Space in Theodor Fontane's Works: Theme and Poetic Function
Michael James White
Bithell Series of Dissertations 38 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 82•30 May 2012

  • ‘The book is exceptionally well written, precise, compact, and lean. It has been well edited with very few faults.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Modern Language Review 109, 2014, 277-79 (full text online)

Crisis and Form in the Later Writing of Ingeborg Bachmann: An Aesthetic Examination of the Poetic Drafts of the 1960s
Áine McMurtry
Bithell Series of Dissertations 39 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 84•30 May 2012

  • ‘There is precious little in McMurtry’s approach and textual interpretation that invites criticism. In fact, one so often feels compelled to applaud the subtlety of these examinations, the comprehensiveness of argument, and sheer erudition of the author... With this study McMurtry has positioned herself in the forefront of contemporary Bachmann scholarship.’ — Rüdiger Görner, Modern Language Review 109, 2014, 1144-45 (full text online)
  • ‘The study’s solid grounding in Bachmann research, and modern European literature in general, means that it provides a useful starting point for readers who are new to Bachmann’s work, academics interested in modern literature or philosophy, and Bachmann scholars in search of a new perspective on her work.’ — Lina Fisher, German Quarterly 2013, 110-12

Bridal-Quest Epics in Medieval Germany: A Revisionary Approach
Sarah Bowden
Bithell Series of Dissertations 40 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 85•30 May 2012

  • ‘Bowden’s style is clear, lively, and elegant. As well as making a definitive statement, this book also offers insightful interpretations that are likely to make the texts in question more accessible and appealing to students.’ — Annette Volfing, Modern Language Review 109, 2014, 534-35 (full text online)

Phantom Images: The Figure of the Ghost in the Work of Christa Wolf and Irina Liebmann
Catherine Smale
Bithell Series of Dissertations 41 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 97•27 September 2013

Letzte Chancen: Vier Einakter von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Edited by Susanne Kord
Critical Texts 3•1 October 2005

  • ‘Meticulously edited ... In her informative and very readable introductory essays, Kord traces Ebner-Eschenbach’s development and reception as a dramatist, and presents the individual plays in an engaging manner.’ — Ulrike Tanzer, Austrian Studies 14, 2006, 354-56 (full text online)
  • ‘A welcome addition, making accessible some of the lesser-known dramas in a helpfully annotated format, and shed[ding] fresh light on E-E.’ — Barbara Burns, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 66, 2007
  • ‘These important editions of little-known dramas by the Austrian author Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) are vital for anyone who wants to research and teach beyond the canon. They are the result of arduous editorial work and are meticulously annotated by Susanne Kord ... These volumes are likely to provoke much future research on Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach; they provide stimulating analyses of the texts and detailed notes and bibliographies. In addition, they are such good value that they can be easily included on undergraduate reading-lists.’ — Charlotte Woodford, Modern Language Review 102, 2007, 1182-84 (full text online)

Macht des Weibes: Zwei historische Tragödien von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Edited by Susanne Kord
Critical Texts 4•5 December 2005

  • ‘In her informative and very readable introductory essays, Kord traces Ebner-Eschenbach’s development and reception as a dramatist, and presents the individual plays in an engaging manner. The perspective is particularly illuminating and subtly differentiated in the case of the two historical tragedies, Maria Stuart in Schottland and Marie Roland.’ — Ulrike Tanzer, Austrian Studies 14, 2006, 354-56 (full text online)
  • ‘A welcome addition, making accessible some of the lesser-known dramas in a helpfully annotated format, and shed[ding] fresh light on E-E.’ — Barbara Burns, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 66, 2007
  • ‘These important editions of little-known dramas by the Austrian author Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) are vital for anyone who wants to research and teach beyond the canon. They are the result of arduous editorial work and are meticulously annotated by Susanne Kord ... These volumes are likely to provoke much future research on Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach; they provide stimulating analyses of the texts and detailed notes and bibliographies. In addition, they are such good value that they can be easily included on undergraduate reading-lists.’ — Charlotte Woodford, Modern Language Review 102, 2007, 1182-84 (full text online)

Phosphorus Hollunder und Der Posten der Frau von Louise von François
Edited by Barbara Burns
Critical Texts 13•1 October 2008

  • ‘This handsome critical edition of two of François’s lesser-known short stories from 1857 offers a valuable reminder of the writer’s many merits as a storyteller.’ — Karen Leeder, Modern Language Review 105.3, 2010, 896-97 (full text online)

Henry Crabb Robinson, Essays on Kant, Schelling, and German Aesthetics
Edited by James Vigus
Critical Texts 18•15 October 2010

  • ‘Robinson's expertise in German philosophy can now be studied in significant detail in the well-documented edition prepared by James Vigus ... Vigus has not only brought together for the first time a full collection of Robinson's essays on German Philosophy, he has made these bold forays into the complexities of Kant and Schelling readily accessible in his general Introduction ... and his notes on the origin and provenance of each of the manuscripts. His volume is a valuable resource ... Scholars of the reception of German Philosophy in the British Romantic period will find it worthwhile to put Robinson alongside of Coleridge at the top of their reading list ... [A] remarkable achievement.’ — Frederick Burwick, The Wordsworth Circle XLI.4, 2010, 244-47
  • ‘Vigus' [edition] bears impressive witness to Robinson's expertise and fills a void [...] the corpus of published and manuscript material remains a fascinating guide to the dynamic intellectual and literary culture of Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century. [...] Vigus' authoritative, scholarly edition of Robinson's Essays is an essential text for anyone interested in late Enlightenment and early Romantic thought in Germany and in what Robinson did to disseminate that thought beyond the borders of the German-speaking world.’ — Eugene Stelzig, New Books On Literature 19, 28 June 2011
  • ‘This volume will be of interest to scholars elucidating the state of Rational Dissent around 1800; to Kant specialists who deal with the early responses to Kant in Great Britain, especially given that Robinson's reception of Kant was superior to that of most of his British contemporaries; to Schelling specialists focussing on the development of Schelling's philosophy between 1800 and 1805; to Staël specialists investigating the background of her work on Germany De l'Allemagne [...] and perhaps most interestingly, Robinson's attempt to understand German philosophy will be relevant to those historians of philosophy and of ideas who believe that much can be learned from comparing radically different philosophical movements [...]. The introduction provides a fine overview and the editor's notes are helpful.’ — Vilem Mudroch, Enlightenment and Dissent 27, 2011, 188-91
  • ‘James Vigus's excellent edition of Crabb Robinson's writings marks a new appreciation of his life and work. Crabb Robinson emerges from this volume as a writer and intellectual of considerable significance in his own right, and as one whose ideas contributed to the genesis and development of European Romanticism.’ — Stephen Burley, The Charles Lamb Bulletin n.s. 154, Autumn 2011, 161-63
  • ‘As a pioneer of intercultural exchange, Robinson remains too little known today. James Vigus’s edition of his philosophical writings provides a valuable adjunct to the ongoing Crabb Robinson Project of the Dr Williams Centre for Dissenting Studies.’ — H. B. Nisbet, Modern Language Review 107.3, 2012, 970-71 (full text online)
  • ‘This collection is a most welcome addition to the slowly growing number of editions of writings by one of Romanticism's most fascinating literary figures. [...] The resultant picture, perspicuously outlined in Vigus's introduction, is of 'a complex process of cultural transfer by which the metaphysics and aesthetics topical in Jena and Weimar around 1800 spread to Europe'. [...] [T]he texts presented in this volume [...] enable us to appreciate [Robinson's] own intellectual achievements more fully and justly than ever before.’ — Nicholas Halmi, The Coleridge Bulletin n.s. 39, Summer 2012, 100-02

Luise Gottsched, Der Lockenraub/Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
Edited by Hilary Brown
European Translations 2•1 September 2014

  • ‘Her edition also shows the way forward for Translation Studies by returning to a detailed comparison of a translation with the original source text.’ — John Guthrie, Modern Language Review 111, 2016, 578 (full text online)

Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La devoción de la Cruz/August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Andacht zum Kreuze
Edited by Carol Tully
European Translations 3•1 December 2012

  • ‘There can be no doubt about the importance of this parallel edition of Calderón’s La devoción de la cruz and Schlegel’s groundbreaking German translation, published as Volume 3 of the interesting new MHRA European Translations Series.’ — Sofie Kluge, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 92, 2015, 144

Wilhelm Meinhold, 'The Amber Witch': Translated by Lady Duff Gordon
Edited by Barbara Burns
European Translations 4•1 April 2016

  • ‘The modest success the novel enjoyed in nineteenth-century Germany was far outstripped by its popularity in Britain. Writing with verve and clarity, Barbara Burns explores the reasons for this in her meticulously researched introduction. Meinhold was fortunate in his English translator... When Duff- Gordon decided to translate this work she selected something that arguably deserved to become a German classic but did not, and turned it into a minor classic in English in its day... It is easy to imagine it finding a further afterlife as a graphic novel or a movie.’ — Helen Chambers, Translation and Literature 26, 2017, 100-08

Bertha von Suttner, Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling
Edited by Barbara Burns
European Translations 5•15 February 2019

Franz Grillparzer’s Dramatic Heroines: Theatre and Women’s Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Austria
Matthew McCarthy-Rechowicz
Germanic Literatures 1•25 May 2018

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)

The Very Late Goethe: Self-Consciousness and the Art of Ageing
Charlotte Lee
Germanic Literatures 5•23 April 2014

  • ‘The major achievement of this study is to show how simplistic it is to distinguish between clarity and chaos as two distinct types of late style. Neither will serve as an adequate descriptor of Goethe’s late-late writing, which is simultaneously highly patterned and controlled, yet ultimately also inchoate and at times bafflingly lacking in transparency.’ — Osman Durrani, Modern Language Review 110.2, April 2015, 587-88 (full text online)
  • ‘A subtle and complex reflection on the distinctive character of Goethe’s writing in various genres during the last ten years of his life, which is characterized by a tendency towards retrospection, seen in the way that he revisits earlier experiences and earlier writing.’ — David Hill, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 77, 2017, 272

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

Goethe's Poetry and the Philosophy of Nature: Gott und Welt 1798-1827
Regina Sachers
Germanic Literatures 7•22 July 2015

  • ‘Although the twenty-one poems of the original collection were composed over as many years or more, Regina Sachers rejects the ‘autonomous’ approach taken by Theodor Adorno, David Wellbery, and others, pointing out that by deliberately placing them together, Goethe must have wished the reader to view them as a single entity.’ — Osman Durrani, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 279-80 (full text online)
  • ‘Each of these poems has a history, and the combination of histories sheds new light on Goethe’s intellectual development, in particular the increased awareness of the image of a self that he was projecting.’ — David Hill, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 77, 2017, 269

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)

Foreign Parts: German and Austrian Actors on the British Stage 1933-1960
Richard Dove
Germanic Literatures 15•29 September 2017

  • ‘Readers with high expectations will not be disappointed by Foreign Parts. It is a fascinating presentation of the careers of five actors who, forced to leave Germany and Austria by Hitler, set about plying their trade on the stage in Britain... Dove’s account of the actors’ careers in pre-war and wartime Britain is exemplary.’ — Anthony Grenville, AJR Journal 2018
  • ‘The stories that unfold are engaging when viewed as biographies, because of the different challenges and problems each of the actors had to confront. Their different treatment when Britain decided to intern ‘enemy aliens’ reflects the chaotic and sometimes extreme nature of wartime bureaucracy, and their choices after the war are fascinating, with only Mannheim choosing to return to Germany.’ — David Barnett, Modern Language Review 114.2, April 2019, 411-12 (full text online)

Paul Celan’s Unfinished Poetics: Readings in the Sous-Oeuvre
Thomas C. Connolly
Germanic Literatures 16•26 February 2018

  • ‘It would exceed the limits of this review to enter further into the many merits of Connolly’s monograph, from his impressive discoveries within an “oeuvre” so thoroughly examined as Celan’s, to the judiciousness of his writing... The “sous-oeuvre” that Connolly broaches can “never” be entirely disclosed: every disclosure leaves traces to be read otherwise. It is for this reason that Paul Celan’s Un nished Poetics: Readings in the Sous-Oeuvre calls for further readings, in every sense.’ — Kristina Mendicino, German Studies Review 42.2, May 2019, 402-404 (full text online)
  • ‘This book constitutes a refreshing approach to the work of Paul Celan... constitutes a sharp and compelling update to Celan criticism.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.3, July 2019, 355
  • ‘Paul Celan’s Unfinished Poetics is highly recommended, as it demonstrates that a sous-œuvre opens up a fabulous new source of interest for poetry lovers. This goes far beyond Celan’s writings.’ — Gerrit-Jan Berendse, Modern Language Review 114.4, October 2019, 894-96 (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

The Law of Poetry: Studies in Hölderlin’s Poetics
Charles Lewis
Germanic Literatures 18•23 September 2019

  • ‘[D]as zweite Kapitel [erschließt] Neuland: Dass Kleanthes’ Hymne an Zeus für die Eigentümlichkeit des anrufenden Gestus der Ode Natur und Kunst formativ gewesen sein könnte, stellt einen eindrücklichen Befund dar (33, 42 f., 55). Aus den produktiven Differenzen zur Hymne leitet Lewis anschaulich jene Kritik her, die Hölderlins poetologische Ode vollzieht, wenn sie die Anbetung Jupiters an dessen Eingedenken seiner Herkunft knüpft (43 f.). ... Lewis’ Studie beleuchtet durch innovative Ansätze die selbstreflexive Gestaltung poetischer Formen, wie Hölderlins Werk sie zeigt, und nähert sich so dem im Titel exponierten ‘poetischen Gesetz’.’ — Lisa Memmeler, Hölderlin-Jahrbuch 42, 2021, 325-328
  • ‘The achievements of the first part of Lewis’s monograph are complemented by a second part consisting of a new translation into English of both Hölderlin’s “Sophocles-Anmerkungen” and his fragment on “[d]ie Bedeutung der Tragödien,” along with extensive notes contextualizing Hölderlin’s interpretive gestures within his broader œuvre as well as within current debates in classical philology. In this respect, Lewis’s translations mediate not only between Hölderlin’s German and modern English, but also between a poetic commentary from the early nineteenth century and contemporary scholarship, continuing the “poetic logic” that he traces in Hölderlin, whose precise formulations also open to other voices before and after “his” time. The proximity of Lewis’s English rendition to Hölderlin’s German, as well as his erudite commentaries, will also make his translations a resource for future scholars and readers of Hölderlin.’ — Kristina Mendicino, Monatshefte 113.4, 2021, 688-691

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

Poetry, Painting, Park: Goethe and Claude Lorrain
Franz R. Kempf
Germanic Literatures 22•7 January 2020

  • ‘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)

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

Writing Across Time in the Twelfth Century: Historical Distance and Difference in the Kaiserchronik
Christoph J. Pretzer
Germanic Literatures 25•7 March 2022

  • ‘As the back cover notes, the book “connects new and old points from scholarship with innovative perspectives on the text.” In places, this has provided a potential new framework for viewing the text as a whole; in others, it has produced reasonable readings that escape various interpretive dead ends from previous generations of scholars.’ — Adam Oberlin, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 123.1, January 2024, 108-11

Karoline von Günderrode: Philosophical Romantic
Joanna Raisbeck
Germanic Literatures 26•8 October 2022

  • ‘Joanna Raisbeck has written a wide-ranging, deeply learned, lucid and philosophically stimulating account of the works of Karoline von Günderrode. The book can be counted as one of the crowning achievements of a recent wave of scholarship in English that grasps Günderrode as a key thinker of German Romantic philosophy... It is a groundbreaking book, and one can only hope that the potential she unearths in Günderrode will continue to animate the imaginations of generations of readers to come.’ — Gabriel Trop, Modern Language Notes 138.3, April 2023, 1248-52 (full text online)
  • ‘The scope of this study is vast and ambitious... The book makes a very fine contribution to the scholarship on ideas and conceptualizations in Günderrode's works.’ — Barbara Becker‐Cantarino, German Quarterly 96.2, 2023, 287-89 (full text online)
  • ‘It is hard to review a book as excellent as this one, but at least I can try to recapitulate the main reasons why this book is well worth the read for anyone interested either in the literature of Romanticism (and its philosophical implications), the dissemination of Spinozism, or women philosophers of the early 19th century.’ — Anne Pollok, Symphilosophie 5, 2023, 460-66
  • ‘What is under review here is an outstanding scholarly achievement—a book of great clarity in thinking and presentation, of formidable, impeccable research, a monograph displaying sovereign command of her material as well as an enthusiasm that never obscures but always illuminates what it examines... To sum up: this is indeed a landmark publication not only in Günderrode studies, but, because of its wider implications, in studies in Romanticism generally. It is the summa of Raisbeck’s research, which meets the highest standards of international scholarship and fully deserves the exceptional recognition it has already received.’ — Christoph Bode, European Romantic Review 35.1, 2024, 159-65 (full text online)

Stefan George: The Homosexual Imaginary
Peter Morgan 
Germanic Literatures 30•29 January 2024

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

Classical Rhetoric and the German Poet: 1620 to the Present
Anna Carrdus
Legenda (General Series) •1 January 1997

  • ‘The tone is confident, the style lucid. Within a few pages the reader senses how purposeful the exposition is, and how well thought out. But what makes Anna Carrdus's performance so assured is her obvious commitment to poetry itself... It concludes with a wish that may sound audacious, yet which the undertaking wholly justifies: 'My findings will, I hope, open up an opportunity for scholarship to revise current perceptions of the history of German poetry.' She has already revised them herself, single-handed.’ — Peter Skrine, Modern Language Review 94.1, 1999, 243-5 (full text online)
  • ‘Die Analysen sind treffich, und die Er≥rterungen zum literarhistorischen und poetologischen Kontext zeugen von groôer Kennerschaft.’ — Joachim Knape, Germanistik 41.2, 2000, 419

Goethe and Patriarchy: Faust and the Fates of Desire
James Simpson
Legenda (General Series) •2 January 1999

  • notice, Germanistik 41.3-4, 2000, 921
  • ‘Simpson argues that Goethe's work, in essence, constitutes an act of self-diagnosis and therapy... his paradigm is not just Freudian, but also implicitly Jungian.’ — Paul Bishop, Modern Language Review 96.2, 2001, 566-7 (full text online)
  • ‘This book is not brilliant: it is too carefully argued and clearly written to deserve that flashy label of the day. A more apt descriptor might be formidable, both for its ambition and for its achievement. Simpson has undertaken nothing less than the elucidation of the paradigm that was central to all of Goethe's intellectual, personal, scientific and poetic concerns, the "ur-fantasy that is a fantasy of origins"... In the best tradition of British literary criticism, Simpson writes in a lively, engaging style that does not need jargon... No one working seriously on Goethe or on Faust can ignore the challenge of this study.’ — Arnd Bohm, Seminar 41.1, 2005, 73-74

Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century
Nicholas Saul
Legenda (General Series) •5 July 2007

  • ‘Nicholas Saul’s excellent monograph traces what might be termed the prehistory of genocide... Saul discusses many of the major writers and best-known works of nineteenth-century German literature, but also unearths long-forgotten authors and texts. Most welcome is his carefully differentiated understanding of the Gypsy in German literature: most of the writers perpetuate popular myths, but not all are negative in the same way, and some actually introduce more positive images of the Gypsy or portray them as persecuted victims. Taken together, Saul's subtle analyses of individual authors and texts build to an encyclopaedic, if largely depressing, history.’ — Todd Kontje, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1154-55 (full text online)
  • ‘In addition to providing a valuable contribution to understanding the cultural history leading up to the Romany Holocaust, the book offers a foundation for comparing representations of Gypsies and Jews in German culture, which Saul begins to consider in the context of his study.’ — Laurel Plapp, German Quarterly Fall 2008, 502-04
  • ‘In this book Nicholas Saul endeavours to "reconstruct the shifts in the representation of the Gypsy in German culture through the medium of literature and anthropology from around 1850 to the First World War"... well-written and thought-provoking.’ — Gertrud Reershemius, Romani Studies 19.2, 2009, 183-85
  • ‘Nicholas Saul widmet sich in seiner Studie einem von der literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschung lange Zeit vernachtlässigten, in den letzten zehn Jahren jedoch deutlich ins Zentrum des Interesses gerückten Thema: der Repräsentation der sogenannten 'Zigeuner' in der deutschen Literatur vor dem Hintergrund ethnographisch-anthropologischer Diskurse.’ — Stefani Kugler, Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschaft 2009, 194-200
  • ‘Adds an intelligent and long overdue analysis of Romany imagery, helpful for anyone preparing a seminar on Romanticism or Realism and all the way up to Holocaust studies.’ — Roger Russi, Monatshefte 101.3, 2009, 434-36

Heine und die Weltliteratur
Edited by T. J. Reed and Alexander Stillmark
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2000

  • ‘Heine was a great reader in the literary patrimony. Every study of his reading experience from youth to deathbed has expanded its dimensions... an admirable volume.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Modern Language Review 97.1, 2002, 228-9 (full text online)
  • Vridhagiri Ganeshan, Germanistik 42.3-4, 2001, 737
  • ‘In a richly diverse range of approaches, a number of new readings of the poems are offered... demonstrates the arresting power of the poet.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 104
  • ‘The volume provides much that is both instructive and enjoyable to read. Joseph Kruse's elegant and learned opening piece provides a perfect keynote address... Ritchie Robertson (in an article that is destined to be recommended to thousands of students) throws fresh light on Atta Troll by examining the nature of mock epic as such as well as its relations to the epic traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance... David Constantine tackles the tricky subject of the Lazarus poems. It is easy to be moved by these, much harder to discuss them intelligently, but Constantine succeeds both in analysing the implications of the Lazarus motif and in making some thought-provoking remarks about poetry and horror. The volume concludes on a high note with a stylish piece by Anthony Phelan on Heine's heirs among contemporary poets.’ — David Pugh, Seminar XXXIX/4, 2003, 360-3

Rilke's Poetics of Becoming
Ben Hutchinson
Legenda (General Series) •5 September 2006

  • ‘Eine sorgfältige und konzentrierte Analyse der Dichtungen des jungen Rilke... Die sehr gut lesbare und Beachtung verdienende Studie von Ben Hutchinson hat hier einen bemerkenswerten Schritt auf dem Weg zu einem umfassenden Rilke-Verständnis getan.’ — Sascha Löwenstein, IASLonline online
  • ‘Overall this is a well-written book, offering both a coherent original thesis and perceptive analyses of individual poems.’ — Helen Bridge, Modern Language Review 103.1, January 2008, 282-83 (full text online)
  • ‘A judicious study of impressive scope.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.4, 2011, 480

Saturn's Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook
Edited by Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011

  • ‘An erudite and deeply engrossing Sebald compendium. It fits his oeuvre that in place of a formal biography we have this border-crossing miscellany in which comment may be free but facts are indeed sacred. Michael Hulse, his equally gifted translator before Anthea Bell, reprints the correspondence in which he asked Sebald to confirm that the quartet of exiles' testimonies so artfully braided into The Emigrants tell real stories about real people... The wonderful alchemy via which Sebald transmuted the found material of actual biography and history into fiction that kept faith with truth explains much of his appeal.’ — Boyd Tonkin, The Independent 2 December 2011, Books of the Week
  • ‘More than two-hundred pages are dedicated to a stunning bibliographic survey of Sebald... If the reader wants to see what Sebald said about, say, Theodor Adorno, Jane Austen, Henry Ford, Jean Genet, Gruppe 47, Ernest Hemingway, Adolf Hitler, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, animals, butterflies and moths, depression, irony, the Treblinka trials, or countless other names or topics, the index will direct you to the appropriate interviews. Two of my favorite topics in the index were: 'surgery, fear of' and 'greatest wish: to live outside of time'. Hats off to the crew who have given us this monumental bibliographic record!’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo 24 September 2011
  • ‘Para aficionados como yo, es una Biblia.’ — William Chislett, El Imparcial 10 December 2011
  • ‘Un somptueux volume collectif – une somme de près de sept cents pages, la bible (plutôt que le modeste handbook annoncé) sur Sebald.’ — Norwich: du temps et des lieux 28 September 2011)
  • ‘Special mention should be made of Sheppard’s ‘index to interviews with Sebald’ and his chronology of Sebald’s life, which reconstructs in as much detail as possible the writer’s movements. As with so much of this volume (characterized by how many of its contributors knew Sebald personally), it is clear that these indexes and bibliographies are labours of love; they will stand scholarship in good stead in years to come... An invaluable resource for future research.’ — Ben Hutchinson, Modern Language Review 107.2, April 2012, 659-61 (full text online)
  • ‘Saturn’s Moons is the most significant publication on W. G. (Max) Sebald in recent time. Offering a quasi-Sebaldian reading experience of that peculiarly unorthodox kind to the general reader, it is also a tome of considerable scholarship, most particularly in the provision of two remarkable bibliographies which make it a sine qua non resource for scholars of Sebald’s work... A book which will underpin further work on his writing for decades to come.’ — Deane Blackler, German Quarterly 85.2, Spring 2012, 233-34
  • ‘How much to reveal about 'W. G. Sebald' is not a simple question. The degree to which he incorporated not just the texts, but also the lives of others into his fictions is greater than we can now... Although Sebald suggests that finding the solutions would be worthwhile, he is suspiciously vague about the effort involved. The Handbook's great value is that it does an immense amount of work for us without revealing too much.’ — Scott Bartsch, Journal of European Studies 42.2, June 2012, 210-11
  • ‘By far the most authoritative and complete guide to the literature owned, written and inspired by Sebald, and testament to some extraordinary detective work. It should immediately become the first port of call for anyone setting out to write on Sebald.’ — J. J. Long, Journal of European Studies 42.3, 2012, 17-18
  • ‘Besides essays in which Michael Hulse and Anthea Bell address the subject of translating Sebald's work and of collaborations between author and translator, readers of this journal should be intrigued by a hitherto unpublished interview conducted by Jon Cook... [Sebald] reflects on his decision to write in German rather than English.’ — Iain Galbraith, Translation and Literature 22.1 (Spring 2013), 137-42
  • ‘Und dennoch ist es nicht nur ein Buch von Freunden über einen verstorbenen Autor, sondern ein Handbuch im besten Sinne des Wortes. Auf höchstem Niveau gibt es Auskunft über Sebalds Kindheit im Allgäu und seinen akademischen Werdegang; über seine Arbeitsweise als Universitätslehrer und die polemische Stoßrichtung seiner wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen; über Sebalds Umgang mit Photographien, die einen integralen Teil seines Werkes bilden; es bietet einen profunden Einblick in seine private Bibliothek und den Stellenwert, den bestimmte Autoren in ihr halten; führt in den Nachlass ein, der in Marbach liegt und verschwiegen ist wie Sebald selbst es war; gibt Schriftstellern und Dichtern das Wort, die Texte über Sebald geschrieben haben; druckt unveröffentlichte Stücke aus Sebalds Nachlass ab; enthält Bibliographien zu seinem Gesamtwerk und der dazu erschienenen internationalen Sekundärliteratur, die bis ins Jahr 2011 Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit erheben dürfen und 170 große, dichtbedruckte Se’ — Jakob Hessing, Arbitrium 34.2, 2016, 246-50
  • ‘The volume offers an abundance of previously unpublished textual and visual material — much of it from Sebald's literary estate but also photographs, letters, syllabi, and personal testimonies provided by friends and others — to offer glimpses into the author's personal and professional life and to contextualize and historicize further his work as a writer, teacher, academic, and critic.’ — Markus Zisselsberger, Monatshefte 104.4, 2012, 685-88

Journeys of Remembrance: Memories of the Second World War in French and German Literature, 1960-1980
Kathryn N. Jones
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2007

  • ‘A fascinating and well-structured approach to a complex subject, and its transnational focus not only provides an original insight into a range of European writers, but also shows how profitable it is to go beyond the more usual national studies of memory and war.’ — Hilary Footitt, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 817-17 (full text online)
  • ‘The study is about memories and impressions of the later years' holocaust... The striking photograph shows us an empty world with a bleak railway line and its sidetracks, making their way into the fearful forested world that was Auschwitz, practically a symbol of the Final Solution. And with this in mind, Kathryn Jones's study is a success.’ — John Dunmore, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 29.2, 2008, 65-66
  • ‘Jones departs unequivocally from Adorno's dictat on the incompatibility of art and atrocity and, through her deft presentation of a succession of more or less metaphorical journeys, she makes a good case. This valuable book for all scholars of post-war French and Ger man culture will enhance the reader’s understanding of what Paul Ricoeur once termed 'l'événement fondateur négatif' of the last century.’ — David Platten, French Studies 63.3 (2009), 370-71
  • ‘An ambitious study that succeeds in bearing out its claims about diverse yet contemporaneous literary responses to WWII. Journeys of Remembrance is a valuable introduction to a body of post-WWII French and German writing concerned with the intergenerational transmission of memory and the relation between personal identity and cultural legacy.’ — Susan Derwin, Monatshefte 102.1, 2010, 118-20
  • ‘An illuminating comparative analysis... Offers much to consider concerning the development and transmission of memory, generational continuity and rupture, and fictional representation in Holocaust literature.’ — Homer B. Sutton, French Review 82.5, April 2009, 1066-67

The Burgtheater and Austrian Identity: Theatre and Cultural Politics in Vienna, 1918-38
Robert Pyrah
Legenda (General Series) •5 July 2007

  • ‘This excellent volume provides an invaluable extra dimension to previous publications on Austrian theatre between the wars through the rigorous use of archival material, reinforcing and enhancingwork based mainly on texts, reports, and reviews in the Viennese press and journals. This is a work which will be important not only to literary historians, particularly of the theatre, but also to political historians, demonstrating as it does how the history of that troubled period in Austria directly affected the theatre.’ — John Warren, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1164-65 (full text online)
  • ‘A significant and welcome contribution to the slowly expanding body of work examining the interface of culture and politics in the First Austrian Republic... Original and well-researched.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies 231)

Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch
Caitríona Ní Dhúill
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

  • ‘Ni Dhúill's study shines a bright light on the hitherto neglected importance of sex and gender questions in utopian societies. Sex In Imagined Spaces is a cogently argued, beautifully written, and highly original contribution to knowledge in utopia studies and beyond; it not only mobilizes important wider cultural developments for the analysis of literary texts, but also gives a brilliant gender-theoretical spin to the double function of utopian texts as vision and critique.’ — Anna Katharina Schaffner, Germanistik in Ireland 7 (2013), 228-30
  • ‘This excellent monograph tackles the concept of utopia by repositioning it within the fields of literature and creative practice examined through the lens of the gendered body.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
  • ‘This is an excellent book which deals with the relationship between utopian desire, gender relations, and social outcome in a nuanced and intelligent way.’ — Peter Thompson, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 948-49 (full text online)

Experiment and Metaphysics: Towards a Resolution of the Cosmological Antinomies
Edgar Wind
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 2001

Wilhelm Raabe: Global Themes - International Perspectives
Edited by Dirk Göttsche and Florian Krobb
Legenda (General Series) •17 July 2009

  • ‘Wenn die Zuschreibung von 'Internationalität' zuweilen etwas sehr allgemein und unkonkret bleibt, dann ist dies der gewiss gut gemeinten Absicht, aus einem nationalen Dichter einen Autor der Weltliteratur zu machen, geschuldet. Dass nun ein exzellentes Handbuch zu Raabe in englischer Sprache vorliegt, mag die Internationalität eines Autors und der Forschung zu seinem Werk eigentlich bereits hinreichend belegen. Somit bleibt nur zu hoffen, dass es die Übersetzung weiterer Werke Raabes ins Englische ebenso befördert wie die Publikation eines Raabe-Handbuchs in deutscher Sprache. Denn für letzteres liegt nun ein gelungenes Vorbild vor.’ — Lucas Marco Gisi, Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschaft 2010, 137-43
  • ‘There is a potentially massive argument to be engaged here regarding the future of arts and humanities research. The editors of this book are to be congratulated for setting the terms of that debate and for showing a good deal of what might be done. It is a fine beginning to our oncoming work.’ — Thomas Docherty, Comparative Critical Studies 7.2–3, 2010, 401-04
  • ‘An excellent anthology of essays... Whether or not one agrees with Jeffrey L. Sammons’s contention that Wilhelm Raabe ‘was the major nineteenth-century novelist in the German language between Goethe and Fontane’..., one leaves this volume convinced that he was certainly one of the most attuned to the impact of Germany’s forays into the wider world on those who travelled abroad and even on those who remained at home.’ — Todd Kontje, Modern Language Review 106.2, April 2011, 584-86 (full text online)
  • ‘Whether the three volumes reviewed here represent the end of Raabe's rehabilitation or the beginning of a new phase, a global phase, of Raabe scholarship remains to be seen, but their publication is indeed equicklich - refreshing.’ — Robert L. Jamison, Monatshefte 103.1, 2011, 126-31

Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages: German Comic Tales c. 1350-1525
Sebastian Coxon
Legenda (General Series) •25 July 2008

  • ‘This is the first sustained study of the German branch of the genre of comic verse narratives (maeren) which was hugely popular across Europe in the late Middle Ages... an impressively learned study, based on a huge corpus of primary and secondary texts. A wealth of information on laughter, humour and the reception of late-medieval literature is waiting to be unearthed here.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 110
  • ‘An excellent study that undoubtedly advances our understanding of laughter and its functions in the past.’ — Sophia Menache, The Medieval Review September 2009
  • ‘Copious footnotes and an extensive bibliography document the author's mastery of the critical literature, and summaries of the German-language scholarship, as well as English translations of textual passages, make this study easily accessible to those with no knowledge of German. Coxon's volume offers a detailed and subtle analysis of a limited corpus that provides a significant context for future scholarship on the culture of laughter in the middle ages.’ — Thomas Kerth, Monatshefte 101.3, 2009, 410-12
  • ‘This is the fullest study of the German comic maere to have appeared in a long time, and is based on an impressively wide corpus of sources as well as background reading. There is a wealth of intriguing new information here that deserves further exploration - how the Church’s suspicion of laughter (Jesus never laughed!) was negotiated in these stories; that face and hair were the most frequently attacked body parts here; or that the best jokes were on millers and charcoal-burners.’ — Bettina Bildhauer, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 583-84 (full text online)
  • ‘Si accennna poi al rapporto fra riso e letteratura, sottolineando il fatto che la letteratura medievale è, nel suo complesso, una fonte di enorme importanza per la storia del riso.’ — unsigned notice, Medioevo Latino XXXI, 2010, 535-36
  • ‘Unsigned notice’ — Germanistik 51.1-2, 2010, 234)
  • ‘As the first comprehensive study of late-medieval German comic tales, this study is a useful resource for medievalists... Scholars will appreciate the comprehensive references to key studies by other Germanists, and less adept readers of Middle High German will value the excellent translations.’ — Lisa Perfetti, Speculum 85.3, 2010, 658-60
  • ‘Gerade dort, wo er tatsächlich eng entlang seiner Referenztexte argumentiert, gelingen Coxon zahlreiche aufschlussreiche Beobachtungen. An diese Ergebnisse Coxons werden bei der Erforschung deutschsprachiger Versnovellen des Spätmittelalters wohl noch viele Untersuchungen (aus hoffentlich diversen Fachdisziplinen) anschließen können.’ — Matthias Kirchhoff, Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 2010, 422-24

The Near and Distant God: Poetry, Idealism and Religious Thought from Hölderlin to Eliot
Ian Cooper
Legenda (General Series) •3 October 2008

  • ‘This is an intellectually distinguished, engagingly written and outstandingly original book, which succeeds admirably in its aim of tracing the close and continuous connection of lyric poetry, philosophical idealism and religious thought from Hölderlin to Eliot... Its achievement is as relevant to theology as it is to German Studies and deserves the widest possible readership.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 110
  • ‘A sophisticated example of how literary studies may benefit from approaches that are theologically and spiritually mindful.’ — Helena M. Tomko, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 512-13 (full text online)
  • ‘This study is densely written (something that should be applauded rather than criticized!) and cogently argued... Intellectually highly rewarding.’ — Rüdiger Görner, Comparative Critical Studies 7.2–3, 2010, 405-08
  • ‘He avoids the pitfall of many comparable studies, in which poems are merely mined for their philosophical content--a fate that especially Holderlin, Rilke, and Eliot have frequently suffered in the past. His readings of the poems emphasize the process of writing and reading--in these processes, transcendence can be experienced, and the promise of community be enacted. Cooper's fine analytical skills give us many fresh perspectives on a series of major poems.’ — Johannes Wich-Schwarz, Christianity and Literature Autumn 2010
  • ‘What seems like a huge and bold undertaking is impressively achieved... compelling and, at times, beautiful writing.’ — Carly McLaughlin, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 248, 2011, 166-67
  • ‘Cooper succeeds in establishing the centrality of theology to the work of Hölderlin, and in tracing the afterlife of Hölderlin's poetic religiosity he expands our awareness of the prehistory of the high modernist struggle to come to terms with Spirit.’ — Nathaniel Davis, Journal of Modern Literature 35.1, Fall 2011, 196-99