Literature
Judit Gera
Germanic Literatures 12
- ‘This informative, insightful, confident, and provocative account of Dutch literature, which focuses on the complex ways in which it embodies and embeds subjugation, deserves to be read by any scholar of European literature interested in an intersectional approach to reading literature. To those teaching and studying Dutch literature, Structures of Subjugation in Dutch Literature provides a worthwhile and lively addition to the literary histories available in English.’ — Jane Fenoulhet, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 675-77 (full text online)
- ‘Above all, Gera’s analyses are impressive examples of the development and use of new reading strategies. Her analyses gave me a sense of liberation. The fact that messages can be so hidden in the language of social and literary reality gives an explanation of the persistence of the established order in gender and race-biased inequalities. With a growing awareness of our literary heritage, a critical attitude towards ingrained ideas and their wording becomes possible. We enter a new era.’ — Den Haag Agnes Sneller, Dutch Crossing Online, 2018 (full text online)