Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God
Robert K. Weninger
Studies In Comparative Literature 43•29 September 2017

  • unsigned notice, The Year's Work in English Studies 98.1, 2019, 657-58

Swinburne’s Style: An Experiment in Verse History
L. M. Kilbride
Legenda (General Series) •10 September 2018

  • ‘An ambitious attempt to reckon with the poet’s achievement in verse... this book helps us to see Swinburne’s corpus for what it is: one of the most sophisticated formal projects in English verse, no matter what T. S. Eliot thought.’ — Justin A. Sider, English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 63.2, 2020, 280-83
  • ‘Kilbride provides the reader with insightful textual analyses that shed new light on a selection of Swinburne’s poetical works, some of which are canonical, others still fairly neglected.’ — Giovanni Bassi, Modern Language Review 115.4, October 2020, 905-07 (full text online)
  • ‘Combines a practitioner’s delight in Swinburne’s verse textures with a scholar’s insight into poetic experiment in nineteenth-century Britain and a literary theorist’s investment in social critique.’ — Julia F. Saville, Victorian Studies 63.1, Autumn 2020, 152-53 (full text online)

Theorizing Medieval Race: Saracen Representations in Old French Literature
Victoria Turner
Research Monographs in French Studies 55•23 September 2019

  • ‘She has created new paradigms for thinking about race and representation in the Middle Ages that should become part of the critical conversation. While Turner’s book focuses exclusively on French material, it is applicable to the European Middle Ages more widely and is particularly worthwhile because 1) she elaborates a comprehensive and sophisticated critical framework for her interrogation of medieval racial representation, and 2) her textual interpretations are original and imaginative, not simply repetitions of previous scholarly consensus.’ — Margaret Aziza Pappano, Speculum 98.1, January 2023, 339 (full text online)

Thinking Cinema with Proust
Patrick ffrench
Moving Image 7•22 August 2018

  • ‘ffrench masterfully argues that Proust’s novel undoes our confidence in the objectivity of memory and of history... This brief account cannot do justice to the intricacies of ffrench’s book, which will serve as a valuable resource to scholars of the novel and of the cinema.’ — Patrick M. Bray, French Studies 73.4, October 2019, 663-64 (full text online)
  • ‘Thinking cinema ‘with and through Proust’, this brilliant book unravels manifold new connections, resonances, and echoes across diverse fields of knowledge, demonstrating amply that the chapter of Proust’s relation to cinema is far from being closed.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern Language Review 115.4, October 2020, 922-23 (full text online)

Three Cities of Yiddish: St Petersburg, Warsaw and Moscow
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 15•3 April 2017

  • ‘The British book series “Studies in Yiddish,” published by Legenda (and known among academics as “the Legenda series”), is in my estimation the most important venue for contemporary research on Yiddish literature and culture in the world today... Krutikov deals with the travelogue Hoyptshtet (Capital Cities) of 1934, written by Der Nister (“The Hidden One”), one of the greatest Soviet-Yiddish writers. The German professor Sabine Koller also contributes an essay dedicated to Der Nister’s book, which records his impressions of Leningrad, Moscow, and Kharkov during the 1920s. It’s a real delight to see so much attention is devoted to this book, which has been relatively unappreciated in previous considerations of Der Nister.’ — Marc Caplan, Forward 2 August 2017
  • ‘In “Moscow Threefold: Olgin, Bergelson, Benjamin,” Murav elegantly analyzes depictions of Moscow in the mid-1920s by three writers. Emphasizing Moscow as a Jewish “space of contiguity,” Murav addresses no less the relating of Moscow to time... If Olgin’s Moscow “has achieved ... its future,” the works of Benjamin and Bergelson show more ambivalence, and Murav is especially vivid on Bergelson’s vision of destruction likely to precede any possible redemption, which may end up permanently deferred.’ — Jeffrey A. Grossman, Slavic Review Spring 2019, 293-95

Translating Petrarch's Poetry: L’Aura del Petrarca from the Quattrocento to the 21st Century
Edited by Carole Birkan-Berz, Guillaume Coatalen and Thomas Vuong
Transcript 8•17 February 2020

  • ‘Ranging through five centuries of translations, adaptations and imitations of Petrarch, the father of Humanism, this transcultural, transdisciplinary study considers the echoes of this major figure, whose reach goes beyond borders, eras and literary genres to resonate singularly into our times and in our own resonating ears.’ — Robert Sheppard, Pages 16 September 2020
  • ‘Translating Petrarch’s Poetry is a must-read book for anybody interested in the spread of Petrarch’s poetry in the Western world (and beyond) throughout modernity. It collects very thorough essays dealing with this theme in always original and engaging manners from a variety of modern critical standpoints.’ — Enrico Minardi, Annali d'Italianistica 38, 2020, 455-459
  • ‘As its title suggests, this volume covers both “translating” in a conventional sense and freer, sometimes distanced, responses that are nevertheless redolent of Petrarch’s “aura” or distinctive atmosphere and of his portrayal of his beloved. By integrating a wide gamut of approaches on the part of academics from different disciplines and of poets, the collection of case studies presented here illustrates very effectively the endlessly imaginative ways in which Petrarch’s poetry has been transformed and repurposed across time.’ — Brian Richardson, Speculum 96.4, October 2021, 1153-54 (full text online)
  • ‘This collection of fifteen essays by scholars and writers from a range of countries brings to bear on Petrarch recent interest not only in translation as normally conceived but also in reformulations and fragmentations of the original and its appropriation in other media, and in the roles translations and other responses play and have played socially and culturally.’ — Peter Hainsworth, Modern Language Review 117.3, July 2022, 505-07 (full text online)

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

Unidentified Narrative Objects and the New Italian Epic
Kate Elizabeth Willman
Italian Perspectives 42•25 February 2019

Utopian Identities: A Cognitive Approach to Literary Competitions
Clementina Osti
Studies In Comparative Literature 41•22 August 2018

Venetian Inscriptions: Vernacular Writing for Public Display in Medieval and Renaissance Venice
Ronnie Ferguson
Italian Perspectives 50•26 July 2021

  • ‘The rigorous standards of the author’s nearly decade-long project will certainly satisfy professional historians, but lay readers too will find themselves thoroughly engaged by the manner in which he uses each inscription vividly to evoke multiple aspects of Venice’s social, religious, cultural and political life, as well as the characters of some remarkable individuals.’ — Roderick Conway Morris, Times Literary Supplement 21 January 2022
  • ‘A short review cannot do justice to the rich array of insights and ideas that thread through this fascinating book, nor can it reflect the dedication and time that were needed to compile the catalogue. Ranging from the familiar to the seemingly unnoticed, these inscriptions add myriad fragments to the enormous jigsaw of the townscape of late medieval and Renaissance Venice.’ — Deborah Howard, Burlington Magazine 165, February 2023, 207-08
  • ‘The Italian Perspectives series, founded by Zygmunt Barański and Laura Lepschy in 1998, reaches its half-century in impressive fashion with this outstanding work of scholarship... As well as making a major contribution to epigraphy, the volume includes a wealth of information on the urban fabric, society, culture, and language that will make it an invaluable resource for Venetian Studies during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.’ — Brian Richardson, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 258-60 (full text online)

Women and Nationhood in Restoration Spain 1874-1931: The State as Family
Rocío Rødtjer
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 34•23 April 2019

  • ‘This is a fine and important book that will hopefully convince those critics prone to discounting the contributions of conservative women writers (Asensi and de los Ríos) to make the effort to read them, keeping in mind Rødtjer’s suggestive arguments.’ — Alda Blanco, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.3, March 2020, 440-41

Women, Men and Books: Issues of Gender in Yiddish Discourse
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 16•30 December 2019

  • ‘The book presents the most recent research on the subject of gender in Yiddish literature and culture and paints a far more complex picture of gender roles in Eastern European Jewish life than is portrayed in traditional sources... As gender and sexuality are increasingly being understood as fluid, rather than determined categories, this kind of research is extremely significant for those of us who still speak, write and create in Yiddish, and want to hold on to it as a living language, capable of expressing all of our experiences.’ — Annabel Cohen, Forward 23 November 2020

Writers' Block: The Paris Antifascist Congress of 1935
Jacob Boas
Legenda (General Series) •19 December 2016

  • ‘[Boas concludes that] this Congress was a 'shining assembly of the princes of the pen' and that it marked the apogee of the Soviet influence in the West, shortly to be eroded by a series of show trials in 1936/38... whereas Western writers suffered no long-term damage to their careers, many Soviet delegates awaited a dire future: Kirshon and Koltsov perished in a GULAG, Babel vanished with- out trace in 1939, and even Boris Pasternak – though surviving the Stalinist era – was eventually denied the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded him in 1985.’ — Jörg Thunecke, International Feuchtwanger Society Newsletter 22, 2017, 66-68
  • ‘Situating his subject against the menacing backdrop of rising totalitarianism in East and West, Jacob Boas provides a compelling narrative of the five-day congress through a series of short, semi-biographical portraits, or vignettes, of some of the key European intellectuals that took part... The book is exceptionally well written and well researched, drawing on an impressive variety of sources, both published and unpublished, in Russian, French, German, Dutch, English, and Spanish. What emerges is a captivating portrait of the state of European intellectual life in the 1930s.’ — Alastair Hemmens, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 636-37 (full text online)

Writing the Landscape: Exposing Nature in French Women's Fiction 1789–1815
Christie Margrave
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2019

  • ‘The book is meticulously researched and packed with critical responses from a variety of different fields, showing Margrave’s interdisciplinary intentions. This book opens the door for yet more focused work to be carried out on this understudied yet highly formative period in French literary and social history.’ — Stacie Allan, Modern Language Review 115.2, 2020, 470-71 (full text online)
  • ‘Writing the Landscape’s strengths lie in its close literary analyses of lesser-known works by women... The book rightly calls our attention to a corpus of women’s writing that deserves more critical attention, and it renews our understanding of how - far from being insignificant green backdrops - landscape descriptions could serve as focal points within a novel.’ — Giulia Pacini, H-France 20, May 2018, no. 77
  • ‘Scholars of European Romanticism have almost entirely overlooked the influence of French women writers of the First Republic and First Empire. In reaction to this oversight, Margrave's excellent monograph resituates the dominant themes of French Romanticism, firstly, as developing earlier than the 1820s and, secondly, as much more than a male phenomenon... This well-researched and beautifully written book provides fresh contributions to the fields of Women's Studies and French Romanticism by demonstrating the vital importance of these largely forgotten women writers of the First Republic and First Empire.’ — Julianna Starr, Women in French Studies 28, 2020, 147-48 (full text online)
  • ‘Christie Margrave’s analysis of women writers’ feminist engagement with the Romantic vogue for natural landscape not only offers a fresh perspective on Romantic luminary Germaine de Staël; it also sheds light on the novels of Félicité de Genlis, Sophie Cottin, Barbara von Krüdener, and Adélaïde de Souza... This is an insightful, valuable, and timely study bound to inform and inspire future scholarship in French women’s writing of the Romantic era.’ — Laura Kirkley, French Studies 77.1, January 2023, 135-36 (full text online)

Ying Chen’s Fiction: An Aesthetics of Non-Belonging
Rosalind Silvester
Research Monographs in French Studies 57•28 September 2020

  • ‘A refreshingly original and in-depth contribution that should be enthusiastically welcomed not only by scholars working in the specialist field of Franco-Chinese studies, but also by those who are more broadly interested in contemporary Québec literature, Chinese diasporic literature, migrant writings, and transcultural studies... A strong, lucid, and convincing line of enquiry.’ — Shuangyi Li, Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies 12.1, Summer 2021, 16-17

Zola and the Art of Television: Adaptation, Recreation, Translation
Kate Griffiths
Transcript 3•28 September 2020

  • ‘There is a lot of good material in Zola and the Art of Television. Its readings of Zola’s novels and short stories, especially in relation to their adaptations, are fresh, detailed, and nuanced. Electing to address television adaptations rather than film brings more attention to this more under-researched form of adaptation.’ — Jonathan Evans, Translation and Literature 30, 2021, 243-48 (full text online)
  • ‘Griffiths breaks new ground here in two ways which she explains in detail in her introduction. First, her focus on television adaptations ends what she calls the “critical silence” (p. 7) in this area by challenging viewers’ and scholars’ tendency to underappreciate both the artistry and the critical significance of televisual adaptation. Secondly, Griffiths convincingly argues that a deep understanding of creative processes and practices can be gained from treating televisual rewritings of literary texts as translations rather than (or as well as) adaptations; for her, reading these televisual texts through the lens of various translation theories opens up extremely fruitful modes of interpretation and ultimately calls for a reconsideration of what televisual art is or could be. By challenging adaptation studies’ traditional resistance to translation theory, Griffiths’s book importantly goes some way to bridging the intellectual and disciplinary divide between literary studies and media studies... As well as’ — Hannah Thompson, H-France 21.190, October 2021, 190
  • ‘Through her judiciously selected corpus, her appropriation of adaptation theory, and her ambitious but cogently articulated arguments, Griffiths’s groundbreaking study succeeds in demonstrating how these adaptations encourage viewers to reflect on television’s own technological, aesthetic, ideological, and commercial metamorphoses. Furthermore, Griffiths clearly demonstrates that, by probing the relationship between art and contemporary society, television has simultaneously lent continuity to Zola’s goals and renewed relevance to his texts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.’ — Barry Nevin, French Studies online, 26 July 2022 (full text online)

The Philomena of Chrétien the Jew: The Semiotics of Evil
Peter Haidu, edited by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
Research Monographs in French Studies 59•28 September 2020