Comedy and Trauma in Germany and Austria after 1945: The Inner Side of Mourning
Stephanie Bird
Germanic Literatures 10•19 December 2016

  • ‘This study offers an original and distinctive approach which illuminates key aspects of the chosen works while also enhancing the highly complex nature of mourning.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.4, October 2018, 506 (full text online)
  • ‘A fresh perspective on comedy and the complex roles comedic devices have played in postwar German-language literature and lm and in discussions of trauma.’ — Corey L. Twitchell, German Studies Review 42.1, February 2019, 176-178 (full text online)

Translating Petrarch's Poetry: L’Aura del Petrarca from the Quattrocento to the 21st Century
Edited by Carole Birkan-Berz, Guillaume Coatalen and Thomas Vuong
Transcript 8•17 February 2020

  • ‘Ranging through five centuries of translations, adaptations and imitations of Petrarch, the father of Humanism, this transcultural, transdisciplinary study considers the echoes of this major figure, whose reach goes beyond borders, eras and literary genres to resonate singularly into our times and in our own resonating ears.’ — Robert Sheppard, Pages 16 September 2020
  • ‘Translating Petrarch’s Poetry is a must-read book for anybody interested in the spread of Petrarch’s poetry in the Western world (and beyond) throughout modernity. It collects very thorough essays dealing with this theme in always original and engaging manners from a variety of modern critical standpoints.’ — Enrico Minardi, Annali d'Italianistica 38, 2020, 455-459
  • ‘As its title suggests, this volume covers both “translating” in a conventional sense and freer, sometimes distanced, responses that are nevertheless redolent of Petrarch’s “aura” or distinctive atmosphere and of his portrayal of his beloved. By integrating a wide gamut of approaches on the part of academics from different disciplines and of poets, the collection of case studies presented here illustrates very effectively the endlessly imaginative ways in which Petrarch’s poetry has been transformed and repurposed across time.’ — Brian Richardson, Speculum 96.4, October 2021, 1153-54 (full text online)
  • ‘This collection of fifteen essays by scholars and writers from a range of countries brings to bear on Petrarch recent interest not only in translation as normally conceived but also in reformulations and fragmentations of the original and its appropriation in other media, and in the roles translations and other responses play and have played socially and culturally.’ — Peter Hainsworth, Modern Language Review 117.3, July 2022, 505-07 (full text online)

Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny
Cécile Bishop
Research Monographs in French Studies 41•1 July 2014

  • ‘This is an impressive first book that calls for renewed engagement with established critical approaches and opens up intriguing new avenues of research.’ — Charlotte Baker, French Studies 69.3, July 2015, 430
  • ‘A cultural interpretation that often transcends its focus on the postcolonial project in order to raise important questions regarding the work of criticism more generally... Ultimately, the book is an example of excellent scholarship that leads to a very thought-provoking consideration of the work of critical interpretation more widely.’ — Aedín Ní Loingsigh, H-France 15, November 2015, no. 163
  • ‘Une problématique intéressante et une contribution pertinente construite sur des travaux théoriques majeurs et un corpus littéraire et cinématographique qui demeurent d’actualité.’ — Parfait Bonkoungou, French Review 89.3, 2016, 13-14
  • ‘Indeed, the monograph convincingly demonstrates that the political and the aesthetic interact in complex and often contradictory ways in a fictional text, with Bishop effectively highlight- ing a system by which political readings are inevitably assigned more value in scholarship... A welcome contribution to the field of postcolonial criticism.’ — Kathryn Mara, Research in African Literatures 47.4, Winter 2017, 188-89

Africa's Lost Classics: New Histories of African Cinema
Edited by Lizelle Bisschoff and David Murphy
Moving Image 5•1 November 2014

  • ‘This is a well-written book that draws attention to those African films and filmmakers that have suffered most from a lack of distribution. Its mission, to renew scholarly and popular interest in African cinema, makes it an invaluable addition to the field of film studies.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.3, July 2015
  • ‘Much of the work of this volume is archaeological, seeking to surpass extant Anglophone knowledge of African film and its premises. Since the emergence of African film criticism in the late 1980s/early 1990s... ‘African cinema’ seemed to refer to sub-Saharan, Francophone film, leaving us the impression that it was born in 1962 with Ousmane Sembène’s Borom Sarret. These essays dispel that misprision.’ — Victoria S. Steinberg, French Review 89.3, 2016, 15

Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond
Edited by Elisa Bizzotto and Stefano Evangelista
Studies In Comparative Literature 44•25 May 2018

  • ‘The MHRA's recent commitment to publishing works by or on Arthur Symons was sus=tained in 2017 with selections edited by Nicholas Freeman and by Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick. That commitment continues with a volume of essays on Symons’s life and work, many of which discuss his personal, intellectual, and artistic relations with aspects of European culture... In their short but excellent introduction, Bizzotto and Evangelista argue that their collection, “the first ... entirely dedicated to Symons[,] ... aims to project a new, nuanced view of Symons into the twenty-first century.”’ — Ian Small, English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 62.3, 2019, 599-606
  • ‘Once consecrated by Pater as a successor to Browning, Symons ranged far beyond poetry to practise literary and art criticism, aesthetic theory, drama, travel writing and translation; and he wrote prolifically, if self-cannibalistically, until his death in 1945.’ — Ellen Crowell, Times Literary Supplement 7 June 2019, 35
  • ‘A book devoted to the work of Arthur Symons is timely and much needed; and this carefully fashioned and integrated collection of essays offers an excellent response to that need... This is a well-crafted collection; a thoughtful and integrated multi- authored study of a writer, and one that has been put together both to confirm his significance to many of our current scholarly preoccupations while simultaneously unsettling what it might mean to think of a writer as ‘central’ to any of those debates.’ — Marion Thain, Comparative Critical Studies 17.1, 2020, 161-64 (full text online)
  • ‘The book is clearly a timely contribution to our knowledge of Symons and represents a significant milestone in his ongoing critical retrieval.’ — Rob Harris, Studies in Walter Pater and Aestheticism 5, 2020, 140-44
  • ‘Gives Symons the meticulous attention that such a pivotal cultural figure deserves. One of the most insightful aspects... is its analysis of the wandering obliqueness of his Decadent perspective as it reflects his philosophical commitment to freedom of expression, experience, and lifestyle.’ — Dennis Denisoff, Victorian Studies 62.4, 2020, 686-88 (full text online)

Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image
Alice Blackhurst
Moving Image 13•10 December 2021

  • ‘IT SITS THERE like a pale gemstone on your lap: the tall, slim, Instagrammable volume you waited for. You hold it close, you hold it tight (bluish-green, mauvish-gray), and you take a quick snapshot with your iPhone. On the cover, a redhead Delphine Seyrig is washing up, slowly massaging the nape of her neck with a striped flannel, an undeniably luscious caress. Quickly, friends ignite small fires under your post. They too know you’re going to read this work on Chantal Akerman, Annie Ernaux, Louise Bourgeois, and Sophie Calle. The title is enticing, promising: Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image. So chic, so niche, so feminist. Le feu!’ — Adèle Cassigneul, Los Angeles Review of Books 4 May 2023
  • ‘Her corpus is comprised of four artists, all women, with a chapter devoted to each: Chantal Akerman, Annie Ernaux, Louise Bourgeois, and Sophie Calle. [...] Her four artists are a formidable group to consider together, and I applaud attention to a sampling of these fascinating works: Akerman’s Je tu il elle and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Ernaux’s Passion simple and Se Perdre; Bourgeois’s soft sculptures, as well as some ofher bronzes and plaster works, and her Insomnia Drawings; and Calle’s Suite vénitienne, Douleur exquise and Prenez soin de vous. Blackhurst’s project embraces theoretical positivity that rests on citation of Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy, philosophers who bring creative positive energy to reimagining thought.’ — Maureen Turim, H-France 23 (August 2023), no. 138

Adapted Voices: Transpositions of Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit and Queneau’s Zazie dans le métro
Armelle Blin-Rolland
Transcript 2•22 July 2015

  • ‘Overall, this study displays great skill in the handling of diverse materials across different media, proposing convincing readings of specific works and transpositions within a persuasive overall argument about the centrality of ‘voice’ to debates around adaptation.’ — Douglas Smith, Irish Journal of French Studies 16, 2016

A Self-Administered Poison: The System and Functions of Soviet Censorship
Arlen Blyum
Special Lecture Series 5•1 December 2003

  • ‘The title of this marvellous little book relates both to Soviet propaganda and to the Soviet censorship system in general... This well-translated booklet will, I hope, stimulate more Western scholars to work in this fascinating field.’ — Martin Dewhirst, Slavonic and East European Review 84.2, 2006, 319-20 (full text online)

Writers' Block: The Paris Antifascist Congress of 1935
Jacob Boas
Legenda (General Series) •19 December 2016

  • ‘[Boas concludes that] this Congress was a 'shining assembly of the princes of the pen' and that it marked the apogee of the Soviet influence in the West, shortly to be eroded by a series of show trials in 1936/38... whereas Western writers suffered no long-term damage to their careers, many Soviet delegates awaited a dire future: Kirshon and Koltsov perished in a GULAG, Babel vanished with- out trace in 1939, and even Boris Pasternak – though surviving the Stalinist era – was eventually denied the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded him in 1985.’ — Jörg Thunecke, International Feuchtwanger Society Newsletter 22, 2017, 66-68
  • ‘Situating his subject against the menacing backdrop of rising totalitarianism in East and West, Jacob Boas provides a compelling narrative of the five-day congress through a series of short, semi-biographical portraits, or vignettes, of some of the key European intellectuals that took part... The book is exceptionally well written and well researched, drawing on an impressive variety of sources, both published and unpublished, in Russian, French, German, Dutch, English, and Spanish. What emerges is a captivating portrait of the state of European intellectual life in the 1930s.’ — Alastair Hemmens, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 636-37 (full text online)

Octavio Paz and T. S. Eliot: Modern Poetry and the Translation of Influence
Tom Boll
Legenda (General Series) •10 October 2012

  • ‘What has been missing from Paz scholarship so far are comparative studies that take a larger international approach to a poet who prided himself on his intellectual cosmopolitanism... Tom Boll’s Octavio Paz and T. S. Eliot is a welcome contribution in this direction. It presents a careful and impressively researched study of young Paz’s reflections on Eliot’s poetry, which the former repeatedly acknowledged as one of the most important influences on his early work and on his vision of modernity.’ — Rubén Gallo, Modernism/modernity 21.2, April 2014, 564-65

The Poetry-Film Nexus in Latin America: Exploring Intermediality on Page and Screen
Edited by Ben Bollig and David M. J. Wood
Moving Image 11•23 February 2022

Crossing Fields in Modern Spanish Culture
Edited by Federico Bonaddio and Xon de Ros
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003

  • ‘Federico Bonaddio and Xon de Ros have put together a very useful series of short and punchy articles which span over a hundred and fifty years of Spanish culture, from the 1860s to the present day... Without doubt this collection would make an excellent addition to any university library. The essays on canonical texts may very well prove invaluable to undergraduate students while those on lesser-known writers, artists, and cinematographers will surely fulfil the same function for postgraduates and the academic community in general.’ — Jean Andrews, Modern Language Review 101.3, July 2006, 876-77 (full text online)

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

Culture, Censorship and the State in Twentieth-Century Italy
Edited by Guido Bonsaver and Robert Gordon
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2005

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)

Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written
Guido Bonsaver
Italian Perspectives 4•1 November 2000

Laforgue, Philosophy, and Ideas of Otherness
Sam Bootle
Research Monographs in French Studies 54•25 May 2018

  • ‘This is the first full-length study of Laforgue to be published in English since Anne Holmes’s Jules Laforgue and Poetic Innovation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). For all that anglophone scholarship has contributed in the intervening twenty-five years to the critical picture of a poet best known for his pioneering vers libre, it has lacked the sustained depth and breadth of attention that Sam Bootle’s excellent monograph offers... Through its own openness to Laforgue’s intellectual eclecticism, this book offers a necessary and compelling account of a poet far more widely recognized for his formal experimentation than for his very particular brand of culture critique.’ — Claire White, French Studies 73.3, July 2019, 471-72 (full text online)
  • ‘Ecco qui la monografia di un giovane ricercatore incentrata sulla presenza della filosofia tedesca e orientale nella produ- zione di Jules Laforgue. Lo studio è così convincente che un suo capitolo, volto in lingua francese, è entrato a far parte di un recentissimo numero (2, 2017) della “Revue d’Histoire littéraire de la France” coordinato da Henri Scepi e dedicato a Laforgue, Poésie et Philosophie. A fine volume, l’indice dei nomi, concetti e titoli evi- denzia che, in questo luogo, l’indagine è di più ampio spettro, coinvolgendo sia l’opera in versi che l’opera in prosa di Jules Laforgue.’ — Alessandra Marangoni, Studi francesi 188, 2020, 383
  • ‘Bootle’s fine monograph brings us fresh and valuable perspec- tives on Laforgue’s infinitely intriguing poetry, prose, and, above all, philosophical engagement with the world.’ — Alexandra K. Wettlaufer, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 726-27 (full text online)

Fiction as History: Resistance and Complicities in Angolan Postcolonial Literature
Dorothée Boulanger
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 58•8 October 2022

Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I: Dreams of Knowledge
Malcolm Bowie
Legenda (General Series) vol 1 of 2•4 December 2013

  • ‘Only someone with Bowie’s exquisite powers of expression and formidably focused, well-stocked mind could home in so closely on the multilevelled play of thought in some of the most difficult modern writers, and especially on the places where their work crosses aesthetic boundaries... It is therefore a huge treat to be able to revel in the publication of his Selected Essays, impeccably edited by Alison Finch and beautifully produced by Legenda... Even in the space of a short review, Bowie’s writing offers both pleasure and intense mental stimulation. For readers old and new, there are marvels in store in these two magnificent volumes.’ — Michael Sheringham, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 422-23
  • ‘These two volumes can only add to our sense of [Bowie's] importance... Criticism like this is clearly so much more than criticism: it is an engagement with the act of creation that is brought back to creation itself. These two volumes are full of brilliance and insight and deftly communicated and thus infectious pleasure.’ — Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement 5805, 4 July 2014, 21
  • ‘His readings are always marked by a resistance to easy answers that would attempt to reduce or deny the complexity of the text under analysis; the role of the critic is to illuminate that complexity, giving close attention to the way the text functions and how it guides the reader to a range of potential interpretive moves. While he is a highly trustworthy guide through the intricacies of the text, as he himself writes in an essay on Mallarmé, 'somehow the passage through imbricated levels of utterance towards some final state of achieved propositional clarity is never quite the point' (I: 152).’ — Joseph Acquisto, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
  • ‘How Verdi moves Shakespeare’s Othello around the globe, finding the mental ‘fingerprint’ in Winnicott, introducing Judith Butler, deciphering Stéphane Mallarmé, exploring brevity in Proust (yes), Liszt’s relationship with Wagner, ‘that most exhausting of sons-in-law’: these are just a few of the subjects considered with such zest by Malcolm Bowie, who was a critic of immense talent.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Higher Education Supplement 1 January 2015, 63
  • ‘Evidence abounds in these pieces of Bowie’s keen appetite for intrinsically difficult subject-matter. Indeed, his ability to sustain his critical nerve in the handling of complex material was to become a hallmark of his achievement... Yet alongside this intensity of engagement with serious subject-matter, we also see the poise and panache of a critic who was so evidently at home with textual composition.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 228-29 (full text online)

Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie II: Song Man
Malcolm Bowie
Legenda (General Series) vol 2 of 2•4 December 2013

  • ‘Only someone with Bowie’s exquisite powers of expression and formidably focused, well-stocked mind could home in so closely on the multilevelled play of thought in some of the most difficult modern writers, and especially on the places where their work crosses aesthetic boundaries... It is therefore a huge treat to be able to revel in the publication of his Selected Essays, impeccably edited by Alison Finch and beautifully produced by Legenda... Even in the space of a short review, Bowie’s writing offers both pleasure and intense mental stimulation. For readers old and new, there are marvels in store in these two magnificent volumes.’ — Michael Sheringham, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 422-23
  • ‘These two volumes can only add to our sense of [Bowie's] importance... Criticism like this is clearly so much more than criticism: it is an engagement with the act of creation that is brought back to creation itself. These two volumes are full of brilliance and insight and deftly communicated and thus infectious pleasure.’ — Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement 5805, 4 July 2014, 21
  • ‘Bowie’s style appeals both to generalist and specialist readers; his clarity makes it possible for all to follow the argument even in his more technical writings, while the sharpness of his insights make his pieces for general audiences appealing to specialists as well. His writing always strikes a balance between sophistication and accessibility, often with a dose of wit (see especially his delightful self-review of Proust Among the Stars [II: 203-6]), allowing us to travel with him through our own areas of expertise and amateur interest.’ — Joseph Acquisto, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
  • ‘How Verdi moves Shakespeare’s Othello around the globe, finding the mental ‘fingerprint’ in Winnicott, introducing Judith Butler, deciphering Stéphane Mallarmé, exploring brevity in Proust (yes), Liszt’s relationship with Wagner, ‘that most exhausting of sons-in-law’: these are just a few of the subjects considered with such zest by Malcolm Bowie, who was a critic of immense talent.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Higher Education Supplement 1 January 2015, 63
  • ‘Evidence abounds in these pieces of Bowie’s keen appetite for intrinsically difficult subject-matter. Indeed, his ability to sustain his critical nerve in the handling of complex material was to become a hallmark of his achievement... Yet alongside this intensity of engagement with serious subject-matter, we also see the poise and panache of a critic who was so evidently at home with textual composition.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 228-29 (full text online)

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

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)

Artifice and Invention in the Spanish Golden Age
Edited by Stephen Boyd and Terence O'Reilly
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 3•1 November 2014

The Art of Cervantes in Don Quixote: Critical Essays
Edited by Stephen Boyd, Trudi L. Darby and Terence O'Reilly
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 27•23 September 2019

  • ‘El libro constituye pues, en mi opinión, un aporte significativo y novedoso del cervantismo británico para el estudio y la reevaluación de la obra maestra cervantina.’ — Ruth Fine, Hispanic Research Journal 21.4, 2020, 463-66 (full text online)
  • ‘A welcome addition to the libraries of Cervantes scholars.’ — John T. Cull, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.4, 2021, 667-68

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

The Cinema of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub
Edited by Martin Brady and Helen Hughes
Moving Image 14•22 April 2023

Image and Word: Reflections of Art and Literature
Edited by Antonella Braida and Giuliana Pieri
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

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

Rethinking Juan Rulfo’s Creative World: Prose, Photography, Film
Edited by Dylan Brennan and Nuala Finnegan
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 14•1 September 2016

Anglo-German Interactions in the Literature of the 1890s
Patrick Bridgwater
Legenda (General Series) •1 August 1999

  • ‘The author is to be congratulated for shedding new light on a wide range of Anglo-German cross-currents... His study weaves a multi-faceted web of historical and inter-personal connections, and is at its best when it forges links between the approaches of different authors and diverse forms of art.’ — Susanne Stark, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 523-4 (full text online)
  • ‘This well-documented volume provides new insights into the key social and cultural issues of the 1890s, including the truth and morality of artistic writing.’ — Crocker and Womack, The Year's Work in English Studies 2000, 532

The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in ‘Minor’ Italian Literature
Simone Brioni
Italian Perspectives 33•11 September 2015

  • ‘A very welcome and significant contribution to the growing field of Italian postcolonial studies... offering a convincing in-depth textual analysis of a specifically postcolonial literature (though many of his insights could usefully also be stretched out to apply to the wider ‘migration’ field), as well as contributing an important linguistic study, which draws Translation Studies into productive proximity with a potential transcultural turn in Italian Studies in general.’ — Emma Bond, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 524-25 (full text online)
  • ‘inserisce pienamente all'interno degli studi postcoloniali che negli ultimi vent'anni hanno iniziato a interessare la critica letteraria italiana. Attraverso l'analisi di un corpus eterogeneo di testi, Brioni esamina il ruolo che nel grande quadro della letteratura nazionale italiana ha la letteratura italo-somala, cioè scritta in italiano da autori e autrici italiani che provengono dalla Somalia, o le cui origini familiari sono somale.’ — Serena Alessi, Incontri 31.2, 2016, 152-54
  • ‘A new and original analysis... From how the Somali writers describe race and colour it is, in fact, possible to start a reflection that, from the colonial adventures and through the racial laws of 1938 and the apparent neglect of the colonies after World War II, reaches contemporary Italy and the current problems with racism.’ — Daniele Comberiati, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 2016, 247-49
  • ‘The postcolonial and transnational perspective of this work... calls for fresh and stimulating elaborations, making it a com- pelling reading also for readers who are not well acquainted with the body of literature here analysed.’ — Lorenzo Mari, Interventions 2 September 2016 (full text online)
  • ‘Una delle questioni più rilevanti risulta essere sicuramente quello del colore della pelle: particolare importanza viene data da Brioni ai personaggi meticci presenti nei diversi romanzi presi in esame e che diventano sempre più numerosi nel corso delle successive pubblicazioni. Questi testimoniano la presenza di una problematica culturale che era rimasta relegata nella penombra della memoria storica del colonialismo italiano.’ — Michele Pandolfo, Between VI.11, May 2016
  • ‘The Somali Within is an innovative volume that discusses the Somali-Italian encounter, from the colonial period to the subsequent historical events intertwining the histories of Somalia and Italy well into their postcolonial present... Brioni’s volume is indeed a much needed and complex contribution to the study of Italian Somali literature which engages masterfully with these texts while redefining multiple theoretical problems.’ — Elena Benelli, Italian Studies Online, 3 October 2018 (full text online)
  • ‘Simone Brioni’s The Somali Within signals perhaps a new direction in the field of Italian migration literature in Italy... A valuable resource to scholars of Italian, minor, post-colonial, and migration literatures as well as those interested in how Italy’s colonial past can help explain contemporary views in Italy of language, race, and identity.’ — Francesca Minonne, Quaderni d'Italianistica 38.2, 2018, 277-79
  • ‘Rich in its theoretical approaches, Brioni’s study will be of immense interest to scholars of contemporary Italian culture, Italian postcolonialism and, indeed, to anyone interested in the ongoing debates surrounding ‘minor literature.’’ — Renata Redford, Italica 93.4, Winter 2016, 849-51

Race and the Unconscious: Freudianism in French Caribbean Thought
Celia Britton
Research Monographs in French Studies 12•1 November 2002

  • ‘In this original, succinct, and highly relevant book, Celia Britton ... traces the various distortions and reformulations of Freudian thought within the Antillean context. ... The book combines intricate close reading with in-depth knowledge of the psychoanalytic field, and this brief but punchy sequence of arguments successfully points the way towards further questioning and research in a rich and complex area.’ — Jane Hiddleston, Modern Language Review 100.2, 2005, 515 (full text online)
  • ‘Fascinating essay ... Britton does not so much draw a conclusion as bring the argument to a point of (provisional) closure. But it is equally her triumph to be in a position to point to certain stable notions.’ — Belinda Jack, French Studies LVIII.3, 2004, 438-9
  • ‘A succinct, tightly-argued study... Britton's reading of this already much-interpreted and misinterpreted text [Peau noire, masques blancs] is complex and original.’ — Sam Haigh, Journal of Romance Studies 6.3, 2006, 127-35

Perspectives on Culture and Politics in the French Antilles
Celia Britton
Selected Essays 4•25 May 2018

  • ‘Engagingly written and meticulously argued at every turn, Britton’s essays reveal unexpected dimensions in her primary archives and offer challenging arguments on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the French Caribbean... Although Britton has an abiding passion for Glissant’s work, she never lets this interest overshadow the singularities of her other authors. This careful sensitivity is characteristic of the masterful readings Britton provides in her provocative new collection.’ — Justin Izzo, French Studies 73.2, April 2019, 329-30 (full text online)
  • ‘Les analyses abordées sont très attentives et riches en éléments qui peuvent constituer le point de départ d’autres études.’ — Emanuela Cacchioli, Studi francesi 189, 2019, 616-17

History Painting and Narrative: Delacroix's 'Moments'
Peter Brooks
Special Lecture Series 2•1 February 1999

  • unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxvi.4, 2000, 450
  • ‘Suggestive and persuasive... As Brooks candidly points out, this is the very style of book illustration, from the great lithographs of the Romantic era down to children's story-books of the 1920s and well beyond.’ — David Bellos, French Studies LIV.4, 2000, 523
  • ‘Shows the cultural influence of particular paintings during our period and beyond.’ — John Whittaker, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 62, 2000, 169
  • unsigned notice, Gazette des Beaux-Arts Octobre, 1999, 24

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

Geometry and Jean Genet: Shaping the Subject
Joanne Brueton
Research Monographs in French Studies 61•23 February 2022

Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile
Carmen Bugan
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2013

  • ‘This book is a marvellous accumulation of insights and openings into Heaney’s work in the context of his affinities with the four East European poets with whom he shares an acute awareness that history is ‘the mother of culture’, as Brodsky put it in a comment on Herbert. In the minutiae of her study she has provided Heaney students with a valuable resource that will be challenging to surpass.’ — Gerry Smyth, Modern Poetry in Translation 2013 no. 3, October 2013, 106-11
  • ‘Though many critics have mentioned their influence, Carmen Bugan’s monograph is the first to offer a detailed, in-depth study of Heaney’s relationship with East European poets... This is a very good book, a massively and precisely documented scholarly study, written by someone who has a consummate knowledge of her subject.’ — Adolphe Haberer, The European English Messenger 22.2, 2013, 82-85
  • ‘A well-documented and insightful study of one of the few aspects of Seamus Heaney’s work that still needs attention. As Irish studies are becoming increasingly comparative and intercultural, this is a very welcome addition to the academic discussion on Seamus Heaney’s work and on Irish literature in general.’ — Florence Impens, Irish Studies Review 2014
  • ‘Bugan's book demonstrates just how productive cultural exchange between poets East and West can be. She shows how Heaney borrows the concept of exile - a Cold War topos par excellence - and successfully recasts it in the Irish context, imbuing his work with an ethical complexity and self-awareness that continues to resonate with readers from all corners of the globe.’ — Connor Doak, Slavic and East European Journal 58.2, Summer 2014, 166-67
  • ‘A densely researched and lucid study of a poetic congeniality that Heaney experienced with four East European poets... Published in the year that saw the death of this most influential of contemporary poets, it represents a fitting tribute to Heaney’s relational poetics.’ — Rui Carvalho Homem, Translation and Literature 23.3, 2014, 412-16

Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s
Edited by Anna Cento Bull and Adalgisa Giorgio
Italian Perspectives 12•17 January 2006

  • ‘An excellent analysis of the 1970s... important new insights into the anni di piombo.’ — Liz Wren-Owens, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 213-14 (full text online)
  • ‘Each of these essays confirms that terrorism is an ineluctable topic in any discussion of the long 1970s... Indeed, the two longest entries in the index to the volume are for ‘terrorism’ and for ‘Moro, Aldo’. Aldo Moro is all over the book, just as he is uncannily omnipresent in Italian culture...’ — Alan O'Leary, Modern Italy 13.3, August 2008, 361-63

The Feminine in the Prose of Andrey Platonov
Philip Bullock
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • ‘The author traces with great clarity the development of Platonov's thinking... This appears to be Legenda's first excursion into the Russian field, and the results are impressive. There are long, carefully analysed quotations in Cyrillic, all fully translated in a way which does justice to Platonov's highly idiosyncratic style.’ — Michael Pursglove, Slavonic and East European Review 84.2, 2006, 314-15 (full text online)
  • ‘Interesting... Although Bullock sets out to concentrate on a single topic (gender) from specific points of view (feminism and psychoanalysis), he admits to his "admiration of the paradoxical nature of [Platonov's] prose", and it is exactly this admiration that prevents the monograph from becoming a single-minded study of just one theme in the prose in question.’ — Anat Vernitski, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 921-23 (full text online)
  • ‘The book is founded on close readings that every scholar of Platonov will want to consult. The formulations are elegant and are likely to be quoted frequently in the scholarly literature... This indispensable book on Platonov is also a compelling study in the value and limits of methodology.’ — Eric Naiman, Russian Review 68.4, 2009, 693-94
  • ‘Philip Bullock’s important new book on Andrei Platonov energetically elaborates what it promises at its outset: a feminist reading of Platonov’s most significant prose works... an eloquent and insightful investigation into a distinctly unsettled element in Platonov’s worldview. Bullock follows earlier studies of gender relations and sexuality in Platonov by Eric Naiman, Eliot Borenstein, and Valerii Podoroga but offers a far more extensive and synthetic account of the oeuvre.’ — Thomas Seifrid, Slavic Review 69.1, Spring 2010, 236-37
  • ‘(notice in Japanese)’ — Susumu Nonaka, Bulletin of the Japanese Association of Russian Scholars 38, 2006, 143-46
  • ‘(notice in Russian)’ — Tat’iana Krasavchenko, Literaturnovedenie 1 (2007), 124-32

Isak Dinesen Reading Søren Kierkegaard: On Christianity, Seduction, Gender, and Repetition
Mads Bunch
Germanic Literatures 13•3 April 2017

  • ‘The claim is that Dinesen’s reading of and interest in Kierkegaard are neglected within Dinesen research. Although various scholars have analysed certain texts in the light of Kierkegaard, I think Bunch is right. There has been no in-depth study of Kierkegaard’s significance for Dinesen prior to his book. Hence, [this book] is a valuable contribution to a more extensive understanding and documentation of the textual relation between the two Danish authors.’ — Tone Selboe, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 904-06 (full text online)

Fragments of Impegno
Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 9•31 January 2002

Two Old French Satires on the Power of the Keys: L'Escommeniement au lecheor and Le Pardon de foutre
Edited by Daron Burrows
Research Monographs in French Studies 18•4 February 2005

  • ‘The first of the two works edited here was published only in 1844; the second has never been edited until now... That these works should be known is undeniable. If it is unnecessary, or perhaps futile, to speak of their literary value, they are clearly interesting for other reasons. In particular, should anyone still need assurance that religion and the Church were fair game for medieval satirists, this volume should lay those doubts to rest.’ — Norris J. Lacy, French Review 82.1, 2009, 150-51

Performing Medieval Text
Edited by Ardis Butterfield, Henry Hope and Pauline Souleau
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2017

  • ‘Collectively, these studies effectively demonstrate the necessity for, and advantage of, an understanding of performance that transcends traditional academic boundaries and the volume, overall, serves as a solid exemplar of how to approach doing so.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.2, April 2019, 248 (full text online)
  • ‘An ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of performance in medieval European culture. Recognizing the ‘complex terminological web’ spun round the terms performance and performativity, the volume acknowledges and accepts performance as a ‘contested concept’. It also, importantly, recognizes the historical contingency of performance as an idea... The contributing essays illustrate both the ubiquity of performance in medieval culture and the very different ways it manifests in and through text, itself broadly conceived as manuscript, image, written word, and musical note.’ — Clare Wright, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 525-526 (full text online)
  • ‘This thought-filled and thought-provoking volume offers a polyphony of perspectives on, and examples of, medieval performance.’ — Blake Gutt, French Studies 73.4, October 2019, 622-23 (full text online)
  • ‘While these essays are likely to be read individually by specialists in their various fields, a reader of the whole volume will be rewarded with an enriched and nuanced understanding of the concepts of “performance” and “text,” and of the explanatory reach of the field of performance studies.’ — Anne Stone, Speculum 96.2, 2021, 482-84

Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France
Emily Butterworth
Research Monographs in French Studies 21•24 May 2006

  • ‘Emily Butterworth’s thoughtful and elegantly argued study... makes an important contribution to that burgeoning area of critical study where literature can never be conceived outside the notion of law, and in this case, the law itself.’ — Henry Phillips, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 852-53 (full text online)
  • ‘Her excellent book will be of interest to anybody concerned with rhetoric, polemic and the fashioning (and unfashioning) of early modern reputations.’ — Timothy Chesters, French Studies 469-70
  • ‘Butterworth’s valuable work clearly shows that slander and satire are linked to other important preoccupations of the time (such as the use of rhetoric and the formation of identity) and brings a welcome focus on three writers, each of whom addresses one of Lucian’s positions: slanderer, audience and victim.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.3 (2009), 351-54

Literary Scholarship in Late Imperial Russia: Rituals of Academic Institutionalization
Andy Byford
Legenda (General Series) •14 November 2007

  • ‘A thoroughly researched, thoughtfully conceptualized, and highly informative book that will hopefully lead to further interest in the remarkable yet in many cases still underrecognized scholarship that emerged just before and after the turn of the twentieth century.’ — Barry P. Scherr, Russian Review 67.3, July 2008, 500-01
  • ‘This elegantly written account of the development of Russian literary scholarship is distinctive for its focus on academics and university professors (kabinetnye uchenye) rather than the more familiar, civic-minded criticism associated with the names of Chernyshevskii or Belinskii... it affords a number of extremely valuable insights that are highly pertinent for the student of Russian intellectual culture more broadly.’ — Frances Nethercott, Revolutionary Russia 22.1, 2009, 97-99
  • ‘Byford’s monograph makes two extremely important systemic contributions. First, it is part of a process of reassessment of the Russian nineteenth century, whereby cultural historians attempt to step out of the teleological shadow cast by the gargantuan events of the early twentieth century, and indeed, to redress the methodological blindspots that grew from the Soviet era; second, Byford also joins those few (in the UK, largely Bakhtin Circle-oriented Russianists) who strive to contextualize the insights of early twentieth-century Russian literary theorists.’ — Carol Adlam, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 620-21 (full text online)
  • ‘Ces quelques remarques n'enlèvent rien à la qualité de cet ouvrage, le premier à aborder les études littéraires en Russie sous l'angle des processus d'institutionnalisation et qui, à ce titre, constitue une étude véritablement pionnière.’ — Catherine Depretto, Cahiers du Monde Russe 2010, 794-96

Orality and Literacy in Modern Italian Culture
Edited by Michael Caesar and Marina Spunta
Italian Perspectives 14•24 May 2006

  • ‘Other strands link the twelve essays: one centres on the idea that 'voice' is something vulnerable and short-lived, while another focuses on the 'hierarchy' implicit in the relationship between orality and literacy. Both are demonstrated, for instance, when 'folk', 'women's' and 'youth' cultures are 'textualised' and thus potentially destroyed, rather than preserved, in writing, leading to the hypothesis that 'orality' is, essentially, irreproducible as 'literacy'.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.2, 2010, 247-48

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

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)

Leopardi's Nymphs: Grace, Melancholy, and the Uncanny
Fabio A. Camilletti
Italian Perspectives 28•4 December 2013

  • ‘La nuova e apparentemente inusuale costellazione concettuale che fa da impalcatura al libro si dimostra capace di portare alla luce, proprio nel suo essere lievemente sfasata rispetto alle categorie normalmente associate a Leopardi, risvolti inattesi tra le pieghe di un pensiero e di una poesia su cui pure si è venuta depositando una bibliografia sterminata. Per gli snodi teorici e problematici che evidenzia, per i confronti che intavola, il libro si rivela una lettura decisamente appassionante, dove anche le divagazioni più ardite non mancano di trovare spazio e giustificazione all’interno della tesi più generale che le inquadra.’ — Alessandra Aloisi, Oblio IV.16, January 2015, 111-13
  • ‘Camilletti not only convincingly answers the question of why Leopardi’s work still speaks to us so powerfully, but also demonstrates the need to reconfigure our understanding of the literary past and tradition in order to follow Walter Benjamin’s advice and 'brush history against the grain'.’ — Damiano Benvegnù, Annali d'Italianistica 32, 2014, 638-40
  • ‘Il saggio di Camilletti è il frutto maturo del profondo rinnovamento che gli studi leopardiani hanno vissuto negli ultimi anni, con l’apertura a diversi e inediti orizzonti interpretativi. Molto ci sarebbe da dire sulla ricchezza di letture e di analisi testuali, sempre puntuali, che spaziano dai testi poetici alla prosa filosofica, dagli scritti privati a quelli eruditi. Il lavoro di Camilletti non è di quelli che si possano circoscrivere a un territorio, piccolo o grande che sia; esso delinea invece un percorso dalle molte ramificazioni che mette in gioco, attraversando l’intera opera leopardiana, profonde tensioni e densi nuclei problematici.’ — Franco d'Intino, La Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana 118.2, December 2014, 668-70
  • ‘Leopardi studies have undergone a profound renewal in recent years, opening up the prospect of different, unprecedented, interpretative horizons. Fabio A. Camilletti’s monograph makes a substantial contribution to this renewal.’ — Franco d'Intimo, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 881-82 (full text online)

Classical Rhetoric and the German Poet: 1620 to the Present
Anna Carrdus
Legenda (General Series) •1 January 1997

  • ‘The tone is confident, the style lucid. Within a few pages the reader senses how purposeful the exposition is, and how well thought out. But what makes Anna Carrdus's performance so assured is her obvious commitment to poetry itself... It concludes with a wish that may sound audacious, yet which the undertaking wholly justifies: 'My findings will, I hope, open up an opportunity for scholarship to revise current perceptions of the history of German poetry.' She has already revised them herself, single-handed.’ — Peter Skrine, Modern Language Review 94.1, 1999, 243-5 (full text online)
  • ‘Die Analysen sind treffich, und die Er≥rterungen zum literarhistorischen und poetologischen Kontext zeugen von groôer Kennerschaft.’ — Joachim Knape, Germanistik 41.2, 2000, 419