Books to look out for in September 2018

Bernhard Heisig and the Fight for Modern Art in East Germany

One of the first books to extend the currently burgeoning scholarship on East Germany to the visual arts, revealing that painting, like literature and film, was a space of contestation. This book focuses on one of East Germany’s most successful artists as a point of entry into the vibrant art world of the “other” Germany. In the 1980s, Bernhard Heisig (1925-2011) was praised on both sides of the Berlin Wall for his neo-expressionist style and his commitment to German history and art. After unification, Heisig was a focal point in the Bilderstreit, a virulent debate over what role East German art should play in the new Germany.

English Medieval Church Towers

The Northern Province

Church towers are a prominent feature of the English landscape and stand as a testament to the skill and ingenuity of medieval masons. Every medieval church tower within the Northern Province is beautifully illustrated here by a watercolour painting and is accompanied by detailed information relating to its location and date and an architectural description. Provided with an index and a glossary of terms, this book can be used both as a visitor’s guide and as a reference work for the study of medieval church architecture.

Voices of Ghana

Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System, 1955-57

Annotated, scholarly edition of the original landmark anthology, Voices of Ghana, containing poetry, plays, stories and essays first broadcast on radio in the years leading up to Ghana’s independence. The context of Ghana’s independence, the singularity of the anthology’s history, and the significance of many of the writers all contribute to the importance of this text. This second edition is a timely intervention into recent debates within postcolonial studies and world literature on the importance of broadcast culture in the dissemination of “new literatures” from the colonial world.

Composing History

National Identities and the English Masque Revival, 1860-1920

A study of the ways in which topics of English history were central to conceptions of English identity, musical and otherwise, during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Its focus is on the masque, an early modern English musico-dramatic genre that was reinvented during the Victorian period as a vehicle for nationalistic, historically inflected popular entertainments.

An American in Warsaw

Selected Writings of Hugh S. Gibson, US Minister to Poland, 1919-1924

This book presents the writings of Hugh S. Gibson, who served from 1919 to 1924 as the first US Minister to the new Second Polish Republic. Crucially involved with world-shaping events, Gibson faithfully recorded his eyewitness impressions and interactions with the nascent Polish state, bickering Allies, and increasingly isolationist Americans. With a flair for pertinent analysis, Gibson records the rocky first years of Polish statehood. His words are prophetic, accurately assessing the need for strong state structures to protect all citizens and predicting the danger posed especially to minority groups should such structures fail.

And the Shark, He Has Teeth

A Theater Producer’s Notes

First English translation of the memoirs of the great German-Jewish theater producer Ernst Josef Aufricht, providing an inside account of the late Weimar theater scene in Berlin. The title alludes to Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera, the premiere of which was produced by Aufricht at his Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928, launching Brecht and Weill to worldwide fame.