MLR, 104.3, 2009 923 have (varying over time), precisely by virtue of the intrinsic textual slipperiness of the literaryauthor's existence. This is a sophisticated argument, and Braun pursues itmeticulously in such a way as to illuminate Grass's various (sometimes tediously complicated) moves, and the particular historical or rhetorical situations that provoked them. Her attention goes some way towards redeeming and justifying the games Grass plays with his persona, although she is not excessively indulgent towards him. She succeeds in doing something quite rare in literary studies, namely linking differentiated textual analysis to social conditions, without privileging one over the other. We have towait and see ifthere are any further surprises in store from theGrass firework factory,but these two excellent studies anticipate, in differentways, what thewhole fantastic show will have been like, and they are both extremelywelcome. Jesus College, Cambridge Michael Minden The Cultural Politics of Heiner M?ller. Ed. byDan Friedman. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. 2007. 150 pp. ?29.99. ISBN 978-1-84718-396-5. There is a handful of book-length volumes on Heiner M?ller available to the English-reading public. A new collection of essays thus promises to widen and deepen understanding of one of the twentieth century'smost radical and innovative playwrights for those unable to engage with the secondary literature inGerman. The books nine essays are divided into three sections which, broadly speaking, concentrate on M?llers biography, his play Die Hamletmaschine, and his place in post-Wall, terrorized, globalized Western societies. The three essays in the first section mainly citeM?ller's essays or interviews as guides through his life,work, and opinions, yet none of them mentions Jan Christoph Hauschild's biography Heiner M?ller oder das Prinzip Zweifel (Berlin: Aufbau, 2001). The lack of extensive bibliographies that address recent M?ller scholarship and/or wider contextual concerns runs, however, throughmost of the essays (with the notable exception ofMagda Romanska's essay on Ophelia inDie Hamletmaschine, and to an extent Roger Bechtel on allegory in the same play, and Joanne Taylor on Brechtian elements in the laterM?ller). No one references Ann StampMiller's The Cultural Politics of theGerman Democratic Republic (Boca Raton, FL: Brown Walker Press, 2004), whose eighth chapter isdedicated toM?ller. What ispresented in almost all the essays can thus often appear poorly informed or naive. The two essays on Die Hamletmaschine certainly constitute a stronger section, but editorial laxness has failed to ensure that all the arguments are tightand robust. Romanska's treatment of theOphelia figure, forexample, is certainly perceptive and well informed, yet Ophelia's place as a figure itselfdemands more scrutiny. That she,Hamlet, and a Chorus are all directed to deliver the text of the second scene calls her ontological status in the play into question. The editor Dan Friedman, an experienced man of the theatre, seems to have overlooked this dramaturgical feature. 924 Reviews The final five essays are of mixed quality. David W. Robinson, who at least mentions the GDR's cultural politics, views Die Hamletmaschine as a defining moment (as does David Kilpatrick one essay later),when M?ller turned his back on themore Enlightenment-based pedagogies of the Brechtian Lehrst?ck. Neither acknowledges that M?ller returned to this form in the 1980s with theWolokolamsker Chaussee cycle. For a book that appears in a 'Scholars" press, the scholarship is, for themost part, rather light.There is littledepth or roundedness tomost of the essays, and a rigour regarding the intricacies of the subject-matter is, for themost part, lacking. While such considerations may be of less importance to a general introduction toM?ller (a position which is itselfquestionable), Bechtel explicitly states that he avoids a description of Robert Wilson's famous production ofDie Hamletmaschine as he believes his readership to be 'M?ller scholars and admirers' (p. 56). Such an audience may expect more. Having read all nine essays, the reader is little thewiser about M?llers 'cultural polities'?'not a precise term', as Friedman admits inhis introduction (p. 5). There is scantmention ofwhat this termmight mean for a playwright and there is certainly little researched contextualization of the relationships between politics and culture in any of the...