“The last new novel”: Strategies of Reader-Navigation in Reviews of Fiction Published in the Athenaeum, the Saturday Review and Household Words, 1850-59.

in Victorian Periodicals Review (2023)

„Das Schaufenster der Freiheit“ Aussicht und Urbanisierung in Batty Webers Abreisskalender in den 1920er Jahren

in Pauly, Michel (Ed.) Geschichte der Stadt Luxemburg in 99 Objekten (2022)

The Aesthetics of Smoke in Interwar Luxembourgish Literature

Presentation (2022, October 19)

From 'Es war einmal' to 'Es war nicht': Batty Weber and the Poetry of Cemetaries in the 1910s

in Kmec, Sonja (Ed.) Ewige Ruhe? Concession à perpétuité? Grabkulturen in Luxemburg und den Nachbarregionen (2019)

This article hows that, during the 1910s, Weber establishes the cemetery as an indicator of cultural and societal health, capable of staging a process of healing that culminates in a liberating oblivion ... [more ▼]

This article hows that, during the 1910s, Weber establishes the cemetery as an indicator of cultural and societal health, capable of staging a process of healing that culminates in a liberating oblivion and consoling poetic reality. It also becomes a powerful tool to accentuate the absence of the graves of those who perished outside of the parameters that safeguard human dignity and is fundamental to Weber’s embedded critical political commentary. [less ▲]

Literary Histories, National Literatures, and Early Conceptions of World Literature in the Athenaeum, 1833-1838.

in Yearbook of English Studies (2018), 48

The reign of William IV represents a period concerned with questions of national identity, not only in a national context, but also in a global one. Periodicals of the time, such as the Athenaeum, present ... [more ▼]

The reign of William IV represents a period concerned with questions of national identity, not only in a national context, but also in a global one. Periodicals of the time, such as the Athenaeum, present the co-existence of two related, but inherently opposite conceptions of literature and its functions: Goethe’s idea of Weltliteratur is contemporaneous to developments in the formation and consolidation of national literatures, which can be observed to co-exist even in the early nineteenth-century. World literature, as imagined by Goethe in the 1930s, represents a way of circumventing the inward-looking attitude of nationalism, and of prioritising fluidity and flexibility over stability. National literature, as practiced widely during the nineteenth century, represents a way of grounding national genius in literary texts, either by scrutinising only the works of authors of a specific nationality, or by comparing them in a transnational, intercultural perspective. This article investigates two series of articles published almost concurrently in the Athenaeum: ‘A Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the last Fifty Years’, by Allan Cunningham in 1833, and ‘Literature of the Nineteenth Century’, by diverse authors between 1834 and 1838. This article highlights the co-existence between different authorial focalisations in historicising and historiographing literature, demonstrating the malleability, undecidability, and arbitrariness of dominant models of national literary identities. I argue that during the 1830s, the Athenaeum’s outlook is decidedly cosmopolitan and international as the contributors engage with European literature equally often as they do with British texts. They are also eager to stretch the readers’ awareness beyond the European context, embracing the wealth of ideas, styles, and perspectives as culturally enriching, but not exotic, erudition. [less ▲]

Writing in the Age of William IV

in Yearbook of English Studies (2018), 48

This volume explores the literary, cultural, social and political climate in Britain during the reign of William IV (1830–37). Rarely discussed by scholars searching to define the ‘Romantic’ period, and ... [more ▼]

This volume explores the literary, cultural, social and political climate in Britain during the reign of William IV (1830–37). Rarely discussed by scholars searching to define the ‘Romantic’ period, and overshadowed by Queen Victoria, William IV’s reign signifies an important moment within the long nineteenth century, one whose literary output is marked by experimentation and generic instability. Rather than simply blurring the boundaries between the Romantic and Victorian periods, this diverse collection of essays demonstrates how the spirit of reform, creative experimentation, and an increasingly politically active middle-class readership produced a peculiar literary and material culture of its own. Responding to a wide range of print culture, including periodicals, albums, graphic satires, novels, poetry, travel writing and guidebooks, by canonical and non-canonical authors, such as Catherine Gore, James Hogg, John Ruskin, Mariana Starke, Thomas Hosmer Shepherd and Thomas Pringle, the essays in this volume map a complex network of conversation, personal and national identities, radical and conservative ideologies, and contested domestic and public spaces, both in Britain and abroad. By addressing various aspects of this remarkable period’s material culture and aesthetic innovations, the essays in this collection complicate our contemporary understanding of the long nineteenth century in Britain and open up new spaces for discussion. [less ▲]

« Aus dem Wartezimmer des Krieges »: The Non-Experience of World War One in Luxembourg

E-print/Working paper (2018)

This article aims to contribute to the reconstruction of Luxembourg’s war experience and to analyse Weber’s literary and theoretical renditions of these events. It will investigate Weber’s experience of ... [more ▼]

This article aims to contribute to the reconstruction of Luxembourg’s war experience and to analyse Weber’s literary and theoretical renditions of these events. It will investigate Weber’s experience of non-experience and highlight the ways in which he sought to describe and overcome the sense of ineffectuality and uselessness that came with being ‘put on hold’ by the war as a nation and as a human being. Weber’s reflections mix physical, mental, and intellectual pain, creating a sense of absurdist, non-productive suffering, which he, with wavering conviction, seeks to counteract by drawing on the physicality of the personal and collective body. [less ▲]

Batty Weber--Werk und Wirkung

Book published by Centre national de littérature (2017)

Erstmals wird das journalistische und literarische Werk eines der bedeutendsten Intellektuellen der ersten Hälfte des 20. jahrhunderts in Luxemburg vorgestellt. Batty Weber, Integrationsfigur und ... [more ▼]

Erstmals wird das journalistische und literarische Werk eines der bedeutendsten Intellektuellen der ersten Hälfte des 20. jahrhunderts in Luxemburg vorgestellt. Batty Weber, Integrationsfigur und Autorität für zahlreiche zeitgenössische Autoren, hat ein vielfältiges und reiches Erbe hinterlassen. Nunmehr wird ein kritischer Blick auf den 'Abreisskalendermann', den Journalisten und Autor von Erzählungen, Novellen, Roman und Theaterstücken geworfen; es werden überrraschende Aspekte seines Werkes erläutert und Dokumente aus seinem Nachlass abgedruckt. [less ▲]

Signifying the Small Nation: the Role of Tourists in Luxembourgish National Identity, 1913 1940

in Journal of Tourism History (2016), 8(1), 19-46

This article explores the meaning of the tourist presence in the discursive construction of Luxembourg as a nation during the first part of the twentieth century. The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, a small ... [more ▼]

This article explores the meaning of the tourist presence in the discursive construction of Luxembourg as a nation during the first part of the twentieth century. The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, a small territory surrounded by the major European powers France, Belgium and Germany, gained independence in the nineteenth century. The attribution of sovereignty made the invention of the nation imperative and landscape writing became instrumental in developing the ideological rootedness essential to the construction of national identity. Batty Weber (1860-1940), the most prolific contemporary writer, actively sought to shape the image of the independent Luxembourg both on a national and international level, drawing on the tourist industry as a means of acquiring national self-knowledge and self-respect. His assessments and suggestions for improvement regarding the practicalities of the tourist experience are of vital importance as they illustrate the process of creating places for foreign visitors and local residents alike. He further posited the imagined gaze of the tourist as the gaze the locals should adopt and advocated the ‘spatial practices’ (De Certeau) of visitors to be emulated in the enactment of nationhood. [less ▲]

Le multilinguisme dans le feuilleton de Batty Weber, 1913–1920

in Synergies Pays Germanophones (2015), 8

Résumé : cette contribution relativise l’éloge du multilinguisme, de l’interculturalité et de la « Mischkultur » souvent attribués à l’écrivain, feuilletoniste et éditeur luxembourgeois Batty Weber ... [more ▼]

Résumé : cette contribution relativise l’éloge du multilinguisme, de l’interculturalité et de la « Mischkultur » souvent attribués à l’écrivain, feuilletoniste et éditeur luxembourgeois Batty Weber (1860–1940). Cette analyse des premières années (1913–1920) de son feuilleton Abreisskalender (1913–1940) montre la complexité, les difficultés, autant que les avantages, intellectuels et identitaires, de la condition multilingue, perçus, vécus et transmis par Weber dans le contexte des idées et idéologies courantes de l’époque. Bien qu’il préconise la tolérance envers les problèmes de prononciation et de style des locuteurs plurilingues, il a tendance à exiger une perfection d’expression de monolingue. [less ▲]