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

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)

Il teatro di Eduardo De Filippo: La crisi della famiglia patriarcale
Donatella Fischer
Italian Perspectives 17•14 November 2007

Remembering Aldo Moro: The Cultural Legacy of the 1978 Kidnapping and Murder
Edited by Ruth Glynn and Giancarlo Lombardi
Italian Perspectives 23•30 January 2012

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

Rome Eternal: The City As Fatherland
Guy Lanoue
Italian Perspectives 32•8 June 2015

Pasolini after Dante: The 'Divine Mimesis' and the Politics of Representation
Emanuela Patti
Italian Perspectives 35•1 September 2016

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

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

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

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

Reinventing Community: Identity and Difference in Late Twentieth-Century Philosophy and Literature in French
Jane Hiddleston
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • ‘This is a lucid, cogently-argued work that is both extensive and focused. As such it represents an important contribution to the urgent discussion of community and the fraught relationship between "singular-plural" beings and the collectivities they form.’ — Nicole Simek, French Review 80.3, 2007, 670-71

The Extreme In-Between: Jean Paulhan's Place in the Twentieth Century
Anna-Louise Milne
Legenda (General Series) •24 May 2006

  • ‘Lights up the firmament of scholarship on Paulhan with brilliance... With wit, exuberance and theoretical sure-footedness, Milne takes us through a series of close readings. Not only does The Extreme In-Between reveal the astonishing reach and depth of Paulhan’s thinking, but it paves the way for a new conception of the relationship of language to political action and historical event, one that has a remarkably contemporary (twenty-first century?) resonance to it.’ — Michael Syrotinski, French Studies 491-92
  • ‘Tout bien considéré, l'ouvrage dense et méticuleusement relu de Milne vient ajouter de nouvelles perspectives aux réévaluations actuelles de Paulhan.’ — Stephen Steele, French Review 81.5, 2008, 1007-08

Contemporary Italian Women Writers and Traces of the Fantastic: The Creation of Literary Space
Danielle E. Hipkins
Legenda (General Series) •24 August 2007

  • ‘In her captivating first book, Danielle E. Hipkins assumes the challenging task of applying feminist literary theory to a complex form and attendant writing practice.’ — Lynn Makau, Contemporary Women's Writing 2:2, December 2008, 181-82
  • ‘Rimane aperta la discussione, extratestuale, sullo spazio occupato dalle scrittrici contempo- ranee nel canone letterario. Non sono sicura che, come suggerisce Hipkins, la marginalità della Ombres sia legata al fatto che la scrittrice ‘points to a literature beyond a claustrophobic space of epigonality’ (p. 168), e non, semplicemente, a un mercato letterario dai ritmi di produzione e consumo di durata sempre più breve. Ma questa considerazione nulla toglie all’interesse dello studio proposto: abbiamo bisogno di letture puntuali e teoricamente ponder- ate dei percorsi letterari della post-modernità per arrivare a una migliore comprensione delle dinamiche culturali, di genere ma non solo, che attraversano la società in cui viviamo.’ — Gigliola Sulis, Italian Studies 64.1, Spring 2009
  • ‘Plenty of new wine and new research... a new interdisciplinarity in Italian gender and sexuality studies.’ — Carol Lazzaro-Weis, Journal of Romance Studies 10.2, Summer 2010, review article, 97-106

Consuming Autobiographies: Reading and Writing the Self in Post-War France
Claire Boyle
Legenda (General Series) •14 November 2007

  • ‘Perhaps the most effective chapter is on Genet’s Miracle de la rose, Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, and Journal du voleur, where resistance to a subjectification threatened by both social and literar y institutions (the prison and the confessional mode, respectively) is sought by tactics of abjection geared (not entirely successfully, Boyle argues) towards thwarting readerly identification.’ — Ian Maclachlan, Modern Language Review 104.4 (2009), 1154-55 (full text online)
  • ‘Attempts at writing autobiographies in the second half of the twentieth century, Claire Boyle shows in her concise, precise and deftly argued essay, have been subject to a curious paradox... The discrediting of autobiographical attempts has been paralleled by an increasing demand for first-person testimony narratives.’ — Karlis Racevskis, French Review 82.5, April 2009, 1065
  • ‘Une épreuve de force: le moi autobiographique, est-il contrôlé par l'autobiographe estimant que ce moi ne peut pas être entièrement connu, ou par le lecteur qui le 'consomme' afin de pouvoir s'identifier avec une personne supposée réelle?’ — Jeanette den Toonder, French Studies 65.2, April 2011, 269
  • ‘Boyle’s thoughtful and sophisticated study of autobiography brings an original focus on the role of the reader, and on the ways in which readers are interpellated and caricatured by, or even excluded from, certain forms of autobiographical writing... If we had thought that autobiography had had its day, Boyle demonstrates both that the genre itself is dynamic in ways we might not have previously imagined, and that the theory of autobiography continues to evolve in challenging and provocative ways.’ — Jane Hiddleston, Biography 31.4, Fall 2008, 763-65
  • ‘This is a well researched and broad-ranging work, and is a useful discussion of the survival of the autobiographical impulse despite the critical death of traditional autobiography... a stimulating study, which lucidly applies key theoretical concepts of 20th century French thought.’ — Dervila Cooke, Modern and Contemporary France 17.1, 2009, 83-121

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

Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France
Michael G. Kelly
Legenda (General Series) •3 October 2008

  • ‘In all, Michael Kelly’s study encourages revised understandings of both the poetic and the utopian in the modern French literary context... A well-informed and instructive survey of both utopia and poetry. All this makes Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France an invaluable source.’ — Teresa Louro, Utopian Studies 21.2, 2010, 357-60
  • ‘A very careful, reflective, and thought-provoking study, and it more than amply rewards the exertions required of its readers.’ — Margaret Miner, French Studies 64.4, 2010, 513-14
  • ‘L'ouvrage de Michael G. Kelly, prolongé par une importante et très utile bibliographie, ouvre donc des voies passionnantes pour explorer la poésie dans la dynamique de sa fabrication au XXe siècle.’ — Michel Blay, Kritikon Litterarum 37, 2010, 168-69
  • ‘Offers a thorough and convincing argument for the need to read twentieth-century French poetry from the perspective of utopia... An important resource that should open up new means of addressing the ever-changing "'idea' of poetry".’ — James Petterson, French Review 37, 2010, 156-57

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

Post-War Jewish Women’s Writing in French
Lucille Cairns
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011

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

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

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

Reading Games in the Greek Novel
Eleni Papargyriou
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011

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

Traces of Trauma in W. G. Sebald and Christoph Ransmayr
Dora Osborne
Legenda (General Series) •4 March 2013

  • ‘Brought countless things to light about The Emigrants and Austerlitz that I am extremely grateful for, and I know I’ll never read either of these books again without saying a silent “thank you” to Osborne for opening my eyes to a new way of looking at them.’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo 8 June 2013
  • ‘The detailed analyses and dynamic argumentation in addition to the illuminating introduction of the concept of ‘post-postwar literature’ make this study a significant contribution to scholarship on both Ransmayr and Sebald and to critical considerations of twentieth-century post-Holocaust literature in German more broadly.’ — Lynn L. Wolff, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 294-96 (full text online)
  • ‘Osborne has done a great service in awakening Sebald scholars to a kindred spirit in Ransmayr with a long-overdue systematic comparison of “traces of trauma” in the works of both immensely important writers, one a storied member of the literary establishment, one who will remain, even posthumously, an outsider looking in.’ — Mark R. McCulloh, Monatshefte 108.1, 2016, 150-52

Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology
Clive Scott
Legenda (General Series) •10 October 2012

  • ‘In echoing Walter Benjamin’s disapproval of the view that a translation is intended for ‘readers who do not understand the original’, Clive Scott convincingly argues in favour of translation as a literary art that helps promote the language of the source text rather than seeks to provide substitutes for it.’ — Ramona Fotiade, French Studies 68.1, January 2014, 143-44
  • ‘The literary translation urged on us in this seismic manifesto is neither the creation of an object nor the reaching of a target: ‘Translation’s area of operation is not two langues, but language itself, and translation’s business is not merely to provide a version of a text, but to make the provision of that version a fruitful con- tribution to the development of the expressive potentialities of the language medium’.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.1, January 2014, 130-31
  • ‘The real achievement of this volume, I think, is that it pushes for an overhaul of current understanding of the task of the (literary) translator. Even readers and translators who reject some of his individual claims and particular ideas will find that the thrust of the work as a whole leaves a lasting impression. If all this does is serve to remind the translator not to translate as would a machine (word for word, from one language to another, searching for sameness), this is still a valuable contribution.’ — Mairi McLaughlin, Comparative Literature Studies 52.3, 2015, 653-56

Postcolonial Fiction and Sacred Scripture: Rewriting the Divine?
Sura Qadiri
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2014

  • ‘This is an important intervention into discussions of the relationship between literary discourses and sacred scripture. Focusing primarily on recent francophone North African novels, Sura Qadiri examines the positions that literary works take with respect to sacred texts, from latent and inadvertent engagements with the divine, to outright assertions of distinction, in which literary forms are construed as anti-doctrinal and subversive of religious orthodoxies.’ — Neil Doshi, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 566-67

Poetry and the Leningrad Religious-Philosophical Seminar 1974-1980: Music for a Deaf Age
Josephine von Zitzewitz
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016

  • ‘Von Zitzewitz convincingly demonstrates that the religious-philosophical impulse in general, and a pull to Russian Orthodoxy in particular, was a widespread cultural phenomenon in the late Soviet period, cutting across the official/unofficial divide... von Zitzewitz’s precise situating of her subjects in their unofficial environment constitutes a crucial key to understanding the semantic and formal features of their work, and in turn, the lonely and frustrated spirit of their time.’ — Ainsley Morse, Modern Language Review 112.4, 2017, 1053-55 (full text online)
  • ‘In her impeccably researched and documented book, Josephine von Zitzewitz combines an examination of the Religious-Philosophical Seminar with five case studies of poets from the Leningrad underground of the 1970s and 80s... An important contribution to the study of both late-Soviet poetry and religious literary culture.’ — Sarah Clovis Bishop, Slavic and East European Journal 61.4, Winter 2017, 913-14

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: (Un)timely Meditations
John McKeane
Legenda (General Series) •10 December 2014

  • ‘This study is a comprehensive and clearly written introduction to Lacoue-Labarthe’s thought and writing.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.3, July 2015
  • ‘With an irresistible combination of patience, precision, lucidity, and forceful intellectual engagement, McKeane gives us Lacoue-Labarthe in all his compelling dispersion... This is an excellent and enlightening book, and highly recommended.’ — Martin Crowley, French Studies 70.1, January 2016, 130
  • ‘McKeane contests such an approach [regarding PL-L as purely a philosopher], insisting on the importance of keeping ‘art, literature and the stage’ in view in discussing Lacoue-Labarthe. One of the virtues of McKeane’s study is that, while it rejects the notion of any eclecticism on the part of Lacoue-Labarthe, it draws judiciously on a wide range of texts, yet manages to present a cohesive sense of this unique writer and thinker. It is fascinating as well to see McKeane refer to his own unpublished interviews and correspondance with Nancy.’ — Jeff Fort, Modern Language Review 111.2, April 2016, 555-57 (full text online)

Lucidity: Essays in Honour of Alison Finch
Edited by Ian James and Emma Wilson
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016

  • ‘This carefully crafted volume offers subtle and sustained reflections on the theme of lucidity as it is manifested in a range of cultural forms and media... This volume of fine schol- arship is dedicated to Alison Finch. As such, it pays tribute to her writing, teaching, and personal qualities, and constitutes a fitting tribute to her own lucidity.’ — Shirley Jordan, French Studies 74.1, January 2020, 157 (full text online)

Haunted Serbia: Representations of History and War in the Literary Imagination
David A. Norris
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016

  • ‘This is a remarkable study, which accomplishes a lot more than a brief review can mention. One of its greatest merits is the convincing and coherent narrative which strings together a large number of apparently disparate works around an axis which is at one and the same time a literary one — the uncanny and its Gothic repertoire — and extra-literary: searching for meaning in both recent past and in contemporary events. Admirably well researched, Haunted Serbia offers an invaluable insight into a turbulent though fruitful period of Serbia’s literary history, which up until now was uncharted territory.’ — Zoran Milutinović, Slavonic and East European Review 95.2, April 2017, 353-54 (full text online)
  • ‘David A. Norris, direttore del Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies dell’Università di Nottingham, disegna un panorama della narrativa a tema bellico nella letteratura serba della seconda metà del XX secolo guardando ad essa dall’angolatura delle “ways in which narrative fiction represents the changing relationship between past and present in times of crisis” (p. 35)... L’interessante sintesi di D. A. Norris, proprio per la complessità del materiale da essa messo in circolazione, induce a più di qualche riflessione.’ — Janja Jerkov, Ricerche Slavistiche N.S. 14, 2016, 560-72
  • ‘In this well-informed, logically structured study, David A. Norris o ers a lucid and original interpretation of important and in uential Serbian narrative ction between the demise of Tito in 1980 and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.’ — Ralph Bogert, Slavic Review Summer 2018, 510-12

Oral Narration in Modern French: A Linguistic Analysis of Temporal Patterns
Janice Carruthers
Research Monographs in French Studies 19•13 September 2005

  • ‘The strength of the book is in showing how much more complex Tense-Switching is in oral narratives than could have been expected, and – even more importantly – the need to use all kinds of tools... It also encourages a new broader look at a whole range of different kinds of discourse with an oral dimension. And from the reader’s point of view it includes, en passant, a wonderfully clear exposition of areas that s/he may have not looked at closely, given the tendency to concentrate on one approach only. Namely, Moeschler’s summary of the theoretical approaches to temporal sequencing (in convenient diagram form), different approaches to tenses on the narrative line (Weinrich, Benveniste, Waugh, Vetters, Revasz, myself, and others), Smith’s Narrative mode and Report Mode, Leech and Short’s continuum of discourse forms (another useful diagram), Fleisshman’s table of markedness oppositions for the past and present tenses in ordinary language (adapted), and, Borillo’s classification of subordinators... Altogether a’ — Anne Judge, Journal of French Language Studies 19.3, 2009, 414-416
  • ‘Carruthers’ book is a genuinely original contribution to the field that puts the performed story on the map as a new genre for linguistic study and also improves our understanding of tense usage and temporal patterning in French.’ — Mairi McLaughlin, French Studies 64.1, 2010, 126-127

France/China: Intercultural Imaginings
Alex Hughes
Research Monographs in French Studies 22•24 August 2007

  • ‘The author's scholarly and intriguing readings could be seen to invite us to look beyond the French framings of China to the texts of writers who know the country intimately.’ — Rosalind Silvester, Modern and Contemporary France 497-98

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

Syntactic Borrowing in Contemporary French: A Linguistic Analysis of News Translation
Mairi McLaughlin
Research Monographs in French Studies 30•12 May 2011

  • ‘Throughout, the author demonstrates a strong awareness of methodology, a solid grounding in the relevant literature, and a laudable attention to detail... Deserves to become a point of reference for future studies within the field.’ — Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen, Modern Language Review 107.4, October 2012, 1248-49 (full text online)
  • ‘Works like this, at the crossroads of linguistics and translation studies, are all too rare. The potential of the work reported here to inspire further investigation is considerable.’ — Nigel Armstrong, Modern and Contemporary France 20.2 (February 2012), 267-68
  • ‘En somme, cet ouvrage est très convaincant par sa rigueur (méthodologie, présence de graphiques), son aspect novateur et sa clarté. Il peut servir de référence aux chercheurs et doctorants de diverses disciplines telles que l’évolution du français contemporain, le contact des langues (en particulier la transmission de l’emprunt syntaxique) ou la traduction.’ — Michèle Vincent, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 594-95
  • ‘Es wäre wünschenswert, wenn künftig weitere weit verbreitete und unkritisch rezipierte Thesen zu sprachlichen Fragen einer ebenso gründlichen, sine ira et studio durchgeführten Untersuchung unterzogen würden.’ — Jörn Albrecht, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 123.2, 2013, 200-05
  • ‘...Excellente connaissance du sujet, abondance et pertinence des références, clarté des démonstrations, exhaustivité de l’analyse, structuration de l’exposé, soutien statistique, sophistication linguistique et aisance de style. Les introductions à chaque chapitre méritent à elles seules la lecture, car elles permettent de découvrir ou de réviser l’essentiel sur l’emploi de l’adjectif, du passif et du participe présent en français.’ — Alain Thomas, Journal of Language Contact 6, 2013, 203-05
  • ‘An original insight, especially considering her field work in a press agency for the data collection. In fact, dealing with the linguistic impact of news translation, the study provides evidence of the detrimental impact of lack of regulations, ethics and professionalism in news translation.’ — Federico M. Federici, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 21.1, 2013, 112

Maryse Condé and the Space of Literature
Eva Sansavior
Research Monographs in French Studies 32•1 June 2012

  • ‘This valuable contribution to francophone studies adds to the growing list of critical work on Maryse Condé... Drawing on real and imagined experiences, Sansavior brilliantly depicts the intersectional relationship between self, community, and writing in Condé’s autobiography, ascertaining that Condé employs autobiography as a subversive genre.’ — Simone A. James Alexander, French Studies 67.4, October 2013, 580-81
  • ‘Valuable testament to the unusual complexity of Maryse Condé’s work, her generic range, and the particularity of her status as a “global” writer who is at once representative and inimitable.’ — Dawn Fulton, Contemporary Women's Writing 8.1, March 2014, 115-16
  • ‘An eloquent and welcome addition to Condé scholarship and to efforts to rethink, rather than rule out, the possibilities for a re-engaged literary practice today.’ — Nicole Simek, New West Indian Guide 88, 2014, 207-09

Singing Poets: Literature and Popular Music in France and Greece
Dimitris Papanikolaou
Studies In Comparative Literature 11•23 February 2007

  • ‘A well-informed and satisfying study.’ — Peter Hawkins, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 816-16 (full text online)
  • ‘This engaging and stimulating study... is a fascinating examination of the construction and reception of "high-popular" musical genres and specific debates surrounding the question of what "good" and "authentic" national music should be.’ — Hazel Marsh, Popular Music 27.2, 2008, 318-20
  • ‘Makes a significant contribution to the study of Modern Greek culture, and also forwards the thinking behind what makes the conjunction between high and popular culture in any context...’ — Hector Kollias, French Studies 63.1, 2009, 114-15

Wanderers Across Language: Exile in Irish and Polish Literature of the Twentieth Century
Kinga Olszewska
Studies In Comparative Literature 12•5 July 2007

  • ‘This book is perhaps most interesting in the account given of key Polish journals such as Kultura, and the contexts in which specific debates took place; and in the translations of Polish texts that underpin the argument.’ — Fiona Becket, Modern Language Review 104.2, April 2009, 540-41 (full text online)

Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti: Intellectual Allies
Elaine Morley
Studies In Comparative Literature 29•25 September 2013

  • ‘As Elaine Morley aptly observes in her exciting and innovative book, the majority of publications foreground personality and relationship issues but allow little room for discussion of the creative affinity between the two authors... The much-needed shift of focus from the personal to the literary and philosophical in Morley’s analysis of Murdoch and Canetti as intellectual allies is path-breaking.’ — Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1142-43 (full text online)

Exile and Nomadism in French and Hispanic Women's Writing
Kate Averis
Studies In Comparative Literature 31•1 July 2014

  • ‘Averis skilfully negotiates a corpus that encompasses six writers, two languages, and several nations in an engaging style and with careful structuring, which unfailingly maintains her reader’s engagement. This study offers a very welcome re-evaluation of exile as a linguistic, psychological, gendered, and existential site.’ — Trudy Agar, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 560-61
  • ‘The originality and importance of this study in the field of Comparative Literature lies in the fact not only that it analyses exiled women writers (instead of exiled men writers) but also that these writers’ homelands are different, making the research findings more valid as they are extremely representative of women who write away from their birth countries... Averis’ analysis is extremely comprehensive, clearly exposed and well supported with a solid and respected bibliography.’ — Verónica Añover, Modern and Contemporary France 23.3, 2015, 410-11
  • ‘This book draws a new and original path within the analysis of contemporary women’s exilic writing and the nomadic configuration of identity. Not only does it develop key notions of exile and women’s writing, applying them to illustrative cases, it also articulates connections that overturn preconceived arguments, such as the exilic stereotyped figures still in use in Euro-American theorizations, or the negative connotations of exile, which are replaced by the idea of exile as a productive and creative site in which more fluid identities are rebuilt.’ — Marianna Deganutti, OCCT Review online, October 2015

The Yiddish Presence in European Literature: Inspiration and Interaction
Edited by Joseph Sherman and Ritchie Robertson
Studies In Yiddish 5•13 September 2005

  • ‘This excellent volume makes a most welcome contribution to the field of Jewish comparative literary studies.’ — Hugh Denman, Modern Language Review 102.2, April 2007, 600-02 (full text online)

Children and Yiddish Literature: From Early Modernity to Post-Modernity
Edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 14•1 September 2016