World Languages and Cultures Faculty Books

A gallery of books by faculty in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, College of Arts & Letters, Old Dominion University.

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Medieval Fare: Food and Culture in Medieval Iberia
2022
Martha Daas

Unique in its cultural and religious makeup, medieval Iberia represented a crossroads of cultures. This crossroads was reflected in large and small ways. On a grand scale, we see the convergence of intellectual ideas and great innovations in agriculture and science. On a more intimate level, we see an intersection of cultures as reflected in habits of consumption. The acts of producing food, cooking, and eating demonstrate the political realities of the land: at times interdependent, and, at times, at odds. Food, as an archeological and anthropological tool, can help us understand a particular moment in time. In considering the nature of consumption, we may arrive at the heart of a culture. In Medieval Fare, the author explores food references found in a number of medieval Iberian texts in order to expand our knowledge of daily life in the Middle Ages. By examining the depiction of food and consumption, this pioneering study provides insight into the cultural, religious, and social complexities of medieval Iberia. [From the publisher]
Redefining Palestinian Women Organizations’ Activism under Jewish Democratic State Restrictions
2021
Shadi Bayadsy

Palestinian women living in Israel are discriminated against in many aspects of their daily lives. In this book, Shadi Bayadsy examines how this situation motivated Palestinian women to organize and advocate for emancipation and equality through the professional Palestinian women organizations established in Israel. The author demonstrates the different strategies each organization employs to navigate challenging restrictions and to avoid being shut down by state apparatuses or by societal institutions and localities. This book will be of interest to scholars of women and gender studies as well as Middle Eastern studies. [Amazon.com]
Cosmos, Values, and Consciousness in Latin American Digital Culture
2020
Angelica J. Huizar

This book understands digital cultural production of electronic literatures and digital art by looking at electronic and digital works that produce subjective positionality, clouded knowledges of quantum theories, and metaphysical patterns grounded in a cultural ideology. This book underlines a conceptual framework for understanding how digital media impacts reading, approaching, and even interpreting social reality. The qualitative analyses interpret the current zeitgeist, and the works selected speak of the diverse, sometimes regionalized, and often multi-ethnic reality of the Latin American experience. The analyses elaborate on how artists reflect both the world they live in and a universal consciousness. These artists are not simply “digitalizing literature,” and these works are more than techy creations; rather, they make us think of other directions and connections. [From the back cover]
Scheherazade's Last Night and Other Plays
2018
Jules Verne (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Jules Verne, before he became the famous novelist we know today from Around the World in 80 Days, learned his profession writing for the stage. Many of those youthful plays have been discovered for the first time, and three are translated into English for the first time in Scheherazade’s Last Night and Other Plays. In An Excursion at Sea, Verne offers a humorous account of a nautical adventure interrupted by pirates. In La Guimard, he relates a love affair between the dancer, and the painter Jacques-Louis David, creating a realistic historical background as well as a deeply-felt romance. And in The Thousand and Second Night, Verne draws upon the world of the Arabian Nights to tell how the Sultan and the story-telling Scheherazade are finally united in marriage. [Amazon.com]

Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Ying Chen's Impressions of Summer
2017
Ying Chen (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Chapbook of narrative/personal poems by Ying Chen originally published by Finishing Line Press in 2013. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Pages of Travel (Pages de voyage)
2017
Silvia Baron Supervielle (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Book of poetry by Argentinian-born writer, Silvia Baron Supervielle. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Précisions sur les vagues/On Waves
2014
Marie Darrieussecq (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Powerful and poetic prose meditation on oceanic energy by French author, Marie Darrieussecq. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Transatlantische Auswanderergeschichten: Reflexionen und Reminiszenzen aus drei Generationen: Festschrift zu Ehren von Robert Schopflocher
2014
Frederick Alfred Lubich (Editor)

In German. Title translated: Transatlantic emigration stories : Reflections and reminiscences from three generations: Festschrift in honor of Robert Schopflocher
The Begum's Millions
2014
Jules Verne (Author), Arthor B. Evens (Editor), Stanford L. Luce (Editor), and Peter Schulman (Introduction & Notes)

Verne's first cautionary tale about the dangers of science ― first modern and corrected English translation.

When two European scientists unexpectedly inherit an Indian rajah's fortune, each builds an experimental city of his dreams in the wilds of the American Northwest. France-Ville is a harmonious urban community devoted to health and hygiene, the specialty of its French founder, Dr. François Sarrasin. Stahlstadt, or City of Steel, is a fortress-like factory town devoted to the manufacture of high-tech weapons of war. Its German creator, the fanatically pro-Aryan Herr Schultze, is Verne's first truly evil scientist. In his quest for world domination and racial supremacy, Schultze decides to showcase his deadly wares by destroying France-Ville and all its inhabitants. Both prescient and cautionary, The Begum's Millions is a masterpiece of scientific and political speculation and constitutes one of the earliest technological utopia/dystopias in Western literature. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices, and a critical introduction as well as all the illustrations from the original French edition.
The Politics of Salvation: Gonzalo de Berceo's Reinvention of the Marian Myth
2011
Martha Mary Daas

Martha Daas’s book is a welcome addition to recent studies that have focused wholly or in part on the work of the best-known early poet in Spanish, Gonzalo de Bercero. Historically grounded and theoretically informed, the book provides new insights into Bercero’s reworkings of the miracle narratives contained with his Milagros de Nuestra Señora. – M. Desing
Academic Podcasting and Mobile Assisted Language Learning Applications and Outcomes
2011
Betty Rose Facer and Mohammed Abdous

The use of Academic Podcasting Technology and MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning) is reshaping teaching and learning by supporting, expanding, and enhancing course content, learning activities, and teacher-student interactions. Academic Podcasting and Mobile Assisted Language Learning: Applications and Outcomes shares innovative and pedagogically effective ways to improve foreign language education by identifying the instructional uses and benefits of academic podcasting technology and MALL in foreign language acquisition. These include instructional uses, students' perceived learning gains, how instructors can use/have used the technology (successes and challenges), study abroad experiences with the technology, pedagogical impact, and economic perspectives on its use. [From Amazon.com]
The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz: The First English Translation of Verne's Original Manuscript
2011
Jules Verne (1828-1925) and Peter Schulman (Translator and Editor)

Widely rumored to exist, then circulated in a corrupt form, Jules Verne’s final and arguably most daring and hauntingly beautiful novel—his own “invisible man”—appears here for the first time in a faithful translation. Readers of English can rediscover the pleasures of Verne’s storytelling in its original splendor and enjoy a virtually unknown gem of action, adventure, and style from a master of French literature.

Wilhelm Storitz, the son of a famous Prussian scientist (and possessor of his father’s secrets—even, perhaps, a formula that confers invisibility), vows revenge on the family that has denied him the love of his life, Myra Roderich. Wilhelm’s actions on the eve of Myra’s wedding unfold in a surprising and sinister way, leading to an ending that will astonish the reader… [From Amazon.com]
Conquering the Spanish Verb System the Yo Connection: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Teach the Spanish Verb System!
2010
Nancy T. Minguez

This book will help you to organize and study the Spanish verb system with a simpler approach than what is presented in a typical textbook but easily accompanies any program of study. The idea is to reduce the number of differences between each group of verbs and group them according to the similarities in their conjugation patterns. It will be much easier to observe and learn the patterns in the four "Yo-connection" groups as compared to the numerous, and generally disconnected, "irregular" groups presented in the typical textbook.
Beyond the Page: Latin American Poetry from the Calligramme to the Virtual
2008
Angélica Jiménez Huízar

This scholarly monograph offers a fresh look at modern experimental poetry in Spanish, Portuguese and French produced in Latin America. The work uses a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to examine how these experimental poetic forms can be best interpreted and understood through a performative lens. Examined structures and textures inherent in these performed works vary: they include paintings, typographical art, optophonetic (visual representations of sounds) techniques, and music, to name only a few examples. The investigative scope of the study is large---it includes texts from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil and includes texts in Spanish, Portuguese and French. Through detailed analysis Professor Huizar demonstrates what we can read in the visual and sound components of these poems as performance on a page, and while these may be limited on the bound text, they do produce a performativity that is predictive of current technological innovations of the canon whose performative and interactive aspects include the latest multi-media technologies resulting in forms as cyper poetry and hypertextuality, electronic music and pictorial language. [From Amazon.com]
Beauté Suburbaine/Suburban Beauty
2008
Jacques Réda (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Collection of poems by Jacques Réda originally published in 1985. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Adamah: Poeme
2008
Céline Zins (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Adamah is by prominent French poet and writer Céline Zins; this premiere edition includes the English translation by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
From Surrealism to Less-Exquisite Cadavers: Léo Malet and the Evolution of the French Roman Noir
2006
Michelle Emanuel (Author) and Peter Schulman (Forward)

'Les nouveaux mystères de Paris' (1954-1959), Léo Malet's fifteen-novel detective series inspired by Eugène Sue's nineteenth-century 'feuilleton', almost achieved the goal of setting a mystery in each of the twenty Parisian arrondissements, with Nestor Burma at the center of the action. In Burma, the détective de choc first introduced in 1943 s 120 'rue de la gare', Malet, considered the father of the French 'roman noir', creates a cultural hybrid, bringing literary references and surrealist techniques to a criminal milieu. Michelle Emanuel s groundbreaking study is particularly insightful in its treatment of Malet as a pioneer within the literary genre of the French 'roman noir' while making sure to also focus on his surrealist roots. Against the archetypes of Simenon’s Maigret and Christie’s Poirot, Burma is brash and streetwise, peppering his speech with colorful and evocative slang. As the reader’s tour guide, Burma highlights Paris’s forgotten past while providing insight to the Paris of (his) present, referencing both popular culture and contemporary issue. [Amazon.com]
Rhine Crossings: France and Germany in Love and War
2005
Aminia M. Brueggemann and Peter Schulman (Editors)

Rhine Crossings explores the conflicts and resolutions that have characterized the relationship between France and Germany over the past two centuries. Despite their varying outlooks on life and style (the French esprit and the German wesen), and despite three bloody wars (the Franco-Prussian and the two world wars), there has always been and still is a vital intellectual, political, and cultural exchange between these former archenemies. The essays in this book detail the admiration and antagonism in French and German attempts to seek each other out while keeping their individual senses of self. Focusing on representative works of literature, film, and philosophy, the contributors identify the problems vexing these countries (war, economic competition) as well as possible solutions (the Maastricht treaty, increasing youth exchange). From the literary salons of the eighteenth century to the trenches of the twentieth, from a love-hate relationship to one of cooperation and peace, this book investigates the unique and volatile dialectic between these two nations and cultures." [From Amazon.com]
Chasing Esther: Jewish Expressions of Cultural Difference
2005
David Metzger and Peter Schulman
The Sunday of Fiction: The Modern French Eccentric
2003
Peter Schulman

In a world of increasing conformity, the modern eccentric can be seen as a contemporary hero and guardian of individualism. This study defines the modern eccentric in twentieth-century French literature and compares the notions of the eccentric in nineteenth and twentieth-century French literature by tracing the eccentric's relationship to time, space, and society. While previous studies have focused on the notion of eccentricity in purely formal terms, The Sunday of Fiction delineates the eccentric as a fully fictional character. This work also completes prior criticism by exploring twentieth-century fictional eccentrics in works by authors such as Raymond Queneau, Jean-Echenoz, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Georges Perec, and by filmmakers such as Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix. Notions of eccentricity since the nineteenth century shift from rather foppish, outlandish representations of aristocratic eccentrics towards a more popular, discreet figure who is uniquely in tune with vanishing spaces of daily life: amusement parks, cafes, grand movie palaces. While the modern world around them is obsessed with speed, technology, and innovation, modern French eccentrics view daily life as a sort of holiday to be savored. In this way, The Sunday of Fiction details the various means modern eccentrics employ to successfully transform the humdrum into the marvelous, or rather Mondays into Sundays. [From Amazon.com]
The Marketing of Eros: Performance, Sexuality, Consumer Culture
2003
Peter Schulman and Frederick Alfred Lubich (Editors)

Impact of the Sexual Revolution of the 20th Century on literature, philosophy, film, fashion, journalism, ethics, gender ideologies, advertising, commodity culture, and popular entertainment. Rilke, Nietzsche, fashion and fin de siècle morphine narratives, showgirls and the New Woman, Weimar cabaret, Weimar women and advertising, renegotiating gender in the "Roaring Twenties", the representation of working women in German journals from the turn of the century to the Third Reich, film criticism of H.D. and Adrienne Rich, European and Hollywood cinema. [From Amazon.com]
Wendewelten: Paradigmenwechsel in der Deutschen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte nach 1945
2002
Frederick Alfred Lubich

Through essays, interviews, and a poem, Lubich examines the changes in German literature and culture after 1945.
Le dernier livre du siècle deux Américains enquêtent sur l'intelligentsia Française au tournant du siècle
2002
Peter Schulman and Mischa Zabotin

Through interviews (surveys) of French personalities, the authors examine French intellectual life at the end of the 20th century.
The 13 Culprits
2002
Georges Simenon and Peter Schulman (Translator)

Georges Simenon (1903-1989) not only created the finest series of French detective novels in the cases of Inspector Jules Maigret, but he was also, according to Andre Gide, perhaps the greatest and most truly novelistic novelist in France today. But before he wrote about Maigret, he contributed series of short tales to the magazine Detective in 1929 and 1930, collected in 3 books. The first of those volumes, The 13 Culprits, has never previously been published in English, despite extravagant praise from Alexander Woolcott, Ellery Queen, and other experts. [Amazon.com]

Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
Death in Venice, Tonio Kröger, and Other Writings: Thomas Mann
1999
Frederick Alfred Lubich (Editor)

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. This is a collection of his shorter works. "Death in Venice", later filmed by Lucion Visconti starring Dirk Bogarde, was published in 1911. It is a poetic meditation on art and beauty, where the dying composer Aschenbach (modelled on Gustav Mahler) becomes fixated by the young boy Tadzio. The other stories are: "Tonio Kroger"; the collection entitled "Tristan"; "The Blood of the Walsungs"; "Mario the Magician"; and "The Tables of the Law". A number of essays are also included. [From Amazon.com]