Futurism: A Microhistory
Edited by Sascha Bru, Luca Somigli, and Bart Van den Bossche
Italian Perspectives 36•29 September 2017
- ‘The chapter structure is cleverly designed to replicate a ‘day in the life’ of a Futurist ‘new man’, with chapters focusing on places both large and small from ‘The Skyscraper’ to ‘The Bed’... This book was a pleasure to read and will reward both the serious scholar of Futurism and the more casual reader of twentieth-century Italian culture who may wish to dip in and out of the Futurist day.’ — Selena Daly, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 577-579 (full text online)
Rome: Modernity, Postmodernity and Beyond
Edited by Lesley Caldwell and Fabio Camilletti
Italian Perspectives 39•30 September 2018
- ‘As the seat of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, Mussolini’s Fascism, and Silvio Berlusconi’s neoliberalism, and as a site of immigration and social diversity, Rome is characterized by complexity... A valuable contribution to the scholarship of one of Europe’s most historically significant and cathected cities and will no doubt be of value to scholars of the Eternal City within both urban and Italian studies.’ — Damien Pollard, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 190-91 (full text online)
Italy and the USA: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza
Italian Perspectives 44•30 December 2019
- ‘A very holistic assessment of cultural change, even going beyond the disciplinary points of reference of language and narrative to the larger fields of politics and economics.’ — Anna Chichi, Modern Language Review 117.2, 2022, 303-04 (full text online)
Decadence and the Senses
Edited by Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé
Legenda (General Series) •17 May 2017
- ‘I found Maxwell’s discussion of the tuberose, and more speci cally Walter Pater’s conscription of that flower to describe his own rarefied prose style, to be particularly interesting, as Pater’s writing is so often considered the acme of Decadent prose. It seems that the orchid that famously reminded Dorian Gray of the seven deadly sins should, perhaps, have been a tuberose. Equally interesting is Angela Dunstan’s suggestion that Theodore Watts-Dunton’s roman-à-clef Aylwin became for readers a means of owning the celebrity of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or the notion extended by Liz Renes that John Singer Sargent’s Madame X should be considered a meditation on the white, sculptural body and its changing role in modern art.’ — Jamie Horrocks, English Literature in Translation 61.4, 2018, 525-28
- ‘It is perhaps fitting that the unity of a book on Decadent literature should be best experienced ‘decomposed’ to give place to the independence of each chapter. There is no doubt, however, that the high quality of its constituent parts forms a significant contribution to Sensory Studies and that the collection is a ‘must-read’ for any student of Decadence at the fin de siècle and beyond.’ — Patricia Pulham, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 128-29 (full text online)
- ‘Desmarais and Condé have done an enormous service by opening up this can of repulsive worms.’ — Dennis Denisoff, Victorian Studies 61.2, Winter 2019, 554-56
Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture
Edited by Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold and Olivia Smith
Legenda (General Series) •13 February 2017
- ‘Cognition-centered scholarship is here, and Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture is a welcome new contribution... I found myself wanting to dialogue with each of these writers... they enter into essential new investigations into the diversity of our cognitive experiences.’ — Donald Beecher, Renaissance Quarterly 71.1, 2018, 267-69
- ‘Sustained and intensive collaboration is evident in the collection, where every chapter displays a profound and fruitful engagement with cognitive psychology and philosophy that illuminates both early modern literary texts and contemporary science... These essays are thought-provoking, rigorous, and inventive themselves, and as exemplary models of properly collaborative research should interest early modernists, literary scholars, and other researchers into cognition.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 372
The Made and the Found: Essays, Prose and Poetry in Honour of Michael Sheringham
Edited by Patrick McGuinness and Emily McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •25 May 2017
- ‘Micky’s words return here in all their felicity. His appetite, brilliance, and distinct sensibility are intensely present. The editors speak of Micky ‘drawn by what was accidental, unsystematic, eccentric’ (p. ix). They see him glorying in ‘the overspill of things’. They speak of Micky as their ‘friend and colleague’ and this book is a beautiful act of camaraderie.’ — Emma Wilson, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 485-86 (full text online)
- ‘This starry roster of writers, working in English and French, often operate along lines of creative interplay between chance and choice, the map and serendipity, walking and writing, celebrating the transition from noticing to noting and from there maybe even into actually making poetry.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 375
- ‘The Made and the Found is a rich volume that will be of interest to friends of the late Michael Sheringham as well as to all those wanting to study the relation between French culture, language and the everyday.’ — Verena Andermatt Conley, H-France 18.214, November 2018
Freedom and the Subject of Theory: Essays in Honour of Christina Howells
Edited by Oliver Davis and Colin Davis
Legenda (General Series) •14 May 2019
Gravity and Grace: Essays for Roger Pearson
Edited by Charlie Louth and Patrick McGuinness
Legenda (General Series) •25 February 2019
- ‘A core series of contributions offers a remarkably sustained and rich reflection on the interplay between the aesthetic and ethical notions of gravity and grace.’ — Scott M. Powers, H-France 20, June 2020, no. 92
- ‘Works of art function by allowing something to happen, rather than by making something happen, and are nothing without our active participation. The prescriptive weightiness of words in practical discourse is not what poetry, especially, puts in play. That certainly makes this book a fitting tribute to the wonderful work of Roger Pearson, whose own writing is never heavy, never pedantic, but always invites and inspires the reader to continue thinking beyond the page.’ — Peter Dayan, Modern Language Review 116.1, 2020, 188-89 (full text online)
Catalan Narrative 1875-2015
Edited by Jordi Larios and Montserrat Lunati
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 16•28 September 2020
- ‘Two attractive features of the volume are its richness and the way it brings to life the wide variety of works analysed. Critical theory figures strongly in a number of the articles, but it is employed carefully and sometimes subtly as a framework that enhances rather than obscures the narrative texts under discussion. Finally, the editors’ succinct Introduction intelligently, clearly, and deftly ties together the diverse strands of the book’s eclectic content, inviting the casual reader to explore further.’ — David George, Modern Language Review 117.3, July 2022, 514-15 (full text online)
The Cultural Legacy of María Zambrano
Edited by Xon de Ros and Daniela Omlor
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 24•3 April 2017
- ‘Tal y como promete su tîtulo, este monográfico le ofrece al lector una visión de conjunto del legado cultural de María Zambrano. Un elenco multidisciplinar e internacional de colaboradores se reúnen en esta publicacíon para, gracias a la cuidadosa labor de selección y edición de Xon de Ros y Daniela Omlor, proporcionar una contextualización de la extensa producción zambraniana en relación a las principales corrientes del pensamiento occidental contemporáneo.’ — Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, Revista de Hispanismo Filosófico 23, 2019, 226-28
- ‘Pioneras en su contexto... Coronan el volumen una bibliografía y un índex, dando cuenta de la vigencia del pensamiento de María Zambrano en distintas ramas del saber como la filosofía, la poesía, las artes plásticas o la política.’ — Carmen María López López, Las Torres de Lucca 12, January-June 2018, 285-92
- ‘An important contribution to Zambrano’s bibliography... focuses on Zambrano’s role as a cultural agent, looking at her impact in the following areas: avant-garde, feminism, psycho-analysis, literary comparativism, art criticism and semiotics, autobiographical writing, political theory, historical memory and exile.’ — Pilar Molina, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 70, 2018, 284 (full text online)
- ‘Serious and sustained academic attention in the Anglophone world is in its infancy. The Cultural Legacy of María Zambrano takes on a pioneering role by being among the first book-length studies aimed at an English-speaking readership... A coherent and rigorous body of research, inviting the reader to reassess the impact of Zambrano’s legacy alongside her place in Western intellectual history.’ — Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 195-96 (full text online)
A Modernist in Exile: The International Reception of H. G. Adler (1910-1988)
Edited by Lynn L. Wolff
Studies In Comparative Literature 42•23 April 2019
- ‘A very impressive collection of moving and thought-provoking essays... Because the contributors to this book have such detailed and specialized knowledge of H. G.’s life and work, and such a masterly ability to contextualize his wide-ranging achievement and relate their new work to earlier critical work, they set a new standard in Adler scholarship. Consequently this fascinating volume will doubtless enhance H. G.’s reputation both as an intellectual and as a writer of prose fiction, and become necessary reading for anyone who has any kind of interest in him and his work.’ — Richard Sheppard, Journal of European Studies 50.3, Autumn 2020, 295–301 (full text online)
- ‘This volume dedicated to H.G. Adler will prove edifying to seasoned scholars and newcomers alike... In contrast to Adorno, who - similar to many postmodernists - collapses traditions of value into barbarity and admits no distinction between the two, Adler struggles to maintain, describe, and explain the possibility of human goodness in the face of overwhelming evil. It is certainly true for Adler that in the world of the camps much, if not most, of the ability for ethical action was destroyed - but not all. And since this is true, Adler’s work challenges his readers to face the truth in its entirety and to define the scale of human value they will adhere to in the face of barbarity.’ — Traci S. O’Brien, Monatshefte 112.4, Winter 2020, 747-50
Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in Honour of Jean de Palacio
Edited by Antonella Braida
Studies In Comparative Literature 55•28 September 2020
- ‘A wonderful selection of essays which discusses an aspect of Mary Shelley’s life that was so important to her art and yet is perhaps under-emphasised in discussing her work.’ — Jacqueline Mulhallen, Women's Writing 6 March 2022
Three Cities of Yiddish: St Petersburg, Warsaw and Moscow
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 15•3 April 2017
- ‘The British book series “Studies in Yiddish,” published by Legenda (and known among academics as “the Legenda series”), is in my estimation the most important venue for contemporary research on Yiddish literature and culture in the world today... Krutikov deals with the travelogue Hoyptshtet (Capital Cities) of 1934, written by Der Nister (“The Hidden One”), one of the greatest Soviet-Yiddish writers. The German professor Sabine Koller also contributes an essay dedicated to Der Nister’s book, which records his impressions of Leningrad, Moscow, and Kharkov during the 1920s. It’s a real delight to see so much attention is devoted to this book, which has been relatively unappreciated in previous considerations of Der Nister.’ — Marc Caplan, Forward 2 August 2017
- ‘In “Moscow Threefold: Olgin, Bergelson, Benjamin,” Murav elegantly analyzes depictions of Moscow in the mid-1920s by three writers. Emphasizing Moscow as a Jewish “space of contiguity,” Murav addresses no less the relating of Moscow to time... If Olgin’s Moscow “has achieved ... its future,” the works of Benjamin and Bergelson show more ambivalence, and Murav is especially vivid on Bergelson’s vision of destruction likely to precede any possible redemption, which may end up permanently deferred.’ — Jeffrey A. Grossman, Slavic Review Spring 2019, 293-95
Women, Men and Books: Issues of Gender in Yiddish Discourse
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 16•30 December 2019
- ‘The book presents the most recent research on the subject of gender in Yiddish literature and culture and paints a far more complex picture of gender roles in Eastern European Jewish life than is portrayed in traditional sources... As gender and sexuality are increasingly being understood as fluid, rather than determined categories, this kind of research is extremely significant for those of us who still speak, write and create in Yiddish, and want to hold on to it as a living language, capable of expressing all of our experiences.’ — Annabel Cohen, Forward 23 November 2020