Urban Space, Identity and Postmodernity in 1980s Spain: Rethinking the Movida
Maite Usoz de la Fuente
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 11•11 October 2015

  • ‘This is a great book for revisiting the years of cultural explosion in a Madrid—and a Spain—which had just emerged from nearly forty years of dictatorship. Madrid had always seemed to lag behind Barcelona as a culturally avant-garde city. La movida madrileña changed the way people looked at the capital, which had previously been seen as the home of conservatism and the political elite. Young people who had been born during the dictatorship and had never experienced real freedom in their lives embraced this new freedom... The book is well written, readable and accessible. The detailed analysis of La Luna de Madrid will prove to be a valuable resource for researchers studying the cultural output of la movida as well as others interested in the period of the Spanish Transition.’ — María José Blanco, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 95.4, May 2018, 370-71
  • ‘A substantial reflection on an epoch that continues to deserve critical attention from both scholars and members of the public.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.4, October 2018, 506-07 (full text online)

Queering Lorca’s Duende: Desire, Death, Intermediality
Miguel García
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 49•7 March 2022

From Doubt to Unbelief: Forms of Scepticism in the Iberian World
Edited by Mercedes García-Arenal and Stefania Pastore
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 42•28 August 2019

  • ‘This outstanding volume brings together thirteen essays on scepticism and religious dissent in late medieval and early modern Spain, Portugal and Italy... The joint enterprise represented by this exceptional volume ‘has led the way to a variety of new panoramas and unexpected itineraries’ (14). Anyone prompted to pursue these further will find here an indispensable resource and an inspiring example.’ — Eamonn Rodgers, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.3, 2021, 479-80
  • ‘Scholars of early modern Europe will find much to draw upon in these two volumes [jointly reviewed was Fuchs and García-Arenal, eds, The Quest for Certainty in Early Modern Europe: From Inquisition to Inquiry, 1550–1700]. The strongest chapters focus on religious and theological issues of doubt and uncertainty, but we get many case studies in other areas of knowledge that found ways to navigate the murky waters of the early modern world. Most of the chapters will make fruitful material for graduate seminars and reading groups, but the books’ greatest merit is how well they work together both as individual volumes and as complementary conversations. Editors of collected volumes should take note.’ — Erudition and the Republic of Letters 7, 2022, 355-63 (María M. Portuondo)

Photographing the Unseen Mexico: Maya Goded’s Socially Engaged Documentaries
Dominika Gasiorowski
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 21•25 February 2019

  • ‘By employing innovative, subaltern questioning, Dominika Gasiorowski makes an exceptionally strong case for engaging with this socially committed Mexican documentary filmmaker and photographer and has produced an extremely thorough and impactful study of Maya Goded’s work.’ — Erica Segre, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 5.1, 2021, 186-87 (full text online)

German Romanticism and Latin America: New Connections in World Literature
Edited by Jenny Haase and Joanna Neilly 
Transcript 23•29 January 2024

Assuming the Light: The Parisian Literary Apprenticeship of Miguel Angel Asturias
Stephen Henighan
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 1999

  • ‘The combination of close textual analysis of Asturias's own work, both fictional and journalistic, with that of other discourses, including the work of his contemporaries as well as his critics, is, in my view, one of the many strengths of Assuming the Light. Frequently provocative and meticulously researched, this book will be of interest therefore not only to Asturias specialists but also more generally to scholars engaged in Latin American cultural studies, particularly those interested in questions of cultural identity.’ — Claire Lindsay, Modern Language Review 97.3, 2002, 742-3 (full text online)
  • ‘Lucid, sophisticated, beautifully written, it provides a valuable and thought-provoking introduction to the writer's extraordinary sojourn in Paris... Stephen Henighan seems destined to make an outstanding contribution to Asturias studies.’ — Gerald Martin, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 79, 2002
  • ‘Valuable, problematic insights for those conversant with Asturias's work and its criticism.’ — Paul Jordan, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX, 2002, 826-8

Reprojecting the City: Urban Space and Dissident Sexualities in Recent Latin American Cinema
Benedict Hoff
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 13•13 February 2017

  • ‘One of the latest additions to an expanding catalogue of queer approaches to Latin American cinema, Reprojecting the City identifies a ‘conceptual “sweet-spot”’ at the intersection between Urban, Queer, and Cinema Studies.’ — Rebecca Jarman, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 892-93 (full text online)
  • ‘The four film-analysis chapters are very well pitched, deftly teasing out the representations of sexual identities manifested through the relationships mediated by the differing geopolitical urban scenarios... Hoff’s monograph is a valuable contribution to the study of sexuality in contemporary Latin-American cinemas as well as to the aesthetics and geopolitics of cinematic space. It will be valuable to researchers in the field and, because of its accessibility, to undergraduate students of South American cinema.’ — Sheldon Penn, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 2.2, 2018, 339-40

Santería, Vodou and Resistance in Caribbean Literature: Daughters of the Spirits
Paul Humphrey
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 12•25 February 2019

  • ‘Humphrey does not argue for the homogenization of [Vodou and Santería], but for the honest recognition and acceptance of their differences. Moving past the violent stereotyping [...], he encourages us to treat these religions as ‘living systems’ in which slavery, colonialism, creolization and hybridity intersect in a dynamic negotiation of all the complexities that create what would be a ‘postcolonial’ Caribbean.’ — Janelle Rodriques, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.2, 2020, 294-95

Twentieth-Century Sephardic Authors from the Former Yugoslavia: A Judeo-Spanish Tradition
Željko Jovanović
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 41•28 September 2020

  • ‘La investigación que presenta Željko Jovanović en su monografía Twentieth-Century Sephardic Authors from the Former Yugoslavia. A Judeo-Spanish Tradition era, yo creo, necesaria. El autor ofrece, en los tres capítulos que forman la parte palpitante del volumen, una reflexión muy finamente detallada de la evolución de la literatura oral en el ámbito de las comunidades sefardíes de la antigua Yugoslavia... Finalmente, sería injusto terminar esta reseña sin subrayar la riqueza de las notas que acompañan cada capítulo y que no son una simple añadidura, sino que aportan información útil e interesante; además,el gusto de esta monografía está enriquecido por las fotografías esparcidas en el volumen y que restituyen, a través del poderdela imagen, la vivacidad de los protagonistas que Željko Jovanović ha logrado retratar con inteligente maestría.’ — Paola Bellomi, Meldar 2, 2021, 61-64 (full text online)
  • ‘En su exposición, Jovanović aúna siempre el rigor positivista con la sutileza interpretativa: la riqueza de la información, el respeto a los hechos e incluso la atención a los mínimos detalles textuales no excluyen otras formas de análisis que, manejadas con cautela, permiten al autor construir un libro sólido y brillante, que arroja luz sobre muchas cuestiones: la oralidad y su relación con la escritura, la historia de las mujeres y de las minorías y, naturalmente, la pervivencia del legado hispánico más allá de los límites de la Península.’ — Álvaro Alonso, Boletín de literatura oral 11, 2021, 321-23 (full text online)
  • ‘This is a valuable book, well thought out, with an extensive bibliography (including many items in Serbo-Croat), illustrations and useful indices.’ — Bulletin of Spanish Studies February 2022 (full text online)
  • ‘Unburdened by jargon and meticulously researched, Jovanović’s study is a welcome resource for those working on the literary heritage of the Sephardim. The text will also be of interest to those writing on Spanish–Yugoslav relations, cultural history, transnational literary transmission and translation, and linguistic varia- tions of Ladino across the twentieth century.’ — Alma Prelec, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 271-72 (full text online)
  • ‘El libro es una aportación importante al estudio de la cultura de los sefardíes de Serbia y Bosnia, al conocimiento de la cultura sefardí en general y su evolución en época contemporánea y, más ampliamente, a los estudios sobre las relaciones entre cultura popular y creación literaria culta y al análisis de la construcción de relatos sobre la identidad cultural y la memorialización del pasado de una minoría, tomando como base una tradición folklórica en proceso de desaparición.’ — Paloma Díaz-Mas, MEAH 70, 2022, 257-62

Memory, Identity and the Historical Novel in Uruguay: Opening up the Archive 1985-2010
Karunika Kardak 
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 52•31 August 2023

Humanizing Childhood in Early Twentieth-Century Spain
Anna Kathryn Kendrick
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 30•7 January 2020

  • ‘So liegt ein reich recherchiertes Buch vor, das wie ein Feuerwerk der Informationen, Deutungen und auch Andeutungen erscheint... Die einzelnen Kapitel und Abschnitte zu Lerntheorien, Spielzeug, Theater, Kinderzeichnungen und Intelligenztests können als wichtige Beiträge zu neuen Entwicklungen einer vergleichenden und transnationalen Kindheitsgeschichte gelten und sind als solche zweifellos lesenswert.’ — Martina Winkler, H-Soz-Kult 11 January 2021
  • ‘Humanizing Childhood explores the debates and practices surrounding the emerging discipline of the study of childhood in early twentieth-century Spain. Linked to the transnational education reform movement in Europe and the United States, artists, poets, educators, and philosophers in Spain developed new frameworks to understand the “world of the child” in order to guide children to their full human potential... The book provides a welcome addition to the relatively undeveloped field of the Spanish history of childhood.’ — Pamela Beth Radcliff, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 15.1, Winter 2021, 165-67 (full text online)
  • ‘A carefully documented celebration of early twentieth-century Spanish humanism and its positive impact on childhood representation and education. Spanish teachers, intellectuals, and artists pressed for a science of childhood which was constructed from advances in science, art, literature, and culture, centred on the dynamic and creative aspects of the holistic child in which mind, body, and spirit were viewed as one.’ — David Foshee, Modern Language Review 116.4, October 2021, 668-69 (full text online)
  • ‘Humanizing Childhood in Early Twentieth-Century Spain is an impressive achievement. It not only constitutes a major contribution to the field of child development and paedological teaching and learning (especially with respect to the New Education movement and its Spanish representatives), but it also opens a window to how the fundamental question of human nature was addressed and problematized throughout Spain during a period of unprecedented social change... An excellent book with broad appeal.’ — Nicolás Fernández-Medina, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 2021 (full text online)
  • ‘Definitivamente, el gran valor de este libro es el esfuerzo intelectual que hace la autora para identificar conexiones significativas dentro del amplio tema de la infancia entre la historia de la ciencia, la historia de la educación, la historia cultural, la historia literaria y la historia de arte, entre otros.’ — Gabriela Ossenbach, Boletín de Historia de la Educación 2021
  • ‘El libro brilla por su extensa curiosidad, las enormes y variadas inquietudes que demuestra y su forma de transformarlas en indicios para el análisis de un tema complejo y significativo ... Se trata, en definitiva, de un libro cuya mirada global a las inquietudes, debates y reflexiones sobre la infancia y la educación debería ser inspiradora dentro de las polémicas y experimentos educativos que dominan el presente. Un libro de primer orden, de arquitectura compleja y sugerente, que demuestra gran erudición y amplitud de miras, una singular capacidad de análisis y formulación de hipótesis, riqueza conceptual, y una densidad no exenta de agilidad narrativa y amenidad. Un libro de los que, lejos del frecuente sabor metálico de las publicaciones urgentes, deja el sabor de la tradición anglosajona de las obras bien reposadas.’ — Álvaro Ribagorda, Historia y Memoria de la Educación 16, 2022, 725-30 (full text online)

Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling
Jo Labanyi
Selected Essays 11•23 September 2019

  • ‘There is much in this book to celebrate—multiple topics, angles, issues and theories addressed in order to focus us on ‘ways of thinking about Spanish culture’, where ‘culture’ means literature, cinema, painting and photography, with (perhaps) history, historical memory, feminism, gender, race, nation formation, modernity and politics added to the mix.... Some of these essays are already classic studies that have influenced the way we think about certain literary periods or texts. Labanyi combines theory with specificity, details from the works studied inserted (or viewed through) various theoretical constructs. She claims to search for ‘moments of contradiction or incoherence’ in literature that often point to ‘something important’ (6), a claim fully realized in this book.’ — David T. Gies, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.3, 2021, 485-87
  • ‘The essays in Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present are suggestive in their individual approaches; the book as a whole is nevertheless unique as a window into the thought of one of the most influential scholars of Spanish culture in recent decades. Whether or not one always agrees with Labanyi, it is impossible not to be in awe of her mind and method, and how she has carried the profession forward.’ — Wadda C. Rios-Font, Studies in XXth and XXIst Century Literature 46.1, 2022
  • ‘Las páginas que abren el volumen son un brillante ejercicio de egohistoria donde Labanyi reflexiona tam- bién sobre la labor de re-archivo que acomete para este proyecto... Como Labanyi asevera desde las primeras páginas de Spanish Culture from Ro- manticism to the Present, lo que realmente cuenta son los momentos no esperados, de tensión, que el crítico logra desentrañar en el artefacto cultural objeto de estudio, “the contradictions and incoherence that, perhaps even more than areas of consensus, put us in touch with the pulse of the time” (4). Quizá sea este crucial precepto metodológico, aplicado de manera consistente a esta variedad de estudios realizados desde mediados de los noventa, adoptando diversos ángulos críticos y considerando distintos medios, lo que trasluce con mayor fuerza en Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present. Structures of Feeling: la tentativa generosa de motivarnos a releer a contracorriente para deshacer, o cuando menos problematizar, asunciones culturales que también atrav’ — Patricia López-Gay, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 25, 2021, 310-12
  • ‘A key contribution to Spanish Cultural and Literary Studies. Running through the collection is the author’s attention to ‘structures of feeling’, drawing on Raymond Williams’s notion, as a driver and explanatory resource for the comprehension of a diverse array of cultural production primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.’ — Richard Cleminson, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 269-71 (full text online)

Berceo's 'Vida de Santa Oria': Text, Translation and Commentary
Anthony Lappin
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2000

  • ‘While chiefly important for providing the specialist with a reliable version of the VSO, it also gives a detailed commentary on the text: both of these will now be indispensable tools for the Berceo scholar. The English translation will usefully serve to make the Vida de Santa Oria accessible to scholars of other disciplines.’ — Gregory Peter Andrachuk, Modern Language Review 97.3, 2002, 743-5 (full text online)
  • ‘The problems presented to a modern editor of Berceo's Vida de Santa Oria are daunting. The text survives in a unique medieval copy [which] appears to have been made, at the most conservative estimate, more than a century after the death of its author... Lappin keeps Berceo's text clean and readable by relegating textual notes to the end, and supports the text with over a hundred pages of informed and detailed critical commentary... There is much to be said for [Lappin's] essentially pragmatic editorial approach. It honestly confronts the problem of a late or corrupt copy-text and does not assume, as has happened so often in the past, that an author who has become part of the canon is therefore free from literary sin and incapable of omission or logical inconsistency. Lappin's Berceo emerges as an immaculate composer of verse but a vulnerable story-teller.’ — Ian Macpherson, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXX, 2003, 112-13
  • ‘Should become the standard reference for all future research on the Vida and, indeed, a touchstone for studying all of Berceo's hagiographies.’ — E. Michael Gerli, Speculum 2003, 2003, 936-8
  • ‘Un buon lavoro, che risolve sicuramente alcuni problemi editoriali e interpretavi.’ — Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 120/2, 2004, 411-14
  • ‘The publication of a full lenght study and edition of one of Berceo's hagiographic works is a rare event; even rarer is the appearance of an English translation. But this book is not likely to be remembered for these reasons. More likely is that it will be read for what it is: a radical, but flawed, attempt to breathe new life into Oria scholarship.’ — Andrew M. Beresford, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies Volume 80, n.1, January 2003, 119-20

Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis: Góngora, Camargo, Sor Juana
Luis Castellví Laukamp
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 38•7 January 2020

  • ‘Con este volumen, Castellví Laukamp presenta una nueva manera de estudiar la poesía del virreinato [...] Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis: Góngora, Camargo, Sor Juana crea un museo de papel compuesto por poemas y por imágenes de la temprana edad moderna.’ — Conxita Domènech, Revista Iberoamericana 87.274, Spring 2021, 360-62
  • ‘Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis […] es una obra excelente por el profundo y original estudio que ofrece sobre las posibilidades expresivas de la écfrasis, el sobresaliente conocimiento de la obra de los autores estudiados, la adecuada estructuración, la riqueza de fuentes y la claridad expositiva.’ — Lizbeth Souza-Fuertes, Hispania 104.1, March 2021, 125-126 (full text online)
  • ‘Castellví's book is extensively documented in the critical bibliography and is eruditely positioned between literature and art [...] The documentary and pictorial apparatus supports this work, which undoubtedly aims to position itself as a landmark on the subject.’ — Laura Yadira Munguía Ochoa, Hipogrifo 9.1, 2021, 1369-72 (full text online)
  • ‘The attention to detail and the bibliographical scope of this book is noteworthy. so is the ability to develop cogent arguments that gain momentum towards the final section of each chapter... this is a well-contextualized, generous book that proves how early modern poets in spanish, and the poetics they adhered to, were not hampered by geographical borders and cannot be by academic ones.’ — Antonio J. Arraiza-Rivera, Bulletin of the Comediantes 72.2, 2020, 163-65
  • ‘Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis de Castellví Laukamp constituye una aportación de primer orden en el ámbito de la poesía barroca hispánica del que podrán disfrutar especialistas y aficionados. Su dimensión transatlántica y su diseño transgenérico [...] permiten al autor ofrecer una mirada fresca y erudita a un tiempo sobre los grandes poemas que analiza.’ — Martín Zulaica López, Rilce 37.2, 2021, 885-91
  • ‘Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis is an exquisitely written and illustrated book […] Turning to a transatlantic vision of the baroque, this book clearly shows that Gongorism in Viceregal Latin America was an instrument to think and to create with liberty. Written with subtlety and enargeia, this thoughtful volume provides important new insights into Góngora, Camargo and Sor Juana.’ — Frederick de Armas, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 44.3, 2022, 784-87 (full text online)
  • ‘Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis constitutes an outstanding contribution to the interpretation of the three poems it studies. Castellví Laukamp’s command of art history, visual studies, early modern poetics, and the classical tradition enable him to craft astute and compelling readings. He is a widely read, learned, and clear writer’ — Felipe Valencia, Colonial Latin American Review 31.3, 463-65 (full text online)
  • ‘A complex but rewarding study, Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis recognizes Camargo and Sor Juana as both followers of Góngora and poetic innovators in their own right.’ — Elizabeth Blakemore, Forum for Modern Language Studies 58.3, 2022, 406 (full text online)

The Art of Ana Clavel: Ghosts, Urinals, Dolls, Shadows and Outlaw Desires
Jane Elizabeth Lavery
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 6•16 March 2015

  • ‘El libro de Lavery es una obra necesaria y de actualidad para entender también el pulso de los movimientos literarios en la América de habla hispana. Es un aporte que resarce a la literatura en general y a la visibilidad de las escritoras en particular... En la narrativa de Clavel—según Lavery—, realidad, identidad y cuerpo diluyen sus fronteras dentro y fuera de la ficción, excediendo la literatura para señalar lo propio de la condición humana. Así, el trabajo de Lavery contribuye a establecer un marco teórico, o si se prefiere, el canon del acontecer de la literatura emergente no solo de México, sino de América Latina.’ — Rita Vega Baeza, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94.10, December 2017, 1830-31

Unamuno’s Theory of the Novel
C. A. Longhurst
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 1•1 July 2014

  • ‘A highly illuminating exploration regarding Unamuno’s views on narrative fiction that pays attention to the pervasiveness of elements referring to the physical and mental worlds, the author, the word, the reader, the person, the double and philosophical investigations.’ — Anna Vives, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 78, 2018, 193-94

Horizontalism and Historicity in Argentina: Cultural Dialogues of the Post-Crisis Era
Brigid Lynch
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 46•10 December 2021

  • ‘An engaging study that offers an innovative perspective, with lively case studies, on recent Argentine cultural history.’ — Ben Bollig, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94.2, 2022, 383-84 (full text online)

Matilde de la Torre: Sex, Socialism and Suffrage in Republican Spain
Deborah Madden
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 56•20 October 2022

Spanish New York Narratives 1898-1936: Modernization, Otherness and Nation
David Miranda-Barreiro
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 5•1 November 2014

  • ‘A well-organized and clearly argued study that situates Spain’s view on modernity within the European context. It will be of interest to scholars on early twentieth-century Spain, Modernism, transnationalism and popular narratives.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.4, October 2015, 502-03
  • ‘What could have been a niche study derives its strength and originality from offering new insights into debates on Spanish modernity. This is illustrated well by the primary materials chosen, since they do not necessarily have great literary merit in their own right but serve as the testament to a certain Zeitgeist. Students of Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York would, for example, benefit from the context on race and multiculturalism provided by the book.’ — Daniela Omlor, Modern Language Review 112.3, July 2017, 728-29 (full text online)
  • ‘El estudio de Miranda-Barreiro, que explora la imagen de Nueva York como símbolo de la modernidad, es de gran actualidad... hay que felicitar a Miranda-Barreiro por incluir géneros poco estudiados hasta ahora en la prosa de los años veinte, así como por el carácter comparatista que adopta. Aunque su aportación más importante es, en mi opinión, su capítulo sobre la raza, la nación y la modernidad, el libro es también de gran interés para el especialista que quiera profundizar en el tratamiento de Nueva York en la narrativa de esta época.’ — María Soledad Fernández Utrera, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94, 2017, 902-04
  • ‘A well-written book that stands as a major contribution to the field.’ — Anna Vives, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 78, 2018, 190-91

Questions of the Liminal in the Fiction of Julio Cortázar
Dominic Moran
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2000

  • ‘An ambitious attempt to improve the level of sophistication of Cortázar criticism and, at the same time, to nudge the existing consensus about the meaning of Cortázar's work in a specific direction... What is important is not that Moran shows us yet again that Cortázar's fiction emphasizes the ambiguity and mystery surrounding reality and the human psyche. It is that he offers a way to put that ambiguity and mystery into the context of some modern thinking.’ — Donald L. Shaw, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX, 2002, 670-1

Bodies of Disorder: Gender and Degeneration in Baroja and Blasco Ibáñez
Katharine Murphy
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 26•1 November 2017

  • ‘Murphy highlights the substantial points of comparison between the two authors, despite the hostility between them and their very different journeys through the literary canon. Taken in its entirety, this book deftly sets about dismantling quite a number of critical distinctions and commonplaces... This will be a valuable book for anyone working on the Spanish novel, discourses of degeneration across Europe, cultural studies, and on the dynamics of female literacy and agency.’ — Geraldine Lawless, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 96.9, 2019, 1553-55

Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation
Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
Studies In Comparative Literature 24•4 February 2011

  • ‘Deftly employs cultural, geographical, biographical, linguistic and literary analysis; in doing so, it provides readers with a better understanding of Joyce, Borges, and the connections between them.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
  • ‘...The engaging central thesis, of the surprisingly fruitful interaction between these two seemingly dissimilar authors.’ — Ben Bolig, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 983-85 (full text online)
  • ‘This is an ambitious and satisfying book that illuminates, through the prism of Borges, the work of Joyce and, through Joyce, the work of Borges... It is a very welcome and important addition to our libraries.’ — Lucia Boldrini, James Joyce Quarterly 49.3/4, May 2014, 689-92

St Teresa of Ávila: Her Writings and Life
Edited by Terence O'Reilly, Colin Thompson and Lesley Twomey
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 19•10 September 2018

  • ‘The variety of topics and approaches in these essays, and the erudition and rigour of their authors, ensures that this volume represents an invaluable contribution to scholarship on St Teresa of Avila and will serve as a touchstone for future work on this saint and, more generally, on religious writing in the period.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.4, October 2019, 498-99 (full text online)
  • ‘Readers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds will find this collection fruitful and accessible, and scholars who are unfamiliar with Spanish will find faithful translations... The volume commemorates the five-hundredth anniversary of Teresa’s birth, but its imaginative, far-reaching perspectives on her life and legacy show that there is still ample appetite and space for future Teresian scholarship.’ — Catherine Maguire, Hispanic Research Journal 20.4, 2019, 409-10 (full text online)
  • ‘The contributors [...] deepen our understanding of Teresa by noting previously-overlooked sources and influences and emphasizing her theological contributions, which carry potential relevance in spiritual discussions today. As Thompson notes, in Teresa’s writings we encounter her not as an otherworldly being, but a person to whom modern-day readers can relate. The essays in this volume allow us further access to the human experiences, resultant insights and immediate legacy of one of Spain’s most famous saints.’ — Teresa Hancock-Parmer, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.2, 2020, 269-70

Memory and Utopia: The Poetry of José Ángel Valente
Manus O’Dwyer
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 44•28 September 2020

  • ‘El título del trabajo de Manus O’Dwyer si breve y conciso da cierto vértigo por la amplitud de los temas críticos seleccionados y porque, como el autor reconoce en una elegante y brillante introducción, la crítica en torno al poeta español es prolija. La facilidad con que O’Dwyer soluciona dichas complicaciones en las primeras páginas para focalizar su labor en la cuestión social y política de la poesía de José Ángel Valente es tan encomiable como lapropia edición del libro... Una cuidada publicación de tremenda utilidad tanto para hispanistas como para comparatistas, que por añadido es disfrutable.’ — Juan Blázquez Cuena, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.10, 2021, 1733-34
  • ‘El profesor de la Universidad de Sheffield logra cumpli-damente su propósito: describe los discursos críticos que han relegado e incluso negado esta dimensión y demuestra su relevancia mediante análisis textuales e intertextuales de una multiplicidad de materiales relacionados con la actividad intelectual del poeta (cartas, conferencias, diarios, ensa-yos, poemas, relatos, traducciones, etc.). Este logro es por sí mismo mo-tivo suficiente para recomendar la lectura de Memory and Utopia... Es preciso agradecer a Manus O’Dwyer que su lectura ponga de relieve la fascinante extrañeza que la singular extraterritorialidad cultural rastreable en la obra de José Ángel Valente puede llegar a producir.’ — Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, Prosemas 6, 2021, 232-38
  • ‘Memory and Utopia gravitates around the idea that Valente was not (or not just) a modern mystic who devoted his word to the ineffable, but a poet who found in mystic motifs the way to access his social context, in an attempt to resist the institutionalized, vain discourse of recent extremist political practices... A brave, innovative proposal that is able to look at Valente’s literary production as a whole, and to find in his verse the aim to construct, through “a paradoxical immanence of the transcendent” (115), a utopian space of memory and self-negation in the community.’ — María Vera Reyes, Theory Now 4.2, 2021, 249-53 (full text online)
  • ‘This new vision of the poet is constructed through concise and precise analysis that does not shy away from issues of great philosophical and aesthetic complexity... a ground-breaking and informative book that will change the way readers and scholars appreciate this towering figure of Spanish and Galician verse.’ — Ricardo Fernández Romero, Modern Language Review 118.1, 2023, 147

Diego Rivera and Juan Rulfo: Post-Revolutionary Body Politics 1922-1965
Lucy O’Sullivan
Visual Culture 3•23 February 2022