Sebald's Bachelors: Queer Resistance and the Unconforming Life
Helen Finch
Germanic Literatures 2•3 June 2013

  • ‘An ambitious, thin book that contains a dense, closely argued 'queer reading of Sebald’s work'. The result is one of the most important books on Sebald to date. I am sure that there are a number of Sebald readers, casual and otherwise, who will look askance at a queer reading of his work, but, as Finch demonstrates, the clues – both obvious and coded – are there in plain sight.’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo online
  • ‘Brillant ist das Buch von Finch überall da, wo es - dem Versprechen des Untertitels getreu - den Themen 'Queer Resistance and the Unconforming Life' bei Sebald nachgeht. Sie identifiziert das Werk durchgehende Motive oder zeigt höchst überzeugend, wie queerness und Erzählform bei 'Schwindel. Gefühle' zusammenhängen.’ — Uwe Schutte, Skug 97.1-3, 2014, 63-64
  • ‘Helen Finch's genuinely ground-breaking study of the work of W. G. Sebald explores the hitherto under-researched dimension of queer affinities and non-conformist lives in both the fictional and, crucially, the critical work of the now canonical writer... This is an important addition to the critical material and will challenge any interested Sebald scholar.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.4, 2014, 505-06
  • ‘Finch’s study illuminates the underexplored dimension of Sebald’s oeuvre, sexuality in general and queerness in particular, making an important contribution to Sebald scholarship.’ — Lynn L. Wolff, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 292-94 (full text online)
  • ‘Despite my reservations, there is much to admire here: finally, the queer dimension of the Sebaldian is comprehensively explored; the book serves as a report on the condition of Sebald scholarship; and in its own way it is consistently argued and tightly phrased. Sebald’s Bachelors is undoubtedly a provocative springboard for students and scholars engaging with Sebald’s oeuvre. But the project of queer Sebald remains radically open to further critical enquiry.’ — Christopher Madden, Textual Practice 29.2, 2015, 396-400
  • ‘Finch’s original and compelling reading of the bachelor trope is a particularly progressive addition, not only to existing scholarship on Sebald’s writing, but also to queer literary theory more broadly... This significant new perspective demonstrates not only how queer figures haunt the works of Sebald, but also how his unconforming bachelors continue to haunt the German queer literary tradition.’ — Hannah O’Connor, Assuming Gender 4.1, 2014, 81-84
  • ‘An early review of W.G. Sebald’s first fictional work published in English, The Emigrants (1996), contained the observation that his narrators and his other significant characters are 'always male'... Yet until Helen Finch’s study of Bachelors in Sebald, there has been no satisfactory or truly systematic study of male characters and homoerotic undercurrents in Sebald.’ — Mark R. McCulloh, Monatshefte 108.1, 2016, 150-52

Goethe's Visual World
Pamela Currie
Germanic Literatures 3•3 June 2013

  • ‘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

German Narratives of Belonging: Writing Generation and Place in the Twenty-First Century
Linda Shortt
Germanic Literatures 4•8 June 2015

  • ‘The texts are frequently autobiographical, consisting of diary entries and lived family experience. Methodological approaches range from feminist, memory and cultural studies to humanist geography, engaging with the writers’ often experimental use of language. This book will appeal to all those interested in contemporary German literature and identity.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.2, 2016, 239-40
  • ‘A helpful overview and nuanced discussion of literary, essayistic, and autobiographical texts that explore the multiple obstacles — historical, social, political, familial, global — complicating or curtailing the human desire to belong, but that also ponder new forms of fluid or changing attachments in contemporary society.’ — Friederike Eigler, GegenwartsLiteratur 16, 2016, 350-51
  • ‘In this slim and rich volume, Linda Shortt analyzes narratives of belonging in post-Wende German literature that represent a variety of generations, attitudes towards belonging (e.g., longing or anxiety), and relationships with German-speaking regions... This excellent book provides much food for thought.’ — Alexandra M. Hill, Monatshefte 109.1, 2017, 175-77
  • ‘Shortt offers an engaging and convincing interrogation of belonging as a flexible and resilient concept in contemporary literature. In addressing how belonging shifts across generations and responds to change, she demonstrates new negotiations of belonging that move beyond the conceptual constraints imposed by Heimat. In doing so, Shortt articulates a concept that undoubtedly has a greater relevance beyond the texts under consideration and the immediate concerns of contemporary German Studies.’ — Richard McLelland, Modern Language Review 112.3, July 2017, 753-54 (full text online)

Women, Emancipation and the German Novel 1871-1910: Protest Fiction in its Cultural Context
Charlotte Woodford
Germanic Literatures 6•1 November 2014

  • ‘This substantial, illuminating, and crisply written study looks once again at women’s writing in Germany and Austria in the period of its major impact on a wide reading public between the Franco-Prussian and First World Wars... The book is not only a nuanced contribution to feminist scholarship but also a significant intervention in the wider debate about committed literature. Woodford argues unambiguously for literature’s capacity to function as a driver of social change.’ — Helen Chambers, Modern Language Review 110.4, October 2015, 1161-62 (full text online)
  • ‘It has been estimated that women constituted one-third of the authors of the century. However, women’s protest writing encountered a backlash around the time of World War I: it was viewed as contrary to the true German attitude to gender relations, despised as a foreign implant from France and Scandinavia, and somehow Jewish. The women writers disappeared from the literary histories, and most of them remained invisible until the time I was a student... Woodford’s book is recommendable to teachers and students working in this period because it is full of indicators of how one might enrich the fabric of literary life of the time.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Monatshefte 107.4, December 2015, 673-76

Fontane and Cultural Mediation: Translation and Reception in Nineteenth-Century German Literature
Edited by Ritchie Robertson and Michael White
Germanic Literatures 8•11 September 2015

  • ‘This volume contains thirteen varied contributions which the editors successfully present as a coherent group of essays in honour of a distinguished Fontane scholar, whose own work provides an implicit point of reference... The strengths of this volume lie for the most part in the expository sections, the light that is thrown on unfamiliar corners of nineteenth-century German literary life, and the commitment shown by this group of commentators to its preservation as an object of study.’ — John Osborne, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 284-86 (full text online)
  • ‘This expertly edited, wide-ranging and engaging collection of essays admirably fulfils its aim of putting Fontane’s oeuvre in a European context, thus challenging a narrow view of his work and implicitly of late nineteenth-century German realism as a whole... This is an appropriately eclectic and com- prehensive volume and as such a fitting tribute to its dedicatee, Professor Emerita Helen Chambers, who has done so much to make the German department at St Andrews a centre of intercultural German Studies.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 53.2, April 2017
  • ‘A rich panorama of case studies on Anglo-German, trilateral, and multilateral cultural exchange and dialogue (mostly) in the nineteenth century. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to look beyond canonical works and established knowledge.’ — Dirk Göttsche, Translation and Literature 26, 2017, 231-37
  • ‘Represents British Germanistik at its broadest, best, and most inter-connected... In overcoming prejudices both against the nineteenth century and against the genre which originated in it, this book really does accomplish the ‘Great Festschrift Makeover’.’ — David Gillett, Angermion 2017, 202-06
  • ‘The scope and ambition of the thirteen essays that make up this volume are impressive. Each contribution displays a captivating commitment to detailed study of the primary texts in question, yet, at the same time, never restricting itself to simply textual microanalysis.’ — Paul Whitehead, Comparative Critical Studies 14, 2018, 397-401

Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects
Tara Beaney
Germanic Literatures 9•19 December 2016

  • ‘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•19 December 2016

  • ‘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•19 December 2016

  • ‘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•19 December 2016

  • ‘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)

Isak Dinesen Reading Søren Kierkegaard: On Christianity, Seduction, Gender, and Repetition
Mads Bunch
Germanic Literatures 13•3 April 2017

  • ‘The claim is that Dinesen’s reading of and interest in Kierkegaard are neglected within Dinesen research. Although various scholars have analysed certain texts in the light of Kierkegaard, I think Bunch is right. There has been no in-depth study of Kierkegaard’s significance for Dinesen prior to his book. Hence, [this book] is a valuable contribution to a more extensive understanding and documentation of the textual relation between the two Danish authors.’ — Tone Selboe, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 904-06 (full text online)

Encounters with Albion: Britain and the British in Texts by Jewish Refugees from Nazism
Anthony Grenville
Germanic Literatures 17•22 August 2018

  • ‘Some of the most moving stories, though, are written by less well-known figures: tales of loneliness; the humiliating treatment of domestic servants; stories of loss by children who arrived with the Kindertransport... Grenville has trawled the archives of the AJR and numerous books and diaries for stories which help us understand the experience of refugees. It is hard to think of anyone who has done more to open up their world and bring it to life.’ — David Herman, Jewish Chronicle 26 October 2018
  • ‘By examining the writings of Jews who had escaped to the UK, Grenville has pieced together an invaluable account of the feelings of shock, anger and confusion which those who were interned experienced.’ — Robert Philpot, The Times of Israel 2 December 2018
  • ‘Unusually for an academic publication, Grenville’s book will move its readers in several ways: the plight of the refugees in a strange country; their differing degrees of success; the crude and unfeeling ways in which the British authorities dealt with so many internees; the incomprehension towards refugees that was displayed by a large number of British citizens; and, conversely, the kindness, generosity and warm-heartedness that was shown by so many ordinary people to total strangers whose language they did not speak and for whose culture they often had little comprehension.’ — Richard Sheppard, Journal of European Studies 51.2, June 2021, 157-59 (full text online)
  • ‘Grenvilles Methode der Darstellung beruht auf einem close reading und de- taillierter Textinterpretation, wobei Grenville hier literarische und historische, oft kulturwissenschaftliche Analyse kombiniert. Durch die Zitate und Kommentare können LeserInnen sich einen guten Einblick in die Textgrundlage verschaffen, was besonders wichtig ist, denn die herangezogenen Texte wurden meistens auf Englisch geschrieben, sind aber nicht immer leicht zugänglich.’ — Eva-Maria Thüne, Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik 53.1, 2021, 226-29

Georg Hermann: A Writer’s Life
John Craig-Sharples
Germanic Literatures 19•28 August 2019

Alfred Döblin: Monsters, Cyborgs and Berliners 1900-1933
Robert Craig
Germanic Literatures 20•10 September 2021

Confrontational Readings: Literary Neo-Avant-Gardes in Dutch and German
Edited by Inge Arteel, Lars Bernaerts and Olivier Couder
Germanic Literatures 21•28 September 2020

Childhood, Memory, and the Nation: Young Lives under Nazism in Contemporary German Culture
Alexandra Lloyd
Germanic Literatures 23•28 September 2020

Affective Spaces: Migration in Scandinavian and German Transnational Narratives
Anja Tröger
Germanic Literatures 24•26 July 2021

  • ‘Anja Tröger’s 2021 monograph Affective Spaces: Migration in Scandinavian and German Transnational Narratives examines twelve novels whose fairly recent publication dates are bookended by Vigdis Hjorth’s Snakk til meg (2011) and Zeshan Shakar’s Tante Ulrikkes vei (2017)... twelve very compelling transnational narratives that are well worth the engagement.’ — Thomas Herold, German Studies Review 46.2, May 2023, 328-30

Speculative Identities: Contemporary Italian Women’s Narrative
Rita Wilson
Italian Perspectives 3•1 November 2000

Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written
Guido Bonsaver
Italian Perspectives 4•1 November 2000

Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste
Elizabeth Schächter
Italian Perspectives 5•1 November 2000

Italo Calvino and the Landscape of Childhood
Claudia Nocentini
Italian Perspectives 6•30 November 2000

Fragments of Impegno
Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 9•31 January 2002

Contesting the Monument: The Anti-Illusionist Italian Historical Novel
Ruth Glynn
Italian Perspectives 10•31 July 2005

Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s
Edited by Anna Cento Bull and Adalgisa Giorgio
Italian Perspectives 12•17 January 2006

  • ‘An excellent analysis of the 1970s... important new insights into the anni di piombo.’ — Liz Wren-Owens, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 213-14 (full text online)
  • ‘Each of these essays confirms that terrorism is an ineluctable topic in any discussion of the long 1970s... Indeed, the two longest entries in the index to the volume are for ‘terrorism’ and for ‘Moro, Aldo’. Aldo Moro is all over the book, just as he is uncannily omnipresent in Italian culture...’ — Alan O'Leary, Modern Italy 13.3, August 2008, 361-63

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature: Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda
Deborah Amberson
Italian Perspectives 22•30 January 2012

  • ‘In conclusion, this is a very interesting book, which not only brings together three exceptional authors, but also focuses on original and stimulating perspectives. The work makes a very valid critical contribution, by dealing with a fascinating topic in a manner which is original and insightful.’ — Giuseppe Stellardi, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 828-29 (full text online)

Disrupted Narratives: Illness, Silence and Identity in Svevo, Pressburger and Morandini
Emma Bond
Italian Perspectives 24•10 October 2012

Edoardo Sanguineti: Literature, Ideology and the Avant-Garde
Edited by Paolo Chirumbolo and John Picchione
Italian Perspectives 26•28 May 2013

  • ‘Chirumbolo and Picchione’s impressive volume represents a significant and timely addition to the field, which scholars of Sanguineti will want to follow and explore in the future.’ — Florian Mussgnug, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 268-70 (full text online)
  • ‘This dense but lucid collection makes a timely and valuable contribution to studies of Sanguineti's works and influence. The combination of critical and personal essays will make this volume particularly compelling to scholars interested in Sanguineti's legacy.’ — Mary Migliozzi, Forum Italicum 250-53
  • ‘A tre anni dalla scomparsa di Edoardo Sanguineti, Paolo Chirumbolo e John Picchione propongono questo interessantissimo volume dedicato al poeta genovese. I due curatori sono da annoverare fra i più prolifici ed attenti critici letterari sulla neoavanguardia italiana in Nord America... Un’autentica perla, un volume essenziale per chi volesse non solo occuparsi di uno dei guru dello sperimentalismo italiano, ma anche per chi intendesse affrontare il variegato mondo della neoavanguardia italiana con più ampio respiro.’ — Beppe Cavatorta, Annali d'Italianistica 32, 2014, 670-72

Gadda and Beckett: Storytelling, Subjectivity and Fracture
Katrin Wehling-Giorgi
Italian Perspectives 29•1 November 2014

  • ‘Katrin Wehling-Giorgi’s comparative reading of the works of two giants of European literature is both enlightening and fascinating... The book is written in an elegant style and has the great merit of spelling out with admirable clarity the philosophical implications of Gadda’s and Beckett’s narrative projects.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 225-27 (full text online)

The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in ‘Minor’ Italian Literature
Simone Brioni
Italian Perspectives 33•11 September 2015

  • ‘A very welcome and significant contribution to the growing field of Italian postcolonial studies... offering a convincing in-depth textual analysis of a specifically postcolonial literature (though many of his insights could usefully also be stretched out to apply to the wider ‘migration’ field), as well as contributing an important linguistic study, which draws Translation Studies into productive proximity with a potential transcultural turn in Italian Studies in general.’ — Emma Bond, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 524-25 (full text online)
  • ‘inserisce pienamente all'interno degli studi postcoloniali che negli ultimi vent'anni hanno iniziato a interessare la critica letteraria italiana. Attraverso l'analisi di un corpus eterogeneo di testi, Brioni esamina il ruolo che nel grande quadro della letteratura nazionale italiana ha la letteratura italo-somala, cioè scritta in italiano da autori e autrici italiani che provengono dalla Somalia, o le cui origini familiari sono somale.’ — Serena Alessi, Incontri 31.2, 2016, 152-54
  • ‘A new and original analysis... From how the Somali writers describe race and colour it is, in fact, possible to start a reflection that, from the colonial adventures and through the racial laws of 1938 and the apparent neglect of the colonies after World War II, reaches contemporary Italy and the current problems with racism.’ — Daniele Comberiati, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 2016, 247-49
  • ‘The postcolonial and transnational perspective of this work... calls for fresh and stimulating elaborations, making it a com- pelling reading also for readers who are not well acquainted with the body of literature here analysed.’ — Lorenzo Mari, Interventions 2 September 2016 (full text online)
  • ‘Una delle questioni più rilevanti risulta essere sicuramente quello del colore della pelle: particolare importanza viene data da Brioni ai personaggi meticci presenti nei diversi romanzi presi in esame e che diventano sempre più numerosi nel corso delle successive pubblicazioni. Questi testimoniano la presenza di una problematica culturale che era rimasta relegata nella penombra della memoria storica del colonialismo italiano.’ — Michele Pandolfo, Between VI.11, May 2016
  • ‘The Somali Within is an innovative volume that discusses the Somali-Italian encounter, from the colonial period to the subsequent historical events intertwining the histories of Somalia and Italy well into their postcolonial present... Brioni’s volume is indeed a much needed and complex contribution to the study of Italian Somali literature which engages masterfully with these texts while redefining multiple theoretical problems.’ — Elena Benelli, Italian Studies Online, 3 October 2018 (full text online)
  • ‘Simone Brioni’s The Somali Within signals perhaps a new direction in the field of Italian migration literature in Italy... A valuable resource to scholars of Italian, minor, post-colonial, and migration literatures as well as those interested in how Italy’s colonial past can help explain contemporary views in Italy of language, race, and identity.’ — Francesca Minonne, Quaderni d'Italianistica 38.2, 2018, 277-79
  • ‘Rich in its theoretical approaches, Brioni’s study will be of immense interest to scholars of contemporary Italian culture, Italian postcolonialism and, indeed, to anyone interested in the ongoing debates surrounding ‘minor literature.’’ — Renata Redford, Italica 93.4, Winter 2016, 849-51

Laughter from Realism to Modernism: Misfits and Humorists in Pirandello, Svevo, Palazzeschi, and Gadda
Alberto Godioli
Italian Perspectives 34•9 October 2015

Fulvio Tomizza: Writing the Trauma of Exile
Marianna Deganutti
Italian Perspectives 38•30 September 2018

  • ‘Deganutti’s monograph is a fine and original book whose ultimate merit is to reclaim multilingual, multicultural Tomizza and the exilic predicament of the Istrian borderlands for Italian literature. It is to be hoped that her study will inspire further cross-cultural research on this still contentious and yet incredibly generative literary, historical, and memorial field.’ — Katia Pizzi, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 736-37 (full text online)

A 'New' Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage
Enza De Francisci
Italian Perspectives 40•30 September 2018

  • ‘Effectively demonstrates that the two Sicilian writers, conventionally thought of as patriarchal figures, have, in their dramatic works, an affinity with the emerging ‘new woman’.’ — Mary Ann Frese Witt, Modern Language Review 115.2, 2020, 470-71 (full text online)

Unidentified Narrative Objects and the New Italian Epic
Kate Elizabeth Willman
Italian Perspectives 42•25 February 2019

Italy and the USA: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza
Italian Perspectives 44•30 December 2019

  • ‘A very holistic assessment of cultural change, even going beyond the disciplinary points of reference of language and narrative to the larger fields of politics and economics.’ — Anna Chichi, Modern Language Review 117.2, 2022, 303-04 (full text online)

Spatial Plots: Virtuality and the Embodied Mind in Baricco, Camilleri and Calvino
Marzia Beltrami
Italian Perspectives 45•26 July 2021

Psychoanalysis, Ideology and Commitment in Italy 1945-1975: Edoardo Sanguineti, Ottiero Ottieri, Andrea Zanzotto
Alessandra Diazzi
Italian Perspectives 51•13 September 2022

  • ‘Through her three case studies Diazzi has successfully demonstrated how psychoanalysis penetrated literature and culture in post-war Italy. As she confirms: “The assimilation of psychoanalysis into literature actively contributed to this rewriting of the discipline”.’ — 606-08, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Katja Liimatta

Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature
Mara Josi 
Italian Perspectives 60•8 August 2023

Women in Russian Literature after Glasnost: Female Alternatives
Carol Adlam
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2005

  • ‘An engaging look at some of the most influential figures in post-Soviet writing.’ — Benjamin Sutcliffe, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 307-08 (full text online)

Anglo-German Interactions in the Literature of the 1890s
Patrick Bridgwater
Legenda (General Series) •1 August 1999

  • ‘The author is to be congratulated for shedding new light on a wide range of Anglo-German cross-currents... His study weaves a multi-faceted web of historical and inter-personal connections, and is at its best when it forges links between the approaches of different authors and diverse forms of art.’ — Susanne Stark, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 523-4 (full text online)
  • ‘This well-documented volume provides new insights into the key social and cultural issues of the 1890s, including the truth and morality of artistic writing.’ — Crocker and Womack, The Year's Work in English Studies 2000, 532

Artful Seduction: Homosexuality and the Problematics of Exile
Karl Posso
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003

Assuming the Light: The Parisian Literary Apprenticeship of Miguel Angel Asturias
Stephen Henighan
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 1999

  • ‘The combination of close textual analysis of Asturias's own work, both fictional and journalistic, with that of other discourses, including the work of his contemporaries as well as his critics, is, in my view, one of the many strengths of Assuming the Light. Frequently provocative and meticulously researched, this book will be of interest therefore not only to Asturias specialists but also more generally to scholars engaged in Latin American cultural studies, particularly those interested in questions of cultural identity.’ — Claire Lindsay, Modern Language Review 97.3, 2002, 742-3 (full text online)
  • ‘Lucid, sophisticated, beautifully written, it provides a valuable and thought-provoking introduction to the writer's extraordinary sojourn in Paris... Stephen Henighan seems destined to make an outstanding contribution to Asturias studies.’ — Gerald Martin, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 79, 2002
  • ‘Valuable, problematic insights for those conversant with Asturias's work and its criticism.’ — Paul Jordan, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX, 2002, 826-8

Authorial Echoes: Textuality and Self-Plagiarism in the Narrative of Luigi Pirandello
Catherine O'Rawe
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • ‘A short review cannot do justice to this arresting critical work. A combination of bold ideas with a meticulous attention to detail and a broad theoretical foundation characterizes O'Rawe's critical approach. Insights are always well substantiated with abundant evidence... Both a major contribution to Pirandello scholarship and a seminal challenge to narrative criticism.’ — Jennifer Lorch, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1140-41 (full text online)

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: A Life of Culture
Malcolm Cook
Legenda (General Series) •5 September 2006

  • ‘We tend to think of the author of Paul et Virginie as a one-hit wonder. This new biography shows that he was a man of many parts... Malcolm Cook draws on his unrivalled knowledge of Bernardin's manuscripts to give the life and works a personal and "cultural" frame.’ — Robin Howells, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 203-04 (full text online)
  • ‘An intriguing book, full of surprises: a window into the mind of the researcher as well into the life of his subject.’ — Dena Goodman, French Studies 479
  • ‘Maintaining an almost scientific objectivity, the biographer proceeds with caution in his assessments, reevaluating and correcting previous sources without speculating unnecessarily in the absence of evidence. From this process emerges the unembellished and contained sketch of a writer who lived a full and interesting life during challenging times. Specialists and general readers alike will certainly want to know more about Bernardin after reading this biography.’ — Christina Ionescu, French Review 82.1, 2009, 159-60
  • ‘Commentateur des œuvres de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, historien de la littérature de la période révolutionnaire, particulièrement intéressé par les questions de réception (comme en témoignent les colloques qu’il a organisés sur les réécritures et sur la critique), Cook donne une biographie qui est au confluent de ses thèmes d’étude de prédilection, et qui doit être lue parallèlement à ses travaux antérieurs.’ — Youmna Charara, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 22.3, 2010, 735-36
  • ‘This is a wonderfully readable and insightful book, exceptionally richly illustrated with unpublished manuscript documents, and written with a true love for its subject.’ — Mark Darlow, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 33.2, June 2010, 284

Britain and Italy from Romanticism to Modernism: A Festschrift for Peter Brand
Edited by Martin McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2000

  • ‘The book concludes with a useful bibliography of Peter Brand's work and offers a valuable résumé of work in the field since Brand's pioneering study.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 91
  • ‘This rich and varied collection of essays... a worthy homage to Peter Brand.’ — Carmine G. di Biase, Italica 79.4, 2002, 568-72
  • ‘A volume that, with its interlacing strands, very effectively offers a picture of the complex relationship between two cultures reciprocally illuminating each other in often unpredictable ways.’ — Laura Lepschy, Modern Language Review 98.2, 2003, 482-3 (full text online)
  • ‘Une présentation très claire, dans laquelle toutefois le titre peut paraïtre trompeur, car il resterait à explorer, pendant cette même période, ce qu'apporte précisément cet autre aspect de la culture moderne italienne qu'est par exemple sa production romanesque. On songe à Manzoni (1785-1873) dont l'èuvre reflète à bien des égards le passage du Romantisme au Modernisme.’ — Annie Dubernard Laurent, Revue de littérature comparée 3, 2002, 381-3

Closer to the Wild Heart: Essays on Clarice Lispector
Edited by Cláudia Pazos Alonso and Claire Williams
Legenda (General Series) •1 October 2002

  • ‘Given the relative paucity of work in English on Clarice Lispector, Pazo's and William's collection of English-language writing on this author is welcome, not just for its mere presence, but especially for its attention to newer critical thinking on race, gender and nation. Most especially welcome is the turn indicated in this volume toward an examination of the several kind of writing in which Lispector engaged - letters, cronicas, semi-autobiography, fiction - a turn that indicates a more comprehensive way of thinking both about her fiction and about her life-work as a whole.’ — Tace Hedrick, Luso-Brazilian Review 41:1, 2004, 203-5
  • ‘From the start Clarice Lispector, despite the South American sun, lives in the clouds and in cloudiness. She was to the public a charismatic obscurity, a witch, a recluse, a mystery - the Brazilian sphinx.’ — Lorrie Moore, The New York Review of Books 26 September 2009, 2-3

Conceptions of the Absurd: From Surrealism to Chestov's and Fondane's Existential Thought
Ramona Fotiade
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2001

  • ‘Fotiade argues persuasively that the ideas of Chestov and Fondane form the basis of a tradition of dissident thought in the 1920s and beyond... an original and illuminating contribution to French intellectual history, a clearly organized and closely argued exploration of a neglected field.’ — Douglas Smith, French Studies LVII.3, 2003, 414-15

Contemporary Greek Fiction in a United Europe: From Local History to the Global Individual
Edited by Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis
Legenda (General Series) •1 January 2004

  • ‘The essays collected here add up to a great deal more than a shop window for recent Greek fiction. Both the editor's introduction, and the long keynote chapter by Dimitris Tziovas which follows, thoughtfully situate the new developments in the context of what has gone before. ... All the contributions, in complementary ways, explore one or more of these developing fields of interest on the part of Greek writers.’ — Roderick Beaton, The Anglo-Hellenic Review Autumn 2004, 23-4

Crossing Fields in Modern Spanish Culture
Edited by Federico Bonaddio and Xon de Ros
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003

  • ‘Federico Bonaddio and Xon de Ros have put together a very useful series of short and punchy articles which span over a hundred and fifty years of Spanish culture, from the 1860s to the present day... Without doubt this collection would make an excellent addition to any university library. The essays on canonical texts may very well prove invaluable to undergraduate students while those on lesser-known writers, artists, and cinematographers will surely fulfil the same function for postgraduates and the academic community in general.’ — Jean Andrews, Modern Language Review 101.3, July 2006, 876-77 (full text online)

Culture, Censorship and the State in Twentieth-Century Italy
Edited by Guido Bonsaver and Robert Gordon
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2005

Defective Inspectors: Crime Fiction Pastiche in Late-Twentieth-Century French Literature
Simon Kemp
Legenda (General Series) •5 September 2006

  • ‘A detailed and compelling analysis... This is a lucidly executed, perceptive and celebratory exploration of postmodern pastiche that clearly demonstrates the wealth of interest for narrative analysis that lies implicit within its comic absurdities, and Kemp assembles his own readings with the kind of rigour and conviction (and occasionally, humour) of which any great master detective could be proud.’ — Victoria Best, French Studies 505-06

Desiring the Dead: Necrophilia and Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Lisa Downing
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

  • ‘Downing is working outside the scope of any simple discourse of pathology, and perhaps outside the queer undoing of pathology as such. ...this is an impressive first book, striking without being facile, theoretically complex without being unruly, and attentive to literary qualities in the chosen texts while sustaining its thematic argument.’ — Peter Cryle, Modern Language Review 100.2, 2005, 505-6 (full text online)
  • ‘This is a successful, richly structured, and thought-provoking exploration of 'the cultural fantasy of necrophilia'.’ — Carol Rifelj, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 33, n. 1 and 2, Fall-Winter 2004-2005
  • ‘Downing's approach throughout is essentially post-Faucauldian and psychoanalitic. Her style, at once sober and engaging, is a model for academic prose in general. ... The work also indicates a new direction for death studies, and despite its omissions deserves consideration in this regard.’ — Jason Hartford, The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association Spring 2004, 119-21