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)

Ismail Kadare: The Writer and the Dictatorship 1957-1990
Peter Morgan
Legenda (General Series) •11 February 2010

  • ‘Morgan shows convincingly why Kadare experienced this change of direction [from attempting to influence Hoxha to a more subversive approach], explaining the zigs and zags of Albanian politics which shaped the environment in which the writer worked, and in particular Hoxha’s ambiguous role as protector and persecutor... Thorough, erudite, and readable, with interesting photographs. Both Kadare and the Albanian Communist regime remain mysterious in many ways, but Morgan’s book sheds considerable light on both, and will be an invaluable companion to the novels.’ — Anne White, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1203-05 (full text online)

Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children’s Literature
Kiera Vaclavik
Legenda (General Series) •6 September 2010

  • ‘Seeks to draw new attention to the complexity and critical importance of nineteenth-century writing for children, and, indeed, to defend children’s literature more generally as a serious object of study... The volume’s moves through Homer, Virgil, and Dante are very rewarding.’ — Emma Wilson, French Studies 65.3, July 2011, 410-11
  • ‘This strong study leaves very little to be desired... The precision and the originality of Vaclavik’s views opens up a wide-range of new questions.’ — Nicole Biagioli, International Research Society for Children's Literature online
  • ‘By the end of the book it is clear that when we look at the role of the Underworld in children’s literature, we are in no way descending in status. Rather, we are reminded not only of the vital role played by children’s books in shaping the Homers, Virgils and Dantes of successive generations, but also of the fact that, to date, children’s literature has been a significant lacuna in the reception studies of these authors. Vaclavik’s elegant book plays an admirable role in filling that gap.’ — Fiona Cox, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.07.25

Unbinding Medea: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth from Antiquity to the 21st Century
Edited by Heike Bartel and Anne Simon
Legenda (General Series) •6 September 2010

  • ‘This handsome volume, with generous illustrations, bibliography, and index... Medea has become a cutting-edge subject in the past dozen years. Certain insistent concerns, however, such as those of feminism, do set this latest collection apart from the others. At the highest level, Phillips's essay provides a wider philosophical perspective in what could be a suitable conclusion for this whole book. Its claim that Medea's story is in part a lawyer's story "of the taming of instinct and impulse and their ultimate subjection to the Law" calls to mind the restless inquiring after justice in The Oresteia and so many other Greek tragedies.’ — Richard F. Hardin, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 22 February 2011
  • ‘This collection deserves to be required reading for all those interested in the relationship between ancient and modern, and the role of mythology in the process of defining reality.’ — E. M. Griffiths, Modern Language Review 107.2, April 2012, 588-89 (full text online)

Decolonizing Modernism: James Joyce and the Development of Spanish American Fiction
José Luis Venegas
Legenda (General Series) •11 February 2010

  • ‘There is something delightfully Joycean and Cortazarian about the volume which demands our close collaboration and participation as we jump around to consult the original texts, dipping into Ulysses and Rayuela, for example, then back to the study in question, not necessarily in chronological order. In this sense, I felt like the quintessential lector cómplice. This review is the final step in my literary contribution.’ — John Walker, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 88.6, September 2011, 929-30
  • ‘Among the many valuable assets of Venegas's cohesive study are its painstaking research and its suggestive ways of interpreting the presence of Joyce in Latin American fiction... A significant contribution to the critical debate over the nature of modernism.’ — Alberto Lázaro, James Joyce Literary Supplement 26.1, Spring 2012, 5-6
  • ‘An impeccably researched and systematic study which has much to offer to the 'planetary' dimension of Joyce scholarship.’ — Patricia Novillo-Corvalán, James Joyce Broadsheet 88, February 2011
  • ‘An insightful and illuminating intertextual analysis... takes a refreshing approach by rejecting the notion of a cultural or intellectual ‘centre’ informing the periphery, or, in Latin American terms, the civilized educating the barbaric. Instead, both Joyce and those he influenced (directly or indirectly) are seen as the creators of ‘an alternative literary history’.’ — Victoria Carpenter, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 72, 2012, 247
  • ‘In this book, José Luis Venegas takes existing debates on James Joyce's influence on modern Spanish American fiction decisively further... Thanks to its balanced focus on theory, criticism and literary analysis, the book is comprehensive in its approach yet highly readable. With quotations given in both English and Spanish, this comparative study is a valuable research tool not only for Hispanists but also for critics of English literature working on Joyce.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013), 226-27
  • ‘Must be greeted as a new study that further enriches previous critical revisions of monolithic views of 'canonical' modernism... By relocating Joyce as a 'peripheral' modernist writer in the literary map of Latin America, Decolonizing Modernism offers an innovative and alternative reinterpretation of both European and Spanish-American literary histories that eschews the restrictions of national boundaries and canonical readings and opens untrodden paths for the emergence of (even) more revisionary studies of modernism in the future.’ — M. Teresa Caneda Cabrera, James Joyce Quarterly 48.4 (2011), 772-75
  • ‘A concise but eloquent demonstration of the potential of truly non-Eurocentric comparative studies between Latin American and European literatures... At the center of Decolonizing Modernism lies the belief in an intimate relationship between literary form and structure and specific history and geography, a relationship that asks for a critical approach that combines the analysis of formal as well as historical aspects.’ — Paulo Moreira, Hispanófila 168 (May 2013), 174-75

In the Light of Contradiction: Desire in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca
Roberta Ann Quance
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘Never dull, Quance has the ability to provoke thought, to make us look anew at material that invites reinterpretation.’ — C. Brian Morris, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 89.2, 2012, 313-15
  • ‘Finely nuanced and very compelling... Given its overall thoroughness, quality, and insight, there are surely good chances that In the Light of Contradiction will refocus a portion of the enormous interest in Lorca’s work to one of its lesser studied corners.’ — Andrew A. Anderson, Revista de Estudios Hispanicos 46.1 (March 2012), 158-60
  • ‘This book sets out to prove [that these three works were part of a poetic cycle] and it does do so, providing on the journey a very enlightening snapshot of Lorca’s frame of mind... Well researched and clearly written... An excellent addition to scholarly studies on Spain’s most important modern poet.’ — Stephen M. Hart, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 89.2 (2012), 213-14
  • ‘We have, for the first time in Lorca studies, an analysis of the three books [Suites, Canciones, and Poema del cante jondo] side by side. Moreover, this is the first time that Poema del cante jondo has been studied in a monograph in conjunction with the Suites... This is a sophisticated monograph yet also an entertaining one. It should compel Hispanists to observe Federico García Lorca’s poetry in a new and exciting perspective.’ — Laura Burgos-Lejonagoitia, Modern Language Review 108.2, April 2013, 654-56 (full text online)

Dante the Lyric and Ethical Poet: Dante lirico e etico
Edited by Zygmunt G. Barański and Martin McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

  • ‘The essay by Justin Steinberg deserves emphasis... it makes a significant contribution to modern Dante scholarship. In a well-argued and well-documented approach, Steinberg discusses Dante’s dreams in Vita nova and the author’s use of dreams to explore questions of truth and fiction.’ — Unn Falkeid, Renaissance Quarterly 64.1, Spring 2011, 157-58
  • ‘All in all, then, this is an impressive volume—a shade formidable, I would say, in respect of its user unfriendliness (acres of text on the page and a rather intrusive accumulation of translations and references in the body of the text)—but impressive for all that.’ — John Took, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 290-92 (full text online)

The Spirit of England: Selected Essays of Stephen Medcalf
Stephen Medcalf, edited by Brian Cummings and Gabriel Josipovici
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘One of the more extraordinary scholars of the late twentieth century... The range of these essays is the more astonishing at a time when most critics prided themselves on their specialisms rather than their diversity. Medcalf wanted us to see things that could only be understood against the whole gamut of European literary history... Brian Cummings and Gabriel Josipovici are to be congratulated.’ — Stephen Prickett, Times Literary Supplement 26 November 2010
  • ‘A modern parable of birth and death, miraculous encounter and mysterious return, makes a fitting and beautiful conclusion to a book of which we can say, as we rarely can with such confidence, that it was written by a good and wise man.’ — Paul Dean, The New Criterion October 2010, 69-72
  • ‘Cummings and Josipovici have performed a 'mitzvah', a good deed, in editing these essays, which display a brilliant, humane mind at work. It is to be hoped that more Medcalf will be collected for the benefit of subsequent generations.’ — William Baker, Modern Language Review 106.3, July 2011, 871-73 (full text online)
  • ‘The value of this posthumous collection is that it acts as both a lament and a lantern of hope. All we have by way of a memorial are these esoteric essays – but what essays. They show a liberal humanism at its best, expansive learning worn lightly and a belief in teasing out the particularities of a panoply of works... In our bleak climate of fees and looming instrumentality for the humanities, such a voice as Medcalf’s, singing the value of thought and the non-paraphrasable nature of poetry, is as insightful as it is heartening.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.1, 2012, 115
  • ‘Von solchen und literarischen Wundern berichtet das Buch, es sollte in vielen Inklings-Bibliotheken stehen und durch die Hände vieler Freunde der englischen Kultur gehen.’ — Elmar Schenkel, Inklings-Jahrbuch 29, 2011, 378-79
  • ‘Medcalf’s reflections throw great light upon Kipling, Horace, and translation.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91, 2012, 765

Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form
Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

  • ‘The information drawn from the extensive archival research is without doubt one of the main merits of this study. The author found several previously unlocated chapters of the serialized form of the novel that were not transcribed in the critical edition of the text. The first part of the book in particular makes a solid contribution to Machadian studies: the careful reading of the serialized text in relation to its historical, literary and cultural context provides a new approach to the genesis of the text.’ — Kathryn Sanchez, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 110.4, September 2013, 1071-72
  • ‘An excellent example of how textual criticism may be put to good use. The book studies the two main versions of a text in holistic ways, revealing contextual information that is important for understanding the work. In addition, it uses documentation of an author’s dissatisfaction with one version, and presumed satisfaction with another, to discover core esthetic values and practices.’ — Paul Dixon, Ellipsis 10, 2012, 183-85
  • ‘De fato, o texto interessará sobremaneira tanto ao leitor crítico brasileiro como à crítica internacional que estude as relações entre a formação do romance e seus modos de circulação na segunda metade do século XIX, já que Machado de Assis não faz uso, obrigatoriamente, das mesmas soluções encontradas nas práticas europeias. Resta-nos, finalmente, uma importante análise da especificidade machadiana diante do cenário europeu, o que nos permite uma liberação crítica com relação ao tratamento da produção europeia como fonte e, por que não, uma problematização do conceito de fonte.’ — Verónica Galíndez-Jorge, Machado de Assis em linha 3.6, December 2010, 110-14

Force from Nietzsche to Derrida
Clare Connors
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

Paul Celan's Encounters with Surrealism: Trauma, Translation and Shared Poetic Space
Charlotte Ryland
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘A stimulating development in Celan scholarship. It heralds the arrival of a significant new contributor to UK studies of European poetry and cultural history.’ — Ruth J. Owen, Modern Language Review 106.3, 2011, 923-24 (full text online)
  • ‘What emerges from Ryland’s excellent book is more than just another answer to the question of literary influence. Rather, Ryland demonstrates through her extremely close reading of Celan’s translations of surrealist poems how Celan’s own poetic concerns shaped and transformed those poems... A valuable addition not only to the literature on Celan and surrealism but on Celan’s poetics of communication.’ — Helmut Schmitz, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 10.3, 2011, 439-41
  • ‘In this important book, which will be of interest to teachers and scholars of Paul Celan, Surrealism, and poetics, Charlotte Ryland... makes a compelling case that Celan’s engagement with Surrealism played a key and lasting role in the formation of his thought.’ — Susan H. Gillespie, German Quarterly 85.1, Winter 2012, 98-99
  • ‘A fascinating study of the position of Celan’s poetry in relation to his lived and textual reality.’ — Catriona Firth and Sara Jones, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 72 (survey year 2010), 2012, 452
  • ‘If ever there were a case for bilingual editions, then, as Ryland so persuasively shows us, Celan’s translations of surrealist poetry make it, through their uncanny engagements with the originals in times that, for Celan, became ever darker... With Ryland’s study, we can return to that particular encounter with a renewed sense of the richness not only of Celan’s own poetry, but also of his activities as a translator of the highest order.’ — Shane Weller, Translation and Literature 21.3 (November 2012), 430-35

Re-Contextualising East Central European History: Nation, Culture and Minority Groups
Edited by Robert Pyrah and Marius Turda
Legenda (General Series) •6 September 2010

  • ‘The essays in this collection are original and promise much for the future of scholarship on the region... Important matters are at stake here, including the professional historian’s relationship with the public and the memory industry (booming in East Central Europe), and the extent to which national narratives of heroism and victimhood obscure both the complexity of the past and the histories of minorities and non-national groups.’ — John Paul Newman, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 261-63 (full text online)
  • ‘A snapshot of the research interests of scholars who are producing genuinely innovative research on topics which have been largely overlooked in the existing English language scholarship... also contains an extensive selected bibliography of the key recent publications on the region that should be an invaluable resource.’ — Thomas A. Lorman, Central Europe 10.1, May 2012, 80-82
  • ‘The essays in this volume demonstrate the growing range and sophistication of Anglophone scholarship on East Central Europe, particularly in their presentation of minority experiences, based on rigorous research in multiple, often lesser-known languages.’ — Nathaniel D. Wood, Austrian History Yearbook 43, 2012, 200-01

Inheritance in Nineteenth-Century French Culture: Wealth, Knowledge and the Family
Andrew J. Counter
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘That the [19th] century felt disinherited is a truism. Andrew Counter's absorbing book makes clear the extent to which the inheritance laws of the Revolution, and more particularly of the Code Civil of 1804, were themselves at the core of this new cultural moment... A pleasantly written, exhaustively researched and resourcefully argued book.’ — Ross Chambers, French Forum 36.1, 2011, 140-42
  • ‘This important work charts new critical terrain... a work of fastidious scholarship, written with brio, and captivating for the reader.’ — Claire White, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 543-44
  • ‘Counter is careful to avoid unnecessary jargon; his prose is clear and the humorous asides that pepper the study, far from detracting from the argument, make this a very enjoyable read. This is a thorough, thoughtful study which elegantly weaves together literary, political, and legal discourses and in doing so sheds new light on a hitherto little-explored but extremely rich topic. At every turn, the author carefully eschews the obvious, instead choosing the path less travelled... This subtle and intelligent study succeeds in redefining our understanding of family and inheritance in the nineteenth century, and the importance of this seminal monograph should resonate widely within and beyond French Studies.’ — Floriane Place-Verghnes, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 286-87 (full text online)
  • ‘There is enough background information in this well-conceived and clearly-written study to make the analyses accessible to those unfamiliar with the works discussed, and enough original interpretation and careful referencing to make it an enjoyable and engaging read for both cultural historians and literary scholars.’ — Laurey Martin-Berg, French Review 85.3, 2012, 547-48
  • ‘Impressive in its careful historical approach, the range of material it engages, and its perceptive readings on themes of testaments, greed, crime, family, and women’s renunciation of property... Counter’s interdisciplinary book illustrates that society cannot be understood through any single model of the family or type of 'family knowledge'.’ — Sarah Bernthal, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 42.3-4, Summer 2014

Dante's Plurilingualism: Authority, Knowledge, Subjectivity
Edited by Sara Fortuna, Manuele Gragnolati and Jürgen Trabant
Legenda (General Series) •6 September 2010

  • ‘From the introduction to the concluding interview with Giorgio Pressburger, this volume of essays is characterized by both authoritative contributions from major figures in Dante studies (Baranski, Gragnolati, Pertile) and also by genuinely original lines of enquiry. Dante’s Plurilingualism constitutes an indispensable point of reference for contemporary Dante studies, an ideal companion to the new Dante editions that have recently appeared, and also acts as a constant spur to reread all of the poet’s works, and to appreciate the ‘plurilingualism’ that is inherent even in those works that that precede the Comedy.’ — Federica Pich, Lettere Italiane 2011, 323-28
  • ‘Although we also find essays that offer a strong historicizing or linguistic focus and others that are powerful contributions to the methodologies and findings traditionally associated with Dante studies, the volume remains of particular note (and importance) for its concern to open Dante up to dialogue across disciplines and to relate him to contemporary debates.’ — Simon Gilson, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 292-93 (full text online)
  • ‘Colpisce e affascina, in Dante’s Plurilingualism, una ben percepibile disposizione all’audacia interpretativa, al “saggio” come esperimento intellettuale; ciò che convince, nell’insieme, è che non si sia di fronte alla mera esibizione di uno “stile” critico – pur di- versamente delineato –, ma ad un molteplice tentativo di indagine su Dante, inteso come oggetto e al tempo stesso soggetto non tanto di una determinata stagione della lingua e della letteratura italiane, quanto di una più ampia e complessa storia culturale.’ — Martino Marazzi, L'Alighieri 39, June 2012, 160-64
  • ‘Proprio nella lingua che usiamo, con cui scriviamo, possiamo essere convinti che Dante sia arrivato prima di noi e che ci abbia lasciato una grandissima eredità. Gli interventi di questo volume riescono a mettere in evidenza tutti gli aspetti per cui la lingua di Dante e il suo modo di utilizzarla appaiono ancora oggi come un 'miracolo inconcepibile'.’ — Irene Baccarini, Dante VIII, 2011, 227-30

Zola, The Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation
Susan Harrow
Legenda (General Series) •11 February 2010

  • ‘Susan Harrow’s elegant and erudite study represents a daring departure from traditional readings of Zola’s work... a genuinely ground-breaking study that promises to trigger a seismic shift in the way Zola is read.’ — Hannah Thompson, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 541-42
  • ‘Makes a strong and very welcome plea for close readings of Zola’s novels, focusing, in the words of Mallarmé, an attentive reader and admirer of the novelist, on the ‘folds and fractures’ of the text... Deserves to be widely read for the perceptive and innovative readings that it contains.’ — David Baguley, Modern Language Review 107.2, April 2012, 626-27 (full text online)
  • ‘Overall, this is a brilliant and path-breaking work, one that largely succeeds in remediating the oversights of much previous criticism and in demonstrating how (and why) to read Zola today... An important and stimulating book that should be compulsory reading not only for Zola specialists, but indeed for anyone interested in nineteenth-century France and the writing of modernity.’ — Jessica Tanner, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014

Personal Effects: Reading the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff
Sonia Wilson
Research Monographs in French Studies 27•11 February 2010

  • ‘Wilson’s account is fascinating and throws light upon feminist controversy in late nineteenth-century England and the European continent.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91, 2012, 724

The Choreography of Modernism in France: La Danseuse, 1830-1930
Julie Townsend
Research Monographs in French Studies 28•12 April 2010

  • ‘An engaging and concise chronology of modernism through dance, with the danseuse constituting the correlation between performing, visual, and literary modernisms.’ — Paul Ryan, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 545-46

Voices and Veils: Feminism and Islam in French Women's Writing and Activism
Anna Kemp
Research Monographs in French Studies 29•6 September 2010

  • ‘Voices and Veils is an impressive evaluation of the fraught relationship between Islam, Muslim women, and French feminism... invaluable to students, teachers, and activists alike who desire a deeper understanding of postcolonial French society, of Islamic feminism, of colonial constructions of the Muslim woman, and, finally, of neo-imperial constructions which seek to delineate Muslim women living in the West.’ — Sophie Smith, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1168-69 (full text online)
  • ‘It is often said that we write the books we want to read. Anna Kemp has written a book I would have liked to have written... Both specialists and beginners will learn tremendously from reading this concise and clearly written interdisciplinary study, which should be required reading in courses on French and Francophone literature, migration, world literature, Middle Eastern studies, European studies, and women’s studies. Any serious university library will want to include it in its collection.’ — Anne Donadey, Contemporary Women's Writing 5:3, November 2011, 257-58

Dreams of Lovers and Lies of Poets: Poetry, Knowledge, and Desire in the Roman de la Rose
Sylvia Huot
Research Monographs in French Studies 31•23 April 2010

  • ‘In addition to its richly suggestive analysis of the complex relationship between sexuality and language in the Rose, Huot's study makes a distinctive contribution to criticism's long-standing quest after meaning in the poem.’ — Helen Swift, Medium Aevum 74, 2010
  • ‘Huot’s argument is lively and cogent. This slim, persuasive book leaves little meaning in any claim that creative immersion in the ancients was unknown until the Renaissance. It gives us a richly polymorphous reading of the Rose.’ — William D. Paden, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 516
  • ‘Sylvia Huot’s elegant study deftly traces how both Guillaume and Jean manipulate earlier authors, particularly Ovid, Boethius, and Virgil, to generate an exploration of the workings of sexual desire, a subject which can only ever be discussed imperfectly and implicitly.’ — Jonathan Morton, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 931-32 (full text online)

Turning into Sterne: Viktor Shklovskii and Literary Reception
Emily Finer
Studies In Comparative Literature 18•23 April 2010

  • ‘In [Finer's] own inventive readings, the impact of Sterne and English eighteenth-century narrative experiments is dominant in Shklovskii’s journalism and fiction of the mid 1920s. The overt play with convention evident in his non- fiction, as in his novels, exemplifies in a double sense the khod konia — both the knight’s move of artistic indirection and the hobby horse of Shandean digressions.’ — Dale E. Peterson, Slavonic and East European Review 89.4, October 2011, 720-21 (full text online)
  • ‘Emily Finer’s first monograph represents a significant advance on any other coverage of Viktor Shklovskii (1893–1984) and his work in literature to date... An outstanding study for those interested in early twentieth-century Soviet culture, comparative literature and literary reception, close readings of English literature in Russian translation, and the publication and dissemination of English literature in Russia and the Soviet Union.’ — Rosemari Baker, Slavonica 17.1, April 2011, 54-55

Yeats and Pessoa: Parallel Poetic Styles
Patricia Silva McNeill
Studies In Comparative Literature 19•23 April 2010

  • ‘A very worthwhile study which demonstrates how two poets from small, peripheral European nations reflected the Zeitgeist of their times in poetry which posterity has come to regard as among the most important produced in either nation or language.’ — Jean Andrews, Modern Language Review 106.3, July 2011, 840-41 (full text online)

Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death: Walter Pater and Post-Hegelianism
Giles Whiteley
Studies In Comparative Literature 20•12 April 2010

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

Blake, Lavater and Physiognomy
Sibylle Erle
Studies In Comparative Literature 21•6 September 2010

  • ‘Erle’s conclusion is that Lavater could be seen by Blake to be superficial, and that Blake was more interested in showing how identity was constructed through the body, rather than through a given soul: bringing back the body means showing how that is connected to historical and material circumstances and culture operating, for instance, in the 1790s, the decade of Blake’s creation myths.’ — Jeremy Tambling, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1132-33 (full text online)
  • ‘By developing this art-historical context [i.e., of Henry Fuseli], Erle produces many informative analyses of the ways in which both Blake's poetry and his prints reveal an abiding interest 'in how the human form acquires its embodied identity and the pitfalls inherent in likeness-making'.’ — Joseph Bristow, Studies in English Literature 51.4, Autumn 2011, 927
  • ‘Erle deserves great credit for returning the role of Lavater to Blake studies - especially as Blake’s interests in physiognomy remained with him all through his life, surfacing again in his late Visionary Heads—and her chapter on the editing that took place in transforming the Physiognomische Fragmente into the Essays on Physiognomy is a superb piece of scholarship on this often neglected text.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91.1, 2012, 673
  • ‘Erle’s thorough knowledge of the German and British settings puts her in an exceptionally good position to elucidate a Blake connected to international literary, philosophical, and artistic circles, participating in collective publication projects that circulate knowledge between Britain and the Continent. Indeed, one of the most attractive features of the book is its attention to the intellectual exchanges and emotional bonds between men. In Erle’s view of the annotations to Lavater, we see a Blake who is, perhaps surprisingly, as eager to please, heartily agree, and find affinities as he is to denounce Error.’ — Tristanne Connolly, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly 47.4, Spring 2014

Rethinking the Concept of the Grotesque: Crashaw, Baudelaire, Magritte
Shun-Liang Chao
Studies In Comparative Literature 22•12 April 2010

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

Yiddish in Weimar Berlin: At the Crossroads of Diaspora Politics and Culture
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 8•12 April 2010

  • ‘In the 1920s, Yiddish was more than just a lingua franca for East European Jewish émigrés; it was also a language of high culture, as demonstrated by a brilliant new book, Yiddish in Weimar Berlin: At the Crossroads of Diaspora Politics and Culture.’ — Benjamin Ivry, The Arty Semite online
  • ‘To be commended for keeping alive the names, literary output, and civilization of a Yiddish world that is lost forever.’ — Ellen Share, Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews February/March 2011, 15
  • ‘There are many interesting articles in this volume. It is clear that in this brief period of flourishing Yiddish cultural activity there is much to disentangle. Berlin is a cultural and political hub in the Weimar period. An influx of multilingual Jews... enter a German Jewish world within a German world. Each of these ‘migrants’ arrives with existing cultural attachments into a war-time/post-war landscape which is signalling all kinds of modernisms. Some Yiddish writers in Berlin acknowledge the city in their literary work, others do not or only minimally. Berlin often emerges later once writers have moved elsewhere and begin to ‘recreate their past’.’ — Helen Beer, Slavonic and East European Review 90.2, April 2012, 332-34 (full text online)