See also the home page of the Legenda book series Special Lecture Series

Published May 1998

Proust: Questions d'identité
Julia Kristeva
Special Lecture Series 1

  • ‘Raises some intriguing questions... which must clearly be meditated over by serious students of Proust.’ — Nola M. Leov, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 22.1, 2001, 29
  • ‘The questions addressed in this short text are all compelling and fascinating.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern Language Review 95.3, 2000, 844 (full text online)
  • ‘Kristeva presents Proust as the first writer to show - not unambiguously, yet to devastating effect - the sado-masochistic basis of identity pursued as a form of belonging.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 37.1, 2001, 103
  • ‘An incisive examination of the complex nature of identity, whether it be national, religious or sexual.’ — notice, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 60, 1998, 166

Published February 1999

History Painting and Narrative: Delacroix's 'Moments'
Peter Brooks
Special Lecture Series 2

  • 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