Bucknell University Press

Edimus quod nobis libet.

April 18, 2017 by Tong Tong

April: the Month of Poetry

April is National Poetry Month. Since its inception in 1996, National Poetry Month has evolved into one of the largest cultural events celebrating imagination, language, emotion and contemplation. On a gorgeous spring day, we invite you to celebrate the beauty of poetry with us and carry on the joy of reading poetry all year long.

Below are some of the books of poetry published by Bucknell University Press since 2000:

 

Lady Anne: A Chronicle in Verse by Antjie Krog 

This is the first English translation of an award winning book published in Afrikaans in 1989.  It engages critically and creatively with a key moment of colonial history – the time Lady Anne Barnard spent at the Cape of Good Hope, from 1797 to 1802. Usually mentioned merely as a witty hostess of fabulous parties, Anne Lindsay Barnard, the daughter of a Scottish Earl and the wife of a colonial administrator, was an independent thinker and a painter and writer of genius. Antjie Krog acts as bard and chronicles an epic about this remarkable heroine’s life in South Africa, and intertwines it with life two hundred years later in the same country but now in the throes of anti-apartheid anger and vicious states of emergency.

 

Strategically I do my best

1

strategically I do my best

the wheels crunch and

the cannon barrel shifts into the breach

 

2

the pelvis gets its familiar snap

knees easily fold their openness

even a slight slackness lets experienced lips smack

 

3

my days of fighting you are over.

I only want you preserved

As the one who remembers us

 

4

among the smoke and the slogan-shouting mouths

the accusations the violence the death in between

you belong nowhere you are the irrelevant wolverine

 

Catastrophic Bliss by Myronn Hardy

Catastrophic Bliss contemplates the longing to understand connections and disconnections within a world ever more fragmented yet interdependent. With allusions to Dante, Stevie Wonder, Fernando Pessoa, Persephone and Marianne Moore, these poems move from the tumultuous to the sublime: a pit bull killing an invading thief, two people on a New York City subway playing chess, Billy Eckstine recording in Rio de Janeiro, to an imagined Barack Obama writing poems to his father. Myronn Hardy’s third collection comprises war, place, love, and history all yearning to be reconciled.

 

Beginning and End of the Snow / Début et Fin de la Neige by Yves Bonnefoy, translated by Emily Grosholz

Yves Bonnefoy’s book of poems, Beginning and End of the Snow followed by Where the Arrow Falls, combines two meditations in which the poet’s thoughts and a landscape reflect each other. In the first, the wintry New England landscape he encountered while teaching at Williams College evokes the dance of atoms in the philosophical poem of Lucretius as well as the Christian doctrine of death and resurrection. In the second, Bonnefoy uses the luminous woods of Haute Provence as the setting for a parable of losing one’s way.

 

Cipango by Tomás Harris, translated by Daniel Shapiro

Chilean poet Tomás Harris’s Cipango–written in the 1980s, first published in 1992, and considered by many to be the author’s best work to date–employs the metaphor of a journey. The poems collectively allude to the voyage of Columbus, who believed that he’d reached the Far East (“Cipango,” or Japan), not the Americas. Building on that mistaken historical premise, Cipango comments on the oppressive legacy of colonialism in Latin America–manifested in twentieth-century Chile through the 1973 military coup by Augusto Pinochet and the brutal dictatorship there–and on the violence and degradation of contemporary urban society. The author’s vision is of a decadent, apocalyptic world that nonetheless contains the possibility for regeneration.

 

Poems and Elegies by Olga Sedakova, translate by Slava I. Yastremski AND Michael M. Naydan

An intensely philosophical and religious poet, Olga Sedakova writes of nature, music, and the inner, spiritual life. As one of the preservers of traditional Russian culture, she stands in stark contrast to the rampant commercialization in contemporary Russian life, instead tracing her poetic roots back to the early avant-garde movements of pre-revolutionary Russia. For that stance, she endured years of censorship and silencing during the Soviet regime her poems distributed by hand in mimeographed copies or by word of mouth. This volume introduces to an English-speaking audience an extensive selection of poems by one of Russia’s most distinguished lyric poets writing today.

 

Blues Baby: Early Poems by Harryette Mullen

Blues Baby: Early Poems brings together Harryette Mullen’s first book, Tree Tall Woman, with previously uncollected poems from the beginning of her career. Her early poems draw inspiration from the feminist and Black Arts movements, as well as her connections to diverse communities of writers and artists. The movement of this volume is loosely autobiographical – from childhood narratives to poems about sexuality to indirect evocations of the poet’s art. Many of the poems address the subject of family and community, often emphasizing the strength of women and female friendship; some evoke culturally specific traditions and locations; others of a satiric nature offer cultural critiques. Harryette Mullen’s poetics works within various traditions, including the confessional and the performative mode of the Black Arts poets, and throughout her free-verse lyrics are written with insight, humor, and musicality, and will appeal to a diverse readership.

 

Swimming With Dolphins by Adrian Oktenberg

When Aphrodite rises from the sea to touch her fingertip to Sappho’s hand in “The Creation” – the first poem in Swimming with Dolphins – the world begins. From this startling and inventive recasting of creation, Adrian Oktenberg sets the tone for her second collection. An intelligent sensuality pulses through these poems of love and loss – marvelously present in the fullness of pleasure, equally present in moments of crushing grief. The poet refuses to make small any suffering, whether it is personal, as in matters of erotic or familial love, or historical and political, as in her poems on the Argentine “disappeared” and the McCarthyite period in the United States. She finds that “after plain, plenitude comes.” “Swimming with Dolphins,” the major long poem which is the centerpiece of the books, is a bold exploration of erotic possibilities between women and, at the same time, a lush evocation of the natural world. In profound ways, this book opens our senses and affirms the regenerative power of life and love, even in the face of personal or historical catastrophe.

The Disappearing Poet Blues by Marc Hudson

The poems in Marc Hudson’s The Disappearing Poet Blues are driven by a moral anguish: how do we live, they ask, in strict circumstances; what is the worth of a profoundly limited human life; how can one be both a good father and a good artist? Emblematic of the poet’s exile and endurance are the severe landscapes of the Okanogan in Washington State and the Colville Indian Reservation, where Hudsons brain-injured son, Ian, was born and lived his first year. Later poems reflect the familys move to Indiana, where the less austere contours of the Midwest suggest a mellowing of grief. The poems of the second section metaphorically wrestle with many of the same concerns: Caedmon, the first Anglo-Saxon Christian poet, tells of the burdens of song; an Irish monk on his volcanic outpost longs for his homecoming in Christ. Hudsons The Disappearing Poet Blues has an ethical music and weight; but ragged and uncertain and human as it is, it also sings the blues.

 

Alluvial by Katherine Soniat

The sediment, or alluvium, deposited in a riverbed perpetually shifts and settles in response to water’s flux; in turn, its submerged contours shape the watercourse, creating shallows and rapids, treacherous holes and long placid runs, sculpting the restless shoreline.

Set in the watery landscapes of the Chesapeake Bay (the world’s largest estuary) and in Louisiana (land of braided tributaries), Katherine Soniat’sAlluvial charts the course of individual and collective histories influenced by the rich alluvium of culture and geography, ecology and autobiography. Lives large and small, recorded and unrecorded-those of Captain John Smith, Frederick Douglass, a community of Ursuline nuns, a home full of exiled children of tubercular parents, the poet’s mother, nameless others-merge into the past’s archetypal sediment, only to rise again in these beautiful poems to dance in memory’s drift and to filter a future always infused with the past.

 

The Fiddler’s Trance by Floyd Skloot

Poet, essayist, and novelist Floyd Skloot continues his exploration of human resilience in The Fiddler’s Trance, his third collection. Patterns of historical and personal experience in these poems illuminate the mysterious interaction of illness, loss, and creative endeavor. We can never be certain that our vital force or physical integrity will endure: Skloot’s poems consider the phenomenon of sudden change in our lives. When all we understood about ourselves and our world is called into question, we must find a new way of seeing. Mixing formal and free verse; moving freely between past and present, self and others, private and public life, the poems of The Fiddler’s Trance are concerned with the power of art to express hope honestly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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December 12, 2016 by Tong Tong

Notable Reviews of 2016

It is almost the end of the year, a time to reflect on what we have achieved. In 2016, Bucknell University Press books were reviewed extensively in many different scholarly journals. Please take a look at these 10 notable reviews and maybe you can find your holiday present from our book list. Happy holidays to our readers, authors, editors, and friends.

 

BUP12.05NortonFiction

Fiction and the Philosophy of Happiness: Ethical Inquiries in the Age of Enlightenment by Brian Michael Norton

“Norton’s choice of texts attests to his willingness to examine a range of material both formally and thematically. From Sterne and Diderot, to Rousseau, Godwin, and Hayes, he follows the patterns of challenge that the fictions—in comic and satric form, in dialogue and narrative—insist on.”

-Ann Van Sant, University of California, Irvine, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 28, No. 3

 

magical-realism

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America by Jerónimo Arellano

“Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America makes a valuable contribution to a crowded area of research by approaching magical realism through affect studies, the history of the emotions, and new materialist studies (Jane Bennett, Bill Brown). Jerónimo Arellano’s opposing perspectives elicit surprising new insights about works that have been analyzed extensively, such as Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) and Alejo Carpentier’s Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps). (…). Indeed, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America has critical ambitions that far surpass those of a new study on magical realism; it is more aptly characterized as a sketch toward a new transatlantic literary and cultural history of wonder in modernity from the discovery and invasion of the New World to the present. (…) Impeccably researched in all areas of expertise, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America is a sophisticated study that models the kinds of innovative readings that new emotions based and object-oriented theories may facilitate in Latin American literary and cultural studies.”

Monika Kaup, Modern Language Quarterly 77.4 (December 2016)

 

medbh-mcguckian

Medbh McGuckian by Borbála Faragó

“Following the brief of the Contemporary Irish Writers series in which it is published, that is to “provide a general discussion of interpretative strategies and issues for understanding this work”, Medbh McGuckian works within the inherent limitations of such a project to produce a thorough introduction to and detailed readings of poems, collections, an overview of the poetic career and an extensive bibliography which will orient the uninitiated McGuckian reader very well indeed.”

Kenneth Keating, Irish Studies Review, 24:4, 492-494 (2016)

queen-anneQueen Anne and the Arts edited by Cedric D. Reverand, II

“These, the artists and the Queen, were equal, if perhaps silent or unknowing partners in the same enterprise- to celebrate the glories of Britannia through multiple infusions of shared values and belief systems. In other words, this collection of essays helps us see the constructs that Anne and her artistic community shared in the representation of the finest of British creativity to the world at large.”

Professor Beverly Schneller, Belmont University, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 30.2 (2016)

 

richard-brinsley-sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The Impresario in Political and Cultural Context edited by Jack DeRochi and Daniel J. Ennis

“[…]ending the book with an essay on caricature might be a brilliantly ironic move by the editors to admit that any project that attempts to cover the full breadth of Sheridan runs

up against ‘theatrical politics’ (281), and underneath a suspect subject who dazzles but remains unknowable. Sheridan is a fascinating figure, and hopefully this book will encourage more

critics and teachers to incorporate him into their accounts of the period. In answer to the question of whether a new book on him is worthwhile, the evidence of this one suggests a

resounding ‘Yes’.”

– James Kelly, University of Exeter, The BARS Review, No. 47 (Spring 2016)

 

shakespeare-and-the-spanish-comedia

Shakespeare and the Spanish ‘Comedia’: Translation, Interpretation, Performance. Essays in Honor of Susan L. Fischer edited by Bárbara Mujica

“As the range of its material suggests, the collection in honour of Susan L. Fischer deals with a large body of materials that are not often studied together. Scholars will find much that is new in the chapters, whether it be editorial practice, visual arts, music, criticism, performance or translation. The volume should also be judged by the standard of how well it disseminates current research and methodologies in the analysis of Shakespeare and the Spanish Golden-Age drama. On that measure, it succeeds fairly well….Undoubtedly, the volume makes a valuable contribution to the field, though perhaps a section devoted to comparative studies of Shakespeare and the Spanish Comedia proper might have been included in order to be fully consistent with the title of the collection and so as not to fall short of critical expectations.”

José Manuel González, Universidad de Alicante, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume XCIII, Number 3, 2016

 

laurence-whyte

The Collected Poems of Laurence Whyte edited by Michael Griffin

“Two editions of Laurence Whyte’s Original Poems on Various Subjects, Serious, Moral and Diverting appeared in this little-known poet’s lifetime, in 1740 and 1742; they are now collected in a carefully annotated volume with an introduction by Michael Griffin. Griffin acknowledges that few readers will recognize the name. All the more exciting to discover a missing link in eighteenth-century Ireland’s literary and musical history, and a writer who, in throwing new light on Oliver Goldsmith, also invites us to think more deeply about the English literary tradition and Irish talent.”

Norma Clarke, The Times Literary Supplement (Dec 7 2016)

 

language-of-robert-burns

The Language of Robert Burns: Style, Ideology, and Identity by Alex Broadhead

“This study makes an outstanding contribution to the on-going reassessment of the function of language in Robert Burns’s literary works….Broadhead offers a critically nuanced account of the poet’s multilingualism and linguistic experimentalism, and one that emphasises Burns’s role in initiating not only an ‘imaginative reconceptualization of […] the language of Scottish literature’ (72-3), but also a ‘radical revaluation of poetic language’ that subsequently influenced the linguistic thinking of Shelley and Wordsworth (171). In the process, Broadhead succeeds both in offering a new perspective on the linguistic complexity of Burns’s literary endeavours and in illuminating the centrality of language in the poet’s cultural and literary legacies.”

Christopher Donaldson, Lancaster University, The BARS Review, No. 48 (Autumn 2016)

 

secret-life-of-things

The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England, edited by Mark Blackwell.

“I think (this volume) represents essentially the best-case scenario for the edited collection of literary criticism that is organized not for a series or as primarily a teaching tool but as the best way of compiling a field’s state of knowledge on an emerging topic… (it) remains an indispensable resource for scholars working on a host of topics related to the it-narrative and the animated objects of eighteenth-century literature.”

Jenny Davidson, SEL 56, 3 (Summer 2016): 671–725

 

transatlantic-travels

Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims by Adriana Méndez Rodenas

“Méndez Rodenas’s reading of these women travelers complements the imperial and postcolonial criticism about travel writing, and opens new routes for understanding female travel writing in more complex and dynamic aspects. The book is written with sophistication and offers a comprehensive bibliographic state of the question in women’s travel, establishing a fruitful dialogue with it across areas and disciplines, between European and Latin American studies.”

– Leila Gomez, University of Colorado at Boulder, Modern Language Notes Volume 130/ No. 2

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November 16, 2016 by Tong Tong

Celebrating Diversity

Celebrate diversity with this reading list from Bucknell Press:

 

  1. Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study 

postracial-america

Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study attempts to broaden the application of this idea – the dream of a nation beyond race- by situating it in contexts that demonstrate how the idea of the postracial has been with America since its founding and will continue to be long after the Obama administration’s term ends.

 

2. In Media Res: Race, Identity, and Pop Culture in the Twenty-First Century

in-media-res

In Media Res is a manifold collection that reflects the intersectional qualities of university programming in the twenty-first century. Taking race, gender, and popular culture as its central thematic subjects, the volume collects academic essays, speeches, poems, and creative works that critically engage a wide range of issues, including American imperialism, racial and gender discrimination, the globalization of culture, and the limitations of our new multimedia world.

 

3. Poetic Sisters: Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets

poetic-sister

In Poetic Sisters, Deborah Kennedy explores the personal and literary connections among five early eighteenth-century women poets: Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea; Elizabeth Singer Rowe; Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford; Sarah Dixon; and Mary Jones.

 

4. Blues Baby: Early Poems

blues-baby

Blues Baby: Early Poems brings together Harryette Mullen’s first book, Tree Tall Woman, with previously uncollected poems from the beginning of her career. Her early poems draw inspiration from the feminist and Black Arts movements, as well as her connections to diverse communities of writers and artists.

 

5. Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea

freedom-of-speech

The essays in this volume portray the debates concerning freedom of speech in eighteenth-century France and Britain as well as in Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories

 

6. Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century

confronting-our-canons

What is a canon and why does it matter? In Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century, Joan L. Brown shows that a canon has the power to define a field and determine what is taught. She argues that it is both productive and necessary to confront our canons, to see what is actually in them and how these works and authors got there.

 

7. Voices Out of Africa in Twentieth-Century Spanish Caribbean Literature

voices-out-of-africa

Voices Out of Africa in Twentieth-Century Spanish Caribbean Literature is a compelling exploration of how authors of the Spanish Caribbean (Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico) have incorporated the cultural legacy of Africa into their narrative fictions.

 

8. The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century

the-idea-of-disability

The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century explores disabled people who lived in the eighteenth century. It includes essays considering philosophical writing dating between 1663 and 1788, when the understanding of disability altered dramatically, exploring three types–the novel, the periodical and the pamphlet–which pour out their ideas of disability in different ways and bringing to light little known disabled people, or people who are little known for their disability.

 

9. Queer People: Negotiations and Expressions of Homosexuality, 1700-1800

queer-people

This fascinating and diverse collection of essays concerns the lives and representations of homosexuals in the long eighteenth century. The collection addresses and seeks to move beyond the current critical division between essentialists and social constructionists, a division that bedevils the history of sexuality and fissures Queer Theory.

 

 

10. Color, Hair, and Bone: Race in the Twenty-first Century

color-hair

This anthology is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that builds on the presentations from a conference on race held at Bucknell University that addressed the issue of the persistence of race in the new millennium. These essays all deal with various critical dimensions of race from a sociological, anthropological, and literary perspective.

 

 

11. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain

emigrant-dreams

Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain offers a new approach to the cultural history of contemporary Spain, examining the ways in which Spain’s own self-conceptions are changing and multiplying in response to migrants from Latin America and Africa.

 

 

12. Having Our Way: Women Rewriting Tradition in Twentieth-Century America

having-our-way

This set of essays considers the work of ten women writers: Nella Larsen, Zelda Fitzgerald, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Sylvia Plath, Hisaye Yamamoto, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich, and Sandra Cisneros. The essays bring together the voices of ten other women writers who are themselves having their way with academic tradition, rewriting it from the women’s points of view.

 

 

 

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October 17, 2016 by Tong Tong

Series Editor Interview: New Studies in the “Age of Goethe” and Professor Karin Schutjer

Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity (2014) by Christine Lehleiter

Since it debuted, Bucknell University Press’s book series New Studies in the “Age of Goethe” has been receiving critics’ attention and readers’ praises. The series, sponsored by the Goethe Society of North America, aims to encourage and publish innovative research that adopts interdisciplinary approaches or provides new insights on the “Age of Goethe.” Current books in the series include Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity (2014) by Christine Lehleiter, Aesthetics as Secular Millenialism: Its Trail from Baumgarten and Kant to Walt Disney and Hitler (2013) by Benjamin Bennett, The Mask and the Quill: Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism (2011) by Mary Helen Dupree, After Jena: Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the End of the Old Regime (2010) by Peter J. Schwartz and Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity from Romanticism to Freud (2010) by Brian Tucker. Professor Joycelyn Holland of University of California-Santa Barbara highly praised Lehleiter’s Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity, saying that “(Lehleiter’s) work has the potential to change the landscape of Romantic literary studies.” Dupree’s book The Mask and the Quill is also recognized by critics. “The Mask and the Quill is an important contribution to German studies, gender studies, and performance studies”, said Professor Lena Heilmann, who is currently teaching at Knox College.

Aesthetics as Secular Millenialism: Its Trail from Baumgarten and Kant to Walt Disney and Hitler (2013) by Benjamin Bennett

Great books cannot be published without great editors. Speaking about her experience with New Studies in the “Age of Goethe,” Professor Karin Schutjer, the current series editor, acknowledges the collective wisdom and experience of the editorial group. “It’s gratifying to be part of it,” she says.

In fact, the birth and success of New Studies in the “Age of Goethe” are inseparable from the Goethe Society of North America. The books series was founded in 2006 by Professor Astrida Tantillo, who was the Executive Secretary of the organization at that time. It is an active society that has a group of scholars who are enthusiastic about new research and are willing to foster innovative projects. Professor Schutjer describes that “the society mentors young scholars from the dissertation stage, provides conference opportunities, a scholarly yearbook, and article prizes. The monograph series is able to draw on this fabulous network of established and emerging scholars.”

The Mask and the Quill: Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism (2011) by Mary Helen Dupree

Professor Schutjer is interested in German history and her recent book concerns Goethe’s relationship to Judaism. As she recalls, her first touch with German studies in college was to “try to understand the catastrophic course of German history in the 20th century (how, for example, we got from Goethe to the Holocaust) and then to explore the remarkable processes through which Germany has redefined itself since then.” Historical events and significant figures are always correlated, and in order to understand Germany in the 20th century and Germany today, it is important to understand those influential German intellectuals such as Goethe. When asked about her understanding of “the Age of Goethe,” professor Schutjer shows great passion in her profession and depicts a grand picture of German culture at that time. “It was the age of Kant, Hegel, Mozart, Beethoven, and so many other pathbreaking artists, writers, and intellectuals. And in the midst of it all was Goethe, who not only became the defining German poet, but also had his hands in so many other fields of inquiry and endeavor, including science (botany, anatomy, optics, geology), art and architecture, dramaturgy, philology, public administration and statecraft.” Thanks to the richness of this era, it is not surprising that, after so many years of scholarly research, there are still numerous innovative projects such as the books in this series and we look forward to forthcoming research to unveil the “Age of Goethe” from an angle we haven’t examined before.

After Jena: Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the End of the Old Regime (2010) by Peter J. Schwartz

Below is the full interview with Professor Karin Schutjer.

What’s the inspiration for this book series?

The book series was founded in 2006 by Professor Astrida Tantillo, who served at the time the Executive Secretary of the Goethe Society of North America. North American scholarship in the Age of Goethe is a remarkably vibrant and innovative field. Her vision was simply to establish a leading publishing venue for the best new work in the field.

What do you enjoy most about your involvement with this series?

That’s an easy one! Our two previous editors, Astrida Tantillo and Jane Brown, developed a very collaborative editorial process. All proposals are carefully read and discussed by our small board, which fortunately still includes both Astrida and Jane. I feel there is a great deal of collective wisdom and experience in this group, and that we are very directed towards finding and developing the potential in projects. It’s gratifying to be part of it.

Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity from Romanticism to Freud (2010) by Brian Tucker

As we all know, Goethe is the most renowned figure in German culture both within and beyond his time. How do you understand the Age of Goethe?

The Age of Goethe is loosely defined as 1770-1830, the six decades of Goethe’s greatest productivity. But in a more important sense this period really represents Germany’s passage into modernity.  This era spans huge transformations, from the rule of Frederick the Great through the Revolutionary Wars and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, to the reactionary post-Napoleonic order. It saw the flourishing of Enlightenment thought and the emergence of Romanticism and German nationalism. It was the age of Kant, Hegel, Mozart, Beethoven, and so many other pathbreaking artists, writers, and intellectuals. And in the midst of it all was Goethe, who not only became the defining German poet, but also had his hands in so many other fields of inquiry and endeavor, including science (botany, anatomy, optics, geology), art and architecture, dramaturgy, philology, public administration and statecraft. You can imagine what a rich field this is for interdisciplinary explorations.

What are the notable features of this book series that differentiate it from other scholarly publications on Goethe and German culture in a broad context?

What sets this series apart is its clear epochal focus backed up by the expertise and resources of an extremely active and innovative scholarly society, the Goethe Society of North America. The society mentors young scholars from the dissertation stage, provides conference opportunities, a scholarly yearbook, and article prizes. The monograph series is able to draw on this fabulous network of established and emerging scholars.

What is your expectation for future publications in this book series?

We have several interesting proposals in the works and we’ll see where the field takes us next! I think we’ll continue to see a broad range of topics and approaches because that really reflects the diversity of contemporary scholarship in the Age of Goethe.

What motivates to be a scholar in German studies? What are your academic interests?

I can’t speak for all North American German studies scholars, but I think many people in my generation were probably moved, maybe first as undergraduates, to try to understand the catastrophic course of German history in the 20th century (how, for example, we got from Goethe to the Holocaust) and then to explore the remarkable processes through which Germany has redefined itself since then. My own work is still somewhat shaped by those big questions about German history: my recent book concerned Goethe’s relationship to Judaism.

 

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September 16, 2016 by Tong Tong

Eighteenth-Century Titles Recognized

Bucknell University Press’s eighteenth-century publications were recently recognized and recommended in the current issue of Studies in English Literature. In the review by Jenny Davidson, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, she thanks Bucknell University Press for “continuing to do a deep service to our field by publishing monographs and reissuing them in paperback wherever possible.”

Here are the publications mentioned in Professor Davidson’s review:

Essential Scots and the Idea of Unionism in Anglo-Scottish literature, 1603-1832 by Rivka Swenson.

“(This book) fills a significant gap in the critical literature and touches on moments both familiar and relatively obscure in the history of Anglo-Scottish literary interactions over the long eighteenth century.”

Romanticism, Origins, and the History of Heredity by Christine Lehleiter.

“A fascinating and illuminating book.”

Sovereign Power and the Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Literature and the Problem of the Political by Peter DeGabriele

“I found DeGabriele’s readings of novels stimulating and often persuasive.”

The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England, edited by Mark Blackwell.

“I think (this volume) represents essentially the best-case scenario for the edited collection of literary criticism that is organized not for a series or as primarily a teaching tool but as the best way of compiling a field’s state of knowledge on an emerging topic… (it) remains an indispensable resource for scholars working on a host of topics related to the it-narrative and the animated objects of eighteenth-century literature.”

Developments in the Histories of Sexualities: In Search of the Normal, 1600-1800 by Chris Mounsey

“An important and thought-provoking collection.”

Impassioned Jurisprudence: Law, Literature and Emotion, 1760-1848, edited by Nancy E. Johnson

“(The editor) has assembled an intriguing volume of essays whose authors consider the role of emotion in eighteenth-century English legal theory.”

Citizens of the World: Adapting in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Kevin L. Cope and Samara Anne Cahill.

“A number of brilliant essays here.”

Excitable Imaginations: Eroticism and Reading in Britain, 1660-1760 by Katheleen Lubey

“(Its) stated goal of bringing ‘the history of sexuality into contact with the history of reading’(p12) has already proved generative for other scholars.”

 

Other BU Press publications that are mentioned by Professor Davidson include:

Textual Vision: Augustan Design and the Invention of Eighteenth-Century British Culture by Timothy Erwin.

Making Love: Sentiment and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature by Paul Kelleher.

The Matrimonial Trap: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers Redefine Marriage by Laura E. Thomason

Editing Lives: Essays in Contemporary Textual and Biographical Studies in Honor of O M Brack Jr., edited by Jesse G. Swan

Reading 1759: Literary Culture in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain and France, edited by Shaun Regan.

Revealing Bodies: Anatomy, Allegory and the Grounds of Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Erin M. Goss.

The French Revolution Debate and the British Novel, 1790-1814: The Struggle for History’ Authority by Morgan Rooney

The Language of Robert Burns: Style, Ideology and Identity by Alex Broadhead.

Charlotte Lennox: Correspondence and miscellaneous Documents, edited by Nobert Schürer

 

by Tong Tong, 2016-2017 Cynthia Fell Intern

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