Joseph publishes on picaresque war novels

Published: Sept. 7, 2017

Philip Joseph, Associate Professor of English, published an article entitled "The Picaro at War: Vernacular War and Violent Conflict in Grimmelshausen and Saro-Wiwa" in the journal of the Modern Language Association, PMLA 131.5: 1284-1298. The article compares a 17th-century German novel (Simplicissimus) with a late 20th-century Nigerian one (Sozaboy), treating both as picaresque war novels that tell the story of a vernacular language becoming literary during wartime experience. The work will be part of a future book, "Rogues in Combat: The Deep History of the Picaresque War Narrative."