Bibliography of contemporary German literature volumes added the previous year to Washington University Libraries’ Contemporary German Literature Collection. These acquisitions generally include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and…[Read more]

The 30th bibliography for 660 volumes added to Washington University Libraries’ Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2016, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This…[Read more]

In this essay I discuss the racial formations of Alessandro de’ Medici, first duke of Florence. These formations derive from different sources: verbal descriptions, portraiture, and the material evidence of Alessandro’s remains. I examine whether a painted “description” tallies with a verbal one, considering the variety of terms used to describ…[Read more]

a b s t r ac t
Alessandro de’ Medici’s life and its representation reveal important beliefs about family, politics,
and genealogy during the Italian Renaissance. Duke Alessandro’s government marked the end of
the Florentine Republic and the beginning of hereditary rule. Many scholars interpret Alessandro’s
assassination as a fitting end to…[Read more]

This article analyzes the Vita Caroli of the Italian humanist Donato Acciaiuoli, and the translation done by Alfonso de Palencia, chronicler of the Spanish Catholic Kings.

The book examines little known and forgotten writings by Magnus Hirschfeld, the influential sexologist who is best known today for his homosexual activism, transgender work and founding of the world’s first Institute of Sexual Science in 1919. Arguing that negative experiences, as much as affirmative subculture formation, shaped a collective sense…[Read more]

A review of Robert Leucht’s “Dynamiken politischer Imagination. Die deutschsprachige Utopie von Stifter bis Döblin in ihren internationalen Kontexten, 1848–1930” (2016) and Ulrich Bach’s “Tropics of Vienna: Colonial Utopias of the Habsburg Empire” (2016)

A review of Andreas Huyssen’s “Miniature Metropolis: Literature in an Age of Photography and Film” (2015)

A review of Andreas Huyssen’s “Miniature Metropolis: Literature in an Age of Photography and Film” (2015)