Harriet Stone Chair, Committee on Comparative Literature Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures (French); Comparative Literature Ph.D., Brown University Research interests: 17th-century French studies; text and image; science and aesthetics in early modern Europe; literature and ethics Recent publications: Books Tables of Knowledge: Descartes in Vermeer's Studio. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2006. Examines how Dutch art, with its emphasis on the realistic depiction of objects, informs science's efforts to know the world in the 17th century. Co-Trans., with Gerhild Scholz Williams. On the Inconstancy of Witches. By Pierre de Lancre. 1612. Tempe: Arizona Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006. Ed. Esprit Créateur. Spec. Issue Racine (Summer, 1998). hastone@wustl.edu (314) 935-4473/5142
Teaching Faculty
Nancy E. Berg Associate Professor, Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures   (Hebrew); Jewish, Islamic, and Near Eastern Studies; Comparative Literature Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Research interests: modern Hebrew & Arabic literatures; immigration literature; women's literature; genre literature Recent publication: Book More and More Equal: The Literary Works of Sami Michael. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Examines the works of the most significant Israeli writer to switch from Arabic to Hebrew, tracing his rise to literary prominence against the context of a changing society. nberg@wustl.edu (314) 935-4451
J. Andrew Brown Assistant Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures (Spanish) Ph.D., University of Virginia Research interests: 20th- and 21st-century Latin American narrative; literature and science; cyborg and posthuman theory; Argentine cinema. Recent Publications: Books Ed. TecnoEscritura: Literatura y tecnología en América Latina [TechnoWriting: Literature and Technology in Latin America]. Spec. Issue Revista Iberoamericana 73.220 (July-Sept, 2007). Recent scholarship from the US, Latin America, and Europe concerning the intersections of technology and literary narrative, film, internet poetry, and graphic novels. Test Tube Envy: Science and Power in Argentine Narrative. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2005. Examines the cultural relationships between popular science and narrative in Argentina from the 1820s to the present, including works by Domingo Sarmiento, Roberto Arlt, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortázar. Articles “Hacking the Past: Edmundo Paz Soldán’s El delirio de Turing and Carlos Gamerro’s Las Islas.” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 10 (December, 2006): 115-29. An examination of hacker culture and ideology as it relates to the Latin American postdictatorship. “Life Signs: Ricardo Piglia's Cyborgs.” Science, Literature, and Film in the Hispanic World. Ed. Jerry Hoeg and Kevin Larsen. New York: Palgrave, 2006. 87-107. A study of how Piglia employs posthuman imagery and theory to represent the trauma of the Dirty War in Argentina. “Ripped Stitches: Consumerism, Technology, and Posthuman Identity in Rafael Courtoisie's Tajos.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 15.2 (August, 2006): 127-42. An exploration of the novel's connections between 1990s television culture and technological identity in Latin America. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~abrown/ (314) 935-8222
Letty Chen Associate Professor, Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures   (Chinese); Comparative Literature Ph.D., Columbia University Research interests: globalization; postcolonialism; postmodernism; identity politics; travel theory; mimesis; narratology Recent Publication: Book Writing Chinese: Shaping Chinese Cultural Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). A study of the current debate over the concept of identity as explored in literature from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and by Chinese writers living abroad. Addresses how narratives use textual imitation and appropriation to synthesize diverse cultural identities. llchen@wustl.edu (314) 935-5147
Lionel Cuillé Lecturer, Romance Languages and Literatures (French); Comparative Literature; Interdisciplinary Program in the Humanities Agrégé de Lettres Modernes/Doctorate ENS Lettres et Sciences Humaines   (Lyon) Research interests: 19th- and 20th-century European literature, especially poetry; avant-garde movements; literary theory; French cinema Recent Publications: Articles "La qualité différentielle: Ponge et le darwinisme ["The Differential Quality: Ponge and Darwinism"]. In Ponge, résolument. Lyon: ENS, 2004. 233-45. Study of Ponge's critique of social Darwinism and his articulation of the existentialist tensions between freedom and determinism. "Le palladium anti-nietzschéen: Ponge lecteur de Fautrier" ["The Anti-Nietzschean Palladium: Ponge, Reader of Fautrier"]. In Ponge, résolument. Lyon: ENS, 2004. 179-91. How Ponge, interpreting Fautrier's paintings of disfigured "hostages," subverts Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy to establish the ethical imperative of art. “Recueil de circonstances ou manifeste du recueillement: Dix-neuf poèmes élastiques de Blaise Cendrars" ["Collection of Circumstances or Manifesto of Self-Consciousness: Blaise Cendrars's Nineteen Elastic Poems"]. Méthode! No. 2 (2002). 195-202. A study of how, through poetry, Cendrars assembled a community of exiled avant-gardist artists and rethought the ideology of the Italian Futurists. lcuille@wustl.edu (314) 935-9499
Matt Erlin Associate Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley Research interests: 18th- and 19th-century German studies; literature and economics; the novel; aesthetic theory; urban culture Recent publications: Books Berlin’s Forgotten Future: City, History, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2004. Examines the link between the urban experience and new conceptions of history in the German Enlightenment. Co-ed. with Lynne Tatlock. German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 2005. merlin@wustl.edu (314) 935-4005
Robert Henke Associate Professor, Comparative Literature; Performing Arts (Drama) Chair, Performing Arts Department Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley Research interests: English and Italian Renaissance drama ; orality and literacy; festival and ritual Recent publications: Books Ed., with Eric Nicholson. Transnational and Transcultural Exchange in Early Modern Drama: Theater Crossing Borders. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate P, forthcoming 2008.  A collection of transnational and comparative essays on early modern drama.  Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell’Arte. Cambridge UP, 2002.  Examines the interplay between oral and literary cultures in the commedia dell'arte.  Pastoral Transformations: Italian Tragicomedy and Shakespeare's Late Plays. Newark, DE: U of Delaware P, 1997.  Shakespeare's late plays read through the generic prism of Italian tragicomedy. Articles “Representations of Poverty in the Commedia dell’Arte.” Theatre Survey (forthcoming, 2008). “Comparing Poverty: The Fictions of the Poor in Ruzante and Shakespeare.” Comparative Drama 41:2 (2007): 193-217. rhenke@wustl.edu (314) 935-9336
Robert Hegel Liselotte Dieckmann Professor of Comparative Literature Professor, Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures (Chinese) Ph.D., Columbia University Research interests: narrative forms and conventions in late imperial China (1500-1900); book culture, practices of reading and writing; legal writing; conceptions of right and wrong implicit in narrative texts of all forms; translation of crime reports from China's last dynasty Recent publications: Books Co-ed., with Katherine Carlitz. Writing and Law in Late Imperial China. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2007. Collection of essays that explore conventions of legal writing; the reflection of law and legal practice in fiction; and the representation of changing administrative concerns in the crafting of legislation—all in response to varying reading communities, primarily in Qing (1644-1911) China. Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998. A study of the printing and circulation of fictional texts and the images that appeared in their illustrations, concentrating on the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Articles "Picturing the Monkey King: Illustrations and Readings of the 1641 Novel Xiyou bu." In The Art of the Book in China. Percival David Foundation Colloquies 23. London: London University School of Oriental and African Studies, 2006. 175-91. Study of llustrations in the novel's first edition that comment ironically on the narrative, suggesting an unusually close relationship between the illustrator and the text. "Dreaming the Past: Memory and Continuity Beyond the Ming Fall." In Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature. Ed. Wilt Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Studies Center, 2005. 345-71. How imaginative reconstructions of the tragic end a previous golden age serve as metaphors for the trauma of dynastic change in fiction and plays by a circle of 17th-century Chinese writers. "Conclusions: Judgments on the Ends of Times" In Dynastic Decline and Cultural Innovation: Late Ming and Late Qing. Ed. David Wang and Shang Wei. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Studies Center, 2005. 523-48. Literary reflections on the fall of dynasties from early 17th-century and late 19th-century Chinese writers who realized that political calamity was imminent. rhegel@wustl.edu (314) 935-7476
Emma Kafalenos Senior Lecturer, Comparative Literature Ph.D., Washington University Research interests: narrative theory; postmodernism; comparative arts; poetics Recent publications: Books Narrative Causalities. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2006. Explores the effect of context on interpretations of consequences and causes, and argues that narratives, by determining the contexts in which events are perceived, shape readers' interpretations of causality, whether the narratives being read are nonfiction or fiction. Ed. Narrative 9:2 (May 2001). Spec. issue on contemporary narratology. Articles "Effects of Sequence, Embedding, and Ekphrasis in Poe's 'The Oval Portrait.'" A Companion to Narrative Theory. Ed. James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 253-68. On the possibilities for communication enabled by ekphrasis: the re-representation in words of a prior visual artwork. "The Power of Double Coding to Represent New Forms of Representation: The Truman Show, Dorian Gray, 'Blow-Up,' and Whistler's Caprice in Purple and Gold." Poetics Today 24:1 (May 2003): 1-33. Analysis of the representational possibilities of artworks contained within artworks in several media. "Reading Visual Art, Making–and Forgetting–Fabulas." Narrative 9:2, Spec. Issue: Contemporary Narratology (May 2001): 138-45. How we read photographs to make stories. emkafale@wustl.edu (314) 935-7613
Fatemeh Keshavarz Professor, Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures (Persian); Jewish, Islamic, and Near Eastern Studies; Comparative Literature Chair, Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Ph.D., London University Research interests: Persian poetry; theories of translation; Islamic mysticism; women's studies Recent Publications: Books Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran (Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks). Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2007. A blend of personal memoir and literary analysis intended to humanize Iran, a country masked from Western readership by political conflic, that critiques "New Orientalist narratives" which present  a lopsided and exaggerated view of Eastern cultures, a trend  best exemplified in the national best-seller Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetics of Sacred Making in Twentieth-Century Iran. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2006. A study of reconfigurations of the concept of the sacred as reflected in modern Persian poetry. Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal aI-Din Rumi. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1998. A study of mystical experience and its poetic expressions in Rumi’s lyric poetry. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~fatemeh fatemeh@wustl.edu (314) 935-5156
Lutz Koepnick Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures; Film and Media Studies;   Comparative Literature Ph.D., Stanford University Research interests: German literature and film; visual culture; media history and theory; critical theory and aesthetics Recent Publications: Books Co-ed., with Sabine Eckmann. Caught by Politics: Hitler Exiles and American Visual Culture. New York: Palgrave, 2007. A study of the aesthetics of German and European exile visual artists, designers, and directors in the US, such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Hans Richter, Peter Lorre, and Edgar Ulmer, and the response of American artists Walter Quirt, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell to the Europeanization of American culture. Co-ed., with Stephan Schindler. The Cosmopolitan Screen: German Cinema and the Global Imaginary, 1945 to the Present. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2007. A look at German cinema’s enthusiasm for and anxiety about the blurring of cultural boundaries, World War II to the present. Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006. Explores different concepts of windows—both literal and figurative—in German visual culture, 19th century through the present. A new interpretation of evolving ways of seeing that characterize and define modernity. The Dark Mirror: German Cinema Between Hitler and Hollywood. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002. An investigation of how Nazi filmmakers appropriated Hollywood conventions and how German film exiles in the States reworked German cultural material to gain a place in the Hollywood studio system. Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1999. A study of Benjamin's seminal writings on the relationship between mass culture and fascism, including his influential critique of aesthetic politics; the changing role of popular culture in the 20th century; and the extension of Nazi aesthetics into contemporary culture. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~lkoep/ koepnick@wustl.edu (314) 935-4350
Paul Michael Lützeler Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures; Comparative Literature Ph.D., Indiana University Research interests: German and European Romanticism; 20th-century German and European literature (especially exile literature, and contemporary German literature); cultural theories, including postmodernism, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, globalization, and the European identity Recent Publications (partial list): Books Kontinentalisierung: Das Europa der Schriftsteller [Continentalization: The Writers´ Europe]. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2007. A collection of case studies that treat concepts of modern Europe in each literary period since European Romanticism, including essays on Goethe and Coleridge, Romain Rolland, C. F. Meyer, Thomas Mann, and Milan Kundera. Postmoderne und postkoloniale deutschsprachige Literatur [Postmodern and Postcolonial Germanophone Literature]. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2005. An examination of the interconnectedness of postmodernism, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism and their impact on contemporary German and Austrian literature. Die Entropie des Menschen. Studien zum Werk Hermann Brochs [Human Entropy: Studies of the Works of Hermann Broch]. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000. An interpretation of the modernist aesthetics of Hermann Broch as revealed through his novels and his correspondence with friends such as Hannah Arendt. Europaeische Identitaet und Multikultur [European Identity and Multiculturalism]. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1997. Ten case studies that examine the multicultural European identity as it has evolved from the late 18th century through recent waves of immigration. Klio oder Kalliope? Literatur und Geschichte [Clio or Calliope? Literature and History]. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1997. A study of three phases of European literature in which links to history are prevalent: Romanticism, exile literature, and contemporary works. http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jahrbuch/Jahrbuch.htm jahrbuch@artsci.wustl.edu (314) 935-4784
Stephan K. Schindler Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures; Comparative Literature; Film and Media Studies Chair, Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literatures Ph.D., University of California, Irvine Research Interests: 18th- and 20th-century German literature; film studies; gender studies; psychoanalysis; Holocaust studies; international affairs Recent Publications: Books Co-ed., with Lutz Koepnick. The Cosmopolitan Screen: German Cinema and the Global Imaginary, 1945 to the Present. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2007. A look at German cinema’s enthusiasm for and anxiety about the blurring of cultural boundaries sinceWorld War II.. Co-ed., with Paul Michael Lützeler. Gegenwartsliteratur: Ein germanistisches Jahrbuch [Contemporary Literature: A German Studies Yearbook]. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 2002-07. Annual international yearbook on contemporary German literature. Eingebildete Koerper: Phantasierte Sexualitaet in der Goethezeiz [Imagined Bodies: Fantasized Sexuality in the Age of Goethe]. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 2001. An investigation into the history of modern sexuality with a focus on sexual fantasies. Articles "Displaced Images: The Holocaust in German Film. " The Cosmopolitan Screen. 192-203. An analysis of the cinematographic and narrative challenges post-war German cinema has faced in representing the Holocaust. "Die blutende Brust der Amazone: Bedrohliche weibliche Sexualität in Penthesilea" ["The Amazon's Bloody Breast: Threatening Female Sexuality in Penthesilea"]. Kleists Erzählungen und Dramen: Neue Studieni [Kleist's Short Stories and Plays: New Studies]. Ed. Paul Michael Lützeler and David Pan. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001). 191-202. A study of literary and philosophical ideas of female sexuality prevalent near the beginning of the 19th century. http://artsci.wustl.edu/%7Egerman/faculty.php?facID=17 skschind@wustl.edu (314) 935-5136
Gerhild Scholz Williams Barbara Schaps Thomas & David M. Thomas Professor of Humanities in Arts & Sciences; Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures; Comparative Literature Ph.D., University of Washington Research interests: Early modern French and German daemonologies; late Middle Ages; Renaissance/Reformation; literature and history; translation Recent publications: Books Ways of Knowing in Early Modern Germany: Johannes Praetorius as a Witness to his Time. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate 2006. An investigation of how Praetorius, an assiduous reporter of early modern Europe, offered accounts of political events, scientific discoveries, occult phenomena, and religious beliefs that challeged many authoritative interpretations of his day. Ed. On the Inconstancy of Witches. By Pierre de Lancre. 1612. Trans. Harriet Stone and Gerhild Scholz Williams. Tempe: Arizona Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006. Comprehensive English edition of de Lancre's report of his experiences in France's Basque region as a member of a royal commission empowered to cleanse the area of witches. Co-ed., with Chad Gunnoe, Jr. Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State UP, 2003. Collection of essays exploring the intellectual, social, and cultural context within which physician Theophrastus Paracelsus wrote. Co-author, with Alexander Schwarz. Existentielle Vergeblichkeit: Verträge in Melusine, Faust, und Eulenspiegel [The Futility of Existence: Contracts in Melusine, Faust, and Eulenspiegel.] Berlin: Schmidt, 2003. An exploration of pacts and contracts in three popular early modern prose texts through a focus on narrative structure. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~gwilliam/gswweb.htm gerhildwilliams@wustl.edu (314) 935-5106
Affiliated Faculty
Miriam Bailin Associate Professor, English; Comparative Literature Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley Research interests: the English novel; contemporary English and European fiction; Victorian literature and culture; British colonialism in literature and the visual arts mlbailin@wustl.edu (314) 935-7132
Henry Biggs Associate Dean and Director of Undergraduate Research Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles Research Interests: metrical phonology; linguistics; hip-hop; 16th-century French poetry Recent Publication: Article "Metrical Idiosyncracies in Ronsard’s 'Amours.'" 3rd Annual Holland Institute of Linguistics Proceedings. 1997. hbiggs@wustl.edu (314) 935-6519
Robert Lamberton Chair, Dept. of Classics Ph.D., Yale University Research interests: Greek epic and the history of its interpretation; ancient literary hermeneutics; late antiquity Recent publications: Books Co-author, with Susan Rotroff. Women in the Athenian Agora. Oxford: Oxbow, 2005. Plutarch. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001. Ed., with J. J. Keaney. Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer. Atlanta: Scholars P, 1996. rdlamber@wustl.edu (314) 935-8587
Marvin Marcus Associate Professor, Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures (Japanese) Ph.D., University of Michigan Research interests: literature of the Meiji-Taisho periods (1868-1926); Japanese biographical and autobiographical literature; Japanese literary journalism. Recent Publication: Book Orientations: The Found Poetry of Scholarly Discourse on Asia. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Poetry P, 2004. Collection of verse inspired by the language of academic discourse and the playful spirit of Japanese poetry. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~japanese/Marvin.html mhmarcus@wustl.edu (314) 935-4797
Stamos Metzidakis (On Leave 2007-2008) Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures (French); Comparative Literature Assistant Chair, Dept. of Romance Languages and Literatures Ph.D., Columbia University Research interests: French-American colonial history and culture; literary theory; prose poetry; visual aspects of poetry; 19th- and 20th-century literature, primarily poetry Recent publications: Articles "Capital Punishment and Sexual Politics in Lecomte's film La Veuve de Saint Pierre." Contemporary French and Francophone Studies (formerly Sites) 9:4 (December 2005): 351-66. Analyzes the filmmaker's implied ideological stances on two major themes of contemporary Western life. "Postmodern Neutralizing of 19th-Century Imagery (in Houellebecq and Blais)." Nottingham French Studies 42:2 (Autumn 2003): 128-41. Examines how, at both ends of an historical span often labeled postmodern, French fiction works against and beyond certain older discourses. "Semiotic Intersections in Baudelaire and Magritte." Esprit Créateur 39.1 (Spring 1999): 71-83. Demonstrates how the transformation of poetry into banality as well as the reverse subtends the work of both the poet and the painter. smetz@wustl.edu (314) 935-4972
Angela Miller Professor, Art History and Archaeology Ph.D., Yale University Research Interests: 19th- through 21st-century American art; the American West; American modernism; visual culture Recent Publications: Books Lead author. American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2007. "'With Eyes Wide Open': The Americanization of Surrealism." In Caught by Politics: Hitler Exiles and American Visual Culture in the 1930s and 1940s. Ed. Sabine Eckmann and Lutz Koepnick. New York: Palgrave, 2007. 61-94. "Chasing the Phantom: Cultural Memory in the Image of the West." In Redrawing the Boundaries: Perspectives on Western American Art. Seattle and London: Denver Art Museum in association with the U of Washington P, 2007. 66-78. "The Image of Nature in American Landscape Art: The Dilemmas of 'Nature's Nation' and the Art of Landscape." In American Wilderness. Ed. Michael Lewis. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 91-112. "Death and Resurrection in an Artist's Studio." American Art 20.1 (Spring 2006): 84-95. almiller@wustl.edu (314) 935-5275
Dolores Pesce Chair, Dept. of Music Ph.D., University of Maryland Research interests: the 13th-century motet; Edward MacDowell; Franz Liszt Recent Publications: Books Ed. Guido d'Arezzo's Regule rithmice, Prologus in antiphonarium, and Epistola ad michahelem. Musicological Studies 73. Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1999. Ed. Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. dpesce@wustl.edu (314) 935-5592
Henry Schvey Professor, Performing Arts; Comparative Literature. Ph.D., Indiana University Research interests: literature and the other arts; German Expressionism; drama; contemporary British and American drama; Shakespeare in production hischvey@wustl.edu (314) 935-5885
Emeritae Faculty
Milica Banjanin Professor, Russian; Comparative Literature Ph.D., Washington University Research interests: 20th-century Russian literature; Russian modernism; interactions between the fine arts and literature Selected publications: Articles ""Where Are The Street Lights Running To?': The Poetics of Street Lights in Russian Modernism." New Zealand Slavonic Journal 38 (2004-2005): 71-91. A study of the relations between light, art, and technology in Russian Modernism. "Listening: The Poetics of Street Sounds in Russian Modernism." Slavic Almanach 10.1 (2004): 63-80. An examination of the sounds of St. Petersburg streets at the beginning of 20th century, as reflected in Russian Modernist poetry and fiction. "Echoes of the Commedia dell'arte in the Works of Blok: Transformations of an Image." Australian Slavonic and East European Studies. 4.1-2 (1990): 1-20. Elucidates Blok's use of the commedia dell'arte and the related iamges of masks, masquerade balls, and puppet-shows [balagan]. "Nature and the City in the Works of Elena Guro." Slavic and East European Journal. 30.2 (Summer 1986): 230-247. An exploration of Guro's poetic universe through the two central themes of her writing--nature and the city--as they appear in her unpublished, archival materials, and in her published work. banjanin@wustl.edu
Naomi Lebowitz Former Hortense and Tobias Lewin Professor in the Humanities English and Comparative Literature Ph.D., Washington University Research Interests: 19th- and 20th-century Scandinavian, English, and American fiction and literary philosophy, in particular, the works of: Henry James, William James, Dickens, Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and Italo Svevo. Selected Publications: Books The Philosophy of Literary Amateurism. Columbia, MO: U of Missouri P, 1994. Return of great masters of fiction to the chosen amateurism of their literary philosophies. Ibsen and the Great World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1990. How Ibsen's irony opens up a path to a spiritual dimension mankind is not yet able to inhabit. Kierkegaard: A Life of Allegory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1985. Analysis of Kierkegaard's use of literary devices to break through speculative philosophy and over-ambitious ethical claims. Italo Svevo. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1978. Study of Svevo's anti-hero Zeno in light of Dostoievsky’s belief that fiction is the lie that saves the truth. Article “The World’s Pontoppidan and his 'Lykke Per' [Lucky Per]." Scandinavian Studies (Spring, 2006). The collision the fairy tale and social realism in Nobel prize winner Pontoppidan's novel as influenced by Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and Nietzsche.