Literary criticism
August 9, 2019
How
has classical literature shaped culture, knowledge, the thinkable? What happens
when a canonical text is translated from his
gaze into her, and their, gaze(s)? These are some of
the questions Barbara Köhler pursues in her modern epic poem, Niemands Frau (2007), her response to The Odyssey.
Translated and re-imagined over the centuries, Homer’s tale found critical
resonance in intellectual traditions from Christianity through to Post-Colonialism.
Odysseus has been viewed as an ideal, reputedly using reason rather than force
to dominate, but in Niemands Frau Köhler
takes inspiration from Penelope to weave a text that challenges the rationalist
and patriarchal epistemological traditions to which the Odyssey contributes....
November 25, 2016
How can you fathom a bottomless abyss? How can you capture ineffable beauty in words? How do you narrate the master of all stories? These are the challenges that seasoned poet Konrad von Würzburg set himself when at the end of the 13th century he composed his account of the Trojan War from a multitude of sources. Konrad has long been recognized as an exceptionally self-conscious author who frequently reflects on the nature, status and function of poetry, and who at times appears more concerned with the sparkling surface of his discourse than with the events he narrates. Taking these observations as a starting point, this study presents the first comprehensive treatment of metapoetics in the Trojanerkrieg. Focusing on traditional...
July 1, 2016
Society and its Outsiders in the Novels of Jakob Wassermann takes a fresh look at Wassermann’s depiction of society and its mechanisms of exclusion, specifically those affecting the Jew, the woman, the child and the homosexual man. Wassermann’s extensive oeuvre has not, until
now, been considered as an attempt to portray German society at different historical stages, from the Biedermeier to the end of the Weimar Republic. At the same time, this analysis shows how Wassermann’s interest in outsider figures is intertwined with an interest in narrative technique and discusses how his perception of the world affects his depiction of character.
October 30, 2015
This volume of essays focuses on how poets approach reading as a notion and a practice that both inform their writing and their relationship to their readers. The nineteenth century saw a broadened and increasingly self-conscious concern with reading as an interpretive and political act, with significant implications for poets' individual practice, which they often forged in dialogue with other poets and artists of the time. Covering the 1830s to the late 1990s, a period rich in poetic innovation, the essays examine a wide range of authors and their diverse approaches to reading as inscribed in - and related to - creative writing, and articulate the many ways in which reading developed as an active engagement key to the critical thought...
March 27, 2015
Over the past four decades immigration to France from the Francophone countries of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) has changed in character. For much of the twentieth century, migrants who crossed the Mediterranean to France were men seeking work, who frequently undertook manual labour, working long hours in difficult conditions. Recent decades have seen an increase in family reunification - the arrival of women and children from North Africa, either accompanying their husbands or joining them in France. Contemporary creative representations of migration are shaped by this shift in gender and generation from a solitary, mostly male experience to one that included women and children. Just as the shift made new demands of the '...
February 1, 2012
Writing and Muslim Identity is a comparative study of Islam in contemporary German- and English-language literature. At a time when the non-Islamic world seems to be defining itself increasingly in contrast to the Islamic world, this literary exploration of Islam-related issues sheds new and valuable light on the cultural interaction between the Muslim world and 'the West'. Writing and Muslim Identity engages with literary representations of different versions of Islam and asks how travel and migration, the transcultural experiences of migrant and post-migrant Muslims, may have shaped the Islams encountered in today's Germany and Britain. With its comparative approach to 'cultural translations' as creative and challenging interactions...
January 1, 1999
Inaugural Lecture delivered on 10 June 1999 at the University of London Senate House.
January 1, 1997
Heinrich Böll on Page and Screen makes available the papers given
at the symposium held at the Institute of Germanic Studies and the Goethe Institute,
London, in December 1995, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Böll's
death. The articles present new critical perspectives on a writer who is now
generally accepted as one of the most important literary figures in Germany
during the second half of the twentieth century, and some essays pay particular
attention to the hitherto neglected area of Böll's contribution to radio
and film, examining the work of a number of renowned directors who have translated
his scenarios and characters into the language of the popular mass media.
March 1, 1996
Depuis
quelque temps la ‘pensée’ de Joubert est connue et étudiée, mais ce qu’on
ignore est l’importance qu’il donne à l’acte même d’écrire et
son scepticisme à l’égard du ‘livre’. Joubert ne
destine pas ses écrits à la publication. Il s’attache dans
son manuscript à designer la singularité absolue, ‘infracasable’,
de chaque moment et de chaque fragment d’écriture. Mais ce qu’aucune edition n’a
pu montrer jusqu’à present, c’est que Joubert était
non moins fascine et troublé par l’acte même de l’écriture
et la nature epistémologique du livre que par la nécessité d’élaborer une esthétique
cohérente. Les éditeurs actuels ont préféré typographier ces carnets, tout en
reproduisant, autant que possible, l’inscription du texte sur la...
January 1, 1996
Stendhal et la Hollande présente au
lecteur quelque 200 documents inédits rédigés par Stendhal. Accompagnés de notes et
commentaires autographes ils illustrent une étape essentielle de la genèse de
son style. Elaine Williamson, qui a découvert ces documents, montre dans son introduction
comment les techniques de composition utilisées par Stendhal dans son travail administrative
préfigurent son œuvre de romancier. Ces documents
datent du temps où Stendhal, auditeur au Conseil d’Etat, était chargé de l’administration
des domaines et des bâtiments de la Couronne en Hollande, territoire réuni à la
France en 1810 par Napoléon. Ils situent son œuvre dans l’univers du Premier Empire et s’appuient sur
des notes identifiant ses sources,...