Published December 2006

Bakhtin between East and West: Cross-Cultural Transmission
Karine Zbinden
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Zbinden exhibits considerable theoretical insight and a capacity for nuanced analysis throughout the work.’ — R. Coates, Slavonic and East European Review 87.2, 2009, 344-46 (full text online)
  • ‘Exceptional new work being produced on the Russian polymath, some of the most interesting of which was coming out of the University of Sheffield, whose Bakhtin Centre supports the work of an outstanding group of language theorists... Karine Zbinden and Alastair Renfrew are two of the excellent younger scholars from the Bakhtin Centre.’ — Michael Bernard-Donals, Slavic Review 68.1, Spring 2009, 193-95

Towards a New Material Aesthetics: Bakhtin, Genre and the Fates of Literary Theory
Alastair Renfrew
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Alastair Renfrew's book offers an intricate and critical reading of what he sees as the decisive moment of origin of European literary theory in order then to fashion from that reading a (post-)theoretical position for our own time.’ — Graham Pechey, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1184-85 (full text online)
  • ‘Genre becomes in Renfrew's treatment of it a useful map for guidance along some of the more intriguing twists and turns in the Bakhtin canon... An important addition to the growing library of Bakhtiniana.’ — Michael Holquist, Slavonic and East European Review 87.1, 2009, 114-15 (full text online)
  • ‘Exceptional new work being produced on the Russian polymath, some of the most interesting of which was coming out of the University of Sheffield, whose Bakhtin Centre supports the work of an outstanding group of language theorists... Karine Zbinden and Alastair Renfrew are two of the excellent younger scholars from the Bakhtin Centre.’ — Michael Bernard-Donals, Slavic Review 68.1, Spring 2009, 193-95

Sublime Worlds: Early Modern French Literature
Emma Gilby
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘In a book which deals with aspects of a certain literary experience, the presence of Pascal alongside Corneille and Boileau here may at first surprise. The overriding concern with cognition and models of communication, however, vindicates his inclusion, and indeed adds a richness to Gilby's already suggestive study... A sensitive, detailed and compelling treatment, challenging several idées reçues along the way.’ — James Ambrose, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 851-52 (full text online)
  • ‘Gilby's theory of the sublime as a movement stressing the horizontality of communication rather than the verticality of loftiness offers new insights and adds to earlier work on sublimity by Jules Brody and Marc Fumaroli.’ — C. J. Gossip, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 30.1, 2009, 49-50
  • ‘Gilby’s conception of the sublime is neatly mirrored in her own work, which offers a series of close, nuanced readings that in turn suggest greater insights into the century more generally.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011
  • ‘A compelling case for seeing the seventeenth-century French reception of the Longinian sublime as a broader, deeper, and more varied development than is commonly assumed.’ — Richard Scholar, French Studies 65.1, January 2011, 92-93

Published February 2007

Thinking with Shakespeare: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Essays
Edited by William Poole and Richard Scholar
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘In his witty, deeply learned and humane "Last Word", Nuttall reminds us that the famous principle of economy in explanation, Ockham's Razor, when applied to Shakespeare's plays, should be renamed "Ockham's Beard", which prompts us to ask of any of Shakespeare's plays, "What else is going on?"... What makes this collection distinctive is that nearly all of these essays focus centrally on genre.’ — Paul Cefalu, Shakespeare Quarterly 59.3, Fall 2008, 345-48
  • ‘Frank Kermode once referred to Nuttall (who died in 2007) as "probably the most philosophically-minded of modern literary critics", and the volume reflects this emphasis... A stimulating collection of pieces, of relevance not just to Shakespeareans but also to anyone with an interest in questions of the nature of literary value.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 118-19

Published August 2007

After Bataille: Sacrifice, Exposure, Community
Patrick ffrench
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘In pursuing Bataille’s legacy ffrench seeks not simply to see where it has got to but makes an invaluable contribution to it.’ — Patrick Crowley, Modern Language Review 105.1, January 2010, 254-55 (full text online)
  • ‘Patrick ffrench’s outstanding study provides multiple, meticulously drawn contexts in which Bataille’s writing and thought emerge in a new light, in terms both of their own development over some three decades and of their relation to other, key intellectual trajectories before, during and after that period... essential reading not only for those interested in Bataille but also for anyone concerned with the intellectual and literary history of twentieth-century France.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 112-13

Published August 2008

Paradox, Aphorism and Desire in Novalis and Derrida
Clare Kennedy
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 71

  • ‘The study makes subtle and illuminating connections between the two writers, avoiding the simplifications of past decades.’ — James Hodkinson, Modern Language Review 105.1, 2010, 206-08 (full text online)

Published October 2008

The Near and Distant God: Poetry, Idealism and Religious Thought from Hölderlin to Eliot
Ian Cooper
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘This is an intellectually distinguished, engagingly written and outstandingly original book, which succeeds admirably in its aim of tracing the close and continuous connection of lyric poetry, philosophical idealism and religious thought from Hölderlin to Eliot... Its achievement is as relevant to theology as it is to German Studies and deserves the widest possible readership.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 110
  • ‘A sophisticated example of how literary studies may benefit from approaches that are theologically and spiritually mindful.’ — Helena M. Tomko, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 512-13 (full text online)
  • ‘This study is densely written (something that should be applauded rather than criticized!) and cogently argued... Intellectually highly rewarding.’ — Rüdiger Görner, Comparative Critical Studies 7.2–3, 2010, 405-08
  • ‘He avoids the pitfall of many comparable studies, in which poems are merely mined for their philosophical content--a fate that especially Holderlin, Rilke, and Eliot have frequently suffered in the past. His readings of the poems emphasize the process of writing and reading--in these processes, transcendence can be experienced, and the promise of community be enacted. Cooper's fine analytical skills give us many fresh perspectives on a series of major poems.’ — Johannes Wich-Schwarz, Christianity and Literature Autumn 2010
  • ‘What seems like a huge and bold undertaking is impressively achieved... compelling and, at times, beautiful writing.’ — Carly McLaughlin, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 248, 2011, 166-67
  • ‘Cooper succeeds in establishing the centrality of theology to the work of Hölderlin, and in tracing the afterlife of Hölderlin's poetic religiosity he expands our awareness of the prehistory of the high modernist struggle to come to terms with Spirit.’ — Nathaniel Davis, Journal of Modern Literature 35.1, Fall 2011, 196-99

Published December 2008

Platonic Coleridge
James Vigus
Studies In Comparative Literature 15

  • ‘James Vigus's Platonic Coleridge gives a rigorous, scholarly, and fiercely lucid account of the complex, sometimes contradictory, dealings with Plato and the Platonic tradition that quicken Coleridge’s thought. This in itself would be enough to recommend it, but it has still more to offer. It explores more searchingly than any other book I know the issue that Vigus places at the centre of Coleridge’s thought, the question of the proper relationship between poetry and philosophy... This is at once an unusually sharply focused and an unusually suggestive book. It is a fine achievement.’ — Richard Cronin, Modern Language Review 105.1, January 2010, 220-22 (full text online)
  • ‘Vigus's study makes an outstanding contribution. [...] This philosophy of process, rather than product, characterizes the more profitable side of Plato; it is the reward of getting to know him that Vigus makes available in what for me are the best parts of this enlightening study.’ — John Beer, The Coleridge Bulletin n.s. 34, Winter 2009
  • ‘[A] prominent feature is the depth of scholarship. [...] Within the context of recent Coleridge scholarship as well as in the broader conversation about boundaries among disciplines, Platonic Coleridge is important. It explores a rare place, a place where the pathways of philosophy and poetry come together and, for a while, run parallel.’ — William C. Horrell, The Wordsworth Circle 40.4, Autumn 2009
  • ‘Part of Legenda's excellent Studies in Comparative Literature series... Coleridge's response to his readings is clearly described and analysed in this well-written monograph, which should be of interest to all students of Coleridge and the reception of Platonic ideas in English literature.’ — William Baker, The Year's Work in English Studies 2011, 1086-87
  • ‘Vigus’s central point within the volume is that Plato provided a central constructive influence upon Coleridge which has been underestimated by previous critics. ... [A]n exceedingly well crafted piece of philosophical interpretation... a wonderfully strong book which anyone interested in Coleridge’s philosophical writings will find fascinating.’ — Luke Wright, The Year's Work in English Studies 2010
  • ‘This intelligent, enjoyable book is original and stimulating, and ought to help and challenge those scholars who see the poetic and the philosophical as mutually supportive aspects of Coleridge’s thought.’ — David Stewart, The Year's Work in English Studies 2010

Published July 2009

Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy 1969-2009
Edited by Pierpaolo Antonello and Alan O'Leary
Italian Perspectives 18

  • ‘This is a thought-provoking collection that requires the reader to engage with representations and form as critical sites of historical understanding.’ — Derek Duncan, Modern Language Review 106.3, 2011, 889-90 (full text online)
  • ‘For many, the murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 by the BR and the various neofascist bombings have become myths or legendary occurrences ones fraught with profound meaning for the human condition. Even some of the former militants and terrorists — the perpetrators, in other words — have participated in these productions (Moro’s killers, for example). In fact, one cannot help be left with the impression that the artists and the ex-militants are really talking to each other.’ — Leonard Weinberg, Journal of Modern History 84.3 (September 2012), 752-54
  • ‘This broad-ranging collection of fourteen essays is innovative in offering an extremely rich and multi-faceted portrait of this complex topic... makes a real contribution to show how terrorist brutality was expressed, encoded and schematized by the people involved in these dramatic events even before the violent actions became the object of rhetorical analysis.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.4 (October 2012), 490

Published April 2010

Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death: Walter Pater and Post-Hegelianism
Giles Whiteley
Studies In Comparative Literature 20

  • ‘Scholars have long been aware of the importance of acknowledging Pater’s debt to Hegelian philosophy. And many critics of Pater have performed almost obligatory nods towards Hegel’s influence, conceptualized in vague terms, without formulating an understanding of its precise forms. Such critics will now have to engage seriously with Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death, which contains the most scholarly and detailed account of Pater’s Hegelianism to date.’ — Stefano Evangelista, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1133-34 (full text online)
  • ‘In this meticulously researched monograph Giles Whiteley sets himself the expansive task of reading Pater’s entire intellectual project as an extended conversation with Hegel... the case is well made that Pater should be considered a proto-poststructuralist thinker.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.3, June 2012, 361

Hamann's Prophetic Mission: A Genetic Study of Three Late Works against the Enlightenment
Timothy Beech
Bithell Series of Dissertations 34 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 74

Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch
Caitríona Ní Dhúill
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Ni Dhúill's study shines a bright light on the hitherto neglected importance of sex and gender questions in utopian societies. Sex In Imagined Spaces is a cogently argued, beautifully written, and highly original contribution to knowledge in utopia studies and beyond; it not only mobilizes important wider cultural developments for the analysis of literary texts, but also gives a brilliant gender-theoretical spin to the double function of utopian texts as vision and critique.’ — Anna Katharina Schaffner, Germanistik in Ireland 7 (2013), 228-30
  • ‘This excellent monograph tackles the concept of utopia by repositioning it within the fields of literature and creative practice examined through the lens of the gendered body.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
  • ‘This is an excellent book which deals with the relationship between utopian desire, gender relations, and social outcome in a nuanced and intelligent way.’ — Peter Thompson, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 948-49 (full text online)

Dante the Lyric and Ethical Poet: Dante lirico e etico
Edited by Zygmunt G. Barański and Martin McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘The essay by Justin Steinberg deserves emphasis... it makes a significant contribution to modern Dante scholarship. In a well-argued and well-documented approach, Steinberg discusses Dante’s dreams in Vita nova and the author’s use of dreams to explore questions of truth and fiction.’ — Unn Falkeid, Renaissance Quarterly 64.1, Spring 2011, 157-58
  • ‘All in all, then, this is an impressive volume—a shade formidable, I would say, in respect of its user unfriendliness (acres of text on the page and a rather intrusive accumulation of translations and references in the body of the text)—but impressive for all that.’ — John Took, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 290-92 (full text online)

Force from Nietzsche to Derrida
Clare Connors
Legenda (General Series)

Published June 2010

Max Jacob and the Poetics of Play
Anna J. Davies
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 80

Published September 2010

Voices and Veils: Feminism and Islam in French Women's Writing and Activism
Anna Kemp
Research Monographs in French Studies 29

  • ‘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

Diderot and Lessing as Exemplars of a Post-Spinozist Mentality
Louise Crowther
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 78

Published February 2011

Jacques Derrida and the Institution of French Philosophy
Vivienne Orchard
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Orchard’s careful attention to significant details promises to refresh thinking in an important area of theory and philosophy.’ — Sarah Wood, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 581

The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze
Thomas Baldwin
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘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

Published May 2011

Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Liability of Liberty
Bradley Stephens
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Liberty may be a liability, but in Hugo and in Sartre it has two strong, subtle, and surprisingly complementary exponents. For the detail of its analyses and for the breadth of its final perspectives, this volume is, therefore, a welcome addition to the Legenda imprint.’ — Owen Heathcote, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 422-23
  • ‘Bradley Stephens explores unexpected, intriguing connections between Victor Hugo's and Jean-Paul Sartre's visions of liberty in this clearly written study... Brings a unique analysis of Hugo's and Sartre's work, offering insights that may challenge readers to reconsider their previous understandings.’ — Marva A. Barnett, Modern and Contemporary France 20.2, 2012, 281-82
  • ‘Stephen’s work provides equally valuable insights for Hugo and Sartre specialists as it does for students of modern culture. Previous scholarship is pleasingly woven into Stephens’s argument and his writing style is quick and fluid, itself more dynamic as the work progresses.’ — Andrea S. Thomas, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 41.3-4, 2013, 326-28
  • ‘Informed by the latest literary criticism, up to speed with philosophical debates, knowledgeable on secondary literature in English and in French on both Hugo and Sartre... Stephens sets up a dialogue between Hugo, the nineteenth-century writer and Sartre, whom Foucault (in-)famously referred to as ‘a man of the nineteenth century’... This book is excellent on philosophy of language and moral philosophy, and it should be of interest to scholars of either Hugo or Sartre, or both, as well as to post-modernists interested in human experience and freedom.’ — Jean-Pierre Boulé, Sartre Studies International 19.1, 2013, 91-102

Published August 2011

Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism
Edited by David Adams and Galin Tihanov
Legenda (General Series)

Published January 2012

Regarding Lost Time: Photography, Identity, and Affect in Proust, Benjamin, and Barthes
Katja Haustein
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Katja Haustein’s monograph charts new territory in the expanding study of autobiographical writing in the light of photography... this volume will no doubt be of great benefit to specialists of these three seminal authors, as well as to those working in comparative studies.’ — Kathrin Yacavone, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 271-72
  • ‘Katja Haustein undertakes a titanic task: to bring together three bulwarks of twentieth-century intellect, each one so seminal in their own right that even the thought of combining them in one study would seem quixotic. Haustein not only accomplishes the task, but manages to bring out a genuinely comparative account... it is a very useful book to have read, and one which, I am certain, I will return to again and again.’ — Eleni Papargyriou, Comparative Critical Studies 10, 2013, 407-09
  • ‘This book contains several beautiful, thoughtfully chosen illustrations, and is a useful source of information about scholarship in German on Proust... a significant and stimulating contribution to the scholarship on these three important writers.’ — Áine Larkin, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 228-29 (full text online)

Published June 2012

Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize
Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Like the woman to whom it pays tribute, and whose haunting gaze looks out at us from its cover, this volume of essays combines intellectual rigour with humanity, serious purpose with humour, depth of insight with lightness of touch.’ — Julia Waters, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (November 2012), 505-06
  • ‘A powerful and moving reminder of the lineaments and achievements of [Elizabeth Fallaize's] scholarly work. Equally, as critical explorations of a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century narrative artefacts and practices, [these essays] are a pleasure to read, combining to create a collection that is an academic delight and would certainly have delighted the woman to whom it is dedicated.’ — Alex Hughes, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 294-95
  • ‘The chapters which form this scholarly homage... keep the dialogue open with a scholar, teacher, feminist and mentor who spent her life engaging with French literature. Yet, each contribution, particularly those of Michèle le Doeuff, Ursula Tidd and Diana Holmes, offers intellectual stimulation in its own right.’ — France Grenaudier-Klign, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 34.2, 2014, 130-32

Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras and Denis
Laura McMahon
Moving Image 2

  • ‘Makes a persuasive case for the links between these directors... Many of these readings are very sensitive, and the breadth and precision of McMahon’s knowledge of continental philosophy is certainly impressive.’ — Douglas Morrey, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 517-18
  • ‘Cinema and Contact contributes productively to a growing field of film-philosophy exploring the intersections between Nancean philosophy and cinematic aesthetics. McMahon’s work should be of great interest to film scholars looking to introduce themselves to the philosophy of Nancy and the multiplicity of ways that it touches upon and diverges from the embodied and tactile aesthetics of French cinema’ — Kathleen Scott, Frames Cinema Journal Online
  • ‘A hugely promising first book. McMahon’s sophisticated analysis treats the films of Robert Bresson, Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis as generators of theoretical propositions which she puts in critical dialogue with those of the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy... This is as much a contribution to philosophy as it is to film studies.’ — Jo Labanyi, Screen 54.2, Summer 2013
  • ‘Warmly recommended to anyone who is seriously enthusiastic about encounters between cinema and philosophy. It is a highly intelligent and eloquent performance, and certainly an original contribution to the field.’ — Tarja Laine, New Review of Film and Television Studies 11.3, 2013, 390-93
  • ‘Cinema and Contact stages a succinct yet bracing encounter between film and philosophy, each illuminating the other, making an original contribution to the theory of touch in cinema.’ — David Heinemann, Modern Language Review 108.4, October 2013, 1289-90 (full text online)
  • ‘Laura McMahon’s lucid and tightly-organised set of arguments address what might seem at first glance to be a very tricky problem of critical architecture... The convincing way in which significant aspects of the work of these three cineastes are woven together in such an attractive fashion turns the overcoming of the apparent difficulties into a triumph.’ — Geoff Brown, L'Esprit Créateur 53.1, Spring 2013, 167-68
  • ‘While this tome is aimed primarily at film theorists, others may also find its approach to spectatorship thought-provoking and a reasonably effective way of grappling with filmmaking techniques many viewers may be prone to consider as just plain confusing.’ — Joan M. West, French Review 86.6, 2013, 1250-51

Published December 2012

Symbol and Intuition: Comparative Studies in Kantian and Romantic-Period Aesthetics
Edited by Helmut Hühn and James Vigus
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Skilfully planned and structured, the volume offers original research on less familiar material while it lucidly covers most of the essential formulations of the symbol from the late eighteenth century onwards, thus speaking to readers of different backgrounds... It is Hühn and Vigus’s broad conception of the subject that ensures the collection’s originality and secures its unique place among the increasing studies of the symbol.’ — Stephanie Dumke, Angermion 7, 2014, 191-93
  • ‘This rich volume successfully inducts its readers into key aesthetic-philosophical debates around 1800, while at the same time breaking new ground by extending our understanding of the variations and functions of ‘symbol’ and ‘intuition’ within the works of individual writers and thinkers. It also makes meaningful comparisons and connections between texts that have not been discussed together before. The editors have drawn together a wide range of international scholars from the fields of German, English, and philosophy into a timely discussion.’ — James Hodkinson, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 786-88 (full text online)