Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht
Phoebe von Held
Studies In Comparative Literature 17•25 March 2011
- ‘This is a rich and rewarding study that opens up important new perspectives not only on its two chosen thinkers, but also on the questions of acting both onstage and in society more generally.’ — Joseph Harris, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 557
- ‘[Held's] general principle is surprisingly simple and compelling: While the 'self-alienating artifice' of Diderot's calculating actor succeeds for the most part at immedsing the audience to identification and illusion, there are moments at which it suddenly comes to the fore... Jolted by this 'sudden emergence of alienation', the spectator is now 'faced with her own involvement in the operation of delusion'.’ — Florian Nikolas Becker, Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012), 253-58
The Art of Comparison: How Novels and Critics Compare
Catherine Brown
Studies In Comparative Literature 23•12 May 2011
- ‘Brown's core chapters gracefully use varied conceptual tools and interdisciplinary viewpoints, all of which are engagingly woven into an organic whole, so that the reader emerges from this ambitious enterprise appreciating what notable work can be done when translation theory and practice are not seen as separate entities but as intercommunicative.’ — Andrew Radford, Translation and Literature 20, 2011, 403-08
- ‘Dexterously connects Eliot, Tolstoy and Lawrence to the considerations of nationalism and supranationalism at the heart of critical debates within and about comparative literary scholarship... Convincingly demonstrates that we as literary critics should open our ears and our minds to unlikely literary conversations, as well as the fresh knowledge and pleasure we may glean from them.’ — Katherine Anderson, George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 62-63 (September 2012), 124-26
Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation
Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
Studies In Comparative Literature 24•4 February 2011
- ‘Deftly employs cultural, geographical, biographical, linguistic and literary analysis; in doing so, it provides readers with a better understanding of Joyce, Borges, and the connections between them.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
- ‘...The engaging central thesis, of the surprisingly fruitful interaction between these two seemingly dissimilar authors.’ — Ben Bolig, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 983-85 (full text online)
- ‘This is an ambitious and satisfying book that illuminates, through the prism of Borges, the work of Joyce and, through Joyce, the work of Borges... It is a very welcome and important addition to our libraries.’ — Lucia Boldrini, James Joyce Quarterly 49.3/4, May 2014, 689-92
English Responses to French Poetry 1880-1940: Translation and Mediation
Jennifer Higgins
Legenda (General Series) •12 May 2011
- ‘The account of Huxley’s version of Rimbaud’s ‘Les Chercheuses de poux’ is particularly fine, and laurels awarded to Beckett’s ‘Drunken Boat’ are shown to be well deserved. In this respect, Higgins’s readings are consonant with some of her own general arguments, for she frequently conveys the sense of a critical mind finding out more about the original text, as well as testing the qualities of the translation. In her hands, both French and English texts are made to speak to and of each other.’ — Matthew Creasy, Translation and Literature 21, 2012, 255-61
- ‘This rewarding book deftly handles — and illuminates — a wide range of sources... a tantalizing taste of a fascinating area for further research.’ — Adam Watt, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 897-98 (full text online)
- ‘In the years preceding the Second World War [...] a diminution in the quantity of translated material is compensated for by a greater acknowledgement of the centrality of translation to the development of national — and transnational — literary cultures. This study is to be commended for its consistent advocacy and demonstration of that centrality.’ — Michael G. Kelly, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 572
Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison
Lucia Villares
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘By enhancing our understanding of Clarice Lispector’s novels with such an original and indispensable study, Villares demonstrates other unexplored ways through which Lispector broke away from the Primitivist vogue and mulattophilia of her generation of modernistas... During those years of intensively nationalist modernizing projects, performing whiteness included the assimilation of an urban ethos, among other bourgeois life standards. Villares’ study highlights the relevance of Lispector’s work for our comprehension of such deep cultural transformations.’ — Sonia Roncador, Ellipsis 12, 2014, 311-13
Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon
Sarah E. L. Bowskill
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘Its coherent, well-sustained, and highly persuasive argument is likely to inspire others to take on this and the other challenges outlined in the conclusion. Indeed, as much as Bowskill’s book delves into the archives of reviews of the past, this is also a forward-looking study.’ — Amit Thakkar, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 273-74 (full text online)
- ‘Sarah E. L. Bowskill’s study on gender, nation and canon-formation is a groundbreaking treatment of Mexican literature. She dissects a series of canonised and uncanonised novels to prove how the former were privileged by the state and how critics (un)consciously rewarded certain works while ignoring others... Bowskill makes us wonder why no one had deconstructed such critical happenings before, given that nation-building was the overpowering impulse to put Mexico in the literary map of modernity.’ — Francisco A. Lomelí, Bulletin of Latin American Research 34.1, 2014, 106-07
Jacques Derrida and the Institution of French Philosophy
Vivienne Orchard
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘Orchard’s careful attention to significant details promises to refresh thinking in an important area of theory and philosophy.’ — Sarah Wood, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 581
The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze
Thomas Baldwin
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘Current critical debates on both spectrality and ekphrastic poetics are greatly enriched by Thomas Baldwin’s tightly woven and theoretically intricate study.’ — Margaret Topping, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 125
Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu
Áine Larkin
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011
- ‘Throughout the volume, Larkin’s close readings often provide fresh insights by situating themselves at a tangent to existing interpretations. In this way they form an individual trajectory, turning the study into a valuable source of orientation and stimulation for experts and newcomers to the field alike.’ — Katja Haustein, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 115-16
- ‘Áine Larkin makes an excellent contribution to this already well established field of study with this systematic analysis of the manifold ways in which Proust appropriates photography for both thematic and stylistic purposes.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 514-16
Reading Games in the Greek Novel
Eleni Papargyriou
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011
The Truth of Realism: A Reassessment of the German Novel 1830-1900
John Walker
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011
- ‘An ambitious contribution to a revaluation of German realism that will have to be weighed and taken into account in any further treatment of the topic.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Monatshefte 104.1, 2012, 130-33
- ‘This volume offers a new approach to German Realism and contributes to research that establishes a reading of German Realist literature as in no ways inferior to other European Realist traditions, which has been the dominant viewpoint for decades.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2, 2013, 227
- ‘Cultural studies, systems theory, postcolonial studies, gender studies, media history, and a number of other more recent approaches have given new impetus to research into nineteenth-century Realism and initiated a reassessment of German Realism within the overarching European development from Romanticism to Modernism. Walker’s study of a small number of selected novels by Keller, Raabe, and Fontane makes an interesting contribution to this reassessment by arguing that ‘the distinguishing capacity of German narrative realism, and the source of that realism’s unique contribution to the European tradition’ is the critique of internalized ideology.’ — Dirk Göttsche, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 847-48 (full text online)
Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Liability of Liberty
Bradley Stephens
Legenda (General Series) •12 May 2011
- ‘Liberty may be a liability, but in Hugo and in Sartre it has two strong, subtle, and surprisingly complementary exponents. For the detail of its analyses and for the breadth of its final perspectives, this volume is, therefore, a welcome addition to the Legenda imprint.’ — Owen Heathcote, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 422-23
- ‘Bradley Stephens explores unexpected, intriguing connections between Victor Hugo's and Jean-Paul Sartre's visions of liberty in this clearly written study... Brings a unique analysis of Hugo's and Sartre's work, offering insights that may challenge readers to reconsider their previous understandings.’ — Marva A. Barnett, Modern and Contemporary France 20.2, 2012, 281-82
- ‘Stephen’s work provides equally valuable insights for Hugo and Sartre specialists as it does for students of modern culture. Previous scholarship is pleasingly woven into Stephens’s argument and his writing style is quick and fluid, itself more dynamic as the work progresses.’ — Andrea S. Thomas, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 41.3-4, 2013, 326-28
- ‘Informed by the latest literary criticism, up to speed with philosophical debates, knowledgeable on secondary literature in English and in French on both Hugo and Sartre... Stephens sets up a dialogue between Hugo, the nineteenth-century writer and Sartre, whom Foucault (in-)famously referred to as ‘a man of the nineteenth century’... This book is excellent on philosophy of language and moral philosophy, and it should be of interest to scholars of either Hugo or Sartre, or both, as well as to post-modernists interested in human experience and freedom.’ — Jean-Pierre Boulé, Sartre Studies International 19.1, 2013, 91-102