Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature Newsletter Vol. 3 * NOVEMBER 2011 Letter from the Chair I would like to take this Comparative Literature at New opportunity to welcome every- York University, gave a stunning one to the 2011-12 academic and provocative talk entitled year, with an especially warm “For Bestiality: Mediation more greeting to our outstanding new ferarum” on November 17. We cohort of first-year graduate have also enjoyed lectures from students and wonderful mix of Lisa Folkmarson Käll (Uppsala visiting scholars. As both Chair University) and Victoria Höög and DGS this year, it has been a (Lund University), which were pleasure to work closely with all organized by two of our visiting Chair John Hamilton of you over the past months. scholars, Louise Nilsson and La- etitia Nanquette. I was particu- Egyptian religion and its Europe- The fall term has been an afterlife, the legacy of mono- particularly vibrant, stimulating, larly pleased with the exhibition I organized in conjunction with theism, and theories of cultural and productive. Our Renato Pog- memory have had an important gioli Graduate Colloquium Series, the Swiss Consulate and Pro Helvetia. The show featured the and lasting impact on Compara- which meets monthly, began tive Studies. We are all anticipat- in October with a presentation work of Swiss artist and actionist Pavel Schmidt: “Franz Kafka: Ver- ing an engaging and altogether from Martin Hägglund, who is inspiring lecture. presently at the Harvard Society schrieben & Verzeichnet/Writ- ten & Drawn”—a collection of of Fellows. Students interested With warmest wishes for a great in presenting works-in-progress 49 images addressing previously unpublished fragments from the year, (for instance, a seminar or con- John Hamilton ference paper, a prospectus, an Kafka archive. The exhibit ran article draft, etc.) should contact from September 13 – October 16 Table of Contents: Björn Kühnicke (kuhnicke@fas. at the Sert Gallery in the Carpen- ter Center. On September 29, we harvard.edu) to request a slot. I Letter from the Chair...... 1 also plan on inaugurating a new hosted a lively panel discussion, with critical interventions from New Developments in the Comp symposium on “Music and Lan- Lit Graduate Program...... 2 guage,” which will be organized Stanley Corngold (Princeton), Andreas Kilcher (Zürich), Almut- Banner Year for CL Job Applicants..3 together with the Music Depart- A Comparatist’s Life: Michael ment. An opening event is being Barbara Renger (Berlin), and our own Judith Ryan. Pavel Schmidt Palencia-Roth...... 4-7 planned for the spring. Dorrit Cohn Receives Lifetime In addition, we have an then offered his own response, followed by a casual reception. Achievement Award...... 8 exciting roster of guest lectures Texts in Turmoil: Global Health this year. On October 13 poet Many thanks to those who were able to attend. and World Literature...... 8 and playwright Jean-Christophe Meet the Dept. of Comp Lit...... 9 Bailly (Professor at the École In the spring, on April 5, we are thrilled to welcome the inter- Departmental Awards...... 9 Nationale Supérieure in Blois) Faculty News & Profiles...... 10-11 spoke in our department. His nationally acclaimed Egyptolo- gist and cultural theorist, Jan Student News & Profiles...... 12 brilliantly provocative book, Le Alumni News & Info...... 13-23 versant animal, has recently ap- Assmann (Professor Emeritus, Heidelberg), who will give this Editorial Info & Thanks...... 23 peared in translation with Ford- Submission Guidelines...... 24 ham as The Animal Side. Jacques year’s Renato Poggioli Lecture. Lezra, Professor and Chair of Assmann’s innovative books on Page 1 New Developments in the Comp Lit Graduate Program Harvard’s graduate program in the records of all our first- through questions of shaping research Comparative Literature is one of fourth-year graduate students, agendas and developing a schol- the most dynamic and diverse making it easier to determine arly or nonacademic career. Pro- in the country. Our two dozen students’ progress. We also fol- fessors David Damrosch, Christo- faculty members and four dozen lowed up with all fifth- through pher Johnson, and Judith Ryan, graduate students Lecturer Phoebe hail from six conti- Putnam, as well as nents; we teach and graduate students publish on work Stephanie Framp- from all periods, ton, Jamey Graham, several dozen lan- and Dennis Tenen- guages, and an ever- boym, assisted in increasing variety of making these eve- sites. We recently re- nings great success- structured our entire es. program so as to re- We were particu- flect better the needs larly gratified this of both students and spring that six of the academy in the our current and re- twenty-first century. cent graduates ac- New course and lan- Professor Karen Thornber with Visiting Scholars Valerie Henitiuk and cepted ladder fac- Ayako Takahashi guage requirements ulty and prestigious allow students to engage more eighth-year graduate students to postdoctoral positions at other fully in sophisticated comparative make sure that dissertation writ- institutions, and that four have work from their first year at Har- ing was proceeding smoothly and accepted Lectureship and other vard. We also have significantly chapter meetings were being held positions at Harvard. (For more strengthened faculty feedback regularly. The aim was to have, by on their success see “Banner Year and advising from the first year the end of the 2010-11 academic for CL Job Applicants”). through the completion of the year, all students back on track to In February, the Depart- PhD. meeting requirements and all In- ment’s Admissions Committee In the summer and fall of completes resolved. extended offers of admission to 2010 Professor David Damrosch As Director of Graduate Stud- a brilliant, wonderfully diverse (Chair), Wanda Di Bernardo (De- ies I tried to foster a departmen- group of new PhD candidates, partment Administrator), Isaure tal culture that encouraged the and we are pleased to welcome six Mignotte (Program Assistant), professional mentoring of all our new students this fall. Stephanie Frampton (Depart- students. In this spirit, and to With its comfortable lounge mental Teaching Fellow), and I complement the Department’s and meeting and seminar rooms, (DGS) revised both the Guide very successful Dissertation Col- Comparative Literature’s new for Graduate Students and the loquium directed by Professor home in the historic Dana Palmer Comparative Literature Teaching John Hamilton, I organized the House provides the perfect set- Fellows Handbook. These pub- Comparative Literature Profes- ting for exceptionally collegial lications clarify expectations for sional Development Seminar scholarly exchange, and we invite graduate students and reflect the Series. This series met monthly you to stop by for a restorative department’s commitment to fa- during the fall and spring semes- cup of coffee or tea. cilitating student advancement to ters and covered teaching, dis- the degree. sertation preparation and writ- - Karen Thornber Last fall, Isaure and I digitized ing, publishing, and preparing for 2010-2011 DGS the job market, as well as general Page 2 Banner Year for CL Job Applicants Despite the continued economic Jacob Emery wrote, not without in the Department of Humanities- crisis and the decrease in literature a touch of humor, “I am unreserv- Classics; Dennis Tenenboym (CL and area studies positions nation- edly enthusiastic about living in a 2011) is spending the academic year wide, 2010-2011 was a truly stellar city (Bloomington, Indiana) where a 2011-12 as a postdoctoral fellow at year for Comparative Literature job pint of fancy beer costs three dollars Harvard University and will move applicants. Nearly all current and and the orchestra is both top notch to Columbia University as Assistant recent CL graduate students who and free.” Professor in the went on the market in 2010-2011 Like Sally, Department of landed interviews for ladder faculty Jacob is English in the positions at leading universities, enthu- fall of 2012; and and many accepted offers for excel- siastic Tamar Abramov lent jobs and postdoctoral fellow- about the (CL 2008), (Col- ships. In conversations and email prospect lege Fellow in exchanges, the fortunate candidates of doing 2010-11, Depart- expressed their sense of relief and compara- ment of Compar- gratitude at the end of a long and tive work ative Literature) often grueling process. in his new joined the Soci- Beginning in July last year (2010), position, ety of Fellows at Professors Judith Ryan and Karen where he the University of Thornber, Placement Officers for will “have Sally Livingston with student Holly Perrault Chicago as Col- the Department of Comparative one insti- legiate Assistant Literature, met individually with tutional foot each in Comp Lit and Professor. Phoebe Putnam (CL students who were on the market, Slavic.” Phoebe Putnam expressed 2009, Lecturer in History and Liter- proofread job application materials, her delight in joining Stanford’s ature 2009-2011), joined Stanford’s held mock interviews, were avail- English department as an ACLS fac- English department as an ACLS Fac- able for consultation at the MLA, ulty fellow. She quoted the “magical ulty Fellow. Other appointments helped with job talks, and assisted words” of her prospective depart- include Jamey Graham (CL 2011), with negotiating offers. In Sep- ment chair, who noted that she who has been awarded a position as tember 2010, Professors Ryan and would be able to “teach things that Lecturer in History and Literature, Thornber hosted a workshop, open give [her] intellectual energy” and Christine Lee (CL 2011), named to all CL graduate students, devoted to “write [her] book,” Land Lies in Lecturer in Literature, and Stepha- to job-search strategies, and in Oc- Water: Panoramas and the American nie Frampton (CL 2011), who re- tober 2010, Professor Christopher Poem. Fatin Abbas, who is pursuing ceived a GSD/GSAS Curtorial Fel- Johnson joined Professor Thornber an MFA at Hunter College after re- lowship from metaLAB at Harvard in hosting a workshop on expecta- ceiving her PhD in the fall of 2011, and is developing “The History of tions for junior faculty, so that stu- is “very excited” to be able to spend Writing in the Harvard Collections” dents could compete more effective- two years focusing on creative writ- exhibit this year. Anita Nikkanen ly with applicants who already had ing, a long-standing interest of hers (CL 2011) is our Departmental academic positions. For graduate even during the production of her Teaching Fellow for the 2011-2012 students who were continuing on doctoral dissertation. school year, and Svetlana Rukhel- the job market as well as those who As of late April 2011, the follow- man (CL 2011) is a College Fellow in were new to it, a meeting took place ing Comparative Literature gradu- the Slavic Department. Fatin Abbas in early May 2011; the meeting ori- ate students had accepted ladder (CL 2011) has entered an MFA pro- ented potential applicants to steps faculty and postdoctoral positions: gram in Creative Writing at Hunter they should take over the summer Jacob Emery (CL 2006, 2004-2011 College (CUNY), while Christina to gather materials and strengthen Tutor in the Literature Concentra- Svendsen (CL 2010) is continuing their dossiers. tion) went to Indiana University as a Lecturer on Literature in our Feedback from some of the suc- as Assistant Professor in the De- department. cessful candidates provides a vi- partment of Slavic Languages and gnette of last year’s placements. Literatures; Jen Hui Bon Hoa (CL Our heartiest congratulations to Working in one of the challenging 2011) moved to Yonsei University our current and recent graduates! fields for job placement, Sally Liv- as Assistant Professor, Underwood ingston said, “I feel very lucky that International College, Seoul; Sally - Judith Ryan and Karen Thornber I’ve gotten one of the rare jobs for Livingston (CL 2008), (Lecturer in 2010-2011 Placement Officers comparative medievalists, and in Comparative Literature and in His- a department (Ohio Wesleyan) in tory and Literature, 2008-2011) which I can teach courses that par- took up a position at Ohio Wesleyan allel those of our own department.” University as Assistant Professor Page 3 A Comparatist’s Life: Michael Palencia-Roth

You started as a Professor of Comparative ted to add Philosophy as a formal field. leaving Harvard I became one of the co- Literature and retired as a Professor of (Yet I was not asking to substitute Phi- founders of a journal called Philosophy Comparative and World Literature. Do you losophy for one of my literatures; I was and Literature, which is now edited out see a seismic shift here? asking to add to them.) Both Professors of the University of New Zealand, and Kaiser and Levin went on to say that I I co-edited two or three of its inaugu- I remember two rather brief conversa- was a student of “literature,” with the ral issues before I left the University of tions I had with my faculty advisers at adjective “comparative,” and that I was Michigan-Dearborn for the University Harvard in 1970. I had been there for not formally a student of “philosophy” of Illinois. So I got to continue my “phi- about a year and was beginning to be or of an interdisciplinary subset called losophy” after all. And I never stopped somewhat restive about the limitations “philosophy and literature,” or indeed reading philosophy. In fact, once I got that were being imposed on me by grad- of anything else other than literature. to the University of Illinois, I taught phi- uate school. By that time, I was already They encouraged me to drop my audits losophers like Plato, Descartes, Marx or actively auditing three or four seminars and went on to say that I shouldn’t be Nietzsche almost every year for 30 years. and courses each semester in addition trying to make a difficult field like -Com “Literature” at Harvard during my to taking the normal four seminars for parative Literature even more difficult graduate school days meant primarily credit. I was just hungry to learn, and it for myself. That experience was perhaps Western and European literatures. Once didn’t occur to me then that I was doing the first time that the profession de- in a while a graduate student did San- anything that might be considered odd fined “Comparative Literature” to me in skrit or Hebrew, but classical languages or atypical. These classes were in Philos- such a way that told me in no uncertain for us meant primarily Greek and Latin. ophy, the Intellectual History of Europe, terms what was legitimate and what was I don’t remember Comparative Litera- and Latin. My advisers then were Pro- not. The comparison was to be between ture graduate students specializing in fessors Walter Kaiser and Harry Levin, and among literatures, not between and Chinese, Japanese or Korean literatures, neither of whom I ever met with for among literatures and other disciplines. for instance, though more than one stu- more than a few minutes at a time. I had That may sound quaint today, given the dent did specialize in Russian (Donald begun my graduate studies with a de- explosion in literary theory since the Fanger had recently joined the depart- clared specialization in three literatures late 1970s and given the increasing in- ment). – English, French, and German – and terdisciplinarity of education generally, Nowadays, the study of literature is in the modern period, Romanticism to but that is the way that Comparative more than just that of literature, and the present. At the end of my first year Literature at Harvard was in the 1960s more than just that of Western litera- I had shifted around to put German as and ’70s: traditional, conservative, rigor- ture. In a way, my career has been a long the major field and English and Spanish ous, demanding, and rather sure of itself and continuous rebellion against certain (Peninsular) as minor fields. I was doing concerning the nature of the field. aspects of my excellent graduate educa- Latin on my own and was not anticipat- Anyway, I silently disobeyed my advi- tion at Harvard, for from the moment I ing formal examinations in Latin litera- sors and, without telling them, contin- left Cambridge I began to champion in- ture. However, since my main areas of ued to audit Latin, intellectual history, terdisciplinarity and the globalization of study as an undergraduate had been in and philosophy classes (symbolic logic literary study, including more “peripher- Literature (English, primarily, but also with Quine; Plato, Kant, Hegel, aesthet- al” cultures like Latin America and India. Spanish and French) and Philosophy, ics, phenomenology, and ethics with At the same time, however, I have main- and since my love for Philosophy had other professors). Although I chafed tained a fierce devotion to the study of not diminished, I asked Professors Kai- under the command not to study phi- literatures in their original languages. ser and Levin on two occasions to be al- losophy, I eventually came to appreci- My devotion to that principle has been lowed to present the History of Western ate one of the important consequences such that in my scholarship I have re- Philosophy as a separate and additional of that command: the literatures that I fused and still refuse to analyze literary field for my general examinations, what did study at Harvard I came to control texts or authors if I do not control them we here at Illinois call the preliminary as well (or as badly) as graduate students in the original. This principle has lim- examinations. This is how my advis- who were single-literature specialists in ited the range of my analyses, of course, ers became aware of the number and single-literature departments. I became but it has also prevented me from mak- nature of the courses I was auditing. comfortable linguistically with each of ing superficial assumptions or from In a tone that I still remember as be- the literatures I studied and, because of writing textual commentaries based on ing sympathetically dismissive, each of that, became comfortable with philolo- translations. And I have tried over the them answered that it was not permit- gy, with archival research, and with wide years to infuse a similar devotion to that swaths of literary history from the Mid- principle in my graduate students. Page 4 dle Ages on. Ironically, perhaps, after Yes, the shift from “Comparative Lit- A Comparatist’s Life: Michael Palencia-Roth erature” to “Comparative and World the values of the civilized over those of and literary history to the lowest com- Literature” has been seismic, and our the barbarian. His descriptions of the mon denominator. That is predictable. program at the University of Illinois Gauls, for instance, as uncivilized and We should not kid ourselves: simply be- has been one of the pioneer programs superstitious practitioners of human cause we teach something called “world in making this shift. We reshaped our- sacrifice, as mostly lawless people, re- literature” does not mean that we actu- selves in the mid-1980s. Our concerns semble countless descriptions through- then as now were and are not so much out the history of conflict and coloniza- to make the paradigm shift (that prob- tion. Such descriptions resurface with ably would have happened at some point particular strength during periods like without us, anyway), but to make it re- the colonization of the New World, the sponsibly. The great danger in becoming expansion of the American frontier, a “Comparative and World Literature” and the European contests in the 19th program is in losing the commitment to century which carved up Africa. In the the original languages of the literatures 1960s, a scholar named Herbert Lüthy studied. If that commitment is lost, wrote that the history of colonization then the downward slope becomes slip- was nothing less than the history of pery indeed. That is my general fear for humanity itself. Though that seems to the profession as a whole. me to be an exaggeration, it is certainly Professor Michael Palencia-Roth undeniable that all too frequently the in Cali, Colombia Do you think that the recent resurgence of contacts between nations and cultures ally are bona fide professionals in “world world literature betokens the move in liter- are transformed into struggles between literature” itself. No one person can be. ary studies toward alterity studies and that unequal powers, hence colonization in With hard work, most of us can prob- the institutionalization of world literature one form or another. And literature re- ably acquire a reasonable expertise in is the next “gimmick” after multiculturalism flects that. six or seven literary traditions and their and postcolonialism? Does this resurgence I have no quarrel at all with world languages but beyond that we have to resemble them in its mandate to “do” the literature, alterity studies, or colonial- rely on translations and on the scholar- Other on the cheap, that is, without any postcolonial studies. In fact, the his- ship of specialists. Even so formidable a real knowledge of source cultures and their tory of comparative literature not as an polyglot as Sir William Jones – founder languages? academic field but as an activity, some- of the Asiatick Society of Bengal in 1784 thing that in the West begins with the and able to use some 28 languages in his A large and complex question. I am Greeks being read and adapted by the work – felt constrained by his linguistic not quite sure what you mean by “be- Romans, is in my view the history of limitations. token.” Anticipate? Prefigure? There most of literature. My quarrel is with As far as multiculturalism and post- is a chicken-and-egg problem here, and those who think that these concepts are colonialism are concerned, here, too, I I don’t know enough about the history new. They’re not. To think that they are believe that there is a good way and a of “alterity” studies or “world literature” reveals a kind of provincialism, an insu- bad way to do them. The good way is (whose world?) to hazard a strong opin- larity of training and education. A rea- with linguistic competence and a sound ion about which set of terms is driving sonable knowledge of several languages, knowledge of literary, intellectual, and the other. The concept of alterity in of the development of their literatures, cultural history. The bad way is without Western culture has been around at least and of the history of philosophical and that competence or knowledge. since Homer, and Greek anthropology- social thought might diminish some ethnography drew its strength from con- of the professional giddiness we some- What do you think about the recent history ceptualizations of the Other – barbar- times experience when confronted with and influence of theory in Comparative Lit- ian, inhuman, monstrous, incapable of what appears to be a new theory or phi- erature and in the national languages – the language (of Greek, that is), eater of raw losophy, a new approach or a new critical reign of French theory, the backlash against rather than cooked food, a non-cultiva- terminology. it, American provincial cooptation of French tor of grain etc., etc. The concept may be Is world literature the next “gimmick” theory, the minority role of German stains traced from Homer through Herodotus in university education? I don’t know. of theory, for example. Do you see this as and beyond, into Latin literature. One It need not be. However, if done “on an inevitable chain of events? Where has sometimes forgets that the letters of the cheap,” without some connection it left us? Julius Caesar were among the first docu- to the original sources and without a ments in Latin culture to establish justi- disciplined sense of literary and intel- fications of colonization by trumpeting lectual history, it will reduce literature Page 5 A Comparatist’s Life: Michael Palencia-Roth

In the late 1970s, Paul de Man visited voices then being heard with particular becoming also more narrow and provin- our campus and spoke to a critical theo- strength. He said that if he could do it cial. Theory, initially seen as a broad- ry study group that I was then involved over, he would have done it differently. ening influence, now also can be seen with. In the evening, at a reception, I But Charlie was taken from us soon af- to have had a narrowing effect. Many happened to be standing next to de Man ter, and I regret that our conversations of today’s students are studying fewer when a colleague of mine who was a could not have evolved over the years, languages and literatures than they did long-time friend of de Man approached for we had a “natural” bond, both of us before, and they don’t feel at all guilty him and asked him how he felt about having been dissertation students of about that, and many are also feeling dressing up some of his old ideas with Harry Levin. comfortable about doing their scholarly a new theoretical vocabulary. I have al- Theories and critical approaches have work in translation, and they don’t feel ways remembered the cynicism in de always been part of our highly self-con- guilty about that, either. Man’s answer as he acknowledged the scious field. I don’t see that as a weak- truth behind that remark: “Well, it sells; ness. But I do see an unquestioning Has Comp Lit totally lost its way? Has it if it seems new that is how you make a reliance on theory as a danger to the been/ Should it be replaced by more “rel- splash.” After de Man died, and after independence of critical thought and evant” or meaningful institutional homes the revelations of his Nazi sympathies even to thinking itself. Over the years, such as Humanities Centers, Cultural Stud- and collaborationist writings had come I have seen graduate students at Illinois ies, Interdisciplinary Programs, Translitera- out, I remembered those words again become so enamored of a particular ture Studies, World Literature, or just plain and wondered if deconstruction itself critical approach that they were unable “English Literature Now Does the World”? were somehow his unconscious – or per- to see anything except through that par- haps fully conscious – defense, ex post ticular lens. Limited by a critical termi- I don’t believe that we have lost our facto, for the cynical opportunism and nology and certain patterns of thought, way – yet. I have two basic reactions to relativism of his writings in the 1940s. they tended to see in their texts or au- this kind of question. First, as we age we In the early 1990s, Charlie Bern- thors only what their critical approaches tend to view the past with more nostal- heimer asked me to contribute an es- allowed them to see. Because of these gia than the past perhaps warrants. If say to what would become Comparative potential pitfalls, I have always insisted one looks at the major statements about Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. to my dissertation students that their Comparative Literature from its major I turned him down because I had too work be grounded in more than one crit- practitioners, most of them project, to a much on my plate at the time and felt ical approach and that they use mostly degree, a feeling of crisis, of siege. This that I couldn’t have met the deadlines. plain style so that their thinking, not is natural in a discipline whose existence In retrospect, I should have participated, their terminology, would carry the argu- directly depends on extremely high stan- for, as it turned out, I had a somewhat ment. The students who took my advice dards and also on the anxiety that those different take on the meaning of mul- to heart generally wrote dissertations high standards will not be met, either ticulturalism and its significance to our that were somewhat shorter than most, by us or by those departments seeking discipline than Charlie did. In essence, I clearer, less dependent on specialized to colonize our territory. Second, this felt differently about how best to expand critical terminology, and thus more ac- question recognizes what I think of as the methodological boundaries of our cessible to a wider audience. “the challenge of success.” The compara- discipline. Charlie did ask me to critique You ended your question by asking tive perspective has become so success- a draft of his introduction before the where the influence of theory in Com- ful academically that it is now becoming book was published. I read it and com- parative Literature and national litera- the norm, whatever name you give it: mented that he was reducing too much ture departments has left us. Curiously, transnational, international, cross-cul- of comparative literature to current partly because of the backlash against tural, interdisciplinary, and so on. While fads, diminishing the importance of the theory, the field is becoming more tradi- the perspective is being adopted every- knowledge of languages, and misread- tional and respectful of the old virtues of where in the academy, the intellectual ing the significance of the non-literary literary and historical contextualism. All rigor and the training that legitimize in our field. When the book was pub- that is to the good, especially if we can that perspective, endowing it with a lished, I saw that my comments had had retain some of the theoretical sophisti- solid foundation, are not being similarly little effect. A couple of years later, when cation of the past two decades, for that adopted. The result is an inevitable de- Charlie and I met at a conference, he told will encourage the next generation to cline in academic standards. me that I had been more right than he build on our work rather than to reject it What can we do about all this? Prob- had realized but that he had been se- and us along with it. ably not very much. We can try to make duced at the time by some of the trendy Yet at the same time that the field the various centers and programs in our Page 6 is becoming a bit more traditional, it is institutions adhere to linguistic stan- A Comparatist’s Life: Michael Palencia-Roth dards, to a solid foundation in the his- in a class or seminar until rather late in been my most humbling linguistic ex- tory of criticism and theory, as well as my career. The germ for many of my es- perience. I am fascinated in particular to that upon which both are founded, says have come from “aha” moments in by three eras of cross-cultural contact: namely philosophy and the history of the classroom and then from following the so-called “Christian Century” which ideas. We can ask that specialization in up those moments in that semester or in ended in about 1640 with massacres a field be complemented by broader con- other semesters. So the teaching fertil- and expulsions, the Meiji Restoration in textual studies. We can ask that work in izes the scholarship and then the schol- the latter part of the 19th century, and a field actually be grounded in the texts arship fertilizes the teaching. There is a the period of “embracing defeat” imme- of that field and not be the result of un- wonderful symbiosis in all this, a kind of diately following World War II. Each of founded speculations, however interest- rhythm of discovery and the deepening these periods presents interesting ideo- ing. But institutions, as well as people, of knowledge and understanding that logical conflicts with the West. I don’t tend generally to take the easier path. in my case I got from active teaching. know how much my Japanese will final- Comparative Literature has not lost And, in retirement, I do miss that part ly permit me to contribute to an under- its way. Like all organisms, it must adapt of the academic life, though I don’t miss standing of these periods, but it makes or die. I am confident that as practitio- its politics, internecine squabbles, petty me happy simply to learn about them. ners of the discipline we will adapt. I am jealousies and those cyclical budget cri- The first period in particular – that of hopeful that in doing so we will retain ses that make all of us anxious and mis- the Christian Century – dovetails with the central strengths of the discipline. erable from time to time. some of my other work in the Span- That is now no longer up to me; it is What do I tell my graduate students? ish and Portuguese colonization of the up to my colleagues and students who It’s a wonderful life. Americas and the British colonization of come after me. India. And then, of course, there is Ga- You took early retirement. Why? And what briel García Márquez. I started reading You have had a successful career in terms are you doing these days? him almost 40 years ago. I continue to of scholarship, teaching, and service. How work on him, grateful for the privilege, have you balanced these, and what do you I developed serious problems with my and grateful as well to be able to say that tell your graduate students about life in the vision in early 2004 which made reading I know him personally and have spent profession? and teaching rather difficult. Several time with him. operations have improved my vision, My wife says that the rhythm of my The cliché is true that all three are but that brush with blindness pushed days hasn’t changed much in retirement. important, but for me everything has me toward the decision to husband my I still work all day and sometimes into flowed from teaching. Teaching is first; time and energy in order to be able to the night, though less often now. And I it is the bedrock of my existence. But complete those long research projects don’t want to slow down yet. Or, as the there are many ways of teaching. The which I had delayed out of devotion to title of one of Kurosawa’s final films has classroom is only one of them. There my students. I retired in May 2007 and it, Madadayo – “Not yet.” In Japanese, are tutorials, long conversations, office am now very happy to have done so, ま だ だ よ 。 hours, the direction of theses and dis- though the first few months were un- sertations, the advice on jobs, and so on. settling. Being emeritus has permitted Michael Palencia-Roth is Trowbridge Scholar One teaches students and sometimes me to do things and accept invitations in Literary Studies and Emeritus Professor of colleagues even when one might not that my teaching schedule prevented. Comparative and World Literature and Latin be aware that one is doing so – simply I have done more traveling than usual American & Caribbean Studies at the Univer- by the way that one lives or approaches – for instance to Paris several times in sity of Illinois. He is also Senior Adviser at questions or problems, or treats individ- the past couple of years, to set up a con- the Research Center for Moral Science, Insti- uals in the more private moments of our ference and to work with UNESCO, the tute of Moralogy in Reitaku University, Japan. lives. I have even tried, but with only École pratique des hautes études, and This article has been re-printed with permis- modest success in the final analysis, to the Sorbonne. Sponsored by the United sion from “Michael Palencia-Roth Answers “educate” my university about the nature Nations, I also traveled to Japan and, Dorothy Figueira” (Interview) in Festschrift of our discipline, about the value of a hu- as a result of that and other visits, have for Michael Palencia-Roth, special issue of manistic and historically grounded edu- just accepted a position at Reitaku Uni- The Comparatist, Vol. 33 (May 2009): 5-12. cation, about internationalism and mul- versity and its “Institute of Moralogy” as Contributors to the Festschrift included ticulturalism. Finally, my scholarship an “adviser,” a responsibility which will David Damrosch, Paul J. Heald, Eugene Eoyang, flows from my teaching – with the large require me to be in Japan for about a Caroline D. Eckhardt, Gerald Gillespie, and Margaret R. Higonnet. exception of my work on Gabriel García month each year. For some time now, I Márquez, whom I did not actually teach have been learning Japanese, which has Page 7 for much of the subsequent devel- opment of narratology”; she was Dorrit Cohn Receives Lifetime thanked for the “unforgettable read- ings of authors we thought we knew Achievement Award and for introducing us to several we might never have encountered oth- On Saturday, April 9, 2011, the In- dering of consciousness in fiction, erwise”; and she was lauded for her ternational Society for the Study Transparent Minds (1978, 2nd ed. integrity in all matters, intellectual, of Narrative bestowed on Dorrit 1984, trans. into French and Mod- pedagogical, and collegial. (For the Cohn, Ernest Bernbaum Professor ern Greek), and a paper discussing full text, see http://narrative.george- of Literature Emerita, the Wayne C. Cohn’s explorations of the distinc- town.edu/awards/booth-cohn.php.) Booth Lifetime Achievement Award tions of fictional and non-fictional Despite illness, Dorrit Cohn has for her contributions to narrative discourse, rehearsed among other stayed active in retirement, learning theory and the teaching of narrative places in her award-winning book Attic Greek to further her investiga- at its annual conference, hosted this The Distinction of Fiction (1999). Ad- tions of Plato, and translating the year by Washington University in ditionally, comments were read sa- work of Jean-Marie Schaeffer (Why St. Louis. Though not able to attend, luting Dorrit, including ones by Har- Fiction? U Nebraska P, 2010). She Dorrit was apprised of the award vard’s Susan R. Suleiman and Maria is a Corresponding Member of the and received a plaque at her resi- Tatar. The formal citation bestowing Austrian Academy of Sciences and a dence in Lexington, MA, just before the award was written and read by Member of the American Academy moving to Durham, NC, to be closer one of our department’s graduates, of Arts and Sciences. to one of her sons. An academic Irene Kacandes, AB 1981, AM 1984, panel was organized with a paper PhD 1991 (currently a professor and - Irene Kacandes revisiting the enduring contribu- chair at Dartmouth College). Cohn’s PhD 1991 tion of Cohn’s approach to the ren- work was assessed as “foundational Texts in Turmoil: Global Health and World Literature This year I’ve been working on my Texts in Turmoil discusses literary nations, and languages. The difficul- third book – Texts in Turmoil: Global negotiations with both infectious and ties facing peoples afflicted with global Health and World Literature – which ana- non-communicable diseases, and with diseases thus are even more complex lyzes how literatures from around the widely recognized pollution diseases than is usually understood. Creative world have grappled with global health as well as ailments with probable but works on these challenges from East concerns. Creative engagement with unproven connections to environ- Asia and lands surrounding the Indian diseases whose etiologies and conse- mental conditions. Most discussion Ocean force readers to consider how quences transcend linguistic, national, of creative writing on global health large-scale disasters transform under- and regional borders is exceptionally understandably focuses on how texts standings of disease and what space, if revealing when studied in the context portray human physical and psycho- any, remains for healing. When exam- of worldwide cultural and resource cur- logical suffering. In contrast, my book ined together, these texts also disman- rents since 1945, particularly those oc- is less concerned with deliberations on tle postcolonial paradigms, bringing to curring along the arc from lands near human anguish itself than with how the fore overlooked cross-cultural con- the East China Sea (China, North and texts address and change perceptions of tacts, both those within postwar East South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) to areas health and disease, both individual and Asia and those between this region and around the Indian Ocean (Southeast collective. Creative works frequently South and Southeast Asia, the Middle Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Af- depict individuals and societies con- East, and Africa. By focusing on how rica). As the first study of post-1945 lit- fronted with illness as tormented not literatures throughout these areas con- erary flows among these sites, my book only by bodily affliction but also by the front global problems, Texts in Turmoil strives to reconceptualize understand- inadequacy of existing conceptions of attempts to reveal the nature and sig- ings of national, regional, and global health and disease. Not only are indi- nificance of the vibrant transcultural cultural contacts, transformations, and viduals and societies pushed toward interactions flowing between East Asia identities, as well as changing relation- developing new standards for thinking and regions bordering the Indian Ocean ships between (world) literature and about infirmity; in the case of diseases during the past half century. (global) medicine across time and space. with global manifestations these new - Karen Thornber norms themselves struggle to move Harris K. Weston Associate Professor Page 8 within and through multiple cultures, of the Humanities Meet the Department of Comparative Lit

Departmental Awards 2011 Faculty Prizes: Congratulations to Christine Lee Wallace.” Sally Livingston, advisor; Chris- and to Daniel Frim, graduate and topher Johnson, mentor. We are pleased to announce that John undergraduate recipients of the Hamilton is the recipient of the 2011 Susan Anthony Potter Prize for 2011. Petra Shattuck Excellence in Teaching Nell Hawley, “Bhasa’s Karnabharam: A Award. Congratulations to Rita Banerjee for re- Bold Look at a Beloved Hero.” Luke Taylor, ceiving the Tom and Laurel Nebel Gradu- advisor; Anne Monius, mentor. We are pleased to announce that ate Fellowship for her dissertation writing Christopher Johnson won the 2010 and research. Oliver Strand, “The Web on the Wall, Premio Valle-Inclán (joint winner) for Se- the Moon in the Sea: Reality, the Imagi- lected Poetry of Francisco de Quevedo: A Bi- Undergraduate Prizes: nation, and Modernist Aesthetics.” Björn lingual Edition from the Translators Asso- Kühnicke, advisor; Dan Albright, mentor. ciation of the Society of Authors and the We proudly announce that four of the Times Literary Supplement. twenty-two 2011-12 Hoopes Prizes in Luzi Yang, “Displaced Relics: Zhang the Humanities were awarded to under- Zao’s Post-Misty Poetics: A Translation We are pleased to announce that Karen graduate concentrators in Literature. The and Critical Study.” John Kim, advisor; Thornber won two major international Hoopes Prize is given for the purpose of Steve Owen, mentor. awards for her book, Empire of Texts in “promoting, improving, and enhancing Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese the quality of education . . . in literary, We are pleased to announce that Transculturations of Japanese Literature: artistic, musical, scientific, historical, or Marina Connelly won the first annual the International Comparative Literature other academic subjects made part of Barbara Johnson Memorial Prize for her Association’s Anna Balakian Book Prize the College curriculum under Faculty su- Junior Essay, “Words for God: a Study of for the best book in the world in the field pervision and instruction, particularly by Religious Text as Psychoanalytic Transi- of comparative literature published in the recognizing, promoting, honoring, and tional Phenomenon.” last three years by a scholar under age for- rewarding excellence in the work of un- ty; and the John Whitney Hall Book Prize dergraduates and their capabilities and 2011 Individual Achievement Green Carpet of the Association for Asian Studies for skills in any subject, projects of research Award: the best book in Japanese studies. in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the The Office for Sustainability awarded 2011 Departmental Prizes: instruction or supervision of the Faculty.” Isaure Mignotte with an Individual Achievement Green Carpet Award for her Congratulations to Luke Taylor for The Literature Winners are: outstanding dedication and hard work to- receiving the Luisa Vidal de Villasante wards campus sustainability at Harvard. Award for 2011. Rebecca Cooper, “Quo Vadis: The Life and Literary Philosophy of David Foster Page 9 Faculty News & Profiles James Engell During academic – an illuminated codex with an Old by Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen). year 2010-11, he served as the Spanish translation of the Hebrew In May, his own book Music, Mad- GlaxoSmithKline Senior Fellow Bible and over a thousand exegetical ness, and the Unworking of Language glosses (mostly Jewish, appeared in the series in German some Christian) which translation. Over the summer, he jointly constitute one made final preparations for the of the most important recent exhibit at the Carpenter vernacular Bibles of Center which featured an intrigu- the European Middle ing series of images by Swiss art- Ages. Thanks to a gen- ist Pavel Schmidt which respond in erous grant from the unpredictable ways to the writings American Council of of Franz Kafka. The show, entitled Learned Societies, he “Franz Kafka: Verschrieben & Ver- will sequester himself zeichnet,” ran from September 13 on Arragel’s behalf, to October 16, with a special recep- along with a few other tion/panel discussion on the eve- colleagues and friends, ning of September 29. in semi-monastic fash- ion and coordinate Christie McDonald’s two most their joined efforts, the recent collaborative projects were Professor Bill Todd, Ana Olenina, Jacob Emery, and Elena Fratto fruits of which should published in 2010: Rousseau and see the light long be- Freedom (edited with Stanley Hoff- at the National Humanities Cen- fore Harvard celebrates its 400th mann) and the collective volume ter, working on Samuel Taylor anniversary. edited with Susan Suleiman, French Coleridge. He also gave a public lec- Global: A New Approach to French ture at the Center, “What Is College John Hamilton enjoyed a par- Literary History. She and her hus- For?” which was an updated and ticularly productive sabbatical year. band, Michael Rosengarten, also expanded version of a talk he once He worked primarily on finish- just completed their first year as presented to parents of juniors at ing a book-length project entitled Co-Masters of Mather House at Harvard College. He has recently Careless & Carefree: Security in the Harvard. published on Samuel Johnson and Western Tradition, A Comparative has articles soon appearing in the Philological Approach and took ad- Judith Ryan was awarded a Hum- Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and vantage of many opportunities boldt Research Prize in recogni- Poetics and the Virgil Encyclopedia, as well as two additional articles on Johnson. The text that he conceived and co-edited, Environment: An In- terdisciplinary Anthology, published in 2008 by Yale University Press, is now widely used in programs in en- vironmental studies. He continues to teach rhetoric in General Educa- tion, as well as undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars in eighteenth-century literature and comparative Romanticism. Luis Girón-Negrón Since the summer of 2010, he has devoted Professors Werner Sollors, Luis Girón-Negrón, David Damrosch, Bill Todd, and every spare moment he could find, Jeffrey Schnapp in between teaching and leisure to present chapters-in-progress tion of her scholarship; the prize coffees at his other “office” in Café at Princeton, Oxford, Vienna, was conferred at Schloß Charlot- Pamplona, to a long-term collab- and Munich, with a special week- tenburg, Berlin, in June 2010. She orative project that will enjoy his long seminar on the topic at is using the award to support her undivided attention during a year- the Zentrum für Literaturfor- project on German colonialism, a long sabbatical (2011-2012): i.e. an schung in Berlin. In addition, he book tentatively called “Colonial annotated critical edition and study continued to develop the book se- Fever.” In the meantime, her book of the 15th-century Biblia de Arragel ries “Manhattan Manuscripts,” The Novel After Theory will be pub- which he co-edits with Eckart Goe- lished by Columbia University Press Page 10 bel and Paul Fleming (published in 2011. Faculty News & Profiles Werner Sollors co-edited with intra-East Asian cultural contacts, (coauthored, for Journal of Political Greil Marcus A New Literary History and Japanese literature of the Economy), “Открытия и прорывы of America (www.newliteraryhistory. atomic bomb. In 2010-2011 she советской теории литературы в com), with Glenda C. пост-сталинскую эпоху” (for Carpio a special issue of the NLO Press in Moscow), Amerikastudien/ Ameri- pieces on Russian encyclope- can Studies (www.ameri- dias and on “thick journals” for kastudien.de/quarterly/ a French volume on Russian index.html), and with “places of memory,” a paper Julia Faisst and Alan on Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Go- Rosen Die Toten habe lovlevs, and a chapter on “Lit- ich nicht befragt, David erary Institutions in Russia” Boder’s interviews with for a French history of Rus- survivors recorded in sian literature. He attended the 1946. He is at work on AAASS Convention in Boston, a book tentatively en- where he gave a paper on the titled “Tales from the serialization of fiction in the 1940s.” nineteenth century, and the In- ternational Dostoevsky Society Karen Thornber re- Symposium in Naples, where cently received two ma- he compared Dostoevsky and jor international awards Professors Svetlana Boym and John Hamilton with Tamar Abramov Tolstoy as writers of serialized for her first book, Empire fiction. He was honored (and of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, gave talks on her various projects at roasted) in two panels on “Ideology, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Columbia, Michigan, Rutgers, UC Institutions, and Narrative” at the Japanese Literature (Harvard 2009): Davis, UCLA, and Yale, as well as in AAASS Convention. The highlight the International Comparative Lit- Canada, Japan (where she gave the of the year was a month in Los An- erature Association’s Anna Balaki- keynote address at a conference on geles spent grandparenting his new an Book Prize, for the best book in intra-East Asian comparative litera- granddaughter and working on his the world in the field of Compara- ture), Korea, and Vietnam (where book In The Fullness of Time, which tive Literature published in the last she gave four workshops for the is under contract with Harvard Uni- three years by a scholar under age Vietnamese Academy of Social Sci- versity Press. forty; and the John Whitney Hall ences in Hanoi), and at a number Book Prize of the Association for of international conferences and Asian Studies (the largest area stud- smaller workshops. As ies association in the world), for the DGS, Karen enjoyed best English-language book on Ja- working closely with pan. While on leave last year, fund- our graduate students; ed by a Chiang Ching-kuo (Taiwan) in addition to assist- Foundation Junior Scholar Grant, ing individual students she completed her second book, with all aspects of the Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises newly revised graduate and East Asian Literatures, forth- program, she launched coming from Michigan as a lead the monthly Profes- title in fall 2011. She now is writ- sional Development ing her third book, Texts in Turmoil: Seminar Series, which Reimagining Regions and Worlds, covered everything which examines postwar cultural from teaching to dis- contact among East Asia and South sertating and the job and Southeast Asia, the Middle search. All graduate East, and Africa in the context of students were warmly Professors Sandra Naddaff, Judith Ryan, and Almut-Barbara global health concerns and resource invited to these events. Renger control; this project is funded by a grant from the Academy of Korean William Mills Todd, III spent Studies (Seoul). In addition, Karen academic year 2009-2010 on leave is completing a volume of Japanese (although still writing recommen- poetry translations. This year she dations and reading dissertations). also has published articles on eco- He spent much of the year finish- criticism (ecofeminism), transcul- ing a number of articles: “Moral turation, intertextuality, postwar Hazard of the Russian Peasant” Page 11 Graduate Student News & Profiles Rita Banerjee is writing on the was published by Finishing Line turer at Brooklyn College teaching development and concerns of Press in 2010, and her novella, A in “Classical Cultures” in Spring South Asian literary modernisms Night with Kali, has recently been 2012. Guy is writing his disserta- from the mid-20th century in lan- digitized by the Brooklyn Art- tion on “the Poetics of Ethniciza- guages such as Bengali, Hindi, and House Co-op and was featured in tion in the Homeric Iliad.” He is English for her disserta- hoping this year to make progress tion, entitled Understanding with his dissertation and publish a South Asian Literary Mod- number of his papers on Ancient ernisms Beyond the Postcolo- Greek Epic and Tragedy. nial Paradigm. At the 2009 and 2011 ACLA Conference, Luke Taylor is in his fifth year of she organized and hosted a the Comparative Literature pro- seminar entitled “Re-envi- gram and is beginning to write sioning South Asian Litera- his thesis, Figures of Digression in tures” which examined the the Renaissance. His interests fo- local and global reach of cus on rhetoric, genre, and travel South Asian literatures as in early modern Spain, Italy, and well as the place of South England. He also enjoys teaching Asian literatures and lan- across a broad range of topics as guages within global literary a TF and Tutor in the Literature canons and networks, re- Concentration, and mentoring spectively. She is currently students more generally in his role editing a volume of papers as Resident Tutor at Cabot House. based on these conference Students Luke Taylor, Elena Fratto, and Clara Masnatta His favorite kind of digression meetings with Richard Delacy and art galleries nationwide this sum- involves several coffees and Café Amardeep Singh. In 2011, she mer as part of The Fiction Project Pamplona. He was delighted to presented a paper, entitled “Be- (2011) tour. Her new writing is receive the Susan Anthony Potter yond the Anxiety of Influence: En- forthcoming in The New Renais- prize for a graduate comparative gagement and Experimentation of sance and DesiLit and her poetry essay last year. Bengali Authors with Local and In- has recently been featured KBOO ternational Poetics” at the SSEAS Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Dennis Y. Tenen (Tenenboym) Graduate Student Conference at Oregon. She is currently a Visiting finished his dissertation and is UC Berkeley, and in July 2011, Scholar in the SSEAS Department now a fellow at the Berkman Cen- gave a guest lecture, entitled ““Be- at UC Berkeley for the 2011-2012 ter for Internet and Society. In yond the Subaltern Taboo: Rural academic year. September of 2012, Dennis will Narratives in South Asian Liter- be joining the faculty of Columbia ary Modernisms” at the Ludwigs- Guy Smoot will be a Teaching Fel- University as an Assistant Profes- Maximilians-Universität in Mu- low at Harvard for David Damros- sor of Digital Humanities and New nich, Germany. Her first collec- ch’s course “the Philosopher and Media in the department of Eng- tion of poems, Cracklers at Night, the Tyrant,” and an Adjunct Lec- lish and Comparative Literature. Undergraduate Student News & Profiles Nell S. Hawley (AB 2011) is a for- vard, Nell was elected to the Phi Beta nual Harvard Student Art Show. mer Literature concentrator whose Kappa Junior 24, graduated summa focus was Sanskrit epic and drama. cum laude, and received a Hoopes Molly O’Laughlin (AB 2011) For Her senior thesis, “Bhasa’s Karn- Prize for her senior thesis. her Literature degree, she wrote abharam: A Bold Look at a Beloved a thesis entitled: “Georgette! : A Hero,” examined an early South Lauren Ianni is a senior Compara- Translation with Commentary.” She Asian playwright’s surprisingly hi- tive Literature Concentrator with a presented another paper, “Dancing larious take on one of the most sym- Secondary Field in Visual and En- the Nation,” at the Gordon College pathetic characters in the Sanskrit vironmental Studies. For her thesis, Literatures and Linguistics Under- epic Mahabharata. Nell has been she is exploring how spaces of en- graduate Colloquium in March. studying Sanskrit since her first vironmentally, technologically and Molly is currently living in New York day at Harvard and now works as a self-imposed threat are construction City, employed as an intern for Ar- Sanskrit tutor in New York City. She through cinematic space of thresh- chipelago Books and as a bookseller blogs in and about Sanskrit daily at old. Outside of Comparative Litera- for Books of Wonder. sanskritnyc.com/blog. While at Har- ture, she works as a Curatorial In- novation Fellow for the metaLAB at Page 12 Harvard and as co-director of the an- Alumni News & Profiles Chloe Aridjis (AB 1993) lives other scholars) began as a term has been called “smart ... full of in London, where she is complet- paper in Professor Paul Benich- heart” by Joan Silber and “down- ing her second novel. Her first ou’s class on the Span- novel, Book of Clouds, won the ish popular ballads. The Prix du Premier Roman Étranger research he does now is in France in 2009. mostly on popular fic- tion (science fiction and Sara Bartel (AB 2006) is cur- mystery novels), and rently in her second year of law he does a lot of book- school and finds that literary reviewing. After his first theory is a fantastic background wife died in 1989, he for wrestling with - and embrac- remarried; for the last ing, to some degree - the ambi- 20 years Beatie and his guities of legal texts and doc- wife have lived in Berea, trines. Theory also haunted her Ohio. more explicitly in her first inter- view for a summer internship. Alexander Beecroft She ended up chatting about (PhD 2003) is Associ- Derrida with a philosopher- ate Professor of Clas- turned-environmental-lawyer sics and Comparative François Proulx, Susan Suleiman, Olga Zhulina, and who was at Yale in the early 80s! Literature, and Director Serge Ryappo From deconstruction to statu- of the Comparative Literature right brilliant” by Robert Olen tory construction - same ghosts. Program, at the University of Butler. The penultimate story Her well-wishes to all colleagues, South Carolina. His book, Au- features a character known as new and old! thorship and Cultural Identity in Ace who took the SATs stoned Early Greece and China: Patterns and still got a nearly perfect Bruce A. Beatie (PhD 1967) of Literary Circulation, was pub- score, has a tattoo of Chaucer on has been retired for four years lished by Cambridge University his left bicep, and is attempting from Cleveland State Universi- Press in January 2010, and he to rewrite the Bible in the ana- ty, where he taught for 37 years is currently at work on a new pestic tetrameter of Dr. Seuss. and chaired the Department of project, titled An Ecology of Ver- He is, naturally, a Harvard grad- Modern Languages for the first bal Art: Literature and its Worlds, uate. seven of those years. He is now From Local to Global, for which he has been awarded a Joshua Billings (AM 2007) re- Charles A. Ryskamp Re- cently finished his dissertation in search Fellowship from Classics at Oxford, entitled A Ge- the ACLS for 2011-12. nealogy of the Tragic. It considers He is also the Secretary- the theory of tragedy in German Treasurer designate for Idealism from the perspective of the American Compara- classical reception, arguing for tive Literature Associa- a comparative and genealogical tion for 2011-2016. viewpoint on the place of trag- edy in modern thought. He has Alethea Black’s (AB recently published on Hölderlin 1991) work has won the and Plato (Classical Receptions Arts & Letters Prize, Journal), the union of the arts has been cited as dis- in the eighteenth century (Jour- Noah Maddoff, Katherine Damm, Adriana Colón, Professor tinguished in The Best nal of the History of Ideas), and Sandra Naddaff, and Talia Lavin American Short Stories, has contributed chapters on the and has appeared in nu- tragic chorus in German Ideal- Professor Emeritus of Compara- merous literary magazines. Her ism and Benjamin’s reading of tive and Medieval Literature. debut collection of short stories, Hamlet (both volumes expected In those years, he published 29 I Knew You’d Be Lovely (Broad- from CUP in 2011). This year he scholarly articles – the first (and way Books/Random House) hit is a Junior Research Fellow at the one most frequently cited by the bookstores this past year. It Page 13 Alumni News & Profiles Department of on a Domestic Interior” was per- English and Com- formed at “Salon: Laura F. Gibel- parative Litera- lini” in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, ture at Columbia. at the ISCP, where she is a fellow. She has published two academic Cara Eisenpress (AB 2007), is books (the more the co-author of the cookbook- recent is Breeding: memoir, In the Small Kitchen: 100 A Partial History Recipes from Our Year of Cook- of the Eighteenth ing in the Real World, which was Century [Colum- published by William Morrow/ bia UP]) and three Harper Collins in May 2011. novels, and blogs regularly at Light Nergis Ertürk (AB 1999) is As- Reading (jennyda- sistant Professor of Comparative vidson.blogspot. Literature at Pennsylvania State Christina Svendsen and Professor Martin Puchner com). A post-ten- University, University Park. ure sabbatical has She received her AB in Litera- St. John’s College, Cambridge, just allowed her to draft two new ture from Harvard and her MA, and the next year he will begin a books: a little book on literary MPhil, and PhD in English and job as Assistant Professor of Hu- style (Austen, Proust, James, Comparative Literature from Co- manities and Classics at Yale. It Barthes, Hollinghurst, etc.) and lumbia University. She is the au- was a particular pleasure to have a novel that transposes The Bac- thor of Grammatology and Liter- John Hamilton speak at Oxford chae to contemporary Morning- ary Modernity in Turkey, a study this past fall, and he is looking side Heights. of Turkish language politics and forward to being within train comparative methodology, Ox- distance of his friends and col- Mary Di Lucia (PhD 1993) ford University Press, 2011. Her leagues in Cambridge, MA! This year, she has been home scholarship has appeared in the caring for Isaac, who was born in journals PMLA, Modernism/Mo- Tamara Chin (AB 1997) is an September 2010. On that front, dernity, boundary 2, and New Lit- assistant professor in Compara- she has been getting involved erary History. From 2006-2008, tive Literature at the University in the leadership aspects of an she was Assistant Professor of of Chicago. organization called Attachment Parent- Howard Clarke (PhD 1960) ing International, After leaving Harvard in 1960, which is Winnicot- he taught for nine years at Oak- tian in a much more land University and twenty-two hands-on way than years at the University of Cali- she ever imagined fornia, Santa Barbara, writing back in grad school. five books in the areas of Greek Meanwhile, she has and Roman epic. After early re- some new work out tirement from UCSB in 1991, at Painted Bride Quar- he switched to Christian begin- terly and /nor, but nings and published The Gospel most excitingly, she of Matthew and Its Readers (In- has been doing some diana, 2003). He also worked for regular collaborations seventeen years as a lecturer on with the artist Lau- cruise ships in and around the ra F. Gibellini from Mediterranean, retiring in 2010. Madrid. One of her Chris Rogacz (HDS) and Björn Kühnicke works is featured in her book Construyendo un Lugar/ Comparative Literature at Bing- Jenny Davidson (AB 1993) Constructing a Place, Madrid: hamton University, SUNY. She is an associate professor in the Complutense, 2011. And just was a fellow at Columbia Univer- Page 14 this past September, “Variations sity’s Institute for Comparative Alumni News & Profiles Literature and Society during in the 1970s-1990s. She is al- histories; Daoist textual tradi- spring semester 2007, and Vis- ways happy to talk with current tions and influences; and com- iting Assistant Professor in the and former Comp Lit students parative methodologies and Humanities at the Cogut Cen- about the job market, film stud- post-theoretical theory. ter for the Humanities, Brown ies, or anything else: afield@tft. University, during fall semester ucla.edu. Dana Gioia (AM 1975) has 2008. just been appointed the Judge Roberta Frank (PhD 1969) is Widney Professor of Poetry and Wendy B. Faris (PhD 1975) is currently the Marie Borroff Pro- Public Culture at the University professor and chair of the of Southern California, English Department at which is Gioia’s first the University of Texas academic appointment. at Arlington. She is the From 2003-2009, Gioia author of Carlos Fuentes served as the Chairman (Frederick Ungar, 1983), of the National Endow- Labyrinths of Language: ment for the Arts where Symbolic Landscape and he created a bipartisan Narrative Design in Mod- coalition that signifi- ern Fiction (Johns Hop- cantly raised the agen- kins, 1988), and Or- cy’s budget while launch- dinary Enchantments: ing the largest programs Magical Realism and the in NEA history. More Remystification of Narra- recently he has been the tive (Vanderbilt, 2004), director of the Harman- and the co-editor (with Eisner program in the Lois Parkinson Zamora) Arts at the Aspen Insti- of Magical Realism: The- Lindsey Aakre, Professor Stephen Owen, and Xiaolu Ma tute. Gioia has published ory, History, Community three books of poetry, the (Duke, 1995). She continues to fessor of English at Yale Univer- most recent of which, Interroga- work in the fields of modern and sity. Her research and teaching tions at Noon, won the American contemporary fiction in Britain, focus on all aspects (literary, his- Book Award, and three books of France, Latin America, and the torical, archaeological) of early criticism, most notably Can Po- U.S. Her research and teaching England and Scandinavia, but etry Matter?, which was a final- interests include modernism, she also belongs to that crypto- ist for the National Book Critics Virginia Woolf, and Bloomsbury, group of poetry people attracted Circle award. He has also edited magical realism, primitivism, to verse of all periods and places. over twenty anthologies of po- and the relations between mod- Some of her recent publications etry and fiction. He is the recipi- ern and contemporary painting include: “A Scandal in Toronto: ent of 11 honorary degrees and and literature. The Dating of Beowulf a Quar- numerous awards, including the ter-Century On” (2007) and “The 2010 Laetare Medal. Gioia has Ally Field (PhD 2008) is in her Discreet Charm of the Old Eng- also written two opera libretti. 3rd year as an Assistant Profes- lish Weak Adjective” (2003). He is the father of two sons (the sor of Cinema & Media Studies older son, Ted, an English major at UCLA. She is currently com- Daniel Fried (PhD 2003) is at Harvard). Gioia currently di- pleting a book titled Filming currently Assistant Professor of vides his time between Washing- Uplift and Projecting Possibility: Comparative Literature and East ton, DC, and California. His new The Image of Black Modernity,on Asian Studies at the University book of poems, Pity the Beauti- African American uplift films of of Alberta. His research inter- ful, will be released in early 2012. the 1910s and the film produc- ests include: the history of Chi- tion of southern agricultural nese literary criticism, especially Jonathan Goldman (AB 1995) and industrial educational insti- as it compares with European Following college, he went to tutions. She is also co-editing a traditions; intellectual history medical school at Stanford and book on the “L.A. Rebellion,” a considered as sometimes-more- completed internal medicine group of African American film- than-mere epiphenomenon of and oncology training at UCSF makers that came out of UCLA social, economic, and cultural Page 15 Alumni News & Profiles and UCLA. He is practicing in Emily Haddad (PhD 1997) lin. Recent publications include Santa Monica. He works in early After six years chairing the De- Thomas Kinsella: Designing for the drug development and research- partment of English at the Uni- Exact Needs (2008), a translation es lung cancer. He married Sarah versity of South Dakota, Emily of Acallam na Senórach (2009), Rettinger (Harvard ’96, Religion) Haddad became Associate Dean When Love Is Not Enough, and and they have two daughters, for Academics in USD’s College New and Selected Poems (2010). Esther and Mira (3 and 2 years of Arts and Sciences in old). January 2011. She contin- ues to teach English and Jeffrey Green (PhD 1973) she published an article in Since 1979, six years after re- Nineteenth-Century Con- ceiving his degree and moving texts last spring. to Israel, after a brief stint teach- ing at the Hebrew University, John Hamilton (PhD he has been a freelance transla- 1980) After four years in tor, or, in other words, an ap- the Harvard Comparative plied comparatist. He was also a Literature PhD program Hebrew book columnist for the in the early 1970s, John Jerusalem Post for six years. His Hamilton joined the State book, Thinking Through Transla- Department Foreign Ser- tion, was recently reissued by the vice and completed his dis- Elena Fratto and Anna Aizman University of Georgia Press in a sertation while at the U.S. Print on Demand version, and Embassy in Copenhagen, Den- At present, he is writing a series he has written a travel book on mark, his first post abroad. After of essays on Irish poetry after Naples and Sicily, Largest Island a twenty-eight-year career spent Seamus Heaney. in the Sea, published by Vox Hu- in Europe and Washington, DC, mana, which is available through dealing with political-military Peter Heineg (PhD 1971) Since Internet vendors. He has also issues, John retired from the 2005, while teaching at Union published a book of poetry and State Department in 2004 and College, Schenectady, NY, he has two books in now does been publishing a series of short- Hebrew, and business-de- ish books (collections of themat- co-authored velopment ically related essays) with the a book with work for a University Press of America. The Professor major in- list comprises Better Than Both: Calvin Gold- formation- The Case for Pessimism; Good God! scheider of technology (And Other Follies): Essays on Re- Brown Uni- contractor ligion; Oh Wait–Now I Get It: Es- versity based handling cy- says in Popular Philosophy; That on inter- bersecurity Does It: Desperate Reflections on views with a and other American Culture; God: An Obitu- survivor of tasks for the ary; Bitter Scrolls: Sexist Poison in the Jewish State De- the Canon; and Crazy Culture: The community partment. Sins of Civilization (forthcom- of Tarnow, Ayako Takahashi, Molly Klaisner, and Valerie Henitiuk He would be ing). Poland, due to be published happy to talk to Harvard litera- within the next few months. ture students or alumni about Dara Horn (PhD 2006) is an His recent interests include careers in diplomacy and/or in- award-winning author of three playing jazz saxophone, ceram- formation technology. He can be novels, and was chosen by Gran- ics, and studying Jewish texts. reached at [email protected] ta magazine in 2007 as one of He would be gratified if fel- vard.edu. the Best Young American Novel- low alumni read the blog that ists. Her first novel, In the Image he wrote after the death of his Maurice Harmon (AM 1957) (Norton 2002), received a 2003 son in a hiking accident in Peru: is Emeritus Professor of Anglo- National Jewish Book Award, marjef.blogspot.com. Irish Literature and Drama, Na- the 2002 Edward Lewis Wallant Page 16 tional University of Ireland Dub- Award, and the 2003 Reform Ju- Alumni News & Profiles daism Fiction Prize. Her second and the signifier seems irremedi- ing, 2007), “Estonia’s Time and novel, The World to Come (Nor- able. She is Professor of English Monumental Time” and “Estonia ton 2006), received the 2006 and Comparative Literature at and Pain” in ed. Violeta Kelertas, National Jewish Book Award for Barnard College and the Colum- Baltic Postcolonialism (Rodophi, Fiction and the 2007 Harold U. bia School of Graduate Studies. 2006), “Tammsaare and Love,” in Ribalow Prize, was selected as an She is co-editor with Jacques- Interlitteraria (Tartu University Editors’ Choice in The New York Alain Miller of Culture and Clin- Press, 10/2005), and the Intro- Times Book Review and as one of ic (C/C), a new journal coming duction and Notes for a new edi- the “Best Books of 2006” by The out with Minnesota University tion of Dostoevsky’s The Broth- San Francisco Chronicle, and has Press. She is the author of Lit- ers Karamazov (Barnes & Noble been translated into eleven lan- erature and Negation (CU Press, Classics, 2004). Kirg ja Kirjandus, guages. She has taught courses 1979), Georg Trakl (CU, 1974), a collection of her writings on in Jewish literature and Israeli Estonian and Eu- history at Harvard and at Sar- ropean literature, ah Lawrence College, and has was published in lectured at universities and May 2011. She is cultural institutions through- also on the Edito- out the United States and rial Board of (Re)- Canada. Her most recent nov- turn: A Journal of el, All Other Nights, published Lacanian Studies in April 2009 by W.W. Norton, at Missouri Uni- was selected as an Editors’ versity; Cultural Choice in the New York Times Formations, a new Book Review, and as one of the international jour- “25 Best Books of the Decade” nal on new media, by Booklist. It is also the 2011 youth, subjectiv- selection of the nationwide ity, and education, community reading program with a strong con- “All America Reads.” She is an Lindsey Aakre, Prof. Luis Girón-Negrón, Raquel Kennon, and Luke Taylor ceptual, humani- editor of an academic essay col- She—a Novel (Doubleday, 1984), ties (and arts) emphasis, based lection, Arguing the Modern Jew- and the co-editor of Lacan in the at Teachers College, Columbia; ish Canon (Harvard 2008), and is German-Speaking World (SUNY, and on the International Edito- currently editing a forthcoming 2004), Reading Seminars I and II: rial Collegium of Methis: Studia volume of Yiddish fiction (her Lacan’s Return to Freud (SUNY, Humaniora Estonica, a new jour- doctoral subject) while working 1996) and Reading Seminar XI: nal of literary scholarship, pub- on a fourth novel. Lacan’s Four Fundamental Con- lished jointly by the Department cepts (SUNY, 1996). Her most of Estonian Literature, Tartu Hsuan L. Hsu (AB 1998) is an recent publications are: “Ham- University, and the Estonian Lit- Associate Professor of English at let and Feminine Jouissance” in erary Museum. UC Davis. His first book,Geog - eds. Douglas A. Brooks, Shirley raphy and the Production of Space Sharon-Zisser, Lacanian Interpre- Michelle Jaffe (PhD 1998)’s in Nineteenth-Century American tations of Shakespeare (The Edwin current work in Comparative Literature (Cambridge), was pub- Mellen Press, 2010), “Ordinary Literature is more empirical lished in 2010. Happiness in Lispector’s Stream than theoretical: she has spent of Life,” Psychoanalytical Note- the past decade killing people Maire Jaanus (PhD 1968) is books (19/2009), “Tolstoy and and heisting valuable docu- focusing on the concept of jou- Lacan: Phallic Jouissance and ments/jewels/clues on the pages issance in the late Seminars of the passage à l’acte in Anna Kar- of mass market novels which Jacques Lacan to construct some enina,” Lacanian Compass (13, have been published in over bridges between literature, Laca- 2008), “A Psychoanalytic Read- twenty countries and a dozen nian psychoanalysis, and neuro- ing of Socrates: Lacan on Plato’s languages. As a comparative lit- science, fully aware that these Symposium,” in ed. Ann Ward, erature student she studied the fields are fundamentally het- Socrates: Reason or Unreason as way the advent of the printing erogeneous and disjunctive and the Foundation of European Identi- press changed value and mean- that the gap between the neuron ty (Cambridge Scholars Publish- Page 17 Alumni News & Profiles ing systems in the early modern Regina MJ Kyle (PhD 1971) Af- with colleagues and students era. Working in commercial pub- ter teaching in the departments from 1964-1973 at Harvard and lishing right now, she is living of Comparative Literature and Radcliffe. She may be reached at the end of that cycle as the codex English at Harvard, Regina Kyle [email protected]. is retired into code. Her most re- moved to Dallas as the found- cent book, Rosebush (Penguin, ing Executive Dean for 2010), is available in hardcover Undergraduate Stud- and eBook formats. ies and Associate Pro- fessor of Comparative Carmen James (AB 2008) grad- Literature and English uated in May with a Masters in at UTD. After this, she Philosophy and Education from moved to Washington, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- DC, as vice president versity and entered the doctoral of a higher education program this year. She has been association, then vice teaching for the last two years at president for Wash- Riverdale Country Day School in ington operations of the elementary school and she a San Francisco-based conducted research on cities, consulting firm. SinceProf. Karen Thornber, Stephanie Frampton, and Cotton Seed culture, aesthetic experiences, 1983 she has been the owner of and education in Buenos Aires the Kyle Group, a firm specializ- Melissa Lee (AB 2003) is an last summer. She has presented ing in innovations in education independent producer based in at the Middle Atlantic States and economic development. She Los Angeles, Beijing, and Hong Philosophy of Education Soci- has worked with colleges and Kong. Her first produced film, ety Annual Meeting (February universities, school districts, Dear Lemon Lima, with 2011 2010), Academy for Education corporations, and foundations Academy Award winner Melissa Studies 2010 Critical Questions on education issues. Leo, was released theatrically in in Education She returned March 2011. Under the umbrel- Conference to the Boston la of her production company, (November area in 1991 and Bago Pictures, she is developing 2010), Gradu- in 2009 moved to several feature film projects and ate Student Louisville, Ken- most recently produced Circum- Conference tucky, the site stance by writer/director Mary- On Philosophy of much of her am Keshavarz, which premiered and Education present work. In in the US Dramatic Competition (GSCOPE) (Oc- 2008 the Gheens at this year’s Sundance Film Fes- tober 2010), Foundation and tival and won the US Dramatic and Philoso- the JeffersonAudience Award. The film was phy and Edu- County Public distributed theatrically August cation Book Schools gave her 2011 in the US by Participant Presentation at Jen Hui Bon Hua and Henry Bowles their Creativ- Media and Roadside Attractions. Teachers Col- ity and Entrepre- lege (September 2011). neurship award for 25 years of Sally Livingston (PhD 2008, work with them. Spalding Uni- Lecturer 2008-2011) has accept- Mark H. Kuo (AB 1990) is cur- versity awarded her a doctorate ed a tenure-track Assistant Pro- rently a venture capitalist based “honoris causa” in 2009 for her fessor position in the Humani- in Shanghai. Although he is now lifetime work in education. ties-Classics department at Ohio distant from the pure art of lit- While continuing her consult- Wesleyan University. She will erature, Harvard’s Lit concen- ing work, she is teaching Eth- teach continental Medieval and tration provided him with the ics and Leadership in Spalding Renaissance literature, as well as historical, cultural and linguistic University’s doctoral program. thematic comparative literature foundation to thrive in China. She is also working on a book topics. Her book, Marriage, Prop- He looks forward to re-connect- on transforming education in erty, and Women’s Narratives, will ing with classmates. our schools. Regina Kyle is in- be published later this year by Page 18 terested in renewed friendships Palgrave Macmillan. Alumni News & Profiles Anne Lounsbery (PhD 1999) Granta Books. Honors for her from 1967 to the present, oph- Her research and teaching re- writing include a Hodder Fel- thalmology in Cambridge and main focused chiefly on 19th- lowship and the Rome Prize. She Belmont, Massachusetts, his life century Russian prose. Last year lives in Los Angeles. has remained focused on Ger- she was on sabbatical thanks to a 12-month grant from the Na- Christina Mamakos (AB tional Endowment for the Hu- 1994) is a painter working manities. She used the time to and living in London and finish writing Life is Elsewhere: Athens. Recent presenta- Symbolic Geography in the Rus- tions of her work include sian Novel, a book manuscript water’s wet, a video instal- that is under advance contract lation project at the Chel- at Yale University Press. When sea Art Museum in New not on leave she serves as Direc- York (2011); …these are tor of Graduate Study in NYU’s not real people..., a paint- Department of Russian & Slavic ing and installation show Studies, where she welcomes in the city of Athens and Svetlana Rukhelman and Anita Nikkanen queries regarding that depart- at Siakos-Hanappe Gallery, man literature. Some of what he ment’s new PhD opportunity in Athens (2011); Scape at To- has written is accessible at home. the Russia field (the Interdisci- tal Art Space, Dubai (2007); earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer/. plinary Specialization in Russia). Silent Dialogues at ACG Art, Athens (2008); Mare Nostrum, a Benjamin Morgan (AB 2001) David Lurie (AB 1993) is As- sponsored installation with P37 is Assistant Professor of English sociate Professor of Japanese Gallery, Athens (2006); as well at the University of Chicago. His History and Literature in the as numerous private large-scale research and teaching focus on Department of East Asian Lan- commissions. In 2010 she was the intersection of literature, sci- guages and Cultures at Colum- a resident at Kala Art Institute ence, and aesthetics in the Victo- bia University. His first book, (Berkeley, CA) and at the Ver- rian period and early twentieth Realms of Literacy: Early Japan mont Studio Center (Johnson, century. In his recent research, and the History of Writing, will VT). he has looked at how Victorian be published by the Harvard psychologists explained the University Asia Center in pleasure felt during simple expe- Spring 2011. riences of beauty, and how this scientific discourse informed David Maier (AB 1997) aesthetic practices from writing is currently leading No- literature to crafting everyday vartis Oncology in Slova- objects. He is currently working kia. He lives in Bratislava, on a book, The Matter of Beauty, the latest stop in his no- which investigates aesthetic ex- madic wanderings. Dave periences that do not involve travels a lot, collects art, contemplation or reflection: re- and sometimes even sponses, in other words, that reads. take the artwork to be a material object that directly affects the Sarah Manguso (AB body in specific and discernible 1996) is the author of the Yanping Zhang and Simos Zeniou ways. Focusing on late-Victorian memoir The Two Kinds of science and literature, the book Decay (2008), the story collec- Ernest Meyer (AM 1950) Af- evaluates the use of physiology tion Hard to Admit and Harder ter spending the academic year in literary and aesthetic criti- to Escape (2007), and the poetry 1949-1950 studying compara- cism, the importance of per- collections Siste Viator (2006) tive literature, he enrolled in sonal “creativity” for ideologies and The Captain Lands in Para- medical school. Although from of individualism, and materialist dise (2002). Her next book, The 1956 to 1962 he practiced gen- accounts of the self within aes- Guardians, a prose elegy, is forth- eral medicine in a rural setting in theticism and decadence. Part of coming next year from FSG and the mountains of Virginia, and Page 19 Alumni News & Profiles his motivation is to ask whether locaust, Comparative Literature letters. In fall 2008 he was ap- a materialist aesthetics can suc- as a discipline, and comparative pointed Senior Adviser to the cessfully account for literature, civilizational analysis. His ap- Institute of Moralogy at Reitaku insofar as proximately 70 University, Japan. the latter other publica- Currently, in addition to brief- is the least tions include er essays, he has three book proj- “material” of major encyclo- ects in various stages of comple- the arts. He pedia articles tion: Cannibalism and Conquest: is also work- on Latin Ameri- Civilizing the New World; Las pa- ing on ar- can authors, as siones otoñales de Gabriel García ticles about well as essays Márquez; and The Sacred Stones the notion on Germanic of Chikuro Hiroike: The Way of of an ani- subjects, Eng- Moralogy. mal sense lish literature, of beauty in Latin American Laura Ponce (AB 1995) On No- the Victo- literature, the vember 15, 2010, Laura Ponce rian period François Proulx and Professor Christopher Johnson Spanish colo- became the new Executive Di- and about nization of the rector for Project BRAVO, a non- the relation of William Morris’s New World, Sir William Jones profit and Community Action romances to his political prin- in India, Chikuro Hiroike and Agency. Project BRAVO’s mis- ciples. Western thought, and theoreti- sion is to maximize resources for cal issues in cross-cultural analy- an improved quality of life for Michael Palencia-Roth (PhD sis. He has been awarded several the economically disadvantaged 1976), Trowbridge Scholar in major national fellowships, in- residents of El Paso County. Literary Studies and Emeritus cluding two each from the New- Professor of Comparative and berry Library, the John Carter Christina Pugh (PhD 1998) is World Literature at the Univer- Brown Library, and the National an associate professor of Eng- sity of Illinois, was born and Endowment for the Humanities, lish at the University of Illinois raised in Colombia. His under- and has delivered invited and at Chicago, where she teaches graduate degree is from Vander- keynote lectures in many differ- in the Program for Writers (the bilt University in English and ent countries. department’s doctoral program Philosophy; his graduate degrees He has been presi- are from Harvard in Compara- dent of three interna- tive Literature. He taught for tional learnèd societ- 30 years at the University of Il- ies: the International linois, taking early retirement in Society for the Com- May 2007 in order to dedicate parative Study of himself to research and writing. Civilizations, the As- At the University of Illinois he sociation of Depart- directed the Program in Compar- ments and Programs ative and World Literature for of Comparative Lit- six years (1988-1994) and was erature, and the As- affiliated with three other aca- sociation of Colom- demic units: the Center for Latin bianists. In spring American and Caribbean Stud- 1997 he was appoint- ies; the Department of Spanish, ed Distinguished Ex- Italian and Portuguese; and the tramural Professor Unit for Criticism and Interpre- of Humanities and Emmanuel Ramirez, Prof. Luis Girón-Negrón, Christina Phillips, Luke tive Theory. Literature at the Uni- Taylor, Lindsey Aakre, Wei Hu, Curt Shonkwiler, and Serge Ryappo He has published books and versidad del Valle (in monographs on Gabriel Gar- Colombia); in June 1998 he was in creative writing) and is cur- cía Márquez, Thomas Mann, decorated in Colombia with the rently Director of Undergradu- James Joyce, the conquest pe- “Order of Merit in Art and Cul- ate Studies. She has published riod in Latin America, the Ho- ture Pedro Morales Pino” for two books of poems: Restoration Page 20 his contributions to Colombian (Northwestern University Press, Alumni News & Profiles 2008) and Rotary (Word Press, 2009) is a senior editorial as- 2009), and Reinventing the Soul: 2004), which received the Word sistant in history and politics at Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Press First Book Prize. She has Cambridge University Press. She Life (Other Press, 2006). She has also published a chapbook, Gar- has been adjunct faculty at Met- also recently completed a manu- dening at Dusk (Wells College ropolitan College of New York script entitled The Singularity of Press, 2002). Her poems have and in the English Department Being: Lacan and the Immortal appeared in The Atlantic Month- at Fordham University. She is Within, and published her first ly, Poetry, TriQuarterly, Plough- also communications direc- mainstream book, The Case for shares, and other publications. tor for the Argento New Music Falling in Love (Sourcebooks Cas- Her honors have included the Project, a New York-based non- ablanca, 2011). Grolier Poetry Prize, an AWP profit dedicated to performing, Intro Journals Award, an Eliot Schrefer (AB 2001) individual artist fellowship After getting his Literature in poetry from the Illinois degree in 2001, he pub- Arts Council, the Ruth Lil- lished his thesis in Anima- ly Poetry Fellowship from tion Journal, then flirted Poetry magazine, and the with graduate schools be- Lucille Medwick Memo- fore settling down to write rial Award from the Poetry fiction instead. His first Society of America. She novel, Glamorous Disasters, has recently completed was published by Simon work on another book of & Schuster in 2006, fol- poems, Grains of the Voice lowed by The New Kidin (inspired by the work of 2007. In Spring 2011, he Roland Barthes), which was preparing to travel to was supported by a Rag- the Democratic Republic dale Foundation residency of Congo to research and and a faculty fellowship at Xiaolu Ma. Emmanuel Ramirez, Professor Luis Girón-Negrón, and write a novel about the the Institute for Humani- Wei Hu politics of the country in- ties at the University of Illinois producing, and drawing aware- tertwining with the plight of the at Chicago. She also continues ness to the work of contempo- bonobo apes. to publish criticism, includ- rary composers. Her work on the ing an article titled “On Sonnet soundscapes of Virginia Woolf’s Gregory Scruggs (AB 2008) Thought,” forthcoming in Liter- Mrs. Dalloway was published in was on a Fulbright study/re- ary Imagination. the journal Literary Imagination search grant in Rio de Janeiro this year. in 10-11. He interned at UN- Phoebe Putnam (PhD 2010) HABITAT’s Regional Office for is delighted to have joined Stan- Lawrence Rhu (PhD 1987)’s Latin America and the Carib- ford’s English Department this edition of The Winter’s Tale was bean, worked on urban mobility year as an ACLS New Faculty published in April 2011 in the issues, and continued to absorb Fellow. During her time there, Evans Shakespeare series from and write about Brazilian music she will be completing her book, Cengage. and culture. Land Lies in Water: Panoramas and the American Poem, which Mari Ruti (PhD 2000) is Asso- argues for the 19th-century pan- ciate Professor of Critical Theo- Miryam Segal (AB 1993) is orama painting’s impact on liter- ry at the University of Toronto, Assistant Professor at Queens ary perception and poetic form. where she teaches contemporary College, The City University of She will also be teaching courses theory, psychoanalysis, conti- New York, and received her PhD at the undergraduate and gradu- nental philosophy, phenomenol- in Comparative Literature from ate level on poetry and poetics, ogy, poststructuralism, and fem- Berkeley. Her book, A New Sound green literary traditions, and inist and queer theory. She is the in Hebrew Poetry: Poetics, Politics, 19th- and 20th-century Ameri- author of The Summons of Love Accent, was published in Spring can literature and the visual arts. (Columbia UP, 2011), A World of 2010. A volume which she co-ed- Fragile Things: Psychoanalysis and ited, Vixens Disturbing Vineyards: Anne Lovering Rounds (PhD the Art of Living (SUNY Press, Page 21 Alumni News & Profiles The Embarrassment and Embrace- Annie Stone (AB 2010) is put- ernes in Paris, where she pre- ment of Scriptures, also appeared ting her thesis research on chil- sented “Matisse: Artiste, Géné- in 2010. She dren’s literature ticien? Contours d’une nouvelle was awarded to good use méthodologie,” on the artist’s the Prize for at HarperCol- painting process and self-docu- Innovative lins Children’s, mentation from 1932 to 1939. Scholarship where she Other projects in 2011 includ- in Gender works with Ma- ed contributing to research for and Wom- ria Modugno the Baltimore Museum of Art’s en’s Studies and Margaret spring exhibition, “Seeing Now: by the As- Anastas in the Photography since 1960,” and sociation for early childhood researching at the Walters Art Jewish Stud- John Kim, Anita Nikkanen, and Luis Girón-Negrón g r o u p . ies Women’s She hap- Caucus in 2011. pily juggles old classics like Goodnight Moon with Laurence Senelick (PhD 1972) the latest bestsellers (Fan- is Fletcher Professor of Drama cy Nancy and Splat the Cat and Oratory at Tufts University. are two of her favorites). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nick Sylvester (AM He is also a founding member of 2004) is the drummer of the Center for the Humanities at the New York-based rock Tufts. His recent anthology The band Mr. Dream. Their American Stage: Writing on the debut full length, Trash Theater from Washington Irving to Hit, came out on March Tony Kushner received a full-page 1. This spring the band commendation in the Times Lit- toured the US with Sleigh Luke Leafgren and Luke Taylor erary Supplement and was hon- Bells and CSS. ored by a panel at Columbia Museum for an ongoing reinstal- University. In October 2010 he Ximena Vengoechea (AB lation of its 19th-century paint- directed Ben Jonson’s The Alche- 2008) is a graduate student in ing wing. She is currently serving mist at the Balch Arena Theatre. Comparative Literature and Art as Editorial Assistant for Modern Last summer he taught in the History at Johns Hopkins Uni- Language Notes: Comparative Lit- new Mellon School of Theater versity. In 2011, Ximena was erature. and Performance Art at Harvard. invited to participate in a young researcher’s seminar at l’Institut Janet A. Walker (PhD 1974) Alice Speri (AB 2009) is a sec- des textes et manuscrits mod- teaches courses in world litera- ond year PhD student ture, postcolonial literatures and in Comparative Lit- theories, Japanese literature in erature at NYU. Her translation, and the novel in Eu- research focuses on rope and Asia in the Program in resistance movements Comparative Literature at Rut- and literature in the gers University. She is currently Middle East, North working on a book on space, Africa, and the Carib- place, and modernity in Japa- bean. Alice also re- nese fiction from 1886-1937. ceived a Master’s from She was a Guest Researcher at Columbia University the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate Graduate School of School of Literary Studies, Free Journalism and con- University-Berlin, from May to tinues to work as a re- July, 2010. She published a re- porter while pursuing view article, “The True History her doctorate. Wanda Di Bernardo, Björn Kühnicke, Isaure Mignotte, François of the Nineteenth-Century Jap- Proulx, Christina Svendsen, and Sandra Naddaff Page 22 anese Novel,” in Modern Philol- Alumni News & Profiles ogy 106.1 (August 2008) and an in the Fourth Century, ed. Roger article, “Van Gogh, Collector of Rees, London, 2004. He contin- ‘Japan,’” in The Comparatist32 ues on the editorial board of Me- Editorial (May 2008). dievalia et Humanistica, contrib- Information Steven F. Walker (PhD 1973) is Profes- Editor: Rita Banerjee Advisor: John Hamilton sor of Comparative Proofreaders: Katie Deutsch Literature at Rutgers Juan Torbidoni University. He has a new book (Midlife Cri- Thanks to: sis and Transformation We would like to extend a spe- in Literature and Film: cial thanks to Wanda Di Bernardo and Jungian and Eriksoni- Isaure Mignotte for their invaluable help an Perspectives) com- in gathering information for this newslet- ing out soon from ter, and for contributing to the copyediting Routledge, which had published an earlier book of his (Jung and the Jungians on Myth) Guy Smoot and Wanda Di Bernardo in 2002. He gave the keynote address at the confer- uting reviews regularly on late ence “Myth, Literature and the antique and medieval works, and Unconscious” at the University he reads occasional manuscripts of Essex (UK) last September. In for various university presses. the last year or so he has pub- His work also includes serving as lished two articles: “Borderline parish priest on the staff of St. Personality Disorder and the Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Ann Enigma of Tartuffe” (Quadrant: Arbor, and occasionally in Rome The Journal of the C.G. Jung Foun- and Venice. dation of New York for Analytical Psychology) and “Nabokov’s Loli- ta and Goethe’s Faust: The Ghost in the Novel” (Comparative Lit- erature Studies).

Jenny Weiss (AB 1999) re- Isaure Mignotte ceived an MPhil from the Grad- uate Center at CUNY in 2007. and layout process. Thanks also to Katie Deutsch and Juan Tobidoni for proofread- She lives in Brooklyn and works ing this issue and providing such wonder- in the Education group at Scho- ful comments and feedback. And thanks lastic Inc. to all the faculty, students, and alumni who sent in their profiles, news, and photos for (PhD 1962) this edition of the Comp Lit Newsletter! Charles Witke If you would like to be part of the Since retiring from the Univer- 2012 Newsletter Editorial Board, please sity of Michigan, Department of send an e-mail to Wanda Di Bernardo, Classical Studies, ten years ago, Correction: Isaure Mignotte, or John Hamilton at: he has remained active as a Fel- [email protected] low of the American Academy in Mary Di Lucia, formerly Mary Di [email protected] Rome pursuing paleographical Lucia-Miller, received her PhD in [email protected] research at the Vatican Library. 1993. Her dissertation was enti- His principal publication recent- tled “The Sabine Version” and was Thanks for reading and see you in the ly is “Recycled Words: Vergil, advised by Barbara Johnson. next issue! Prudentius and Saint Hippoly- -Rita Banerjee, Editor tus,” in Romane memento: Vergil Page 23 Submission Guidelines Dear Faculty, Students, and Alumni: For alumni profiles, please in- alumni profile, you can submit an The Department of Compara- clude your class year, degree article related to the field of Com- tive Literature and the Literature information, and most recent parative Literature, departmental Concentration at Harvard proceedings at Harvard, or University publishes an your own area of research and annual newsletter dur- writing. All articles submit- ing the Spring or early ted to the newsletter should Fall Semester of each year. be between 250 and 500 If you would like to words long. Please also in- participate in the 2012 clude a photo of the author or Newsletter, please send us text mentioned, if possible. a personal profile describ- Please e-mail all pro- ing the current research files, news updates, and work you are conducting, articles to Wanda Di Ber- any awards or accolades you nardo and Isaure Mignotte have received, your most by June 15, 2012, at: recent publications, fields Stephanie Frampton, François Proulx, Susan Suleiman, Olga Zhulina, and Serge of interest, and any other Ryappo [email protected] information worth sharing. The contact information (i.e. e-mail [email protected] profile need not be long—from or phone) where we can reach you a sentence or two to a long para- in case editorial questions arise. Again, the deadline for the 2012 graph. Please submit your pro- In addition to or as an alternative Newsletter is June 15, 2012! file as a third-person narrative. to providing a faculty, student, or

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