Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature Newsletter Vol. 4 * OCTOBER 2013 “Detecting Voices: An Analysis of John Burdett’s Bangkok Trilogy”; Letter from the Chair Ilana Pardes (The Hebrew Universi- Dear friends of Comparative ty of Jerusalem): “Agnon’s Ethnog- Literature, raphies of Love: The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture”; Kathrin Rosen- It is my great pleasure to welcome field (Federal University of Rio you to the 2013-2014 academic year, Grande do Sul): “Brazil Liveliness with especially warm greetings to and Insight: Hölderlin’s Approach our new tenure-track hire Professor to Sophocles’ Tragedies”; and Law- Katharina Piechocki, who joins us rence Venuti (Temple University): from Pace University; our new co- “Translation, Intertextuality, Inter- hort of diverse first-year graduate pretation.” students, whose research interests 2013-2014 promises to be another cover everything from the Ameri- year of intellectual excitement, fea- cas, Europe, and the Middle East, turing among other public forums to Africa and East and South Asia; Chair Professor Karen Thornber the annual Poggioli Lecture on Oc- and our dynamic group of visiting Global, as well as on trauma, memo- tober 10 with Professor Carol Ja- scholars from around the world. As ry, and history, while last December, cobs, Birgit Baldwin Professor of both Chair and Director of Gradu- Professor Martin Puchner gave a Comparative Literature and Profes- ate Studies this year, I look forward dozen talks in China on world litera- sor of German Literature at Yale to working closely with everyone in ture and modern drama and capital- University. the months ahead. ism. For her part, last April Profes- I look forward with pleasure to Wherever I travel – this year sor Christie McDonald organized a working with faculty and students throughout the United States as well major international conference on this fall and spring to maintain and as to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Proust – Proust and the Arts: In- extend the department’s record of and Africa – I encounter friends and terdiscplinary Conference on the intellectual rigor and excellence. fans of the department, and par- Centenary of Swann’s Way – which With warmest wishes for a pro- ticularly of our faculty, whose in- featured a panoply of speakers from ductive and stimulating year, ternational achievements continue the United States, France, and Japan. Karen Thornber to multiply. To give just several ex- Thanks particularly to Professor amples: Professor Gregory Nagy’s John Hamilton, last year, in addi- open access HarvardX (edX) course tion to “Proust and the Arts,” the Table of Contents: The Ancient Greek Hero – a survey Department of Comparative Lit- of ancient Greek literature focusing erature brought to campus a num- Letter from the Chair...... 1 on classical concepts of heroism – ber of globally renowned scholars, Letter from the DGS...... 2 enjoys an enrollment of more than who shared their groundbreaking Letter from the Director of Studies....3 36,000 students and professionals work in a variety of forums. These World Literature News...... 4 from around the world; this past included Professors Emily Apter Dana Palmer House (Crimson)...... 5 summer, Professor David Damros- (NYU): “Lexilalia: On Translating a ch directed the acclaimed Institute Schoolhouse Rock (Crimson)...... 6-8 Dictionary of Untranslatable Philo- Faculty News & Profiles...... 8-12 for World Literature, which brought sophical Terms”; Kiene Brillenburg to the Harvard campus 140 graduate Wurth (Utrecht University) and Yra Former Comp Lit Lecturers...... 12 students and young faculty members van Dijk (University of Amster- Student News & Profiles...... 13 from 28 countries for four weeks of dam): “Materialism and the Literary: Alumni News & Profiles...... 13-21 dynamic seminars and workshops ‘Analog’ and ‘Digital’ Textualities”; Visiting Scholars Profiles...... 21-22 on world literature; and last Novem- Brooke Holmes (Princeton Univer- Comp Lit Staff News...... 22 ber, Professor Susan Suleiman gave sity): “Michel Serres’ Nonmodern Summary of Awards 2011-2013.....23 a lecture tour in China and Taiwan, Lucretius and the Temporality of Submissions & Editorial Info...... 24 speaking at a number of universities Reception”; Suradech Chotiudom- and research centers on the French pant (Chulalongkorn University): Page 1 Letter from the Comp Lit Director of Graduate Studies tory, anthropology, philosophy, and has restructured the Comparative medicine. Literature program so as to attend In our graduate seminars students better to students’ needs as they analyze in comparative perspective prepare for a professional career in the literatures and other cultural the twenty-first century. New course products of Africa, the Americas, and language requirements allow Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. students to engage more fully in so- Coursework is designed to meet phisticated comparative work from individual interests and expecta- their very first year at Harvard. We tions. Our students are encouraged have also established specific guide- to complement seminars in Com- lines for advising and faculty feed- parative Literature with courses back from the first year through the in other literature and area stud- completion of the Ph.D. Our new ies departments (with which most Professing Literature seminar pre- Director of Graduate Studies Karen Thornber of our faculty hold joint appoint- pares students for academic careers It is my pleasure to welcome you ments), including African and Afri- teaching and conducting research to Harvard’s graduate program in can American Studies, the Classics, on literature, as well as a variety of Comparative Literature, one of East Asian Languages and Civiliza- non-academic professions. Part of the most dynamic and diverse in tions, English, Germanic Languages this seminar is the ongoing Renato the country. Our twenty-six faculty and Literatures, History, Near East- Poggioli Graduate Colloquium se- members and nearly fifty graduate ern Languages and Civilizations, Ro- ries, which enables students to pres- students have come from across the mance Languages and Literatures, ent their works-in-progress to peers globe to study, teach, and publish Slavic Languages and Literatures, and faculty. on literatures in several dozen lan- and South Asian Studies. Many of Given the nature of graduate proj- guages from a wide range of histori- our students also engage in interdis- ects, most of our students spend cal periods. The research generated ciplinary work, taking courses and time abroad, both for language here reflects an exhilarating scope often earning qualification in sec- training and research. This work is of methods, approaches, and ques- ondary fields such as Visual and En- largely funded by fellowships from tions. Critical theory, literary inter- vironmental Studies, Medieval Stud- the graduate school as well as from pretation, and comparative philol- ies, Music, and Studies of Women, Harvard’s many area centers. ogy provide the basis for work on Gender, and Sexuality. When in Cambridge, students en- translation, the history of ideas, The stunning range of our stu- joy our new home, the historic Dana gender, drama, oral poetics, multilin- dents’ dissertation projects is well Palmer House at 16 Quincy Street. gualism, postcolonialism, the envi- supported by Harvard’s unparalleled With its comfortable lounge and ronmental and medical humanities, library resources. Our library sys- meeting and seminar rooms, as well globalization, and world literature. tem, the largest university collection as administrative and faculty offices, Our students and faculty also work in the world, comprises 70 libraries, Dana Palmer House provides the in a variety of fields contiguous with with combined holdings of over 16 perfect setting for exceptionally col- literature, including architecture and million items. legial scholarly exchange. the visual arts, film and music, his- In the past few years, the faculty -Karen Thornber

From left: Dr. François Proulx, Prof. Emmanuel Bouju (RLL, Fall 2012), Page 2 Dr. Daniel Bowles (German), Prof. John Hamilton, Prof. Bill Todd, guest, Björn Kühnicke (G6) Letter from the Literature Concentration Director of Studies

Dear Lit alum, The first class of Lit students graduated in 1984, some 30 years ago this coming June. If you look back on their thesis titles—“Language as Dissidence,” “Music for the Reading Eye,” “Indeterminacy and the Gen- eration of Meaning,” to take a few random examples—you recognize quickly the spirit of intellectual ad- venture that characterized Literature then and still marks it today. Some things have changed. Topics of in- quiry have altered with the times: one senior last year examined narra- tives of global health, while another investigated irony in meme texts; and Lit is now the undergraduate Dr. Sandra Naddaff with David Foster Wallace biographer and Lit alum D. T. Max (AB 1984) wing of the Department of Com- number of professions, within the and your wisdom. It would be a parative Literature. The scope of Humanities and well beyond. Lit particular pleasure for me to hear di- the program, however, with its aca- students are professors, hedge fund rectly from you and to catch up on demic emphasis on working across managers, doctors, lawyers, archi- what you’ve been doing. languages and cultures and media, tects, entrepreneurs, public servants, I look forward to your news. In and its pedagogical emphasis on and private home-makers, as well as the meantime, I send you my very an individually designed curriculum journalists and critics and authors best wishes, and one-on-one junior and senior and translators. And that’s just the tutorials, remains the same. And beginning. Sandra Naddaff Lit students today are as smart, cre- We would love to hear what you’ve Director of Studies, Literature ative, edgy, and quirky as they were been up to, and especially how your [email protected] in 1984. life in Literature has influenced who There has been much in the press you are and what you do today. We recently about the state of the Hu- have started a Linkedin group for Lit manities in universities, and espe- alumni and current students as a way cially about the decline in enroll- to begin connecting Lit folk across ments across the Humanities. It’s the decades. You can find our group true that we have somewhat fewer under “Harvard Literature Concen- concentrators in Lit than we did a tration” on Linkedin. We encour- decade or so ago; but it’s also true age you to reach out to your once that our students go on to do im- and future friends and colleagues to share your experiences, your ideas, Dr. Sandra Naddaff portant and fulfilling work in any Director of Studies

Björn Kühnicke (G6), Dr. Luke Taylor, Chase Carpenter, Betty Rosen, Sarah Rosenberg-Wohl, Professor Verena Conley, Dr. Christina Svendsen Lit Thesis Party 2012: John Kim (G8), Lauren Ianni, Profs. David Damrosch and Christie McDonald, Christine An, Talia Lavin, Dr. Anita Nikkanen Page 3 Institute for World Literature at Harvard University growing number of participants. tive literature, the uses and abuses From June 24 through July 18, 140 of translation, the cultural implica- participants from 28 countries gath- tions of globalization, and system- ered at Harvard to discuss, debate, atic approaches to cultural as well as and immerse themselves in the the- planetary ecosystems. In the coming ory and practice of world literature. The Institute featured fourteen two- week seminars offered by some of the preeminent names in the field to- day, including our own faculty Karen Thornber and Stephen Owen along with David Damrosch, together with Susan Bassnett (Warwick), Hel- ena Buescu (Lisbon), Theo D’haen (Leuven), Wai Chee Dimock (Yale) Djelal Kadir (Penn State), Nirvana Tanoukhi (Wisconsin), Mads Rosen- dahl Thomsen (Aarhus), and Law- rence Venuti (Temple). The semi- Professor David Damrosch nars were complemented by guest lectures by Homi Bhabha (Harvard), Globalization is often considered Emily Apter (NYU), and the promi- first and foremost in economic and nent Chinese-American writer Gish political terms, but it is having pro- Jen, as well as by lively working found cultural effects as well. In lit- groups on topics of mutual interest erary studies, national and regional and panels focused on program de- literatures are increasingly being sign, pedagogy, publishing, and the Professor Homi Bhabha seen in international and even global job market. terms, a shift that is having a major Over the course of the month, years, the IWL will continue to hold impact on the study of compara- the IWL session exposed its par- sessions in rotation between Har- tive and world literature. Three years ticipants to the most recent critical vard and locations in Asia, Europe, ago, the department established the and theoretical approaches to world Africa, and the Middle East, bring- Institute for World Literature (www. literature, touching on hotly debat- ing the work of the department iwl.fas.harvard.edu) to give an annu- ed issues including the relation be- out into the world and the world al forum for scholars and graduate tween world literature and compara- into the department in new ways. students from around the world to (Photos on this page taken by Alexandra Stote) explore new directions in lit- erary studies today. After ini- tial sessions in Beijing (2011) and Istanbul (2012), the IWL returned to its headquarters at Harvard this past summer for four weeks of seminars, guest lectures, and working group meetings. Under the direction of last department chair David Damrosch, with support from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, and with an Advisory Board of 24 distin- guished faculty members lo- cated at Harvard and around the world, the IWL works in partnership with five dozen affiliates to bring together a Page 4 The Institute for World Literature at Harvard University, Participants Summer 2013 Dana Palmer House: Circling the Square By David W. Cudhea I on his back, and smiled with he finally turned Episcopalian after December 10, 1952 winning airs; a long Unitarian career, and Felton Rejected hospitality. The more summed him up, too. “Christian Letter-writers to the Alumni Bul- Professor of Plumber’s Morals,” letin in the spring of 1946 were He tugged in front, he backed to- ward the door. said he. wroth indeed--48 columns wroth, Professor William James, the fa- in fact, with amounts of outrage, Had oats been offered, he had climbed at least mous philosopher, thought up his protest, and indignation thrown in. “Pluralistic Universe” after he took That spring, it seems, the University Up to the attic, canny Scottish up residence in 1881, in between had decided to rip down the ancient, beast. the visits of various foreign gentle- tradition-mellowed Dana Palmer Soon after the building was ac- men whom James, a friendly person, House and erect Lamont Library on quired by the College in 1835, it was often put up and interviewed. One its site. sacrificed, or at best modified, to such fellow arising early on a morn- Partially as a result of such pro- the demands of what seemed to the ing found a bootblack industrious- test, and partially because the li- Yard like a new-fangled science--As- ly shining his shoes, left outside in brary’s donor, Thomas W. Lamont tronomy. The Dana House became the corridor. The visitor attempted ’92, obliged with funds, the Univer- the College observatory, its rooms to give him a quarter. The sity merely decided to uproot, shoe-shiner was James, rather than destroy, the yellow who calmly continued. wooden structure. Since 1947 After Professor George therefore it has squatted be- Herbert Palmer arrived, the tween the Union and the Fac- turret went, and the house ulty Club, and, provided with received some remodling. a permanent hostess and vari- Palmer lived there the lon- ous pieces of period furni- gest of anyone--from 1884 ture, has housed an estimated to 1933, existing on “the three to four hundred visitors decay of Greece”, as he to the University--all of them put it--and presented the official guests of varying sta- Yard with the last half of tus. the house’s name. Richard Transient accommodations S. Gummere, retired direc- hardly play the major role in tor of Admissions, occu- the building’s history, how- pied it until Conant moved ever. Once the College obser- in, dispossessed from his vatory, it has provided a home for filled with instruments. On the roof was a revolving turret on wheels for own lodgings by the U. S. Navy. The such notables as Professors F. C. President moved back down Quincy Huntington, Georg Herbert Palmer, telescopic use (“Caboose” snorted Felton) and a transit mechanism Street in 1946, and by the next year, William James, and C. C. Felton, as the house was in its present location. well as serving as President Conant’s rested in the main room. Transit operators took fixes on a The present full-time hostess, house during World War II. Mrs. Florence Preble, has managed Its occupant in the early 1820’s marker in the Blue Hills, 11 miles away in Milton, but when an en- to provide a welcome for her visi- and 30’s was Richard Henry Dana, tors which has left some surprised, who left the house his name and terprising farmer built a barn next door, it cut off the view. By no and all pleased. “Marvellous,” also managed to sire Richard, Junior “Wonderful” are the usual superla- author of Two Years Before The means non-plussed, the University acquired right of way to the barn, tives, from such classes of travel- Mass. One of a row of yellow colo- lers as Ames Competition Judges, nial houses, of which Wadsworth is and chopped a hole in its roof for sighting purposes. endowed lecturers, chancellors of at present one of the two survivors, foreign universities, members of the the building at this time apparently After the University moved on Corporation, Overseers, and honor- served as a social center for the chil- in 1842, Felton, a gentleman of ary degree recipients. dren of the neighborhood. Witness wit, moved in. He was followed James Russell Lowell, who chroni- some years later by F. C. Hunting- cled Dana’s hospitality in verse: ton, Plummer Professor of Chris- This article has been reprinted with per- tian Morals, and long the University mission from The Harvard Crimson, Vol. My pony through his own front 124 (December 10, 1952). door he drew, preacher. Huntington was regarded as somewhat of an apostate when Page 5 Schoolhouse Rock: Profile of Prof. John Hamilton Before he taught literature, John T. song request. remembering her transformation Hamilton rocked. Literally. ‘A HODGE-PODGE’ from a classical cellist to a rock mu- Dave Dreiwitz saw John and Don- sician. “Through them, I was able to By Jared T. Lucky, Crimson Staff Writer na play for the first time at a night- get used to playing in a rock band.” club in Hoboken when he was 15 But the group was not just a rock John T. Hamilton has the studied years old. band. In a newspaper interview, look of the stereotypical Harvard Hamilton would later describe Tiny professor. Draped in tweed, with “I thought they were amazing,” he says. John and Donna, both just 18 Light’s music as “a hodge-podge of a vest underneath and elbow pads 1970s AM radio, folk music, and im- on his coat, he puffs insistently on at the time, were playing with a jazz fusion group called Low Key. “They provisatory tendencies.” a wooden pipe outside his office in This mixed bag of sounds seemed the Department of Comparative seemed experienced,” Drewitiz adds. Dreiwitz, now the bass player for to work for Tiny Lights. “A lot of Literature. people heard that sound and went: But before Hamilton picked up the rock group Ween, became the third founding member of Tiny Wow! Strings!” says Scarpantoni. “I Homer and Virgil, he was picking think they were a bit ahead of their guitar, and long before he came to Lights a year later, in 1983. “We liked a lot of the same kind time.” Cambridge, Rolling Stone magazine The band branched out even fur- had tapped him as an up-and-com- of stuff,” Dreiwitz says. “We were all jazz heads.” ther with the addition Andy Dem- ing musician. For Hamilton, aca- os, a drummer, saxophone demia was an afterthought—during player, and talented multi- the first fifteen years of his adult instrumentalist. life, he wrote, performed, and re- corded rock music. “Tiny Lights was going to be simple, happy, pretty,” “It’s a very similar lifestyle,” Ham- Donna says. “We did what- ilton says nonchalantly. ever we wanted to do, ba- He leans back in his chair at the sically—kind of like what kitchen table of his spacious Arling- John does at Harvard,” she ton house, painted purple on the ribs, turning to give her outside. The sounds of drums and husband a cheeky glance. electric bass filter in from the base- He chuckles. ment, where his two sons, ages 11 ‘MUSTARD CRUNCH’ and 15, are improvising rock riffs. After a few years of play- “Communicating, improvising, ing clubs in Hoboken, the trying to sense people’s expectations group began touring in ear- and trying to meet them—those are nest in 1987, after Hamilton all important issues,” he adds. graduated from New York “It’s definitely not banking,” University with a degree in chimes in his wife Donna from Professor John Hamilton’s band Tiny Lights classics and German. across the table. But Tiny Lights quickly grew into “We toured like mad,” Dreiwitz “It’s bankrupting,” she laughs. a group that defied genre, even when says. “John would just book these John and Donna have been to- it came to instrumentation: Dreiwitz gigs in between working his restau- gether for more than 30 years, but knew trumpet and bass, Donna rant job and going to NYU. He was not just as husband and wife— played violin and sang vocals, and the skipper and the captain and the “we’ve shared a life,” Hamilton says. Hamilton wanted to incorporate navigator.” Since meeting in high school, they’ve non-traditional rock instruments. Hamilton, who worked as a waiter, played in four different bands to- In 1985, Hamilton invited another translator, and guitar teacher to pay gether, including Tiny Lights—a member to the band, Jane Scarpan- the bills, managed all of the tours critically-acclaimed act that toured toni. Scarpantoni, who is still in the himself. Tiny Lights, he says, never nationwide and released seven al- music industry, has gone on to re- had an agent or a publicist: “Just a bums between 1983 and 1994. cord with Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl telephone, a press kit, and our latest “It was a really great way to grow Crow, and Christina Aguilera—on record.” up,” says Donna as Hamilton heads the cello. “We were a bunch of friends, go- down to the basement to make a “It takes a special bunch of peo- ing on the road, making music,” ple to let you just go with it and get Scarpantoni recalls. “Sometimes Page 6 used to playing in a group,” she says, Schoolhouse Rock we’d play for two people, and some- tar on a cheap acoustic. partners. times we’d play for hundreds.” “Very early on, I had the key to “They’re almost like one being,” Concert performances for Tiny our apartment,” he says. “I found Dreiwitz says. “One feeds the other, Lights were as eclectic as the sound myself alone a lot, so I would read and it’s always been like that.” the band would create. Before each or play music.” The two made it official in 1989, show, Hamilton would survey the He was soon playing with friends tying the knot when Tiny Lights was audience—Donna remembers it and in church services. In the fourth at its peak. They used their wedding as him “feeling out” the crowd— grade, he wrote a musical called money to buy an unfurnished con- and cue the other band members “Whatever Happened to Rock and do, a far cry from the spacious home with a mood to start an improvised Roll?” In the play, the protagonist, in Arlington where they live today. introduction. Tiny Lights trav- a young boy, hounds his parents for One week after the ceremony, they eled throughout the country and an electric guitar. left for a three-month tour. headlined at the first two South by “I was almost screaming for an Scarpantoni left the group in Southwest Music Festivals in Austin, electric guitar,” Hamilton says. “We 1991, and the band spent some time Texas. put it on at P.S. 119, P.S. 125—it was recording in California. There the But even as the group members a little Bronx tour,” he says. members recorded their fourth al- gained recognition, their rock mu- “My parents didn’t even see it. bum, “Stop the Sun I Want to Go sician lives were far from lucra- They both worked,” he adds with a Home,” in 1992. That same year, tive. The five bandmates frequently chuckle. Tiny Lights earned a nod from Roll- shared one hotel room or slept at ing Stone Magazine. campgrounds. Hamilton did get that electric gui- tar, eventually, and by the time he “Meanwhile, John’s in the van, Over a full plate of cookies on reading Greek, reading the kitchen table, Donna remem- Latin,” Donna remem- bers when they had limited options bers. “He’s got attention for food. “When we were in the van, surplus disorder,” she traveling at points, we had cereal, we says affectionately. had condiments—” “The conversation in “So we made mustard crunch, by the van was not the nor- stirring in the cereal crumbs,” Ham- mal conversation of peo- ilton interrupts. Both laugh. “In the ple who are in a band,” morning, we found enough change Scarpantoni says, recall- in the bottom of the van to buy a ing long talks about his- cup of coffee, which we all shared.” tory, art, and politics on ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO tour drives. “He could ROCK AND ROLL?’ discuss anything.” Now sipping his very own cof- “On the road, you fee, Hamilton speaks with cool- only play an hour show,” headed erudition about the artistry was in high school, he was playing Hamilton says. “The whole day is of record-making—the challenge in a band. Before long, a 16-year-old free to just read.” of blending and balancing each from another high school asked his Just as Hamilton was delving track, perfecting each voice with group to play a song she had written. deeper into what he calls his “ex- vintage microphones and tape. His It was Donna, and three months tended reading period,” the luster of eyes flash with interest and intensity later, they were dating. “It wasn’t re- Tiny Lights was beginning to fade. when he talks music. ally a reflective time,” says Hamil- “You go back to a place where If the wooden pipe he occasion- ton, trying to recall what sparked the you’ve played, and the crowd isn’t ally produces from his coat pocket romance. “We became ever closer as as big, and maybe you’re just not so makes it hard to believe that he once friends, working together, talking into it anymore,” Donna says. “It played nightclubs with a rock band, for hours on the telephone, work- just starts feeling sad.” his passion for music is unmistak- ing together until we finally realized that, you know, it was meant to be.” As time went on, Tiny Lights able. And by most accounts, it al- proved unwilling to change its im- ways has been. ‘STOP THE SUN; I WANT TO age or its musical repertoire to court Hamilton grew up in a modest GO HOME’ popular success. “We put so much home in the Bronx, with non-musi- For nearly a decade, before and emphasis on authenticity and hon- cal, working-class parents. An only during Tiny Lights, John and Donna child, he taught himself to play gui- remained personal and professional Page 7 Schoolhouse Rock esty,” Hamilton says with a still-ex- “He has all these great anecdotes, cause in my mind, this guy always tant trace of artistic indignation. “It and he makes a lot of musical refer- was one.” wasn’t just a show—we weren’t just ences,” says Amrita S. Dani ’13. “It Though perhaps, as Scarpantoni performers—and it wasn’t a role we wouldn’t surprise me if he did any- says, a natural professor, Hamilton could just put on.” thing.” still feels at home behind his guitar It grew especially difficult for the While Hamilton does not often as well. The bandmates still stay in band to keep touring and recording bring up his time in the band in touch, and Tiny Lights even played a after 1994, when Hamilton began his class, the eclecticism that char- reunion show last year in New York. his graduate studies. “We just sort acterized Tiny Lights often shines “We still jam. We haven’t lost that of faded out,” he says. Their first through in his teaching. He regularly joy of music,” Scarpantoni says. son, Jasper, was born in 1996, and brings cookies to class and some- Back at the purple house, Ham- Donna started teaching preschool a times relates Romantic poems to ilton nods his head rhythmically in few years later. Nirvana lyrics. the bare-walled basement. Jasper “It’s a new phase of our lives,” “Being in the classroom is a type sings lead vocals and plucks a bass Hamilton says, as Henry, their of performance,” Hamilton says. riff; Henry tops it off with a drum younger son, walks through the “There’s a large element of impro- solo. kitchen with a set of drumsticks in visation.” “They’ve never taken lessons,” hand. Long before he came to Harvard, Hamilton tries to yell over the din, ‘NEVER TAKEN LESSONS’ Hamilton’s bandmates recognized mostly in vain. Most of the students in Hamil- his capacity to combine different Neither did he. ton’s literature seminar did not know disciplines. about their professor’s history as a “He integrates everything into ev- rock star—yet few seem shocked by erything that he does,” Scarpantoni This article has been reprinted with per- the fact that their European Roman- says. “It’s not surprising to me that mission from The Harvard Crimson, Vol. ticism professor played in a band for he became a Harvard professor, be- 236 (May 4, 2012). 13 years.

Faculty News & Profiles Julie Buckler is pleased to an- Joaquim-Francisco Coelho’s Retirement nounce the publication of her co- edited volume, Rites of Place: Public In May 2013 the Department of departments gathered at the Faculty Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Romance Languages and Litera- Club for a lovely afternoon marked Europe, in which she included her tures organized a poetry reading to by splendid recitations and sung ren- own essay on “Taking and Re-Tak- honor Joaquim-Francisco Coelho, derings of several poetic gems close ing the Field: Borodino as Collective Nancy Clark Smith Professor of the to his heart, favorite poems by Fer- Memory Site.” Professor Buckler Language and Literature of Portu- nando Pessoa, Fray Luis de León, took a research trip to Russia this gal and Professor of Comparative Charles Baudelaire, Carlos Drum- summer to visit imperial memory Literature, on the occasion of his mond de Andrade, John Dryden, sites in Moscow and St. Petersburg, retirement. A beloved member of Luis de Góngora, Eugenio Florit, most particularly the controversial our department and a former chair, Jorge de Sena and Rainer Maria Ril- “reconstructed” imperial palace- Joaquim has been for thirty years the ke. Our very own Judith Ryan gave a parks of Strelna and Tsaritsyno, heart and soul of Lusophone studies superb reading of Rilke’s Sankt Se- the subject of an essay currently in at Harvard. He is also a celebrated bastian (a favorite of his) and Luis progress. This spring she will teach poet in his own right and a gifted M. Girón Negrón led the group in a new Societies of the World course declamador who could muster by singing a medieval Galician-Portu- with Professor Kelly O’Neill from memory his favorite Virgilian hex- guese cantiga. It was a joyous cel- History -- “The Phoenix and the ameters with the same ease and his- ebration for a gracious mentor and Firebird: Russia in Global Perspec- trionic elegance as a sonnet by Luis colleague whose luminous presence tive.” de Camões or Garcilaso de la Vega. has deeply marked both of his de- So what better way to honor him partmental homes. -- Luis Girón Ne- Verena Conley was on leave dur- than a poetry recital. And so it was. grón and Judith Ryan ing spring 2013 preparing for a new Students Page 8 and colleagues from both Faculty News & Profiles

Princeton entitled Comparing the medieval Iberia. But its language Literatures: What Every Comparat- is convoluted and making sense ist Needs to Know, and together of the glosses is time-consuming. with Martin Puchner is embark- After two years of intense labor ing on the creation of an online with the generous support of an “MOOC” course on world lit- ACLS collaborative grant, the Ar- erature for HarvardX. ragel team has finished a prelimi- nary draft of the Genesis volume Jim Engell is Gurney Profes- (i.e., the edited translation and sor of English and Professor of glosses with scholarly annota- Comparative Literature. He is tions). It now runs over 800 pages, also a member of the Commit- and the introductory study still re- tee on Degrees in the Program mains to be written. So yes, Luis Wanda Di Bernardo with Dr. Sandra Naddaff on History & Literature, and a and his colleagues have been busy and Professors Justin Weir and Verena Conley faculty associate of the Harvard bees. At least, he will have a few book on environmental philosophy. University Center for the Environ- projects to keep him busy while She gave lectures on “Poetics in the ment. His personal website (scholar. burrowing into the Exodus peri- Era of Climate Change” (Garden harvard.edu/jengell) contains com- cope. Conference, University of Florida), plete information, a CV, and links to He just finished an epilogue to and “Worlds” (Plenary lecture at the a number of his talks, lectures, and the proceedings of a lovely inter- LSU Graduate Student Conference video presentations. national congress on an Old Span- on Significations). She participated ish epic cycle (the Infantes de Lara, in the session “Author meets Crit- which would certainly give Freud- ics,” organized around her recent ian scholars a vigorous run for their book Spatial Ecologies, at the Asso- money). He also finished revising ciation of American Geographers for publication a plenary talk he meeting in Los Angeles. The pro- gave at an International Congress ceedings of the session will appear in his hometown on Golden Age in the journal Progress in Human Ge- Spanish mystical literature (noth- ography. A book chapter, “Zizek’s ing like being adrift in a poetic Eco-chic,” appeared in Zizek Now, sea of a thousand suicidal moths eds. Jamil Khader and Molly Anne plunging into the blazing eyes of Rothenberg (Polity 2013) and an- as many lovers from Petrarch and other on “The Ecological Relation,” Camões to Goethe and al-Hallaj). in Relational Architectural Ecologies, ed. He is now studying the Old Span- Peg Rawes (Routledge 2013). ish translation of Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed to deliver a David Damrosch reports that his Professor Jim Engell paper in yet another congress in travels this past spring were brought Chicago to celebrate the 50th anni- to you (as they used to say on Ses- Luis Girón Negrón does not re- versary of Shlomo Pines’s English ame Street) by the letter B: Beirut, member what he wrote in the last translation, and he is also working Belgrade, and Bonn. Particularly newsletter, but his academic life has on the revisions of an article about striking were the various treatments not changed much since then. He Islam and Judaism in Dante’s Italy of war-damaged monuments in all and his colleagues are still toiling at the behest of the one and only three locations, but also the lively away with the 15th century Arragel Lino Pertile. interest of students and faculty in Bible: the only Rabbinic Bible in a But most significantly: he has redrawing the map of comparative premodern European vernacular. worked his way through three of studies both within Europe and be- Of course, they are also sweating five doctoral dissertations received yond. This past summer, Damrosch bullets over its edition and study. this summer, including two superb completed two editing projects: a The Arragel Bible is a monumental completed theses by our very own sourcebook of essays titled World work of Hispano-Jewish scholar- Isabelle Levy and Luke Taylor, Literature in Theory for Blackwell, and ship, an Old Spanish literary classic along with the excellent chapters a two-volume anthology of world and a luxurious codex of art-histor- submitted by Emmanuel Ramírez literature to be published in Chi- ical value that provides invaluable and Curt Shonkwiler. A wonder- nese by Peking University Press. He insights into the cross-cultural his- is currently working on a book for tory of Jews and Christians in late Page 9 Faculty News & Profiles from France, in lockdown, a quite are Italian, French, German, Polish, jubilant intellectual marathon of 18 Portuguese, Spanish, Latin, Ancient presentations took place on April Greek, and Arabic, which she hopes 20th (few will forget that experience to study in-depth in the coming at Harvard!). Christie and Susan years. She has published several ar- Suleiman completed work on the ticles and book chapters on Renais- French translation of French Global, sance and baroque literature and is due to appear in early 2014. Chris- currently completing articles on the tie also worked on the team com- etymology of the word “syphilis,” missioned by Dean Diana Sorensen on early Polish cinema, and on the Professors Ilana Pardes and Luis Girón Negrón that produced the Humanities re- phenomenon of the opera castrato. ful treat and a cause of celebration! port, “Mapping the Future,” about She is the recipient of a Mellon Sadly, there are only a couple of the philosophical foundations of Fellowship for a doctoral student days to go before the fall semester the humanities, the state of Harvard summer seminar on “The Problem is upon us like a bag of bricks, so he humanities, and goals for the future. of Translation,” organized by Em- had better stop writing this unchari- (artsandhumanities.fas.harvard.edu/ ily Apter and Jacques Lezra at NYU tably long update and go back home humanities-project). (2011); a grant-in-aid from the Fol- to prepare for classes… ger Library, DC (2011); and a Dean’s Katharina Piechocki (pro- Dissertation fellowship, NYU John Hamilton’s new book, Secu- nounced Pee-ay-HOD-ski) joined (2010), among others. Before join- rity: Politics, Humanity, and the Philol- the Department of Comparative ing Harvard’s faculty, Katharina held ogy of Care, was published by Princ- Literature as assistant professor in the position of assistant professor eton University Press in May 2013. July 2013. She holds a PhD in Com- at Pace University, where she cre- parative Literature from New York ated classes on, among others, nine- University (2013). Her dissertation, teenth- and twentieth-century Italian titled “Cartographic Humanism: women writers, neorealist cinema, Defining Early Modern Europe, and history of film. At Harvard, she 1500-1550” and directed by Jane Tylus, centers on the definition of Europe’s boundaries at a time when cartography and translation emerged as crucial humanist practices against the backdrop of new territorial dis- coveries. She earned her first doctor- ate in Romance Studies (2009) from Vienna University, Austria. Her dis- sertation “Hercule à la croisée des discours: la textualité et sexualité du livret d’opéra baroque en France et en Italie (1638-1674)” investigates Professor Katharina Piechocki Christie McDonald continues as the rise of the opera libretto as a will offer courses on Renaissance Co-Master of Mather House. Dur- new literary genre in Europe in a cartography; the history of drama; ing the last year, she participated in time of rising absolutism and chang- rhetoric, imitation, and translation; celebrations of the Proust centena- ing gender politics. Katharina is cur- and world cinema. ry in France (Cerisy-la-Salle, École rently preparing both dissertations Katharina is thrilled to join the de- normale) and the US. She and for- for publication. partment and to explore all the dif- mer Lecturer on Literature François In her research, which stretches ferent possibilities to work and col- Proulx organized an international from Renaissance cartography to laborate with Harvard’s faculty and conference on “Proust and the Arts” translation studies; from gender students—both in the department in April, drawing on the extraordi- studies to opera; and from the his- and across the humanities. nary Proust-related holdings at the tory of theater to theories of world Harvard art museums and Hough- cinema, she is particularly interested Judith Ryan’s two recent books, ton Library. Although the first day in the interstices between West/non- The Novel After Theory (Columbia (April 19th) kept participants, many West, the limits of early modernity, UP 2012) and The Cambridge Intro- and the boundaries of (early mod- duction to German Poetry (Cambridge Page 10 ern) Europe. Her research languages 2012), represent the “two souls”— Faculty News & Profiles

erature mean to Grünbein and why markets, and neighborhoods of in- does he keep returning to it? What terest. In Taiwan she was hosted accounts for Grünbein’s special re- by colleagues at Academia Sinica in lation to Seneca, about whom he Taipei, including her former student writes essays, whose voice he ap- in Comp Lit, Dr. Peng Hsiao-yen, propriates in poems, and whose who is a senior Research Fellow at drama Thyestes he has translated? Academia Sinica, and Dr. Shan Te- Even more interesting was why hsing, the Director of Academia Grünbein turned to Ryan’s favorite Sinica’s Institute of European and Professor Suleiman in the Forbidden City Latin poet, Catullus, whose Carmen American Studies. Her lecture at at least!—that every comparatist 4 (about a retired racing yacht) he Academia Sinica was on theories of should have. In addition, some ex- renders into German in his poetry trauma and creativity, and she was citing work in the German Literary collection Aroma (2010). Grünbein impressed by the quality of the dis- Archive, Marbach enabled her to has recently been working on other cussion that followed. After the lec- trace some of W.G. Sebald’s fili- projects, including films, that in- ture at Academia Sinica, she spoke ations in an article, “Sebald’s En- volve Roman history and geogra- at Tamkang University near Taipei counters with French Narrative” phy, and he continues to translate and at National Sun Yat-sen Uni- (2012). Continuing her long-stand- poetry from the Latin. How will all versity in Gaoxiong. For her three ing interest in poetry, she also pub- this turn out? Stay tuned! lectures in Beijing, her host was lished articles on “Mallarmé und Prof. Yao Jian-bin, chair of the De- die Mardistes” (2012) and on the partment of Comparative Literature captivating song that Rilke includes at Beijing Normal University, who in his novel Malte Laurids Brigge, also arranged a memorable visit to “Du, der ichs nicht sage” and its the Forbidden City, where they were musical setting by Anton Webern. treated to a tea ceremony in the of- In the summer of 2013 she spent fice of the museum’s director before a good deal of time working on starting their tour. This was her first the contemporary German poet trip to both Taiwan and China, and Durs Grünbein and his relation she enjoyed it tremendously. She to classical antiquity. This project discovered, among other things, that has allowed her to revive her deep official photos are a requisite part love of Latin literature. To explore of visits to both Taiwan and Bei- Grünbein’s own fascination with jing. She is enclosing two, out of the Latin, she needed answers to sev- many that were taken after lectures, eral questions: when and how did meals, and other events. he learn Latin, to what extent is Some recent publications include his knowledge of Latin literature Marc Shell has four books com- the edited volume After Testimony: and culture derived from formal ing out in 2013, including Islandol- The Ethics and Aesthetics of Holocaust study and to what extent is it the ogy, Wampum, and The Last Class. Narrative for the Future, and several result of self-education and wide The Last Class will come out in articles, including “Famille, langue, reading? Grünbein’s collection of both a French and an English ver- identité: La venue à l’écriture dans Le essays, Antike Dispositionen (2005) sion (probably December/January, Vin de solitude,” “Irène Némirovsky gives a number of clues, but it from McGill-Queens in Montréal and the ‘Jewish Question’ in Inter- turned out that there was more to and Septentrion in Québec). war France,” and “Performing a Per- be discovered. What does Latin lit- petrator as Witness: Jonathan Lit- Susan Rubin Suleiman was on tell’s Les Bienveillantes.” leave in fall 2012, and she was final- ly able to make a long-planned two- This year Professor Karen Thorn- week lecture trip to Taiwan and ber is Chair of Comparative Litera- Beijing. Despite the busy schedule ture as well as Director of Graduate of a lecture every other day (six in Studies in Comparative Literature. all), she managed to see and learn She is also Chair of Regional Stud- a great deal about these fascinat- ies East Asia, an MA program em- ing places, thanks to the kindness phasizing the study of East Asia in of her hosts, who took her around Professor Suleiman at Academia Sinica to visit museums, temples, palaces, Page 11 Faculty News & Profiles lation of the Japanese writer Tōge two dozen countries, with an em- Sankichi’s Poems of the Atomic Bomb, phasis on how literature both unrav- which was published as an e-book els and generates barriers and path- by the University of Chicago, Center ways to health and well-being. The for East Asian Studies (2012). second, Networking Literatures, fo- In May 2013, Thornber was named cuses on twentieth and twenty-first a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow, an century creative networks among honor awarded to select Harvard East Asia and the Indian Ocean Rim Visiting Scholar Dr. Ali Reza Anoushiravani faculty members in the humanities (Africa, the Middle East, South and and Professor Karen Thornber and social sciences in recognition Southeast Asia). These books forge regional and global perspective. of particularly distinguished pub- new pathways in the medical and Her recent book Ecoambiguity: lications. This past June, she was environmental humanities and com- Environmental Crises and East Asian Visiting Researcher at the Friedrich parative and world literatures. Literatures (Michigan 2012) received Schlegel Graduiertenschule, Freie three major international awards: Universität, Berlin. In addition to Bill Todd took part in conferenc- the American Comparative Litera- Europe, during her recent leave she es on reading (in Gargnano, Italy) ture Association René Wellek Prize, also traveled and did fieldwork in and on Dostoevsky (Moscow) and Honorable Mention (2013), for the Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. has been writing articles on Dosto- best book published in the field of Thornber is editor of the forth- evsky, Tolstoy, and Joseph Frank. comparative literature in the trien- coming World Literature and Health, nium 2010-2012; the Association a special edition of the journal Lit- for the Study of Literature and En- erature and Medicine (The Johns Hop- vironment Book Prize, Honorable kins University Press, Fall 2013). Mention (2013), for the best book- Currently, in addition to preparing length monograph of scholarly eco- articles on a variety of topics, she is criticism published in the biennium also writing two books. The first – 2011-2012; and an award from the Global World Literature, Environment, International Convention of Asia and Health: Moderating Expectations, Scholars. Last year she also re- Negotiating Possibilities – draws on ceived the William F. Sibley Memo- literary works from six continents, rial Translation Prize for her trans- twenty languages, and more than Professors. Piechocki, Hamilton, Todd, and Girón Negrón Former Comp Lit Lecturers News & Profiles François Proulx (Lecturer, 2010- lege Fellow in Comparative Litera- of Wittgenstein and Modernism (under 2013) has accepted a tenure-track ture, 2011-2013) left Cambridge this contract at the University of Chi- position as Assistant Professor of past summer to take up a new posi- cago Press) and has begun work on French at the University of Illinois, tion as Assistant Professor of Eng- a new book project on grace and Urbana-Champaign. In spring 2013 lish at Tulane University, where she disgrace in contemporary literature. he co-organized (with Christie Mc- is also affiliated faculty in the Stone Her recent essays have appeared in Donald) the interdisciplinary con- Center for Latin American Studies. Comparative Literature, The James Joyce ference “Proust and the Arts” at She continues to work in British, Quarterly, and Philosophy and Kafka. Harvard (proust-arts.com), and was European, and Latin American liter- guest curator of “Private Proust: atures of the 19th to 21st centuries Letters and Drawings to Reynaldo with a focus on modernism, its con- Hahn” at Houghton Library. He tinued resonance in global fiction, continues to work on Proust and and the relationship between philos- Hahn’s correspondence, and has a ophy and literature. Karen is current- forthcoming article in the 2013 Bul- ly completing a book manuscript, A letin d’informations proustiennes. Different Order of Difficulty: Question, Quest and Transformative Yearning in Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé (Col- Modernism, which deals with the eth- ics of enigma in the high-modernist Page 12 puzzle text. She is also co-editor Juan Torbidoni (G4), Dr. Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé Student News & Profiles Manuel Azuaje-Alamo (G1) is Raphael Koenig (G3) holds a will help curate the Museum’s ex- set to start the first year of his PhD secondary field in Film and Visual tensive collection of modern Ger- program at Harvard after having Studies. His research interests in- man art (especially the world-class lived for five years in Tokyo, Japan, clude French and German modern- Bauhaus collection, inherited from where he was a MEXT research fel- isms, East Asian languages (Chinese, Walter Gropius’ tenure at Harvard’s low at Waseda University before Japanese), and Yiddish literature. Graduate School of Design), in the completing a Masters in Literary He just published his first peer-re- perspective of the reopening of the Studies at the University of Tokyo. viewed article on cinema, “Broken Harvard Art Museums in 2014. Throughout the last year he presented papers at academic Juan Torbidoni (G4) works conferences, both in the U.S. on the relationship between and in Japan, dealing with literature and philosophy, fo- the similarities between Mu- cusing on modern European rakami Haruki and Roberto intellectual history, critical Bolaño, the influence of sci- theory, and Latin American ence fiction on the work of literature. His paper “Limi- Bolaño, and the reception of tando la Eternidad: Visión Latin American literature in y Lenguaje en El Aleph de Japan. Jorge Luis Borges” won the Recently he served as one 2013 Luisa Vidal de Villas- of the judges for the 2013 ante Award. Juan was a mem- Japanese edition of “Spanish ber of the Tutorial Board in Books,” (www.newspanish- the Literature Concentration books.jp) a project sponsored in 2012-13. This fall, he is a by Spain’s Ministry of Culture Lusia Zaitseva (G3), Katie Kohn (FVS), Elena Fratto (G4), Márton Farkas Teaching Fellow for Profes- that seeks to provide infor- (G2), Elizabeth Plas (ENS), Julia Alekseyeva (G4), Molly Klaisner (G4) sor David Damrosch’s course mation about the best books “The Philosopher and the Tyrant.” of the year published in Spanish. Cameras,” in the Montreal-based After having lived in Asia for seven review Offscreen, and he is looking forward to fostering his studies of Simos Zeniou (G4) is researching years, he is now ready to move to the modalities of the prophetic in Cambridge and carry out a research German Modernism and Art His- tory this coming academic year by Greek and European romanticism. project dealing with the points of He is the graduate coordinator of contact between the literatures of starting a full-year internship at the Busch-Reisinger Museum, where he the modern Greek literature and cul- Latin America and Japan. ture seminar. Alumni News & Profiles

Frank Albers (PhD 1996) (Ant- School. At night, as a stand-up co- Chloe Aridjis (AB 1993) currently werp University) was visiting profes- median, she makes strangers laugh lives in London. Her first novel,Book sor of American Literature at Leuven with jokes she wrote. Christine was of Clouds, won the Prix du Premier University (Belgium) in the Spring the Comic-in-Residence at The Roman Etranger in 2009. Her sec- semester of 2013. His new Dutch Comedy Studio (located on the 3rd ond novel, Asunder, was published in translation of The Tempest, commis- floor of the Hong Kong restaurant the UK in May and was released in sioned by the National Theater of in Harvard Sq.) in April 2013 and the US in September 2013. She has The Netherlands in The Hague, pre- is now a bona fide up-and-coming also written essays and is at work on mieres February 22, 2014. His novel comic in the Boston comedy scene. her third novel and a collection of Caravantis will be published in April She continues to take art classes and short stories. 2014. fantasizes monthly about applying to interdisciplinary humanities PhD Rita Banerjee’s (PhD 2013) dis- Christine An (AB 2012) works programs to study the intersection sertation, “The New Voyager: The- with the Public Education Leader- of work, education, and art. To see ory and Practice of South Asian ship Project, a joint initiative be- her comedy, please visit www.chris- Literary Modernisms,” focuses on tween HBS and HGSE, as a Research tinesuyonan.com. Associate at the Harvard Business Page 13 Alumni News & Profiles the development, international in American psychiatry, and the rise (Abrams 2013). The book has been scope, and theoretical paradigms of The Endangered Child as a key featured in The New York Times Sun- of literary modernisms in Bengali, figure in national political discourse. day Magazine and Canada’s Globe and Hindi, and Indian English from the Richard has been conducting inter- Mail, and on the BBC and France24, 1910s-1960s. She currently lives in views and archival work around the among other places, and was the Munich and teaches Modern South country for the past year, and he is subject of her TEDxWilliamsburg Asian Literatures, Bengali Lan- currently working at the Radcliffe talk. She currently lives in Brook- guage, and South Asian Art House Institute’s Schlesinger Library on a lyn and is at work on her next book. Film at Ludwig-Maximilians-Uni- Research Support Grant. His book versität München. At the moment, will be published by Public Affairs Being a Comparative Literature she is working on an article about in 2015. concentrator has served Isabel Agha Shahid Ali’s early post-Inde- Walcott Daves (AB 1991) well, de- pendence publications with P. Lal’s The Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas spite ostensibly having nothing to Writers Workshop in Kolkata, and (PhD 1984) continues to serve as do with her career. She struggled will be presenting on “The Female Priest Associate at Grace Episcopal with her thesis and didn’t really learn Anti-Hero and Protofeminism in In- Church in Amherst, MA. Her latest how to write properly until her first dia’s 19th Century Women’s Reform book is Joy of Heaven, To Earth Come job after graduation, grantwriting Literature” at LMU this semester. Down (Forward Movement 2012), a for Teach for America as a fundrais- collection of daily devotions ing officer. The simplicity of busi- for Advent/Christmas that ness writing came easily to her after focus on the sacredness of all the all-nighters she pulled writing the natural world. Anglican B+ papers in college, never feeling Theological Review will publish like much of a success. She left the her article on the history of non-profit world to enter the world the Episcopal Church’s re- of Internet start-ups and had plenty sponse to climate change. of practice revising business plans She is contributing 15 medi- for her own dot com; after being tations to the anthology Seek- CEO for five years and seeing the ing God Day By Day, Forward company through an acquisition, she Movement’s 2014 Daybook. became an Internet strategy consul- Margaret’s Website: holyhun- tant. She now researches endlessly ger.org. online - software packages, com- Katie Deutsch (G7), Dr. Rita Banerjee (PhD 2013), petitive analysis, consumer opinions, Dr. Stefan Baums. Photo taken by Rita’s mother, Alex Bush (AB 2006) is state of the industry stuff. And she Dr. Gargi Banerjee a a PhD student in the Film writes easily and cogently about her and Media department at the findings, compiling presentations Richard Beck (AB 2009), an as- University of California at Berke- and reports for her clients that have sistant editor and writer with the ley, where she researches questions a surfeit of detail as their only real New York-based literary magazine of nation, migration, and cinema flaw. She never agonizes over figur- n+1, is currently at work on his first in contemporary Germany, with an ing out how to state something any- book. Tentatively titled We Believe the emphasis on the Turkish diaspora more, and she has become an expert Children: The Daycare Sex Abuse and in Europe. She is also interested in at editing others’ work. As opposed Satanic Cult Worship Hysteria of the global cities, urban modernity, cul- to not being able to dance, she just 1980s, the book will describe a series tural memory, and media archaeol- needed to find the right music. She of trials in which daycare workers ogy. She will spend much of this lives with her husband and three around the country were wrongly summer in Berlin and Switzerland children, ages 1, 3 and 5, in Brook- convicted of abusing children in visiting museum archives to develop lyn, NY. bizarre Satanic cult worship rituals. an article on pigeon photography; The book will situate these trials the trip is partially funded by a re- Wendy Bush Faris (PhD 1975) within the wider context of 1980s search award from the Max Kade just stepped down from serving for sexual politics, including conflicts Foundation. 10 years as chair of the English De- between radical feminists and evan- partment at the University of Texas gelical conservatives, the re-emer- Becky Cooper (AB 2010) recent- at Arlington. She continues to work gence of trauma as a key concept ly published her first book, Mapping on magical realism, modern and Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes contemporary interarts analysis, and Page 14 Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers Carlos Fuentes, topics on which she Alumni News & Profiles

has a few articles forthcoming and in progress, including a contribution Ruth (Halikman) Frank- on magical realism for the Cambridge lin (AM 1998) is a contribut- Companion to Postmodernism. ing editor at the New Repub- lic. She is currently at work Raymond Fleming (PhD 1976) on a biography of Shirley retired in May 2011 as the John F. Jackson, for which she re- Dugan Professor of Modern Lan- ceived a 2012 Guggenheim guages and Linguistics, Professor of Fellowship. During 2012- Humanities, Professor of African- 2013, she was a fellow at the American Studies, and Professor at Cullman Center for Scholars the Human Rights Institute at the and Writers at the New York Florida State University. Most of Public Library. She can be his publications (books and articles) Professors Christie McDonald and Karen Thornber reached via ruthfranklin.net. were in those areas, although he also with Molly Klaisner and Julia Alekseyeva (G4s) (AB 1994) published two books of poetry that continues to pursue along with writ- Brian Galle were influenced by the classes he ing poetry, as well as researching the is an associate professor at Boston had as a graduate student with Rob- intersection of ‘race’ and American College Law School. He studies the ert Torrance (Comp Lit) and Roger constitutional law, an interest he regulation of charitable organiza- Rosenblatt (American literature). He acquired while attending lectures tions, public finance, and relation- had the superb good fortune to have at the Harvard Law School many ships between the two. His under- as his dissertation directors Dante years ago. To this day most of his graduate concentration in Medieval Della Terza (duca e maestro) and close former classmates from those Latin has been of only limited use Craig La Driere, though his disser- days are former law school students in those endeavors, but did supply tation had its origin in a Comp Lit who became lawyers. His son, who some helpful understanding of the class with Dorrit Cohn. graduated from the Harvard Law correct pronunciation of “stare de- His time at Harvard was support- School in 1998, says that shows what cisis.” He welcomes inquiries about ed by Woodrow Wilson Foundation undiscerning tastes he has! He may whether recent grads should pursue and Ford Foundation fellowships. be correct, as he declined an offer a law degree. Most of his teaching in the United in 1985 from Yale to become associ- ate dean of the graduate American Letters, a book of fic- school, and declined the tion by Maryam Monalisa Ghara- offer in 1993 to become vi (PhD 2013) will be published in Director of the MacAr- 2014 by Zer0. A translation of Syr- thur Fellowship Awards. ian-Brazilian poet Waly Salomão’s He never regretted those Algaravias is forthcoming in 2015. decisions, as he still can’t imagine anything more After Dana Gioia (MA 1975) left rewarding than being a his position as Chairman of the Na- teacher and scholar. tional Endowment for the Arts in During his teaching ca- 2009, he accepted a newly created reer he was recognized chair at the University of Southern with twenty-one awards California where he teaches half- for graduate and under- time as the Judge Widney Professor Wanda Di Bernardo, Daniel Behar, Aisha Dad-Van graduate teaching and of Poetry and Public Culture. At Veldhuizen (G1s), Professor Katharina Piechocki advising, and as someone USC he teaches courses in Modern who grew up in the 1950s in inner- Poetry and Music and Poetry as well States and abroad has been in the ar- city Cleveland, Ohio (Hough-Cen- as helping develop a graduate pro- eas of Italian, German, English, and tral ghetto), he regards himself as gram in Arts Leadership. Gioia’s African-American literature, history, having had a privileged education fourth book of poems, Pity the Beau- and painting. His last invited lecture and life. He remains grateful for the tiful (2012), debuted last year as the was as the plenary speaker at the In- intellectually exciting experience and best-selling new book of poems in ternational Conference on Romanti- diverse exposures he had as a com- the U.S. He is currently complet- cism where he gave a presentation parative literature graduate student ing his third opera libretto with the on “Politics and German Romantic at Harvard. Landscape Painting,” a project he Page 15 Alumni News & Profiles composer Lori Laitman and a song- A short section adapted from this University of Mashhad, where she cycle with jazz pianist Helen Sung. book can be found at www.dream- is teaching comparative literature Last year he was the subject of a ersandfighters.com/cob/doc-debo- and literary criticism. She is also col- new book, Dana Gioia: A Critical In- rahheller.aspx. lecting material for a monograph on troduction, by Matthew Brennan, the one of Iran’s foremost modern po- fifth monograph published about Dara Horn (PhD 2006) is the ets, Mehdi Akhavān Sāles, and get- his work and career. author of four novels: In the Image ting immersed in the music of the In May he was the commence- (W.W. Norton 2002), The World to bards of Northern Khorasan. ment speaker at Catholic University Come (W.W. Norton 2006), All Other of America, where he received his Nights (W.W. Norton 2009), and A Julia Jarcho (AB 2004) just re- eleventh honorary doctorate. “After Guide for the Perplexed (W.W. Norton ceived her PhD in Rhetoric from spending most of a decade in Wash- 2013), as well as a bestselling non- the University of California, Berke- ington, DC, I have finally returned fiction e-book, The Rescuer (Tab- ley, and will be an assistant profes- to my real life as a poet and critic,” let 2012). In 2007 she was chosen sor in the English Department at he remarks. Now back in his na- by Granta Magazine as one of the NYU starting in the fall. Her book tive California, he divides his time “Best Young American Novelists.” project, Negative Theatrics: Writing the between Los Angeles and Sonoma Dara’s books have been translated Postdramatic Stage, shows how theater County. into eleven languages, have received becomes the site of a utopian chal- two National Jewish Book Awards lenge to the present in a series of After leaving Harvard in 1970 as and two Editors’ Choice selections modernist and contemporary texts. an ABD, Jane Goldsmith moved to in The New York Times Book Review, She is also a playwright and director San Francisco, where she eventually and have appeared on many “best whose productions include Dream- received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychol- of ” lists, including Booklist’s “25 less Land (New York City Players), ogy from the California School of Best Books of the Decade.” Her American Treasure (13P) and, most Professional Psychology. She has work has appeared in The New York recently, Grimly Handsome (Incuba- now been in private practice here Times, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, tor Arts Project), which won a 2013 for 35 years. She also sings in an ex- and many other publications. She Obie award for Best New Ameri- cellent community chorus, and has has taught courses in Hebrew and can Play. Works in progress include written fiction, plays, and screen- Yiddish literature at Sarah Lawrence a free adaptation of Jane Bowles’s plays. Late last year her first novel, College and at City University of novel Two Serious Ladies and a collab- Indian Winter, was published by Full New York’s Graduate Center, and oration with the sculptor and video Court Press; it is available through has lectured at over two hundred artist Meredith James (Harvard ’04). Amazon and there is information universities and cultural institu- about it at www.indianwinter.net. tions throughout North America Daniel Javitch (PhD 1971) is and in Israel. She lives in New Jer- now Professor Emeritus of Com- Jeffrey Green (PhD 1973) recent- sey with her husband and four chil- parative Literature, New York Uni- ly translated a book, Blooms of Dark- dren, most of whom can’t yet read. versity. His most recent publication ness, which won the Independent is Saggi sull’Ariosto e la Composizione Foreign Fiction Prize in England in Marie Huber (PhD 2013) is cur- dell’Orlando Furioso (Pacini Fazzi 2012. rently spending a year in Iran as a 2012). postdoctoral fellow at Ferdowsi Deborah Heller (PhD 1970) is Stephanie Kamath (AB 1999) a retired professor of Humanities is currently a research consultant at York University Toronto. She for Œuvres Pieuses Vernaculai- has recently published Daughters res à Succès (OPVS) project run and Mothers in Alice Munro’s Later out of the Institut de recherche Stories; a review of Lillian Nay- et d’histoire des textes (IRHT), der’s The Other Dickens: A Life a great opportunity for the de- of Catherine Hogarth in Canadian tailed study of medieval manu- Woman Studies / les cahiers de la scripts. Last year, she published femme (Spring/Summer 2012); Authorship and First-Person Allegory and, in the spring of 2013, The in Late Medieval France and England Goose Girl, the Rabbi, and the New and she is currently co-editing York Teachers: A Family Memoir. Marie Huber in Nov. 2012 at the Mausoleum of Iran’s with Marco Nievergelt (Univer- national poet, Ferdowsi. Mehdi Akhavan Sales - whose poetry sity of Lausanne) a collection of Page 16 was the subject of her dissertation - is buried here too. essays on the Pèlerinage allegories Alumni News & Profiles of Guillaume de Deguileville, due to narrative feature film, BENDS, on user-interface and experience de- appear in Boydell & Brewer’s Gallica which premiered at Cannes Film sign. Cris is currently working with series. Festival this year in Official Selec- the Harvard metaLAB, making a tion, Un Certain Regard. documentary film on immigration, David J. Kirsch (MA 1994) is cur- and will be assistant teaching Har- rently an Associate Adjunct Profes- Anne Lounsbery (PhD 2000) vard’s Film for Social Change class sor of Modern Languages, Farming- is Associate Professor of Russian this fall. dale State College, Farmingdale, Literature and Chair of the Depart- LI, NY. He teaches three foreign ment of Russian & Slavic Studies at Sarah Manguso (AB 1996) is a film classes (International Cinema, New York University. Her main area 2013 Guggenheim Fellow in Gen- French Cinema, and French and of research is the nineteenth-cen- eral Nonfiction. Her fifth book, The Francophone Fiction and Film) and tury Russian novel in comparative Guardians, a prose elegy, was pub- two online classes (French Culture context. lished in paperback earlier this year. and Civilization, and French Fables David Lurie (AB 1993) is Asso- She lives in Brooklyn. and Folktales). He has recently published a translation of Juan David Marsh (PhD 1978) has Gil de Zamora’s Dictaminis Epitha- been Professor of Italian at Rut- lamium (a 13th-century treatise on gers University since 1986. His the art of letter-writing). books include The Quattrocento Dialogue (1980), Lucian and the Lat- Lauren Klein (AB 2000) is an ins (1998), Studies in Alberti and assistant professor in the School Petrarch (2012), and The Experience of Literature, Media, and Com- of Exile Described by Italian Writers munication at Georgia Tech, (2013). He has also translated Al- where she teaches courses in berti’s Dinner Pieces (1987), Vico’s digital humanities, media studies, New Science (1999), Petrarch’s In- food studies, and early American vectives (2003), Paolo Zellini’s Brief literature. She is at work on two History of Infinity (2004), and Re- book projects: the first on the Professors John Hamilton and David Damrosch, naissance Fables (2004). He is cur- relationship between eating and and Dean Diana Sorensenrently writing a biography of the aesthetics in the early American re- ciate Professor of Japanese History Florentine humanist Giannozzo public, and the second on a cultural and Literature at Columbia Univer- Manetti (1396-1459). history of data visualization from sity. His first book, Realms of Lit- the eighteenth century to the pres- eracy: Early Japan and the History of Kyle McAuley (AB 2009) is pur- ent day. In 2013, she received an Writing (Harvard University Asia suing an English PhD at Rutgers NEH Digital Humanities Start-up Center, 2011), received the 2012 Li- University, where he specializes in Grant to develop a tool to support onel Trilling Award. He is currently the Victorian novel, empire and im- the interactive exploration and vi- working on a short book on Japa- perialism, and global Anglophone sualization of text-based archives. nese mythology and a longer study literatures. He lives in New York Drawing upon the technique of of the history of linguistic thought City. topic modeling - a computational in Japan. method for identifying the themes Benjamin Morgan (AB 2001) that recur across a collection of After graduating in 2011, Cris- is currently an assistant professor texts - the tool will allow humanities toforo Magliozzi (AB 2011) trav- in the Department of English at scholars to trace the evolution and eled to document micro-finance op- the University of Chicago, where circulation of themes across social erations in Ghana, worked making he teaches nineteenth-century Brit- networks and over time. Recent es- video content for health-and-fitness ish literature. In the 2013-2014 aca- says have appeared in American Lit- start-up Greatist in New York City, demic year, he will be a fellow at the erature, Early American Literature, and and served the first half of 2012 Franke Institute for the Humanities, American Quarterly. with the White House video team, as he completes a book on Victo- editing content including the weekly rian aesthetics and the science of While producing commercials in behind-the-scenes serial, West Wing the mind. He will also be a visiting Shanghai and becoming managing Week. Since returning to Cambridge, fellow in fall 2013 at the University director at the commercial produc- Cris has worked in Boston’s entre- of Edinburgh, where he is research- tion house P.I.G. China, Melissa preneurial scene and for Techstars, Lee (AB 2003) produced her third and has given talks at Harvard’s iLab Page 17 Alumni News & Profiles ing some of the nineteenth-century Scholars to fourteen, has raised the cian who serves as native informant brotherhoods, clubs, and coteries Scholarship to some $50,000, has on mathematical matters. In his that created connections among po- grown its endowment and its dona- spare time Patrikis is an avid chef, ets, artists, and scientists. He has re- tions from friends and alumni, has a voracious reader of fiction, schol- cently published an article on close invited some twenty-five colleges arly articles, and cookbooks, and a reading and embodied perception and universities to join the Churchill fanatic about opera, German Lieder, in Victorian Studies, and also has Scholarship Program, and has en- and early music. forthcoming work on Oscar Wilde hanced the profile of the Churchill as a transnational literary figure. Scholarship through new publica- Burton Pike (PhD 1958), Pro- tions, a new website, and visits to fessor Emeritus of Comparative Gloria F. Orenstein (MA 1961) is about one hundred colleges and Literature and German at the Grad- now retired from being a full pro- universities across the United States. uate Center of the City University fessor of Comparative Literature at The Churchill Scholarship was re- of New York, received the $10,000 USC, and is now Emerita. She was cently named one of the top three 2012 Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize involved with the art exhibit about U.S. scholarships along with the for the best translation of a liter- The Women of Surrealism, a field Marshall and the Rhodes. ary work from German published in she pioneered in the early seventies, Patrikis is the editor of three pub- 2011, for his translation of Gerhard called IN WONDERLAND, Meier’s Swiss-German novel Isle of and has an article in the large the Dead (Dalkey Archive Press). book accompanying the exhibit (that traveled from LACMA Roxana Popescu (PhD 2010) ac- in Los Angeles to Quebec City cepted a position last fall as a senior and then to Mexico City). The reporter at San Diego’s daily news- book is also called IN WON- paper, U-T San Diego. She writes for DERLAND, and is filled with the Sunday In Depth section on top- wondrous color reproductions. ics including innovation, fraud, gun She has spoken in Mexico City culture, refugees, and profiles of lo- and Los Angeles about her long cal characters. She welcomes contact friendship with Leonora Car- ([email protected]) from rington. She continues her re- anyone passing through San Diego, search and writing while retired. as well as anyone who is pondering or pursuing a career outside aca- Peter Patrikis (PhD 1976) demia. worked in several divisions Mihaela Pacurar (Slavic - Lit alum AB 2006) of the National Endowment and Dr. Christina Svendsen Marlène Ramírez-Cancio (AB for the Humanities after complet- lications on foreign language educa- 1994) received her MA and com- ing his degree in Comparative Lit- tion and the author of dozens of pleted PhD coursework and exams erature. He was then appointed the articles on the place of languages in (ABD) in the department of Com- founding Executive Director of the higher education and on the appli- parative Literature at Stanford Uni- Consortium for Language Teaching cation of information technology to versity (1998), and later received an and Learning, for which he trav- language teaching and learning. He MFA in Creative Writing in Span- eled widely in the United States and has given presentations in Australia, ish at New York University (2010). abroad lecturing. He retired from China, France, Germany, and Hol- Currently, she is Associate Director, that position in 2005 and failed dis- land, as well as across the United Arts & Media, at NYU’s Hemispher- mally in his early retirement, which States. He served on the Foreign ic Institute of Performance and lasted a mere six months, for the Language Committee of the Modern Politics (hemisphericinstitute.org), happy opportunity of serving as the Language Association that produced and is Co-Founder and Co-Director Executive Director of the Winston the controversial report urging lan- of Fulana, a Latina satire collective Churchill Foundation of the United guage and literature departments to based in NYC (fulana.org). States, an organization that sends revise and modernize their curricula. extraordinary U.S. college gradu- Patrikis and his wife Kathy have Mari Ruti (PhD 2001) is Pro- ate in the sciences, engineering, and been married for more than forty fessor of Critical Theory at the mathematics to the University of years. They live in Hamden, CT. University of Toronto, where she Cambridge. In that position he has They have two sons, the elder an in- teaches contemporary theory, con- increased the number of Churchill surance executive in New York and tinental philosophy, psychoanalysis, Page 18 the younger a theoretical mathemati- and feminist and queer theory. She Alumni News & Profiles is the author of Reinventing the Soul: on essential themes of solitude and (forthcoming 2013); and “Incorpo- Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Life solidarity. They will be considering rating Literary Methods and Texts in (2006); A World of Fragile Things: these themes in works from Russia the Teaching of Tort Law,” 3 Calif. Psychoanalysis and the Art of Living (Gogol), Germany (Goethe), Ire- L. Rev. Circuit 170-81 (2012). (2009); The Summons of Love (2011); land (O’Casey), France (Zola), and The Singularity of Being: Lacan and the the United States (Fitzgerald and Mark Sandona (PhD 1989) is Immortal Within (2012); and The Call Steinbeck). Long live Comparisons! chair of the English department at of Character: Living a Life Worth Living Hood College in Frederick, Mary- (2013). Zahr Said (PhD 2003) teaches land. He continues to research the at the University of Washington cultural context of the Arena Cha- Vanessa Ryan (AB 1997) is Assis- School of Law, and is starting his pel in Padua. Recent publications tant Professor of English at Brown third year as an assistant professor. include The Usurer’s Heart: Giotto, University, where her teaching fo- His research lies at the intersections Enrico Scrovegni and the Arena Chapel cuses on nineteenth-century litera- in Padua (2008), and articles for Ox- ture and on topics in science and ford University Press (online), the literature. Her book, Thinking without New Catholic Encyclopedia (on- Thinking in the Victorian Novel, came line), and Skira Milan. out with Johns Hopkins University Press in 2012. David Schaberg (PhD 1996) has become Dean of Humanities at Jeanne Cronin Rodes (AM 1950) UCLA and hopes somehow to con- grew up in the Boston suburb of tinue his research on early Chinese Watertown, Mass., went to a public rhetoric and oratory. school, and then to the Domini- cans’ Rosary Academy, and then to Jennifer Seo (AB 2003) recently Watertown High School, where she completed the intern year of her proceeded to love English and lan- combined Internal Medicine-Pedi- guages, especially French and Latin. atrics residency at the University of She majored in French language and Chicago. She hopes to begin doing literature at Brown University. She research in law and medicine this also took up German, impelled by a year. After residency, she plans to friend and classmate (later her hus- go into primary care and do work in band) and got curious about Span- Dr. Clara Masnatta, Graduation Day May health policy and advocacy. ish as well. All this curiosity led to 2013. Picture by Katie Deutsch a splendid year at Harvard, follow- Laurence Senelick (AM 1965, ing their new course in Comparative of intellectual property law and law PhD 1972) continues as Fletcher Literature, and found high excel- and humanities. He brings various Professor of Oratory and Director lence in both the teaching and the methods and texts drawn from liter- of Graduate Studies in Drama at different literatures. She received ature and literary criticism to copy- Tufts University and a Fellow of the the AM degree in 1950. She contin- right and advertising law. He is cur- American Academy of Arts and Sci- ued her graduate studies at Brown, rently at work on a project in which ences. Last year he was presented where she took her doctoral exams he argues that copyright jurispru- the Betty Jean Jones award for dis- in 1952. They went very well, but dence defaults to formalism without tinguished teaching by the American she didn’t manage to complete her acknowledging this methodological Theatre and Drama Society and won thesis and so is an ABD. But she put bias, and calls for greater method- a grant from Trans/Script of the her Comparative Literature work to ological transparency in copyright Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation for good use, teaching part time in St. case law. A few of his recent publica- his translation of Stanislavsky’s let- Mary’s College, Notre Dame, In- tions include: “Mandated Disclosure ters which will be published by Rout- diana from 1963 to 2009. She was in Literary Hybrid Speech,” Wash. ledge in October 2013. He directed awarded their Maria Pieta teaching L. Rev. (forthcoming 2013); “Only the North American premiere of award in 1988. Part of the Picture: A Response to the Colombian play Our Private Lives Right now, she teaches a small Professor Tushnet’s Worth a Thou- and performed Beckett’s Krapp’s Last group from another venue, whose sand Words,” 16 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. Tape at Tufts. Over the past two members are on the way to age 349-68 (2013); “Fixing Copyright in years, he has published a half doz- pains. They are examining the lives Characters: Literary Perspectives on en articles in scholarly journals and of the rich and the poor, focusing a Legal Problem,” 35 Cardozo L. Rev. Page 19 Alumni News & Profiles 18 in Japan, where she spent recently published “Hiding in Plain the year as a Rotary Youth Sight: Problems of Modernist Self- Exchange Student. She starts Representation in the Encounter college at Lawrence Univer- Between Adolf Loos and Josephine sity in Appleton in the fall, Baker” in the journal Mosaic. majoring in music and psy- chology. Her son Phil, now John Train (AM 1951) has re- 25 (born while Sultan was cently published his 25th book, and a graduate student), works something over 400 columns. Gov- full time at the International ernment and private employment Trade Commission in Wash- has taken him (after multiple visits) ington, DC and is complet- to every country in South America ing an MA in diplomacy. If and Europe, and many in Asia and Africa. Dr. Christine Lee and Dr. Luke Taylor you can get him a job at the anthologies, including The Cambridge State Department, Nancy and will be forever in your debt! Stephanie H. Tung (AB 2006) Guide to Modern Russian Culture is currently a third year graduate Victory Over the Sun (University of She writes plays and fiction, acts occasionally, and is generally loving student in Art History at Princeton Exeter Press). His book The Soviet University. Her research focuses on Theater: A Documentary History will be life. Dum vivo, ludo! Always glad to published by Yale University Press see Harvard buddies. If you are in the history of photography in China in spring 2014. the Chicago area, let her know! nsul- as it relates to ideas of literacy and [email protected] truth in the Republican era. Prior to Princeton, she worked as a translator Nancy Sultan (PhD 1991) just celebrated 20 years of teaching Christina Svendsen (PhD 2011) and curator at the Three Shadows Greek and Roman Studies at Illinois is working on a book manuscript Photography Art Centre in Beijing, Wesleyan University, and is looking titled Stone, Steel, Glass: Architectures where she organized an exhibition forward to her third sabbatical leave of Time in European Modernity, in ad- of Ai Weiwei’s photographs, Ai Wei- coming up in fall 2014. Her current dition to being a Lecturer in Com- wei: New York Photographs 1983-1993 research project investigates the role parative Literature at Harvard and (2009). She will return to China in of music and the mixed audience in teaching at the Tufts Experimental 2014 as a Fulbright Scholar to con- Classical Indian drama and later duct research for her dissertation. revival of Greek plays. Last sum- Janet A. Walker (PhD 1975) mer (2012) she participated in the was named a member of the Aca- NEH Summer Institute on Ro- demic Advisory Board for the Se- man Comedy in Performance, or- ries of Publications in World Lit- ganized on the campus of UNC eratures of the Friedrich Schlegel by Tim Moore and Sharon James. Graduate School of Literary In May, students in her Greek & Studies, Free University-Berlin in Roman Comedy class re-enacted 2011. In 2012 she was named a the ritual worship of the Magna member of the Advisory Board Mater and produced a staged for the Friedrich Schlegel Gradu- reading of Plautus’ Pseudolus as ate School of Literary Studies, part of the first IWU Ludi Mega- Free University-Berlin. She is lenses. She gave pre-production working on a book manuscript presentations on the project at Dr. Christina Svendsen, John Kim (G8), on space, place, and modernity in CAMWS and at a UIUC confer- Yanping Zhang (G4) ence on Ancient Drama in April four Japanese writers of fiction 2013. A post-production report will College. She recently published a between 1886 and 1937. be published in due course. She was critical introduction and translation also delighted to contribute an article of Lesabéndio: An Asteroid Novel by Steven F. Walker (MA 1966, PhD to Greg Nagy’s online festschrift in Paul Scheerbart, Walter Benjamin’s 1973) is Professor of Comparative honor of his 70th birthday, entitled favorite science fiction author, with Literature at Rutgers University. His “Jacqueline Kennedy and the Classi- Wakefield Press; her translation of most recent book is Midlife Transfor- cal Ideal.” Her daughter Nina turned German surrealist Unica Zürn’s no- mation in Literature and Film: Jungian vella The Trumpet of Jericho is forth- and Eriksonian Perspectives (Routledge, 2012). His book Jung and the Jungians Page 20 coming in 2014. In addition, she Alumni News & Profiles on Myth (Routledge 2002) has just Four of his books appeared over the of this new venture which bids to been translated into Korean. He past decade: A Scream Goes Through change the landscape of higher edu- is now working on the book Time the House (Random House 2003); Re- cation. Bombs and Buried Treasure: Cryptic Sub- covering Your Story: Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Now retired for a dozen years and texts in Modern Literature and the Arts. Faulkner, Morrison (Random House Emeritus Professor of Greek and 2006); Northern Arts: The Break- Latin at the University of Michigan, Robert Waugh (PhD 1972) has through of Scandinavian Literature and Rev’d Charles Witke (PhD 1962) just edited a book, Lovecraft and In- Art from Ibsen to Bergman (Princeton continues several research projects fluence: His Predecessors and Successors UP 2008), runner-up for Best Book involving Latin literature, including (Scarecrow Press), which may be the of the Year by The Atlantic; and early Christian texts, but has not car- culmination of his earlier books, The Morning, Noon and Night: Finding the ried out work in the Vatican Library Monster in the Mirror and A Monster Meaning of Life’s Stages Through Books manuscript rooms since their reno- of Voices (Hippocampus Press). He (Random House 2011), nominated vation: slightly compromised eye- is an emeritus professor of SUNY for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction. sight and the vicissitudes of travel New Paltz, but still teaches one In addition, he was asked by Brown take their toll. Teaching continues course each fall. University to contribute an online throughout the academic year in his course for Coursera, and his “Fiction Episcopal parish, mainly on literary Arnold Weinstein (PhD 1968) is of Relationship” course launched in critical approaches to early Christian an Edna and Richard Salomon Dis- June 2013, to run throughout the narration. Other parochial duties tinguished Professor of Compara- summer; Arnold Weinstein believes provide a rich diversity of sustaining tive Literature at Brown University. it is immensely exciting to be part interests.

Visiting Scholars News & Profiles

Award, and Japan Comparative Lit- Shun Akikusa (Visiting Scholar) erature Association Prize. Shun has has mainly been studying Vladi- published a dozen academic papers mir Nabokov and his translations both in Japanese and English, some (including his self-translation and anthologies of Russian literature and translation theory). He obtained his Nabokov studies, and translations doctorate from the University of To- of some literary works. He translat- kyo in 2009 and published his thesis: ed David Damrosch’s What is World Nabokofu yakusu no wa watashi: jiko Literature? into Japanese with his col- hon’yaku ga hiraku tekusuto [Nabokov, leagues. Recently he has been writ- How Self-Translation Creates Texts] ing his second monograph on world (2011). This monograph was award- literature and Japan. ed several academic prizes—The University of Tokyo Grand Presi- Ilka Kressner received her Ph.D. dent’s Award, Japan Association in Spanish from the University of Dr. Ilka Kressner for the Study of Russian Literature Virginia and M.A. in Comparative of vertigo, free fall, and velocity), Literature (Spanish, French, Mu- and ecocritical studies. Her scholar- sicology) from the University of ship and teaching examine literature Tübingen, Germany. She is cur- and art from a variety of cultural rently working as Assistant Pro- and national contexts, often from a fessor of Spanish at the State Uni- comparative perspective. versity of New York, Albany. Her monograph Sites of Disquiet: Focusing on 20th and 21st cen- The Non-Space in Spanish American tury Spanish American literature Short Narratives and their Cinematic and other media, her research in- Transformations has been published terests include intermediality (rela- with Purdue University Press (2013). tions between text, image, sound), She has published articles in the Bul- conceptions of space in the text letin of Hispanic Studies, Iberoamericana, (encompassing the related topics Xiaolu Ma (G5) and Dr. Shun Akikusa Page 21 Visiting Scholars News & Profiles

Hispanic Journal, MELUS, Revista interests are comparative literature, lection of her publications can be Chilena de Literatura, and Hispanófila. world literature, cultural studies, and found at SIIM publications: www. During her time as a Visiting intermedial semiotics. She coordi- ucm.es/siim/siimpublications. Scholar in the Department of Com- nates the Research Program Stud- Contact: [email protected]. parative Literature, she will work on ies on Intermediality and her project on contemporary poetry Intercultural Mediation performances in Latin America. Her SIIM. She is also a fel- focus is on the hybrid and interac- low of the Real Colegio tive genre, marked by participatory Complutense at Har- structures and the use of new me- vard. She serves on the dia, as a paradigm of an aesthetic of Executive Committee of interaction. the European Network of Comparative Literary Asun López-Varela, a profes- Studies and as an exter- sor at Universidad Complutense de nal evaluator for the EU Madrid since 1994, was a Visiting Educational, Audiovisual Scholar in our department from June & Culture Executive Dr. Louise Nilsson, Dr. Zhang Jing, Dr. Marta Puxan-Oliva, to November 2013. Her research Agency EACEA. A se- Zhong Yan (Tracy), and their children Staff News & Profiles

mother during the first year of Isaure Mignotte, the Lit Pro- her baby’s life; and a related pro- gram Coordinator, is delighted that gram of visiting a new mother to she had the opportunity to enjoy bring her information about local several wonderful trips this year. She resources; visited some beautiful parts of Thai- -Working temporary, part-time land and Cambodia - notably Ang- jobs at Harvard (see, she can’t kor Wat - last January, and went on quite get away) in History & Lit- a “Tour de France via Train” from erature, Literature, and the Eng- Paris to Bordeaux, Biarritz, Stras- lish Department; bourg, and Royan in July. She also -Having leisurely lunches with loves the New England summer and friends, some of whom are still got to go on her first 35 mile bike working, some retired; and walk-up-the-steepest-hills ride -Reading a lot of very good and in Vermont, bumped into Chase Barbara Akiba with her granddaughter some not-so-good books (and Carpenter (AB 2012) in a créperie Notes from a retired Literature learning how to put down the lat- (évidemment!) in Kennebunkport, Administrator: ter, unfinished); and went camping/hiking in Acadia Just in case you’ve been wondering -Endless weeding of her front- to start the new academic year off (but, then, really, why would you?) yard garden; on the right foot. what Barbara Akiba, retired Ad- -Writing notes like this both to up- ministrator of the Literature Con- date any of you who remember her centration, has been doing for the and to keep herself amused. past four years, here’s a brief update. So, as you can see, she’s answered -Spending time with her 9(!) the question she posed at her retire- grandchildren (2 in New York; 7 in ment party in May 2009: “Is there Israel) gives her both immense plea- life after Harvard?” A resounding sure and overwhelming fatigue; “YES!” -Volunteering for Jewish Family And, just to prove one of her and Children’s Services as a Visiting points above, here is a photo of her Mom who spends time with a new in Israel with Nachami Akiva, the 6th (and first girl!) of her younger son’s now 7 children. Enjoy! Page 22 Angkor Wat, Cambodia, January 2013 Summary of Awards 2011-2013

The Hoopes Prize, awarded Flyting in the Táin Bó Cúalnge to undergraduates on the basis and the Medieval Celtic Texts.” of outstanding scholarly work The 2012 Comparative Lit- or research went to Sarah Mc- erature Luisa Vidal de Villasante Cuskee (AB 2013), for her se- prize winner was Thomas Wis- nior thesis “Practicing literature niewski, for his essay “On the and reading medicine in Guade- Fiction of Fiction: Beerbohm & loupe: An approach to ethics.” Borges.” The Barbara Johnson Memo- We are delighted that two rial Prize, awarded to the author Hoopes Prizes in the Humani- of the junior essay in Literature ties were awarded to undergradu- that best honors Barbara John- ate concentrators in Literature son’s spirit of literary play and Isaure Mignotte, Elizabeth Plas (ENS), Argyro Nicolaou (G2) in 2012. The Literature winners exploration went to Rebecca were: Elliott (Class of 2014), for her essay The Harvard Monthly Prize was “The Political as Work of Art in Ro- awarded to Katherine Damm Betty Rosen (AB 2012): “Reading berto Bolaño’s Chilean Narratives.” (AB 2013). Realities: Approaches to Reading the Incomprehensible in Hasan Mutlak’s The 2013 Comparative Literature The Louis B. Sudler Prize in the Dābādā and Yoel Hoffmann’s The Susan Anthony Prize winners were: Arts was awarded to Keir Go- Shunra and The Schmetterling,” advised • Lusia Zaitseva (G3), for her Gwilt (AB 2013). by John Kim and mentored by Pro- essay “Too Far and Back Again: The The Jonathan Levy Award, was fessor Christopher Johnson. Text and the Making of the Medi- awarded to Emily Hyman (AB eval Hero in La Chanson de Roland, Le 2013). Charroi de Nines, and La Vie de Saint The Detur Book Prize was Alexis.” awarded to Julian Lucas and • Kevin Stone (AB 2013), for Benjamin L. Sobel (Class of his essay “Truth as ‘Mobile Equilib- 2015). rium’: Preface to a Translation of The 2012 Comparative Litera- Die Vollendung der Liebe.” ture Susan Anthony Prize win- The 2013 Comparative Literature ners were: Luisa Vidal de Villasante Prize was • Elena Fratto (G4), for awarded to Juan Torbidoni (G4), her essay “Getting the Story for his essay “Limitando la Eterni- Straight. The Poetics of Non- Elena Fratto (G4), Lara Roizen (G2), dad: Visón y Lenguaje en El Aleph Euclidean Geometries in Ab- Juan Torbidoni (G4) de Jorge Luis Borges.” bott, Dostoevskii, Kaverin, and Talia Lavin (AB 2012): “Towards The Jacob Wendell Scholarship Calvino.” The Essence Of Poetry, by Micah Yosef Prize was awarded to Julian Lucas • Daniel Frim (Class of 2014), Berdichevsky - Translated, Annotat- (Class of 2015). for his essay “Non-Performative ed and with a Critical Introduction,” advised by Jessica Fechtor and men- Bok Teaching Awards tored by Professor Ruth Wisse. Fall 2011 François Proulx 2012 Barbara Johnson Memorial François Proulx Simos Zeniou Prize: Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé Guy Smoot Sarah McCuskee (Class of 2013) Olga Zhulina won the second annual Barbara John- Björn Kühnicke Spring 2013 son Memorial Prize for her Junior Luke Leafgren Essay entitled “Detours from Traf- Spring 2012 Christine S. Lee fic: Materterine Relation(s) as Al- Robert Kohen Christina Phillips Mattson ternative to Filial Systems in Le livre Svetlana Rukhelman François Proulx d’Emma and Cereus Blooms at Night.” Elena Fratto Fall 2012 Tony Qian Luke Leafgren Simos Zeniou Page 23 Submission Guidelines & Editorial Information Dear Faculty, Students, and Alum- phone) where we can reach you in ni: case editorial questions arise. Editors: Julia Alekseyeva & The Department of Comparative In addition to or as an alterna- Matthew Lochner Literature and the Literature Con- tive to providing a faculty, student, Supervisor: Isaure Mignotte centration at Harvard University or alumni profile, you can submit an Principal Proofreader: Professor publishes an annual newsletter dur- article related to the field of Com- Karen Thornber ing the Spring or early Fall Semester parative Literature, departmental Additional Proofreading: Katie of each year. proceedings at Harvard, or your Deutsch, Jasmine Hu, Dr. Delia Un- If you would like to participate own area of research and writing. gureanu in the 2014 Newsletter, please send All articles submitted to the news- us a personal profile describing the letter should be between 250 and Thanks to: current research work you are con- 500 words long. 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