Genet's Genres of Politics
Mairéad Hanrahan
Research Monographs in French Studies 50•22 April 2023
Santería, Vodou and Resistance in Caribbean Literature: Daughters of the Spirits
Paul Humphrey
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 12•25 February 2019
- ‘Humphrey does not argue for the homogenization of [Vodou and Santería], but for the honest recognition and acceptance of their differences. Moving past the violent stereotyping [...], he encourages us to treat these religions as ‘living systems’ in which slavery, colonialism, creolization and hybridity intersect in a dynamic negotiation of all the complexities that create what would be a ‘postcolonial’ Caribbean.’ — Janelle Rodriques, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.2, 2020, 294-95
Queering Lorca’s Duende: Desire, Death, Intermediality
Miguel García
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 49•7 March 2022
The Experience of Colour in Lorca's Theatre
Jade Boyd
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 54•13 September 2022
- ‘Boyd is sensitive to what is left out as well as what is explicit. She thus underlines the absence in this tragedy of stage directions regarding lighting. She also reads ‘verbal colour’ into objects, food and animals, so the mention of frogs, chocolate, earth, fire and goldfinches becomes part of an imagined canvas of images, sometimes as potent as what we can see on stage.’ — John London, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 100.6, 2023, 930-32 (full text online)
The Catalonian Journey of American Drama 1909-2000: From Jimmy Valentine to The Vagina Monologues
Ramón Espejo 
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 59•19 February 2024
Metaphor and Materiality: German Literature and the World-View of Science 1780-1955
Peter D. Smith
Studies In Comparative Literature 4•1 June 2000
- ‘Smith is able to show convincingly how ambivalence about the role of science or scientific tendencies permeates these literary works, and he offers interesting insights into the sometimes subtle thematization of scientific ideas in literature.’ — Elizabeth Neswald, British Journal for the History of Science 35, 2002, 363-4
- ‘Smith's mastery of both primary and secondary sources is remarkable, and his bibliographies provide a useful guide to the (often vast) secondary literature... Demonstrates the extraordinary richness and importance of the vein of research into which Smith has tapped, and puts much other work in so-called Cultural Studies to shame.’ — Paul Bishop, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 505-7 (full text online)
- ‘In this thorough study of the exchange between science and literature, Peter D. Smith skillfully argues that the idea of these Two Cultures existing in isolation from one another is overly simplistic... An excellent contribution to the vital research currently examining the interdisciplinary nature of scientific and literary works.’ — Heather I. Sullivan, Monatshefte 94.4, 2002, 541-2
Marguerite Yourcenar: Reading the Visual
Nigel Saint
Studies In Comparative Literature 5•1 November 2000
- ‘Scholarly and lucidly written, Saint's study will appeal both to the specialist and to readers with a broader interest in word and image research.’ — Jean H. Duffy, French Studies LVI.3, 2002, 430
- unsigned notice, Société Internationale d'Etudes Yourcenariennes 21, 2000, 8
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
Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum: The Truth of Masks
Giles Whiteley
Studies In Comparative Literature 35•1 July 2015
- ‘The strength of this study for the reader of Wilde is the way in which Whiteley seeks to connect Wilde’s theoretical writings with his fictions. This is central to its Deleuzian approach, its ‘active refusal of the critical either-or’, its determination to find the complementarity between Wilde the ‘producer of concepts’ and Wilde the producer of ‘percepts and affects’ (p. 24)... there is intellectual provocation at every turn, and difficulty to be celebrated.’ — Anne Varty, The OScholars April 2017
- ‘Giles Whiteley’s provocative monograph announces a reading of Wilde ‘through Deleuze and postmodern philosophical commentary on the simulacrum’. It also signals a challenge to ‘recent neo-historicist readings’ which ‘limit [Wilde’s] irruptive power’. Drawn to Deleuze’s notions of ‘disjunctive synthesis’, Whiteley emphasizes Wilde’s credentials as a ‘serious’ thinker, presenting him as a fusion of philosopher and artist. Where many recent critics have been at pains to place him in a precise historical and cultural context, Whiteley maintains that Wilde’s ‘contemporaries’ are properly determined by his intellectual outlook, and are therefore drawn from his past (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel), present (Arnold, Ruskin, Baudelaire, Nietzsche), and future (Deleuze, Blanchot, Foucault, and Klossowski, among others).’ — Nick Freeman, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 499-500 (full text online)
- ‘From the point of view of presentation, the volume is of the highest standard... Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum is, in my opinion, an important contribution to Wilde studies in at least two respects. Firstly, it pertinently resituates Wilde’s works within the intellectual context in which they were conceived and convincingly challenges the idea according to which Wilde’s philosophy of art is simply a derivative, Platonic and Hegelian, idealism. Secondly, it stages a large number of fruitful encounters between Wilde’s texts and contemporary theory, thereby taking much further Richard Ellmann’s intuition that Wilde was ‘one of us’ and shedding new light on the Irishman’s literary production. Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum is itself a Deleuzian event, creating ‘lines of flight’ and causing renewed delight in the reader’s apprehension of Wilde’s shimmering surfaces.’ — Xavier Giudicelli, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 85, Spring 2017
Residual Figuration in Samuel Beckett and Alberto Giacometti
Lin Li
Studies In Comparative Literature 53•7 June 2022
- ‘In this ambitious yet focused study of the relationship between certain formal characteristics in Samuel Beckett’s dramatic works and Alberto Giacometti’s art, Lin Li not only clarifies these two artists’ shared milieu, but also sheds light on new ways to understand both subjecthood and reading more generally.’ — Charlie Clements, Modern Language Review 2024, 119.1, 139-41 (full text online)
The First English Translations of Molière: Drama in Flux 1663-1732
Suzanne Jones
Transcript 13•28 September 2020
Uruguayan Theatre in Translation: Theory and Practice
Sophie Stevens
Transcript 15•8 October 2022
- ‘A welcome and much needed contribution to Uruguayan theatre studies and translation... Stevens’ translations are thoughtfully crafted, beautifully articulated, clear, and amply tested for the stage. They reveal the careful and meticulous work of a researcher who has investigated thoroughly the context, formal aspects of language use, rhetorical devices, and style of the target text in collaboration with playwrights, actors, directors, scholars and students in workshops, rehearsals, table readings and seminars. Virtually unknown to most English audiences, the translated plays included in this book are true gems and will be of great interest to theater scholars, students, and practitioners. Through juxtaposing analysis and translation of theater in one study, Stevens pioneers dialogue between the fields of Uruguayan theater and translation studies in a book that will hold great appeal to theater scholars, translators, students and practitioners.’ — The Mercurian 14 November 2023
- ‘Overall, this book is exemplary in offering insight into the decisions made by translators alongside directors, playwrights, and actors. The focus on praxis and self-reflection constitutes a novel and creative way of engaging with Uruguayan theatre as both national and transnational. The practical and theoretical considerations proposed by Stevens will be of use to translators, dramatists, and theatre scholars alike.’ — Cara Levey, Modern Language Review 2024, 119.1, 167-69 (full text online)
- ‘This volume already fills a need because there are never enough translations of plays from Spanish into English for academic and practical purposes such as research, teaching and staging. Beyond fulfilling a basic need, however, Stevens’ book explores a deeper inquiry into the act of translation by linking it to thematic, cultural and dramatic concepts. For Stevens the process of translation practice is not merely technical; rather it is a methodology that informs scholarship on the dramatic text in new ways.’ — Sarah M. Misemer, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 100.5, 2023, 773-75 (full text online)
Poetics, Performance and Politics in French and Italian Renaissance Comedy
Lucy Rayfield
Transcript 18•23 February 2022
- ‘[Rayfield] provides in-depth socio-cultural and cross-cultural context. She has contributed an unusual study of the very small world of French humanist comedy, stimulatingly expanding it both from the inside and from the outside, schoolboys, polygraphs, and printers brushing elbows with French royals and wealthy Florentines.’ — Corinne Noirot, H-France 23 (May 2023), no. 86
Voltaire's Disciple: Jean François de La Harpe
Christopher Todd
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 7•1 January 1972
Bertolt Brecht's Adaptations for the Berliner Ensemble
Arrigo Subiotto
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 8•1 January 1975
The Realism of Luigi Capuana: Theory and Practice in the Development of Late Nineteenth-Century Italian Realism
Judith Davies
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 13•1 January 1979
Georg Büchner's 'Dantons Tod': A Reappraisal
Dorothy James
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 16•1 January 1982
Character, Ideology, and Symbolism in the Plays of Wedekind, Sternheim, Kaiser, Toller, and Brecht
M. Helena Gonçalves da Silva
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 21•1 January 1985
A Critical, Old-Spelling Edition of the Birth of Merlin (Q1662)
Joanna Udall
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 31•1 January 1991
Reception and Renewal in Modern Spanish Theatre: 1939-1963
John London
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 45•1 January 1997
The Signifying Self: Cervantine Drama as Counter-Perspective Aesthetic
Melanie Henry
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 83•1 February 2013
El camino inverso: del cine al teatro: La vida en un hilo, de Edgar Neville y Mi adorado Juan, de Miguel Mihura
Joanna Bardzińska
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 91•1 May 2014
- ‘Bardzińska has provided the reader with a wealth of detail and the text will be of interest to scholars of the ‘otra generación’, and of value to those researching Neville, Mihura and/or their works created for screen and stage, as well as those interested in approaches to reverse adaptation more broadly.’ — Rhiannon McGlade, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94, 2017, 1246-47
Between Two Worlds: The autos sacramentales of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Amy Fuller
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 100•22 June 2015