Published March 2000
Expressivism: The Vicissitudes of a Theory in the Writings of Proust and Barthes
Johnnie Gratton
Research Monographs in French Studies 6
- ‘Refreshing... This book is a must for graduates coming new to this debate and to these authors, and for the wider reader it is an engaging and polished addition to an excellent series.’ — Timothy Mathews, French Studies LVI.3, 2002, 421-2
- ‘Gratton's conclusion is that we should remember that words have matted, contradictory histories, to guard ourselves against believing wholeheartedly in unmediated expression... Repays attentive reading.’ — Ingrid Wassenaar, Fabula April, 2001
- ‘Nel corso della sua attenta analisi.’ — Antonella Arrigoni, Studi francesi XLVI, 2002, 2
Published December 2001
All Puns Intended: The Verbal Creation of Jean-Pierre Brisset
Walter Redfern
Research Monographs in French Studies 9
- ‘Brisset had been a good soldier, and he was a model railwayman: there was no hint during the working day of the oddity of what he was up to after hours... The fact that frogs turned out to speak what was easily recognizable as French seems at no point to have fazed Brisset, and since the original human language has willy-nilly to be universal, all other known languages must be capable of being derived from French, which was pleasing news for a Frenchman.’ — John Sturrock, Times Literary Supplement 18 January, 2002, 41
- ‘What indeed can one make of this autodidact who mused about etymology without mastering Latin and about human origins without reading Darwin? Brisset can readily be dismissed as arrogant, Gallocentric, sex-obsessed or simply unreadable. Yet Redfern finds in his work a splendid proof of the instability of language, and also a fine pretext for learned digressions about puns and myths and free associations and what Ponge called 'amphibiguité'... The main pleasure given by this book actually comes from Redfern's own style, which is intelligent, energetic, quirky and never too self-indulgent.’ — Peter Low, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 24/2, 2003, 51-2
- ‘Walter Redfern ... a particulièrement raison de s'appuyer sur les travaux les plus sérieux de ces dernières années pour situer enfin la place de Brisset et l'impact de ses ouvrages parmi les créateurs littéraires de la fin du XIXe et de la première moitié du XXe siècle. ... Un bonne bibliographie sert d'appui à cette monographie intelligemment projetée.’ — Jacques-Philippe Saint-Gérand, Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France November 3, 2004, 732
- ‘Redfern's treatment is interesting and wide-ranging, but interesting because it is wide-ranging. He shows that Brisset has interested a lot of interesting people, then sums him up: 'Brisset is a trampoline: to take off from and to come back to.' I think he is half right: one may be glad that he existed to provoke this book.’ — Stephen F. Noreiko, French Studies 57.2, 2003, 255-56
Published May 2002
Saint-Evremond: A Voice from Exile
Denys Potts
Research Monographs in French Studies 10
- ‘In the introduction to this little book, Denys Potts gives an excellent introduction to Saint-Evremond's career and writings... Most of the space in the letters is given over to financial details of a Balzacian kind, but in between these come flashes of the wit and man-about-town, nostalgic moments, thoughts about literature, reflections on age.’ — Peter France, Times Literary Supplement 1 November, 2002
- ‘This book is a delight on a number of levels... The exemplary introduction and notes by Denys Potts offer far more than one might expect: not only do we learn about the contents of the letters themselves, but we are also given an erudite yet highly readable account of Saint-Evremond's life and his importance as both thinker and stylist... Invaluable documentary material for Saint-Evremond scholars and a fine introduction to a master of the epistolary art.’ — Nicholas Hammond, Modern Language Review 98.4, 2003, 986-7 (full text online)
- ‘These letters seek help in pressing for private annuity payments long overdue. Those to his fellow-Norman Mme de Gouville are embroidered with self-ironic 'galanteries' and with jokes about the tight-fistedness of their province. Letters to the abbé, an amateur scientist and inventor, playfully evoke debt-recovery in terms of Cartesian mechanics.’ — Robin Howells, Huguenot Society Proceedings 28.1, 2003, 121
- ‘A particularly full and illuminating account of the life and thought of [Potts's] elusive subject... The letters afford a kind of coda to the biography that leads into them.’ — Richard Parish, French Studies LVIII.1, 2004, 105-6
- ‘This volume also provides a very useful introduction, which gives an overview of Saint-Evremond's life and ideas and the context in which the letters were written.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.2, April 2004, 238
Published July 2014
Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny
Cécile Bishop
Research Monographs in French Studies 41
- ‘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
Published December 2022
Essay as Enabler in Yves Bonnefoy: Creating the Good Reader
Layla Roesler
Research Monographs in French Studies 67