Published January 1974

The Emblems of the Altdorf Academy: Medals and Medal Orations 1577-1626
Frederick John Stopp
Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association 6

Published January 1994

The Art Criticism of Francis Ponge
Shirley A. Jordan
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 36

Published October 1999

Nelle Carceri di G. B. Piranesi
Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart
Italian Perspectives 2

Published July 2000

Pierre Klossowski: The Persistence of a Name
Ian James
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Klossowski is presented here as a key contributor to post-modern thought and aesthetics.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 106
  • Antonella Arrigoni, Studi francesi XLVI, 2002, 2
  • ‘The appearance of the first monograph in English on Klossowski is welcome, all the more so as James's study provides such a scrupulous and thoughtful account of Klossowski's diverse output, its intellectual inheritance and its contemporary resonances.’ — Ian Maclachlan, French Studies LVII.2, 2003, 270-1

Published November 2000

Marguerite Yourcenar: Reading the Visual
Nigel Saint
Studies In Comparative Literature 5

  • ‘Scholarly and lucidly written, Saint's study will appeal both to the specialist and to readers with a broader interest in word and image research.’ — Jean H. Duffy, French Studies LVI.3, 2002, 430
  • unsigned notice, Société Internationale d'Etudes Yourcenariennes 21, 2000, 8

Published January 2004

Configuring Community: Theories of Community Identities in Contemporary Spain
Parvati Nair
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 61

Published January 2007

The Influence of Pre-Raphaelitism on Fin-de-Siècle Italy: Art, Beauty, and Culture
Giuliana Pieri
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 65

Published November 2007

Théophile Gautier, Orator to the Artists: Art Journalism of the Second Republic
James Kearns
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘In this first ever study of all of Théophile Gautier’s art criticism produced during the Second Republic, James Kearns brings us a much-needed reassessment of the art critic’s role in the history of French art... this is a highly accomplished study, which should be essential reading both for the scholar researching the Salon during this period and for the Gautier specialist. The material is well structured and the writing style engaging, making it equally accessible to the student or more seasoned researcher.’ — Catherine Hewitt, French Studies 64.2, April 2010
  • ‘This highly informed and informative study exposes a breadth of sources that should serve to prompt new enquiries in Gautier scholarship... Analyses [in this book] suggest the role this fine study may play in releasing Gautier’s art journalism ‘from the simplistic art-for-art’s-sake commonplaces to which it has been for so long reduced’ and in reasserting Gautier’s importance in the visual culture of nineteenth-century France.’ — Greg Kerr, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 567-68 (full text online)
  • ‘Focusing on the period of the Second Republic which spans the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup d’état, this meticulously researched and engaging study follows Gautier’s reactions to developments in the organisation of the salon and to the artists themselves through a series of 49 articles published in La Presse... Gautier emerges in Kearns’s study not only as a prolific and idiosyncratic critic but also as one who challenges the label of 'art for art’s sake', embracing an overtly Republican artistic agenda.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.2, 2010, 247

Published December 2007

Balzac and the Model of Painting: Artist Stories in La Comédie humaine
Diana Knight
Research Monographs in French Studies 24

  • ‘Carefully focused, tightly written, and well-presented, this volume of close readings of Balzac’s artist stories is a solid and valuable addition to the Research Monographs in the Legenda series.’ — Marja Warehime, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 38, Fall-Winter 2009-10, 119-20
  • ‘Are painting and sculpture equally liable to distort lived experience, or is sculpture capable of securing a closer approximation of material truth? This is just one of the intriguing questions suggested by Balzac and the Model of Painting.’ — Elizabeth C. Mansfield, caa.reviews 2 December 2009

Published December 2008

Adrian Stokes: An Architectonic Eye
Stephen Kite
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘This marvelous book, which is focused on Stokes's writings on the Renaissance, provides a full and highly original account of the writer's development. Clearly written and well illustrated, it tells the story accurately... All future readers of Stokes will be indebted to Kite's tactful and comprehensive commentary.’ — David Carrier, caa.reviews 4 February 2009
  • ‘Admirably clear in providing the first account of the architectural basis of Stokes’ journey toward beauty from the ugliness of Edwardian London as he remembered it after the First World War.’ — Janet Sayers, American Imago 68.3, 2011, 561–67

Published July 2009

Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and Kitaj
Aaron Rosen
Studies In Comparative Literature 16

  • ‘Rosen's effort to identify and elucidate the Jewish concerns of these three very different artists is penetrating and his analysis of the works in question is consistently insightful. Though the exact nature of Jewish art remains slippery, Rosen’s book is a worthy investigation of the ways in which the most evidently Jewish art can borrow from the least Jewish sources, and the ways in which less apparently Jewish art can have unexpected Jewish resonances.’ — Ezra Glinter, Zeek at Jewcy July 21, 2009
  • ‘Bypassing past scholars, critics, and curators who have sought the quintessential nature of Jewish art... but failed to come up with the answer, Rosen is your man.’ — The Jewish Telegraph November 20, 2009, p. 29)
  • ‘For lovers of American art, Jewish art, history or theology, Dr Rosen has approached the subject comprehensively... Making an exceptional input to the exchange of ideas and channel of communication between religion and the fine arts, Dr Rosen processes how any type of Jewish art may serve deep-seated Jewish ideas of family, tradition, and homeland... Dr Rosen communicates his ideas succinctly, in an accessible manner.’ — The American December, 2009, p. 35)
  • ‘Unashamedly scholarly yet written in a style that is refreshingly accessible, achieving a rare and satisfying balance between detailed, even minute, analyses of specific works of art and a broader sense of purpose, underpinned by an intimate knowledge of a wide range of theological and philosophical texts.... Imagining Jewish Art concludes with an excellent and immensely thought-provoking chapter entitled ‘Brushes with the Past’, suggestive of enough new avenues of intellectual enquiry to fuel several more volumes. While other scholars (both Jewish and non-Jewish) may indeed take up some of these challenges, I have little doubt that we shall be hearing more of Aaron Rosen in the future.’ — Monica Bohm-Duchen, Art & Christianity 62, Summer 2010, 14
  • ‘Towards the end of his book, Rosen explains that his intention has been to illustrate 'something of the unique, productive tensions which can arise when the themes and symbols in works by non-Jewish artists are made to "speak Jewish"' (106). In this he is entirely successful. The reader learns a good deal about the three artists, and can see in practice how a Jewish artist, interested in questions of Jewish history and identity, may engage the art-historical tradition in producing a new kind of visual imagery.’ — Janet Wolff, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 9.3, 2010, 437-39
  • ‘A probing and accessible interdisciplinary contribution to the field of modern Jewish art.’ — Samantha Baskind, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 29.4, Summer 2011, 177-79
  • ‘The book is at its strongest when it employs formal comparisons to demonstrate the close visual conversations with European ‘Masters’ of religious art (such as Grü̈newald, Uccello and della Francesca) that Chagall, Guston and Kitaj each engage in.’ — Alana M. Vincent, Literature and Theology 27.1 (March 2013), 116

Published April 2010

Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death: Walter Pater and Post-Hegelianism
Giles Whiteley
Studies In Comparative Literature 20

  • ‘Scholars have long been aware of the importance of acknowledging Pater’s debt to Hegelian philosophy. And many critics of Pater have performed almost obligatory nods towards Hegel’s influence, conceptualized in vague terms, without formulating an understanding of its precise forms. Such critics will now have to engage seriously with Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death, which contains the most scholarly and detailed account of Pater’s Hegelianism to date.’ — Stefano Evangelista, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1133-34 (full text online)
  • ‘In this meticulously researched monograph Giles Whiteley sets himself the expansive task of reading Pater’s entire intellectual project as an extended conversation with Hegel... the case is well made that Pater should be considered a proto-poststructuralist thinker.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.3, June 2012, 361

Rethinking the Concept of the Grotesque: Crashaw, Baudelaire, Magritte
Shun-Liang Chao
Studies In Comparative Literature 22

  • ‘There is much to admire in this stimulating and well-researched study, not least its invitation to reconsider the significance not only of the grotesque itself, but also of other influential and related aesthetic terms such as the sublime, the uncanny, and the fantastic.’ — Damian Catani, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1129-31 (full text online)
  • ‘Succeeds in its aims to define the grotesque, give insight into its use of visual and verbal media, and demonstrate its progression through time... a well-reasoned and well-researched book that is a welcome contribution to the study of the Grotesque, as well as to the literature on Crashaw, Baudelaire and Magritte.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.3, June 2012, 357-58

Published March 2011

Shades of Grey: 1960s Lisbon in Novel, Film and Photobook
Paul Melo e Castro
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 77

Published August 2011

Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu
Áine Larkin
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Throughout the volume, Larkin’s close readings often provide fresh insights by situating themselves at a tangent to existing interpretations. In this way they form an individual trajectory, turning the study into a valuable source of orientation and stimulation for experts and newcomers to the field alike.’ — Katja Haustein, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 115-16
  • ‘Áine Larkin makes an excellent contribution to this already well established field of study with this systematic analysis of the manifold ways in which Proust appropriates photography for both thematic and stylistic purposes.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 514-16

Published January 2012

Regarding Lost Time: Photography, Identity, and Affect in Proust, Benjamin, and Barthes
Katja Haustein
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Katja Haustein’s monograph charts new territory in the expanding study of autobiographical writing in the light of photography... this volume will no doubt be of great benefit to specialists of these three seminal authors, as well as to those working in comparative studies.’ — Kathrin Yacavone, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 271-72
  • ‘Katja Haustein undertakes a titanic task: to bring together three bulwarks of twentieth-century intellect, each one so seminal in their own right that even the thought of combining them in one study would seem quixotic. Haustein not only accomplishes the task, but manages to bring out a genuinely comparative account... it is a very useful book to have read, and one which, I am certain, I will return to again and again.’ — Eleni Papargyriou, Comparative Critical Studies 10, 2013, 407-09
  • ‘This book contains several beautiful, thoughtfully chosen illustrations, and is a useful source of information about scholarship in German on Proust... a significant and stimulating contribution to the scholarship on these three important writers.’ — Áine Larkin, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 228-29 (full text online)

Published June 2013

Goethe's Visual World
Pamela Currie
Germanic Literatures 3

  • ‘This volume is a marvelous study of how Goethe participated in perception theory, physics, cognition studies, and psychology. Currie’s work is a significant step toward uncovering and clarifying some of the mental images and cognitive elements that are already critically reflected in Goethe’s perceptive writings.’ — Beate Allert, Monatshefte 105.4, 2013, 716-18
  • ‘Goethe himself would surely have found this volume impressive, spanning as it does a multitude of disciplines with equal facility... The impression one carries away on closing the book is of the immense sense of intellectual ferment which characterised Goethe’s age, and a search for ways of reappraising human beings’ relationship to their environment in both spiritual and physical terms.’ — Susan Halstead, The Brown Book (Lady Margaret Hall) 2014, 132-34
  • ‘Pamela Currie’s arguments never fail to challenge the reader, but are crafted with a lightness of touch, and display a sustained resistance to theoretical excess. The book works across genres and disciplines—and it works beautifully. It is a fitting way to remember a much-respected scholar, who died as the book was in preparation.’ — Charlotte Lee, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1122-23 (full text online)
  • ‘T. J. Reed refers to this volume as the 'product of a remarkable and coherent research interest'. It is also the product of a remarkable intellect that fearlessly sought unexplored regions of literary inquiry and unhesitatingly made connections where others might not. In sum, this is a volume that is not merely worthwhile to read but one whose intellectual esprit is worthy of emulation.’ — Walter K. Stewart, Goethe Yearbook 2015, 284-86
  • ‘Currie besticht durch ihr virtuos gehandhabtes, interdisziplinäres Vorgehen, ihre Gedankenschärfe und Entdeckerfreude, ihren Blick in die Tiefe und in die Ferne. Offensichtlich war auch sie—die reich bebilderte Aufsatzsammlung ist eine postume Hommage—ein ausgeprägter Augenmensch.’ — Franz R. Kempf, German Studies Review 38.2, May 2015, 416-18

Prometheus in the Nineteenth Century: From Myth to Symbol
Caroline Corbeau-Parsons
Studies In Comparative Literature 25

  • ‘The truly interdisciplinary reach of Corbeau-Parsons’ work... makes it much more than (just) an exercise in comparative literature... What emerges from Corbeau-Parsons’ engaging study and her analysis of some stunning works of art is a powerful sense of the remarkable autonomy of the Prometheus figure, so much so that one is almost tempted to echo Wilamowitz in Der Glaube der Hellenen and exclaim: ‘The gods are there’!’ — Paul Bishop, Journal of European Studies 44.1, 2014, 81-82
  • ‘A well-written, systematic and comprehensive examination of the Prometheus myth and its many artistic adaptations and nuances.’ — Harriet Hustis, BARS Review 45, 2015
  • ‘Throughout this impressive book, which forms part of the Legenda Studies in Comparative Literature series, Caroline Corbeau-Parsons explores the Symbolist fascination with the Prometheus myth, tracing its origins in antiquity, its rediscovery in the Renaissance, its centrality in versions of German, French, and English Romanticism, and finally its use by Mallarmé, Moreau, and others.’ — Paul Wright, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 788-89 (full text online)

Published April 2014

Architecture, Travellers and Writers: Constructing Histories of Perception 1640-1950
Anne Hultzsch
Studies In Comparative Literature 26

Published November 2014

Caravaggio in Film and Literature: Popular Culture's Appropriation of a Baroque Genius
Laura Rorato
Italian Perspectives 30

Published March 2015

Louisa Waterford and John Ruskin: 'For you have not Falsely Praised'
Caroline Ings-Chambers
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘This book is a valuable revelation of a little-known figure. Lady Waterford is shown both to have been acutely sensitive to the cultural currents of her day and to have been a strong talent in her own right.’ — John Batchelor, Modern Language Review 111.4, October 2016, 1128-29 (full text online)
  • ‘Ings‐Chambers builds a strong case for reintegrating this artist in the wider Pre‐Raphaelite canon. Her writing makes Waterford’s art come across as essential thanks to its charm, vision and social/gender relevance.’ — Nic Peeters, Pre-Raphaelite Society Journal XXIII, 2015, 63-66

The Art of Ana Clavel: Ghosts, Urinals, Dolls, Shadows and Outlaw Desires
Jane Elizabeth Lavery
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 6

  • ‘El libro de Lavery es una obra necesaria y de actualidad para entender también el pulso de los movimientos literarios en la América de habla hispana. Es un aporte que resarce a la literatura en general y a la visibilidad de las escritoras en particular... En la narrativa de Clavel—según Lavery—, realidad, identidad y cuerpo diluyen sus fronteras dentro y fuera de la ficción, excediendo la literatura para señalar lo propio de la condición humana. Así, el trabajo de Lavery contribuye a establecer un marco teórico, o si se prefiere, el canon del acontecer de la literatura emergente no solo de México, sino de América Latina.’ — Rita Vega Baeza, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94.10, December 2017, 1830-31

Published July 2015

Algernon Swinburne and Walter Pater: Victorian Aestheticism, Doubt and Secularisation
Sara Lyons
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘As British aestheticism continues to enjoy a revival of interest, it becomes ever more urgent to reassess the metaphysical work that Pater and Swinburne have done for us in their search for a way beyond doubt. Algernon Swinburne and Walter Pater is a timely reminder of our intellectual inheritance from this moment of crisis in Western religion.’ — Orla Polten, Essays in Criticism 66.3, July 2016, 390-96
  • ‘Sara Lyons’s admirable monograph will prove a cornerstone in Victorian studies and will soon become invaluable to students and scholars alike working on 19th-century literature and culture.’ — Charlotte Ribeyrol, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 83, Printemps 2016
  • ‘Lyons’s rethinking of Swinburne’s and Pater’s relationship to religion is absolutely necessary in light of recent revisions of the secularization thesis. She productively complicates the oversimplified binary between belief and unbelief that still too often plagues our readings of Victorian literature, and provocatively asks us to rethink the reasons underlying the Aesthetic Movement’s embrace of an ‘art for art’s sake’ philosophy. Algernon Swinburne and Walter Pater should be read by scholars of aestheticism, nine- teenth-century religion, and Victorian literature more generally.’ — Dustin Friedman, Review of English Studies Advance Access 4 October 2016
  • ‘A valuable addition to scholarship on Swinburne, Pater and aestheticism.’ — Beth Newman, Victorian Studies 60.1, Autumn 2017, 126-28

Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum: The Truth of Masks
Giles Whiteley
Studies In Comparative Literature 35

  • ‘The strength of this study for the reader of Wilde is the way in which Whiteley seeks to connect Wilde’s theoretical writings with his fictions. This is central to its Deleuzian approach, its ‘active refusal of the critical either-or’, its determination to find the complementarity between Wilde the ‘producer of concepts’ and Wilde the producer of ‘percepts and affects’ (p. 24)... there is intellectual provocation at every turn, and difficulty to be celebrated.’ — Anne Varty, The OScholars April 2017
  • ‘Giles Whiteley’s provocative monograph announces a reading of Wilde ‘through Deleuze and postmodern philosophical commentary on the simulacrum’. It also signals a challenge to ‘recent neo-historicist readings’ which ‘limit [Wilde’s] irruptive power’. Drawn to Deleuze’s notions of ‘disjunctive synthesis’, Whiteley emphasizes Wilde’s credentials as a ‘serious’ thinker, presenting him as a fusion of philosopher and artist. Where many recent critics have been at pains to place him in a precise historical and cultural context, Whiteley maintains that Wilde’s ‘contemporaries’ are properly determined by his intellectual outlook, and are therefore drawn from his past (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel), present (Arnold, Ruskin, Baudelaire, Nietzsche), and future (Deleuze, Blanchot, Foucault, and Klossowski, among others).’ — Nick Freeman, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 499-500 (full text online)
  • ‘From the point of view of presentation, the volume is of the highest standard... Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum is, in my opinion, an important contribution to Wilde studies in at least two respects. Firstly, it pertinently resituates Wilde’s works within the intellectual context in which they were conceived and convincingly challenges the idea according to which Wilde’s philosophy of art is simply a derivative, Platonic and Hegelian, idealism. Secondly, it stages a large number of fruitful encounters between Wilde’s texts and contemporary theory, thereby taking much further Richard Ellmann’s intuition that Wilde was ‘one of us’ and shedding new light on the Irishman’s literary production. Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum is itself a Deleuzian event, creating ‘lines of flight’ and causing renewed delight in the reader’s apprehension of Wilde’s shimmering surfaces.’ — Xavier Giudicelli, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 85, Spring 2017

Adapted Voices: Transpositions of Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit and Queneau’s Zazie dans le métro
Armelle Blin-Rolland
Transcript 2

  • ‘Overall, this study displays great skill in the handling of diverse materials across different media, proposing convincing readings of specific works and transpositions within a persuasive overall argument about the centrality of ‘voice’ to debates around adaptation.’ — Douglas Smith, Irish Journal of French Studies 16, 2016

Published October 2015

Baudelaire and Photography: Finding the Painter of Modern Life
Timothy Raser
Research Monographs in French Studies 45

  • ‘Writing on the cusp of modernity, runs Raser’s overarching argument, Baudelaire is struggling to leave behind the traditional world, abandoning a search for beauty in a quest for a theory of modernity.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.4, October 2016, 476-77
  • ‘Highlights exciting aspects of Baudelaire’s work and illuminates his stance on modernity. One of Raser’s achievements is to take seriously the fact that Baudelaire transcended the boundaries between various arts and media. Exploring the relations between painting, poetry, engravings, and photography, he shows to what degree Baudelaire’s work is characterized by intertextual and intermedial tensions.’ — Marit Grøtta, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 254-56 (full text online)
  • ‘As always with Raser’s writing, this is an intelligently and cogently argued book. His deep knowledge of Baudelaire’s art criticism firmly grounds his arguments about aesthetic theory. Raser’s literary interpretations, such as that of Hugo’s poem, are interesting and thought-provoking... This slender and elegant book has set me to thinking about Baudelaire’s “aesthetics” of the modern as I read his works — it has given me a new perspective on his poetry.’ — Dorothy Kelly, H-France 16.125, July 2016

Urban Space, Identity and Postmodernity in 1980s Spain: Rethinking the Movida
Maite Usoz de la Fuente
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 11

  • ‘This is a great book for revisiting the years of cultural explosion in a Madrid—and a Spain—which had just emerged from nearly forty years of dictatorship. Madrid had always seemed to lag behind Barcelona as a culturally avant-garde city. La movida madrileña changed the way people looked at the capital, which had previously been seen as the home of conservatism and the political elite. Young people who had been born during the dictatorship and had never experienced real freedom in their lives embraced this new freedom... The book is well written, readable and accessible. The detailed analysis of La Luna de Madrid will prove to be a valuable resource for researchers studying the cultural output of la movida as well as others interested in the period of the Spanish Transition.’ — María José Blanco, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 95.4, May 2018, 370-71
  • ‘A substantial reflection on an epoch that continues to deserve critical attention from both scholars and members of the public.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.4, October 2018, 506-07 (full text online)

Published December 2016

Pascal Quignard: Towards the Vanishing Point
Léa Vuong
Research Monographs in French Studies 48

  • ‘Léa Vuong’s succinct and insightful book addresses the work of French writer Pascal Quignard through the lenses of absence and disappearance. As Vuong argues, the reception of Quignard in the Anglo-Saxon world remains somewhat limited, while his work within the Hexagon has been the subject of extensive discussions and wide critical recognition. This first thorough study of Quignard’s work in the English language fills a gap while offering a perspective that connects Quignard to a constellation of structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers, in particular with the work of Jacques Lacan and Maurice Blanchot.’ — Étienne Lussier, Modern and Contemporary France 4 Oct 2017 (full text online)
  • ‘A well-written, well-documented analysis that manages to give a good glimpse into a voluminous literary production (Quignard’s publications are now nearing eighty books), while reporting on several important, and less studied, aspects of Quignard’s oeuvre.’ — Jean-Louis Pautrot, H-France 17, December 2017, no. 236
  • ‘Both specialists and those not very familiar with Quignard will find something of value here... the range of texts considered, which help the author trace broad points of commonality across an immense and still growing body of work, and the generally compelling characterization and descriptions of the text, will be helpful to those seeking an introduction to Quignard.’ — Joseph Acquito, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 664-66 (full text online)
  • ‘Di questo dibattito, l’autrice traccia nella «Conclusio- ne» un lucido bilancio, tra accuse di parisianisme e riconoscimento in patria, moltiplicarsi delle traduzioni e interesse ancora limitato da parte della critica in altre lingue, sottolineando la sotterranea portata sovversiva di una scrittura che ostenta la propria inattualità, che ritorce il fascino esercitato dal linguaggio contro il potere euristico della parola, che ingloba il meta-discorso che suscita, condannando talora il commentatore alla parafrasi o all’imitazione.’ — Stefano Genetti, Studi francesi 185, 2018, 367-68

Published September 2017

Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God
Robert K. Weninger
Studies In Comparative Literature 43

  • unsigned notice, The Year's Work in English Studies 98.1, 2019, 657-58

Published January 2018

Intellectual Life and Literature at Solovki 1923-1930: The Paris of the Northern Concentration Camps
Andrea Gullotta
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Small and remote as it is, Solovki has always been central to Russian culture. Nearly all the central themes of Russian history — the power and schisms of the Orthodox Church and its intimacy with the state; the development of the Gulag — are reflected, or more often anticipated, in its history... The legacy of the Terror remains a battlefield. Books as scrupulously researched as Gullotta’s are invaluable.’ — Robert Chandler, Financial Times 27 April 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s case study of the SLON camp serves as a model for studies of Gulag writing, and makes a bold statement in favor of a new, synthesizing discourse about Gulag literature... All students of Russian literature and of the human condition owe a debt to Andrea Gullotta, who has tread on virgin snow, following in no one’s footsteps.’ — Lydia Roberts, Los Angeles Review of Books 3 May 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s scholarly, in-depth but quite readable book primarily examines the content of the printed output of work from Solovki in the early period 1923-30 and also considers the circumstances of its production, including the constantly shifting and always ambivalent relations between prisoners and camp administration.’ — Trevor Pateman, Reading This Book Online, 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s commendable study opens up a new area of Gulag research and adds considerably to our knowledge of the literature of the Soviet labour camps.’ — Sarah J. Young, Slavonic and East European Review 98.3, July 2020, 563-65 (full text online)
  • ‘An invaluable addition to a growing body of texts dedicated to understanding the multifaceted and complex cultural arena of Soviet labour camps. Gullotta effectively captures the uniqueness and plurality of the Solovki camp experience, preserving the many voices of the camp for future generations of historians and researchers.’ — Julie Draskoczy Zigoris, Modern Language Review 116.3, July 2021, 521-23 (full text online)

Published February 2018

The Modern Culture of Reginald Farrer: Landscape, Literature and Buddhism
Michael Charlesworth
Studies In Comparative Literature 36

  • ‘The clear strengths of this book are in its lucid prose, historical accuracy, and truly fascinating subject matter... Richly supported in terms of diverse textual materials, the book is also visually stunning and contains a number of wonderful illustrations, photographs, and reproduced artworks... Charlesworth’s book presents a compelling case for a renewed interest in Reginald Farrer’s writings, and will remain the definitive work on this topic for many years to come.’ — Jeffrey Mather, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 164-65 (full text online)

Published February 2019

Photographing the Unseen Mexico: Maya Goded’s Socially Engaged Documentaries
Dominika Gasiorowski
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 21

  • ‘By employing innovative, subaltern questioning, Dominika Gasiorowski makes an exceptionally strong case for engaging with this socially committed Mexican documentary filmmaker and photographer and has produced an extremely thorough and impactful study of Maya Goded’s work.’ — Erica Segre, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 5.1, 2021, 186-87 (full text online)

Published January 2020

Poetry, Painting, Park: Goethe and Claude Lorrain
Franz R. Kempf
Germanic Literatures 22

  • ‘Few are the writers who have the competence truly to be interdisciplinary and Franz Kempf is one of them. In Poetry, Painting, Park (Legenda) he carefully lays out the complex intellectual links forged by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from his life-long considerations of Claude’s landscapes. Kempf fluently ranges over the consequences of Goethe’s encounter with Claude— literature and literary theory, painting and drawing, horticulture and garden design, philosophy, natural science and optics, reality and spirituality—to arrive at striking a double portrait.’ — Donald Lee, The Art Newspaper Blog Books of the Year, 25 December 2020
  • ‘This long overdue task [of studying Goethe and Claude Lorrain] has been accomplished in a near exemplary monograph by Franz Kempf, in a finely produced volume that does elegant justice to its subject... It will doubtless become a standard work and will open up broad vistas for future research.’ — Jeremy Adler, The Art Newspaper 334, May 2021
  • ‘Franz R. Kempf’s exciting volume titled Poetry, Painting, Park: Goethe and Claude Lorrain is about each of these forms of art and artists listed in the title, separately and taken together... Kempf really is convincing in his aims of guiding us through the densely interwoven patterns of influences around Goethe.’ — Zoltán Somhegyi, British Journal of Aesthetics 20 October 2021 (full text online)
  • ‘Aufgrund seiner rhetorischen Anlage lädt das vorliegende Buch dazu ein, sich darin auf ähnliche Weise zu bewegen, wie wenn man durch eine Landschaft oder, besser noch: durch einen Park spaziert.’ — Karlheinz Lüdeking, Arbitrium 40.3, 2022, 333-37 (full text online)
  • ‘La richesse du travail de Kempf consiste alors dans le refus d’analyser le rapport entre les deux hommes comme un simple rapport d’influence. [...] Cette audace interprétative est couplée à la précision d’un germaniste soucieux de faire droit à la singularité de chaque mot et qui refuse de se contenter de tracer à grands traits une théorie générale de l’ekphrasis.’ — Francis Haselden, Nouvelle revue d’esthétique 30, 2022, 151-54 (full text online)

Published July 2021

Venetian Inscriptions: Vernacular Writing for Public Display in Medieval and Renaissance Venice
Ronnie Ferguson
Italian Perspectives 50

  • ‘The rigorous standards of the author’s nearly decade-long project will certainly satisfy professional historians, but lay readers too will find themselves thoroughly engaged by the manner in which he uses each inscription vividly to evoke multiple aspects of Venice’s social, religious, cultural and political life, as well as the characters of some remarkable individuals.’ — Roderick Conway Morris, Times Literary Supplement 21 January 2022
  • ‘A short review cannot do justice to the rich array of insights and ideas that thread through this fascinating book, nor can it reflect the dedication and time that were needed to compile the catalogue. Ranging from the familiar to the seemingly unnoticed, these inscriptions add myriad fragments to the enormous jigsaw of the townscape of late medieval and Renaissance Venice.’ — Deborah Howard, Burlington Magazine 165, February 2023, 207-08
  • ‘The Italian Perspectives series, founded by Zygmunt Barański and Laura Lepschy in 1998, reaches its half-century in impressive fashion with this outstanding work of scholarship... As well as making a major contribution to epigraphy, the volume includes a wealth of information on the urban fabric, society, culture, and language that will make it an invaluable resource for Venetian Studies during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.’ — Brian Richardson, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 258-60 (full text online)

Fragments, Genius and Madness: Masks and Mask-Making in the fin-de-siècle Imagination
Elisa Segnini
Studies In Comparative Literature 56

  • ‘The wide-ranging approach of the book, which also engages with recent debates in decadence and early modernist studies, openly challenges the “abrupt separation between authors associated with the ‘half-mock interlude of decadence’ and those considered exponents of symbolism, and thus part of early modernism”... The author keeps steady command of her arguments while navigating and scrutinising several artifacts from different cultures, though of course each case study shows its own fine tuning.’ — Giulio Milone, Synergies 2, 2021, 65-68 (full text online)
  • ‘Elisa Segnini leads her readers on a journey through fin-de-siècle Europe with one extra stop in Japan. The universe unveiled by Segnini is populated by uncanny mask makers, men in drag, grotesque masquerades, deathly plaster casts, gruesome masks of exceptional men, criminals, and deviants... A distinctive contribution to a field that can only benefit from engaging with the anthropological, medical, and legal discourse that underlies the artistic production of the fin de siècle.’ — Alessandra Crotti, Rivista di studi vittoriani 53, 2022, 121-25

Published September 2021

The Visualization of a Nation: Tàpies and Catalonia
Emily Jenkins
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 47

  • ‘This monograph provides a clear and well-pondered approach to Tàpies’ work and analyses some of its key characteristics in a concise and approachable manner. Of particular interest are Jenkins’ enlightening insights into the ways Catalan democratic institutions co-opted Tàpies’ work for their own political interests... Jenkins offers a solid, insightful and positive appraisal of the artist’s work, and her book will certainly spark further interest in Tàpies’ paintings.’ — Jordi Cornellà-Detrell, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 7.1, 143-45 (full text online)

Published December 2021

A Poetics of the Image: Paul Celan and André du Bouchet
Julian J. I. Koch
Studies In Comparative Literature 52

Published February 2022

Diego Rivera and Juan Rulfo: Post-Revolutionary Body Politics 1922-1965
Lucy O’Sullivan
Visual Culture 3

Published June 2022

Zola's Painters
Robert Lethbridge
Research Monographs in French Studies 68

  • ‘In Zola’s Painters, Lethbridge has condensed a detailed textual history of art criticism that ran through the novels and the hundreds of articles that constituted the literary and intellectual agenda Zola pursued. He has mastered the vast scholarship on the major artists, writers, and cultural figures of Zola’s times to provide a comprehensively informed analysis of the critical lens through which the writer viewed his contemporaries’ productions... His rigorous archival and textual investigation combines with an admirable ability to write clearly and convincingly about the complex aesthetic, social, political, and economic interchanges of the second half of nineteenth-century France.’ — Therese Dolan, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 51.3-4, Spring 2023
  • ‘Dans cette étude richement illustrée, où, parmi beaucoup d'autres, les reproductions des tableaux de Corot, Monet et Véronèse accompagnent et prolongent la perspective du texte, la démonstration s'emploie à décomposer le regard et le goût d'un écrivain qui, précisément, compose avec la peinture et ses maîtres : de portraits en paysages, de critiques en repentirs, à rebours de l'idée reçue d'un romancier à la culture visuelle limitée, insensible aux subtilités et aux techniques picturales, et écrivant lui-même au couteau voire à la truelle, se dessine sous la plume de Robert Lethbridge la figure d'un Zola fin connaisseur et amateur des arts, observateur attentif de l'expression et des délicatesses du tempérament artiste d'hier et d'aujourd'hui.’ — Marion Glaumaud-Carbonnier, Les Cahiers naturalistes 97, September 2023, 347-350
  • ‘Zola’s importance as an art critic – his energetic commitment to naturalism as well as his detection of recidivism, his instinctive alliance with artists whose capacities he felt echoed his own – is forcefully assessed in this dense and valuable study.’ — Richard Thomson, Burlington Magazine 165, September 2023, 1042-43
  • ‘Robert Lethbridge’s outstanding study of Zola’s painters brings together the many strands of the naturalist author’s complex engagement with the art and artists of the late nineteenth century. This compelling and persuasive narrative maps the politi- cal and aesthetic valences of the perennial dialogues, disputes, dramas, and doubts between Zola and his (erstwhile) friends, Cézanne, Manet, Monet, and others in the Impressionist circle.’ — Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, French Studies 2023 (full text online)
  • ‘Zola’s Painters offers an excellent example of why scholarly work on the nineteenth century is so important: the myths and half-truths, as well as the political, social, and personal complexities which shaped the art and literature of the period and their reception, need to be fully interrogated, even if we are left with more intriguing questions than satisfying answers.’ — Claire Moran, Modern Language Review 118.4, October 2023, 624-25 (full text online)

Residual Figuration in Samuel Beckett and Alberto Giacometti
Lin Li
Studies In Comparative Literature 53

  • ‘In this ambitious yet focused study of the relationship between certain formal characteristics in Samuel Beckett’s dramatic works and Alberto Giacometti’s art, Lin Li not only clarifies these two artists’ shared milieu, but also sheds light on new ways to understand both subjecthood and reading more generally.’ — Charlie Clements, Modern Language Review 2024, 119.1, 139-41 (full text online)

Published September 2022

The Experience of Colour in Lorca's Theatre
Jade Boyd
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 54

  • ‘Boyd is sensitive to what is left out as well as what is explicit. She thus underlines the absence in this tragedy of stage directions regarding lighting. She also reads ‘verbal colour’ into objects, food and animals, so the mention of frogs, chocolate, earth, fire and goldfinches becomes part of an imagined canvas of images, sometimes as potent as what we can see on stage.’ — John London, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 100.6, 2023, 930-32 (full text online)

Published March 2024

The Integrity of the Avant-Garde: Karel Teige and the Biography of an Ambition
Peter Zusi 
Visual Culture 2