⌂ See also the home page of the Legenda book series Research Monographs in French Studies

Personal Effects: Reading the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff
Sonia Wilson
Research Monographs in French Studies 27•11 February 2010

  • ‘Wilson’s account is fascinating and throws light upon feminist controversy in late nineteenth-century England and the European continent.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91, 2012, 724

The Choreography of Modernism in France: La Danseuse, 1830-1930
Julie Townsend
Research Monographs in French Studies 28•12 April 2010

  • ‘An engaging and concise chronology of modernism through dance, with the danseuse constituting the correlation between performing, visual, and literary modernisms.’ — Paul Ryan, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 545-46

Voices and Veils: Feminism and Islam in French Women's Writing and Activism
Anna Kemp
Research Monographs in French Studies 29•6 September 2010

  • ‘Voices and Veils is an impressive evaluation of the fraught relationship between Islam, Muslim women, and French feminism... invaluable to students, teachers, and activists alike who desire a deeper understanding of postcolonial French society, of Islamic feminism, of colonial constructions of the Muslim woman, and, finally, of neo-imperial constructions which seek to delineate Muslim women living in the West.’ — Sophie Smith, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1168-69 (full text online)
  • ‘It is often said that we write the books we want to read. Anna Kemp has written a book I would have liked to have written... Both specialists and beginners will learn tremendously from reading this concise and clearly written interdisciplinary study, which should be required reading in courses on French and Francophone literature, migration, world literature, Middle Eastern studies, European studies, and women’s studies. Any serious university library will want to include it in its collection.’ — Anne Donadey, Contemporary Women's Writing 5:3, November 2011, 257-58

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

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

Dreams of Lovers and Lies of Poets: Poetry, Knowledge, and Desire in the Roman de la Rose
Sylvia Huot
Research Monographs in French Studies 31•23 April 2010

  • ‘In addition to its richly suggestive analysis of the complex relationship between sexuality and language in the Rose, Huot's study makes a distinctive contribution to criticism's long-standing quest after meaning in the poem.’ — Helen Swift, Medium Aevum 74, 2010
  • ‘Huot’s argument is lively and cogent. This slim, persuasive book leaves little meaning in any claim that creative immersion in the ancients was unknown until the Renaissance. It gives us a richly polymorphous reading of the Rose.’ — William D. Paden, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 516
  • ‘Sylvia Huot’s elegant study deftly traces how both Guillaume and Jean manipulate earlier authors, particularly Ovid, Boethius, and Virgil, to generate an exploration of the workings of sexual desire, a subject which can only ever be discussed imperfectly and implicitly.’ — Jonathan Morton, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 931-32 (full text online)

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

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

The Livres-Souvenirs of Colette: Genre and the Telling of Time
Anne Freadman
Research Monographs in French Studies 33•10 October 2012

  • ‘Freadman’s own book is elegantly written and delivers analytical acuity in the voice of a reader moved and enriched by her subject, as Colette’s writing deserves.’ — Diana Holmes, French Studies 67.4, October 2013, 575
  • ‘What shines through brightly across the entirety of Friedman's analysis is the sensitivity with which she highlights Colette's narrative intentions... A highly valuable addition to the scholarly activity currently produced on Colette.’ — Eileen M. Angelini, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 34.2, 2014, 125-26
  • ‘A new and convincing account of genre and autobiography in a selection of Colette’s more autobiographical writings... This book will be indispensable for scholars of Colette and those interested in the genre of autobiography.’ — Kathleen Antonioli, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1088-89 (full text online)
  • ‘The rich and varied readings of the material, competently informed by theoretical input, together with acute sensitivity to the corpus, mark out this study as incontournable for Colette scholars.’ — Hélène Stafford, Modern and Contemporary France 22.3, 2014, 407-09
  • ‘Freadman’s book is clearly organized, with English translations following original French quotations, notes at the end of each chapter, bibliography, and index. Given the free-flowing analy- sis and essay-like treatment in general, this is an approach that will be appreciated most by those already familiar with a substantial part of Colette’s extensive corpus; for such readers, Freadman’s rapidly-moving treatment and often ludic touch should provide a good measure of enjoyment.’ — John T. Booker, French Review 88.4, 2014, 272

Furetière's Roman bourgeois and the Problem of Exchange: Titular Economies
Craig Moyes
Research Monographs in French Studies 34•21 December 2012

  • ‘Although this highlighting of the connection between Le Roman bourgeois and the Dictionnaire universel is not new, it provides a stream of stimulating insights, taking the argument far beyond the intertextuality that is usually the limit of critical concern in this area. A chapter on ‘Numismatics’, for instance, moves easily from Furetière’s satire of bourgeois marriage as a model of social and financial exchange, encapsulated in the ‘Tariffe des partis sortables’, by way of the décri of monetary (but also literary) value, to the linguistic ‘gold standard’ that the Académie intended to establish with its dictionary, so alien to Furetière’s own aims.’ — Mark Bannister, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 394-96
  • ‘L’intérêt de cet essai de critique littéraire ne se situe, en effet, non seulement dans sa lecture minutieuse, singulière, souvent ingénieuse du Roman bourgeois dont il souligne bien les pièges et les passionnants replis, mais aussi dans les multiples approches critiques employées tout au long de l’ouvrage.’ — Jean-Alexandre Perras, H-France 14, December 2014, 199

The Subversive Poetics of Alfred Jarry: Ubusing Culture in the Almanachs du Père Ubu
Marieke Dubbelboer
Research Monographs in French Studies 35•30 January 2012

  • ‘The innovative political focus that she provides on Jarry’s œuvre is especially welcome... It is a pleasure to find the Jarry–Bonnard collaboration given thorough analysis... This book expands Jarry’s relevance beyond the literary arena.’ — Jill Fell, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 977-78 (full text online)
  • ‘En raison de la précision et de la justesse des analyses qu’il propose, le livre de Dubbelboer doit donc dès à présent être considéré comme un ouvrage de référence pour quiconque s’intéresse de près à la cosmogonie ubuesque.’ — Karl Pollin, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 42.3-4, Summer 2014, 293-94
  • ‘This cogent, insightful study analyzes the sophisticated collage-based social satire in the critically underrepresented Almanachs du Père Ubu (1898, 1901). Through close readings and archival research, Dubbelboer immerses us in Jarry’s inspired fusion of art and life.’ — Aaron Prevots, French Review 88.2, October 2014, 223

Echo's Voice: The Theatres of Sarraute, Duras, Cixous and Renaude
Mary Noonan
Research Monographs in French Studies 36•1 July 2014

  • ‘Noonan’s book relies on close readings of extracts from the plays that she analyses, although she never loses sight of the importance of performance and the theatre. Noonan uses voice to situate the work of her playwrights in the context of theories of writing, and so is likely to appeal to scholars interested in the ways in which critical or philosophical thought is taken up differently by (women) writers working in a different genre.’ — Martina Williams, French Studies 69.2, April 2015, 262
  • ‘Noonan's fascinating and comprehensive work, solidly grounded in psychoanalytical theory, successfully uncovers the complexities, intentions, and modalities of the audio-vocal theatre she sets out to explore, revealing both the specificity of the authors she addresses and the overarching unity of their focus, as each one purposed to create a new form of auditory theatre.’ — Kelsey L. Haskett, H-France 15, 2015
  • ‘What is particularly appealing is that the emphasis on the materiality of the spoken word that might be enjoyed for its affective and rhythmic qualities indicates a turn towards affective modes of theatre. While studies such as Lehmann’s Post- dramatic Theatre discuss this experiential turn in relation to stage practices, it is here investigated from the border of the text.’ — Cara Berger, New Theatre Quarterly 31.3, August 2015, 296
  • ‘...While the parallels drawn between Sarraute, Duras and Cixous are interesting in their own right, the inclusion of a fourth, more recent playwright, Renaude, also illustrates the productive continu- ation of the experimentation of the earlier generation. For all of these reasons and more, Noonan’s study will be of interest to scholars of theatre and voice, of French women’s writing and of psychoanalytic theories of language, body and gender.’ — Julia Waters, Modern and Contemporary France 2015
  • ‘Mary Noonan’s deeply researched study offers some very provocative thinking about contemporary French theatre... Noonan’s subtle analyses of plays and her carefully researched descriptions of productions make palpable the uncanny ambience that she applauds in these works.’ — Judith Miller, Modern Drama 59.1, Spring 2016
  • ‘A thought-provoking perspective on the plays of four French women writers whose theatrical innovations have largely remained overlooked.’ — Richard J. Gray II, Irish Journal of French Studies 15, 2016, 141-42

Stendhal's Less-Loved Heroines: Fiction, Freedom, and the Female
Maria C. Scott
Research Monographs in French Studies 37•28 May 2013

  • ‘Maria C. Scott’s work can be considered as highly suggestive in the sense that, upon closing the book, one cannot help continuing to contemplate the various hypotheses put forward. Freedom, joy and self-invention are such essential imperatives for Stendhal, who had no qualms in referring to himself as “Mr. Myself,” that one is tempted to extend the book’s premise to his other fictional characters. In itself, this is a powerful testimony to the fact that this critical work has more than earned its place on the shelves among the rich collection of Stendhalian criticism to date.’ — Martine Reid, H-France 14, 2014
  • ‘In this well-documented and cogently argued study Scott seeks to redress the balance [of Stendhal criticism] in favour of a female point of view, citing in her defence Stendhal’s own belief in the inevitable partiality of the reader... Her book should help to make these figures better understood and loved than they have sometimes been in the past.’ — Sheila M. Bell, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 400-01
  • ‘It is literally impossible to imagine the current state of European literary studies in this country without the achievements of Legenda. And within that output, its Research Monographs in French Studies, sponsored by the Society for French Studies, has played a particularly cherished role... The thirty-seventh volume in the series, by Maria Scott, follows in the wake of some excellent nineteenth-century volumes by the likes of Christopher Prendergast, Diana Knight and Jennifer Yee; and it sits well among such company.’ — Nicholas White, Journal of European Studies 44, 2014, 293-94
  • ‘This is a concise, elegant, and original reassessment of some of Stendhal’s most important and, as it turns out, misunderstood heroines that will be of equal interest to both specialist scholars and students keen to challenge the dominant critical view of these female characters as limited and frustrated by their narrative possibilities.’ — Susannah Wilson, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1084-85 (full text online)
  • ‘Disons-le d'entrée, et sans barguigner: ce livre, petit par le volume, est un grand livre... une étude aussi originale que pertinente, propre à renouveler en profondeur l'approche des personnages féminins stendhaliens... M. Scott a l'insigne mérite de s'attaquer intrépidement aux textes majeurs, de dominer l'ensemble des commentaires et d'apporter "du nouveau" dans des domaines depuis longtemps reconnus et parcourus, et qu'on croyait à jamais connus.’ — Yves Ansel, L'Année stendhalienne 13, 2014, 441-47
  • ‘Engaging reading. As the title suggests, the author gets personally involved and defends these fictional characters almost as if they were friends, women whose company she would like to keep, and she wants us to love them too. The style is alert, the tone optimistic, and while she necessarily has her work cut out for her convincing us that less-loved characters are lovable, her writing has the type of energy that makes readers love Stendhal.’ — Brigitte Malhuzier, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
  • ‘Offering a “sympathetic reading of [Stendhal’s] heroines that have often been seen as unsympathetic or unworthy of the love of the heroes and readers alike”, Scott approaches her analysis from a feminist perspective, using French existentialism— particularly Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s notions of freedom—as her theoretical framework... Written in an approachable style, this thought-provoking study offers a new perspective on Stendhal’s work, and is sure to be of interest to scholars and readers of the nineteenth-century author.’ — Kathryn M. Bulver, French Review 89.1, 2015, 280

Marie NDiaye: Inhospitable Fictions
Shirley Jordan
Research Monographs in French Studies 38•29 September 2017

  • ‘An excellent addition to the growing corpus of NDiaye scholarship... As Jordan also convincingly highlights throughout her study, NDiaye’s work is profoundly ethical, never cynical. Her inhospitable universe challenges us to look for our own ethical compass—not a ready-made hospitality manual. And the merit of Jordan’s study is to help us chart a course. Her readings create, in our encounter with NDiaye’s text, a welcoming critical third space, a hospitable space where writer, critic, and reader read and orient themselves together.’ — Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield, H-France 18.154, 2018
  • ‘Shirley Jordan focuses her exploration in an admirably sharp and focused manner on the problem of hospitality as it arises again and again across NDiaye’s oeuvre... Jordan’s achievement is remarkable... The reader emerges from Jordan’s analysis somewhat humbled by such sustained exposure to a scholarly voice that attempts truly to put into practice its chosen theme of ethical hospitality towards its subject.’ — Andrew Asibong, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 635 (full text online)
  • ‘Inhospitable Fictions will interest all who have read NDiaye and all those working on her. Whether or not a reader accepts that a concern for hospitality is what ultimately drives NDiaye’s work, it will be difficult to dislodge the way in which Jordan has read her with that particular driver in mind. This monograph adds the philosophical and the anthropological lens to the psychoanalytical lens in its reading of NDiaye, introduces women into the traditionally male-based discourse on hospitality, innovatively draws our attention to the Odyssey as NDiaye’s core intertext on hospitality, and tellingly relates the repressed domestic and familial traumas that surface in her texts to the multiple inhospitalities of colonialism and post-colonial France.’ — Pauline Eaton, Modern and Contemporary France 26.4, Autumn 2018, 431-37 (full text online)
  • ‘Jordan successfully highlights how the theme of inhospitality can work as a master key to unlock NDiaye’s eclectic textual experimentations. Because it surveys such a wide variety of the author’s texts, Jordan’s monograph can serve as an excellent introduction to NDiaye’s work.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.1, January 2019, 118-19
  • ‘In this monograph Shirley Jordan undertakes a consummate examination of the theme of inhospitality which permeates the œuvre of the critically acclaimed French author Marie NDiaye... Jordan’s exceptional work makes a vital contribution to NDiayean scholarship.’ — Alison Marmont, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 185-86 (full text online)

Dada as Text, Thought and Theory
Stephen Forcer
Research Monographs in French Studies 39•22 July 2015

  • ‘Stephen Forcer’s original, timely and impeccably researched monograph is an adventurous and therefore provocative attempt to combine close readings of verbal and visual Dada texts with an imaginative analytical conspectus of the ‘rich inner life’ of the Paris Lodge... Dada wisdom is finally reaching a large audience, both inside and outside universities, during a dürtiger Zeit when that unconventional commodity is becoming more behovely than ever.’ — Richard Sheppard, Journal of European Studies 46.1, 74-75
  • ‘This cogent and wide-ranging study... challenges the reader to reassess Dada as a far from simplistic phenomenon exerting a radical influence on contemporary culture.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.2, 2016, 235
  • ‘A perceptive reappraisal of the movement... Forcer’s study uncovers convincingly, through a close and sensitive study of diverse intersections, the semantic plurality and allusive density of Dada texts; and thus confirms his conclusion that, even when meaning appears to collapse, it ‘inevitably re-emerges, playfully and gloriously’.’ — Elza Adamowicz, Modern Language Review 111.4, October 2016, 1139-40 (full text online)
  • ‘This is a lively, incisive, and thought-provoking book substantially based on original archive work, which injects new and proliferating life into the study of Dada... With excellent English translations of quotations throughout, and well-chosen monochrome illustrations, the book is fully accessible to non-francophone readers and is an absolute must for anyone with a serious interest in Dada.’ — Andrew Rothwell, French Studies 71.1, Winter 2017, 133-34

Variation and Change in French Morphosyntax: The Case of Collective Nouns
Anna Tristram
Research Monographs in French Studies 40•1 November 2014

  • ‘Cet ouvrage constitue un apport majeur dans le champ de la linguistique variationniste et diachronique, tant par les résultats mis au jour que par la qualité de sa démarche méthodologique.’ — Sophie Prévost, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 578-79
  • ‘While language variation and change have been the focal point for linguists on this side of the Atlantic, Tristram argues that studies on morphosyntactic variation in French studies are lacking due to a focus on phonology and dialectology as well as denial of variation and change in the French language. Tristram’s book is thus a welcome contribution.’ — Samira Hassa, French Review 89.3, 2016, 108
  • ‘Anyone teaching variation in French will want to talk about the findings and reflections reported in this study. A remarkable amount of ground is covered in a small compass. This is a highly welcome addition to the Legenda list, and one must hope that further linguistics titles will be added to it before very long.’ — Nigel Armstrong, Journal of French Language Studies 26.2, 2016, 211-13

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

Regarding Manneken Pis: Culture, Celebration and Conflict in Brussels
Catherine Emerson
Research Monographs in French Studies 42•16 March 2015

  • ‘In this detailed and investigative study, the multiplicity of interpretations to which the statue has been subjected comes to the fore... The iconic Manneken Pis straddles French-speaking and Flemish-speaking communities and cultures, and Emerson teases out these narratives and their ramifications.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.2, 2016, 235
  • ‘To arrive at the heart of understanding how this two-foot statue has come to mean so much to the people of Brussels and to express the wide variety of social relations and tensions of a complex city and a modern nation as a whole, Regarding Manneken Pis is an ideal resource.’ — Eileen M. Angelini, French Review 89.3, 2016, 60

The French Art Novel 1900-1930
Katherine Shingler
Research Monographs in French Studies 43•19 December 2016

  • ‘An extremely informative and enjoyable study, which takes the reader on a rich and detailed tour of the early twentieth-century French artist’s world, “far beyond the form and concerns of the genre’s nineteenth-century foundational texts”. Clear, compelling, lucid, well researched, and beautifully written, Shingler’s book is an important and welcome sequel to scholarship written on the romantic art novel.’ — Dominique Jullien, H-France 18, May 2018, No. 111
  • ‘Shingler uncovers an approach to twentieth-century novels that bears pursuing further. Shingler investigates gender issues thoroughly and with great clarity, but she also locates other anxieties in the work of these writers.’ — Alexander Dickow, French Studies 72.2, April 2018, 305–306 (full text online)
  • ‘Il genere letterario dell’art novel viene de nito da Katherine Shingler come un genere in cui la nzione è strettamente connessa all’arte, nel senso che il focus della narrazione è rivolto a problematiche legate alle arti visive e i personaggi, perlopiù nel ruolo di protagonisti, sono degli artisti.’ — Michela Gardini, Studi francesi 185, 2018, 356-57
  • ‘A well-documented volume offering in-depth analyses of a well-chosen corpus, which comprises the expected classics as well as less familiar novels. The book will be useful and illuminating for readers of art novels and for literature and art students and scholars alike.’ — Emilie Sitzia, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 879-80 (full text online)

Accent, Rhythm and Meaning in French Verse
Roger Pensom
Research Monographs in French Studies 44•30 September 2018

  • ‘With his passing, we have lost an indispensable and challenging voice in the ongoing dispute about the nature of French metricity, a voice that has restored to the debate, with impressive scholarship, the claims of the pre-modern and early modern periods, a voice that has tirelessly made the very necessary case for accent, and tellingly revealed the shortcomings of too purist a version of isosyllabism.’ — Clive Scott, Modern Language Review 114.4, October 2019, 875-76 (full text online)
  • ‘This highly detailed, technically demanding book is not one that undergraduates will be expected to read, but its findings should unquestionably be one’s starting point in introducing them to French verse.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.4, October 2019, 497 (full text online)
  • ‘The legacy of this book, and of its author’s life’s work, does not have to be, indeed, does not deserve to be, relegated to the lone furrow which he sometimes suggests he is ploughing. There is ample proof here to suggest that the accentual has a vital role to play within the metrical, that the peculiar tensions and hesitations of verse rhythm are produced, precisely, by the interplay between the two... Pensom’s work makes a welcome and valuable contribution.’ — David Evans, H-France 19.239, November 2019

Baudelaire and Photography: Finding the Painter of Modern Life
Timothy Raser
Research Monographs in French Studies 45•9 October 2015

  • ‘Writing on the cusp of modernity, runs Raser’s overarching argument, Baudelaire is struggling to leave behind the traditional world, abandoning a search for beauty in a quest for a theory of modernity.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.4, October 2016, 476-77
  • ‘Highlights exciting aspects of Baudelaire’s work and illuminates his stance on modernity. One of Raser’s achievements is to take seriously the fact that Baudelaire transcended the boundaries between various arts and media. Exploring the relations between painting, poetry, engravings, and photography, he shows to what degree Baudelaire’s work is characterized by intertextual and intermedial tensions.’ — Marit Grøtta, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 254-56 (full text online)
  • ‘As always with Raser’s writing, this is an intelligently and cogently argued book. His deep knowledge of Baudelaire’s art criticism firmly grounds his arguments about aesthetic theory. Raser’s literary interpretations, such as that of Hugo’s poem, are interesting and thought-provoking... This slender and elegant book has set me to thinking about Baudelaire’s “aesthetics” of the modern as I read his works — it has given me a new perspective on his poetry.’ — Dorothy Kelly, H-France 16.125, July 2016

Broken Glass, Broken World: Glass in French Culture in the Aftermath of 1870
Hannah Scott
Research Monographs in French Studies 46•19 December 2016

  • ‘Perhaps due to glass’s ubiquity in the urban landscape, Parisians did not fully realize its fragile underpinning of Paris until Prussian bombing quite literally shattered glass’s transparency as urban phenomenon. It was through glass’s destruction that it became a privileged object manifesting the devastation of the année terrible for Parisians. Scott’s ingenuity lies in making glass visible, but especially in proposing broken glass as another ruin of Paris that both fascinated and disturbed contemporaries.’ — Colin Foss, H-France 18, March 2018, no. 53
  • ‘Scott’s incredible historical precision within a compact monograph has tremendous benefits to the field and raises even larger questions about the relationship between the Third Republic’s emphasis on glass and the social roles played by glass today, especially in the ecological arena. One wonders how the windowpanes, glass aquariums, and wine glasses of the post-industrial era gave way to the plastic wrapping and electronic screens that now serve as barriers between ourselves, the rest of humanity, and the planet as a whole.’ — Claire Nettleton, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 46.3-4, 2018
  • ‘This book is an outstanding contribution to an increasingly important field of study: the activating relationship between material culture and literary texts. Substantial and innovative chapters are devoted to Zola, Maupassant, and Huysmans, prefaced by a richly informative account of the proliferation of glass objects and structures, from the monumental to the miniscule, in nineteenth-century France.’ — Robert Lethbridge, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 456-57
  • ‘This engaging and perceptive monograph is a significant contribution to the growing body of scholarship that resituates nineteenth-century literature within its material environment... A remarkably original work, one which is grounded in material research but which manages, nonetheless, to be rightly a work of primarily literary criticism.’ — Natasha Ryan, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 661-62 (full text online)

Southern Regional French: A Linguistic Analysis of Language and Dialect Contact
Damien Mooney
Research Monographs in French Studies 47•19 December 2016

  • ‘Encapsulates both the challenges and the promise of linguistics for history... the kinds of suggestive connections between linguistic form, social identity, and cultural context traced in chapter six hint at the considerable possibilities for integrating a substantive study of language into cultural history. It is to be hoped that more historians will take up this challenge.’ — Paul Cohen, H-France 18, February 2018, no. 5
  • ‘Un travail de grande qualité et sera une référence incontournable pour tous les dialectologues, phonologues et sociolinguistes qui s’intéressent à la variation phonologique en français.’ — Julien Eychenne, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 484-85

Pascal Quignard: Towards the Vanishing Point
Léa Vuong
Research Monographs in French Studies 48•19 December 2016

  • ‘Léa Vuong’s succinct and insightful book addresses the work of French writer Pascal Quignard through the lenses of absence and disappearance. As Vuong argues, the reception of Quignard in the Anglo-Saxon world remains somewhat limited, while his work within the Hexagon has been the subject of extensive discussions and wide critical recognition. This first thorough study of Quignard’s work in the English language fills a gap while offering a perspective that connects Quignard to a constellation of structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers, in particular with the work of Jacques Lacan and Maurice Blanchot.’ — Étienne Lussier, Modern and Contemporary France 4 Oct 2017 (full text online)
  • ‘A well-written, well-documented analysis that manages to give a good glimpse into a voluminous literary production (Quignard’s publications are now nearing eighty books), while reporting on several important, and less studied, aspects of Quignard’s oeuvre.’ — Jean-Louis Pautrot, H-France 17, December 2017, no. 236
  • ‘Both specialists and those not very familiar with Quignard will find something of value here... the range of texts considered, which help the author trace broad points of commonality across an immense and still growing body of work, and the generally compelling characterization and descriptions of the text, will be helpful to those seeking an introduction to Quignard.’ — Joseph Acquito, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 664-66 (full text online)
  • ‘Di questo dibattito, l’autrice traccia nella «Conclusio- ne» un lucido bilancio, tra accuse di parisianisme e riconoscimento in patria, moltiplicarsi delle traduzioni e interesse ancora limitato da parte della critica in altre lingue, sottolineando la sotterranea portata sovversiva di una scrittura che ostenta la propria inattualità, che ritorce il fascino esercitato dal linguaggio contro il potere euristico della parola, che ingloba il meta-discorso che suscita, condannando talora il commentatore alla parafrasi o all’imitazione.’ — Stefano Genetti, Studi francesi 185, 2018, 367-68

France, Algeria and the Moving Image: Screening Histories of Violence 1963–2010
Maria Flood
Research Monographs in French Studies 49•26 February 2018

  • ‘Combining scholarly precision with formal concision, Flood’s volume ranges widely and innovatively across the highlighted representations of Franco-Algerian violence from the colonial period to the present, providing valuable insights into the broader landscape of relations between the two countries, and specifically the violence, both punctual and systemic, that has historically underpinned them. In the process, it justifies her foundational argument, namely the capacity of the imagined spaces of cinema not only to reflect critically on the colonial past and the postcolonial present, but also actively to imagine alternative futures, in France, Algeria, and beyond.’ — Philip Dine, French Studies 73.3, July 2019, 494-95 (full text online)

Genet's Genres of Politics
Mairéad Hanrahan
Research Monographs in French Studies 50•22 April 2023

Jean-François Vilar: Theatres Of Crime
Margaret Atack
Research Monographs in French Studies 51•28 September 2020

  • ‘Deeply knowledgeable, lucid and clearly written, ably teasing out narrative complexities, philosophical challenges and socio-political controversies, Atack’s study illuminates and explains the importance of Vilar’s writing not just for aficionados of noir fiction, but for anyone seeking insights into the history and culture of modern France.’ — David H. Walker, Journal of European Studies 51.3–4, November 2021, 368-69
  • ‘A thoroughly researched and critically insightful assessment of Vilar’s noir fiction. Critics and theorists of crime literature will find much to mine in Atack’s interpretations, geared more for scholars than the generally curious... a superb, largely celebratory monograph on Vilar’s writings, reanimating him from the shadows and introducing him to an English reading audience.’ — Robin Walz, H-France 22.17, January 2022
  • ‘In Jean-François Vilar: Theatres of Crime, Margaret Atack undertakes an exploration of Vilar’s crime novels, short stories, and non-fictional writings on cities with a view towards ‘elucidat[ing] the coherence of the political, thematic, generic, and textual dimensions’ of his writing and contributing towards larger debates about ‘fiction, politics and history; philosophy, narrative and art; text and image’... The monograph is beautifully written and, on the whole, achieves its aims. As Atack notes in the introduction, this is the first full-length study of Vilar’s work—an excellent contribution to literary scholarship, in its own right.’ — Julie M. Powell, Modern and Contemporary France published online, 2022 (full text online)