European Studies: German Studies (17)

• Archaeology and Religion
• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• History
• Women and Gender Studies

The Life of Nuns: Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents

• Henrike Lähnemann
• Eva Schlotheuber
• Anne Simon

In the Middle Ages half of those who chose the religious life were women, yet historians have overlooked entire generations of educated, feisty, capable and enterprising nuns, condemning them to the dusty silence of the archives. What, though, were their motives for entering a convent and what was their daily routine behind its walls like? How did they think, live and worship, both as individuals and as a community? How did they maintain contact with the families and communities they had left behind? Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber offer readers a vivid insight into the largely unknown lives and work of religious women in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

• Biography
• European Studies: German Studies
• History

No Life Without You: Refugee Love Letters from the 1930s

• Franklin Felsenstein

The letters and journals of Ernst Moritz and Vera Hirsch Felsenstein, two German Jewish refugees caught in the tumultuous years leading to the Second World War, form the core of this book. Abridged in English from the original German, the correspondence and diaries have been expertly compiled and annotated by their only son who preserves his parents’ love story in their own words. Their letters, written from Germany, England, Russia, and Palestine capture their desperate efforts to save themselves and their family, friends and businesses from the fascist tyranny. The book begins by contextualizing the early lives of Moritz and Vera.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

From Goethe to Gundolf: Essays on German Literature and Culture

• Roger Paulin

From Goethe to Gundolf: Essays on German Literature and Culture is a collection of Roger Paulin’s groundbreaking essays, spanning the last forty years.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

On the Literature and Thought of the German Classical Era: Collected Essays

• Hugh Barr Nisbet

This elegant collection of essays ranges across eighteenth and nineteenth-century thought, covering philosophy, science, literature and religion in the ‘Age of Goethe.’ A recognised authority in the field, Nisbet grapples with the major voices of the Enlightenment and gives pride of place to the figures of Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Film and Photography
• History
• Media Studies and Journalism

Photography in the Third Reich: Art, Physiognomy and Propaganda

• Christopher Webster

This lucid and comprehensive collection of essays by an international group of scholars constitutes a photo-historical survey of select photographers who embraced National Socialism during the Third Reich. These photographers developed and implemented physiognomic and ethnographic photography, and, through a Selbstgleichschaltung (a self-co-ordination with the regime), continued to practice as photographers throughout the twelve years of the Third Reich.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• History
• Literature
• Other languages

Mendl Mann’s 'The Fall of Berlin'

• Maurice Wolfthal

Mendl Mann’s autobiographical novel The Fall of Berlin tells the painful yet compelling story of life as a Jewish soldier in the Red Army. Menakhem Isaacovich is a Polish Jew who, after fleeing the Nazis, finds refuge in the USSR. Translated into English from the original Yiddish by Maurice Wolfthal, the narrative follows Menakhem as he fights on the front line in Stalin’s Red Army against Hitler and the Nazis who are destroying his homeland of Poland and exterminating the Jews.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Maria Stuart

• Flora Kimmich
• Roger Paulin

Flora Kimmich’s new translation carefully preserves the spirit of the original: the pathos and passion of Mary in captivity, the high seriousness of Elizabeth’s ministers in council, and the robust comedy of that queen’s untidy private life. Notes to the text identify the many historical figures who appear in the text, describe the political setting of the action, and draw attention to the structure of the play.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Love and Intrigue: A Bourgeois Tragedy

• Flora Kimmich

Love and Intrigue, the third of Schiller’s canonical plays (after The Robbers and Fiesco’s Conspiracy at Genoa), belongs to the genre of domestic tragedy, with a small cast and an action indoors. It takes place as the highly conventional world of the late eighteenth century stands poised to erupt, and these tensions pervade its setting and emerge in its action. This lively play brims with comedy and tragedy expressed in a colorful, highly colloquial, sometimes scandalous prose well captured in Flora Kimmich’s skilled and informed translation. An authoritative essay by Roger Paulin introduces the reader to the play.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Hyperion, or the Hermit in Greece

• Howard Gaskill

Friedrich Hölderlin’s only novel, Hyperion (1797–99), is a fictional epistolary autobiography that juxtaposes narration with critical reflection. In this skilful translation, Gaskill conveys the beautiful music and rhythms of Hölderlin’s language to an English-speaking reader.

• Biography
• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

The Red Countess: Select Autobiographical and Fictional Writing of Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883-1951)

• Hermynia Zur Mühlen
• Lionel Gossman

This new, expanded edition contains: Zur Mühlen’s autobiographical memoir, The End and the Beginning; The editor’s detailed notes on the persons and events mentioned in the autobiography; A selection of Zur Mühlen’s short stories and two fairy tales; A synopsis of Zur Mühlen’s untranslated novel Our Daughters the Nazi Girls; An essay by the Editor on Zur Mühlen’s life and work; A bibliography of Zur Mühlen’s novels in English translation; A portfolio of selected illustrations of her work by George Grosz and Heinrich Vogeler; A free online supplement with additional original material

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Don Carlos Infante of Spain: A Dramatic Poem

• Friedrich Schiller
• Flora Kimmich

Schiller described Don Carlos as "a family portrait in a princely house.” It interweaves political machinations with powerful personal relationships to create a complex and resonant tragedy. The conflict between absolutism and liberty appealed not only to audiences but also to other artists and gave rise to several operas, not least to Verdi’s great Don Carlos of 1867. The play, which the playwright never finished to his satisfaction, lives on nonetheless among his best-loved works and is translated here with flair and skill by Flora Kimmich.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Wallenstein: A Dramatic Poem

• Friedrich Schiller
• Flora Kimmich

The Wallenstein trilogy, formally innovative and modern beyond its time, is a brilliant study of power, ambition and betrayal. In this new translation—the latest in a long line of distinguished English translations of the play, starting with Coleridge's in Schiller's lifetime—Flora Kimmich succeeds in rendering what is often a difficult source text into language that is at once accessible and enjoyable.

• Biography
• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel, Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry

• Roger Paulin

This is the first attempt to combine an account of Schlegel’s life and times with a critical evaluation of his work and its influence. Through the study of one man's rich life, incorporating the most recent scholarship, theoretical approaches, and archival resources, while remaining easily accessible to all readers, Paulin has recovered the intellectual climate of Romanticism in Germany and traced its development into a still-potent international movement.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature

Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa

• Friedrich Schiller
• Flora Kimmich

Within two years of the success of his first play Die Räuber on the German stage in 1781, Schiller wrote a drama based on a rebellion in sixteenth century Italy, its title: The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. A Republican Tragedy. With Fiesco as tragic hero Schiller examines the complex entanglement of morality and politics in his own times that was to preoccupy him throughout his career. There have been some noteworthy productions on the German stage and television, even if it has remained somewhat in the shadow of Schiller’ other works. In the English-speaking world it is all but unknown and very seldom performed. This translation aims to remedy that oversight.

• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• Literature
• Literature: Comparative Literature

Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children’s Books 1780-1918

• David Blamires

Germany has had a profound influence on English stories for children. While some works, such as the Grimm fairytales, quickly became classics, as this book demonstrates, many other, lesser-known works have been fundamental in the development of English children’s stories during the 19th century and beyond. In the first comprehensive study of the impact of Germany on English children’s books, David Blamires explores a wealth of translated and adapted material from 1780 to the First World War.

• Biography
• European Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• History

Brownshirt Princess: A Study of the 'Nazi Conscience'

• Lionel Gossman

In the years after WWI, Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld collaborated with Heinrich Vogeler, an artist who later joined the Communist party, and Ludwig Roselius, a successful businessman, to produce a volume of poetry entitled ‘Gott in Mir’. In this original and inspiring study, Lionel Gossman explores the revolutionary ideological context that made possible this extraordinary collaboration between three such different personalities. He also examines the subsequent life of Princess Adelheid who, until her death in 1993, continued to support the ideals of Nazism. In doing so, Gossman provides deep insights into the sources and character of the ‘Nazi Conscience’.

• Anthropology
• European Studies
• European Studies: English and Irish Studies
• European Studies: French Studies
• European Studies: German Studies
• History

The American Archipelago: A New Edition of Oscar Handlin’s Classic Anthology, 'This Was America'

• Oscar Handlin
• Kenneth Weisbrode

FORTHCOMING

The collection at hand, Handlin’s classic anthology 'This Was America', first published in 1949, gathers Europeans’ travel accounts and perspectives on America from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Rather than presenting a single narrative, Handlin emphasizes variety: contrasting impressions of liberty and inequality, restlessness and rootedness, optimism and critique by people arriving from diverse European backgrounds. His free translations and selective introductions guide readers subtly but leave interpretation open. Over time, these essays shift meaning depending on context—once read as a celebration of American life, they now invite more critical reflection. This new edition reimagines America not as a singular whole but as an “archipelago”: a collection of diverse experiences, perceptions, and contradictions. The metaphor underscores the interplay between unity and multiplicity in American identity.