Reviews
Greek Tragedy in GermanyReview of Erika Fischer-Lichte's Tragedy's Endurance: Performances of Greek Tragedies and Cultural Identity in Germany since 1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), in The Classical Review 68 (1), April 2018, pp. 274-6.
This monograph provides a salutary reminder of the ways in which every age and nation has tended to remake the ancient Greeks in its own image. Yet it is also a celebration of Greek tragedy’s ability to withstand all the manifold fragmentations and instances of critical or interpretative violence to which it has been subjected over the millennia.Read more...
Review of 'Feeling and Classical Philology' by Constanze GüthenkeReview of Constanze Güthenke, Feeling and Classical Philology: Knowing Antiquity in German Scholarship, 1770-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), Journal of Hellenic Studies 142, November 2022, pp. 461-2.
What are the implications of ‘the erotics of pedagogy’ in a post-Weinstein world? Constanze Güthenke’s new monograph does not explicitly answer this question – but it does contribute to an ongoing disciplinary debate about the (potentially toxic) discourse of scholarly passion which has long and silently underpinned the ideal of Altertumswissenschaft.Read more...
Review of 'The Greco-German Affair in the Euro Crisis' by Claudia Sternberg et al.Review of Claudia Sternberg (et al.), The Greco-German Affair in the Euro Crisis: Mutual Recognition Lost (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), published on the UCL European Studies Blog, 29 October 2018.
This timely, concise, richly illustrated and highly readable survey by Claudia Sternberg, Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni, and Kalypso Nicolaïdis provides a nuanced approach to the recent vicissitudes of the Greco-German relationship.Read more...
Review of 'Die Altertumswissenschaften an der Universität Frankfurt 1914-1950'Review of Roland Färber and Fabian Link (eds), Die Altertumswissenschaften an der Universität Frankfurt 1914-1950, (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), Germania: Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 100, 2022, pp. 455-6.
Roland Färber and Fabian Link’s edited collection of essays on the history of classical studies and Altertumswissenschaft at the University of Frankfurt during the first half of the 20th century is a highly unusual volume.
Review of 'Philanthropy, Civil Society, and the State in German History, 1815-1989' by Thomas AdamReview of Philanthropy, Civil Society, and the State in German History, 1815-1989, by Thomas Adam (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2016), in the Modern Language Review 112 (3), July 2017, pp. 738-40.
The aim of this survey of philanthropy and its entangled relationship with the State in Germany is twofold. Firstly, Adam emphasises the indispensability of private donations and endowments to the maintenance of social and civic institutions in the spheres of education, culture, and poor relief. Read more...
Review of Paul Fox, 'The Image of the Soldier in German Culture'Review of The Image of the Soldier in German Culture, 1871-1933 by Paul Fox (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), published in Central European History 53 (3), September 2020, pp. 664-5.
Paul Fox’s recent study, which takes a longue-durée approach to popular representations of Prusso-German militarism, tracing continuities from the mid-nineteenth century to the interwar period, purports to break substantial new ground.Read more...
Review of Marco Hillemann and Tobias Roth (eds) 'Wilhelm Müller und der Philhellenismus'Review of Wilhelm Müller und der Philhellenismus, edited by Marco Hillemann and Tobias Roth (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2015), in German Quarterly 90 (4), Fall 2017, pp. 496-7.
At first glance, the graffito-bedizened photograph of an Athenian street which graces this volume’s cover appears bafflingly irrelevant – only once we peer more closely does the Greek street-sign in one corner (‘HODOS MULLEROU’ or ‘Müller Street’) become apparent, giving the reader some clue as to the essay collection’s scope and intentions.Read more...
Books worth (re)readingReview essay, published in the International Journal of Play 5 (3), 2016 (special issue on Histories of Play, edited by Kate Darian-Smith and Simon Sleight), pp. 343-345.Featuring George Eisen's Children and Play in the Holocaust: Games Among the Shadows (1988); Nicholas Stargardt's Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis (2006); Heidi Rosenbaum's “Und trotzdem war’s ’ne schöne Zeit”: Kinderalltag im Nationalsozialismus (2014), and Bastian Fleermann and Benedikt Mauer (eds) Kriegskinder: Kriegskindheiten in Düsseldorf 1939–1945 (2015).Read more...
Critique of the portrayal of the Prussian Cadet Corps in Jörg Muth's 'Command Culture' (2011)An informal blog review considering the flaws in Jörg Muth's portrayal of the Prussian Cadet Corps in chapter 3 of his monograph Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2011).Read more...