History Commons^™

Joel Scott, Translator. The Aesthetics Of Resistance, Volume Ii. By Peter Weiss. Duke Up, 2020., Mona Eikel-Pohen

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Joel Scott, translator. The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume II. By Peter Weiss. Duke UP, 2020. x + 320pp.

Jonathan K. Gosnell. Franco-America In The Making: The Creole Nation Within. U Of Nebraska P, 2018., Anna V. Keefe

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Jonathan K. Gosnell. Franco-America in the Making: The Creole Nation Within. U of Nebraska P, 2018. 347 pp.

Roads To Nowhere? Cycling, Happiness And Emotional Authenticity In Contemporary German Fiction, Jon Hughes

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article compares a selection of recent German literary representations of cycling in the context of contemporary discourses of slow travel, with a particular focus on themes of happiness and emotional authenticity. It seeks to expand the framework of discussions of slow travel with a comparative focus on four novels: Der Mann auf dem Hochrad (‘The Man on the Penny Farthing’, 1984) by Uwe Timm, Im Sommer wieder Fahrrad (‘I’ll Cycle Again in the Summer’, 2016) by Lea Streisand, Im Feld (‘In the Field’, 2018) by Joachim Zelter and Neujahr (‘New Year’, 2018) by Juli Zeh. The article surveys the …

Starring Hitler! Adolf Hitler As The Main Character In Twentieth-First Century French Fiction, Marion Duval

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Adolf Hitler has remained a prominent figure in popular culture, often portrayed as either the personification of evil or as an object of comedic ridicule. Although Hitler has never belonged solely to history books, testimonials, or documentaries, he has recently received a great deal of attention in French literary fiction. This article reviews three recent French novels by established authors: La part de l’autre (The Alternate Hypothesis) by Emmanuel Schmitt, Lui (Him) by Patrick Besson and La jeunesse mélancolique et très désabusée d’Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler’s Depressed and Very Disillusioned Youth) by Michel Folco; all of which belong to the …

Andrea Goulet. Legacies Of The Rue Morgue: Science, Space, And Crime Fiction In France. Philadelphia: U Of Pennsylvania P, 2016., Kelsey B. Madsen

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Andrea Goulet. Legacies of the Rue Morgue: Science, Space, and Crime Fiction in France. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2016. 295pp.

Frederick Luis Aldama. Latino Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey By Interview. San Diego: ¡Hyperbole Books!, 2017., Jessica Rutherford

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Frederick Aldama. Latino Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey by Interview. San Diego: ¡Hyperbole Books!, 2017.

Ian Gordon. Kid Comic Strips: A Genre Across Four Countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. ---. Superman: The Persistence Of An American Icon. New Jersey: Rutgers Up, 2017., Cathy L. Ryan

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Ian Gordon. Kid Comic Strips: A Genre Across Four Countries. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels, Ed. Roger Saban. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Review of Ian Gordon. Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 2017.

Michael A Chaney. Reading Lessons In Seeing: Mirrors, Masks, And Mazes In The Autobiographical Graphic Novel. Jackson: Up Of Mississippi, 2016., Jennifer Caroccio

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Michael A. Chaney. Reading Lessons in Seeing: Mirrors, Masks, and Mazes in the Autobiographical Graphic Novel. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2016.

Mark Heimermann And Brittany Tullis, Eds. Picturing Childhood: Youth In Transnational Comics. Austin: U Of Texas P, 2017., Cristina R. Rivera

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Mark Heimermann and Brittany Tullis, eds. Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics. Austin: U of Texas P, 2017.

A Discordant Voice From The Trenches: Juan José De Soiza Reilly’S War Chronicles, María Inés Tato

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The First World War represented a deep crisis of the European civilization that called into question the values and certitudes of the Belle Époque society. Trenches became the symbol of the dehumanization produced by a conflict that marked a watershed in modern history. As a global conflict, its impact was felt beyond the confines of Europe, involving even neutral countries, puzzled by that unexpected spectacle of violence.

In this new scenery, war correspondents were first-hand witnesses of the horrors of the battlefields, transmitted through their journalistic contributions to a public opinion profoundly shaken by this new kind of warfare. Non-European …

“A Few Bars Of The Hymn Of Hate”: The Reception Of Ernst Lissauer’S “Haßgesang Gegen England” In German And English, Richard Millington, Roger Smith

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

“The poem fell like a shell into a munitions depot”: with these words Stefan Zweig recalled the impact made by Ernst Lissauer’s Anglophobic poem “Haßgesang gegen England” (A Chant of Hate Against England) upon first publication in August 1914. The poem’s success derived from the rhetorical power with which it encapsulated a national emotional response to the outbreak of war. In Germany it initiated an outpouring of Anglophobic verse, but lost favor as it became clear that the patriotism it epitomized would not carry the Central Powers to a swift victory. Even after its disappearance from public attention …

Regretful Ruminations: Jacques Rivière’S L’Allemand: Souvenirs Et Réflexions D'Un Prisonnier De Guerre, Arabella L. Hobbs

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article examines Jacques Rivière’s post-war work L’Allemand: Souvenirs et réflexions d'un prisonnier de guerre (1918) ‘On German nature: memories and reflections of a prisoner-of-war,’ as a response to the conflicting nexus of Catholicism and French nationalism in the aftermath of the First World War. A damning account of the German race, L’Allemand exposes Rivière’s tussle with his wartime and post-war identities, most strikingly exhibited in his moral distancing from the text he was to eventually publish. In resuscitating Riviere’s now forgotten text, this article engages with the post-war reception of a work whose peculiar context bears witness to …

9/11, Hyperreality, And The Global Body Politic: Frédéric Beigbeder’S Windows On The World, Jenn Brandt

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This essay argues that the success of Frédéric Beigbeder's Windows on the World is due to Beigbeder's use of the seemingly contradictory genres of autofiction and hyperrealism in the depiction of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. By positioning himself in the text alongside his fictionalized American counterpoint, Beigbeder configures 9/11 as a lived-body experience that models the ways in which the post-9/11 subject was formed within specific political, cultural, and national conditions. The effect of the novel’s hyperrealism is such that Beigbeder simultaneously posits and deconstructs the notion of national identity within the greater contexts of postmodernism and …

Robert Zaretsky. A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus And The Quest For Meaning. Cambridge, Mass., And London: The Belknap P Of Harvard Up, 2013. 240 Pp., Melissa M. Ptacek

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Robert Zaretsky. A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning. Cambridge, Mass., and London: The Belknap P of Harvard UP, 2013. 240 pp.

Eugene Onegin The Cold War Monument: How Edmund Wilson Quarreled With Vladimir Nabokov, Tim Conley

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The tale of how Edmund Wilson quarreled with Vladimir Nabokov over the latter’s 1964 translation of Eugene Onegin can be instructively read as a politically charged event, specifically a “high culture” allegory of the Cold War. Dissemination of anti-Communist ideals (often in liberal and literary guises) was the mandate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, whose funding and editorial initiatives included the publication of both pre-Revolution Russian literature and, more notoriously, the journal Encounter (1953-1990), where Nabokov’s fiery “Reply” to Wilson appeared. This essay outlines the propaganda value of the Onegin debate within and to Cold War mythology.