Bucknell University Press

Attention Bucknell students: Entries for the 2016-17 Book Collecting Prize now being accepted!

 

Celebrate diversity with this reading list from Bucknell Press:

 

1. Postracial America? An Interdisciplinary Study 

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 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

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: 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

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

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 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 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

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

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, 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

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.

 

 

 

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.

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.”

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 20^th 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 20^th 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.

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.

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 20^th 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.

 

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