This paper explores the manifestation of trauma in superhero comics following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. These texts are considered from the perspectives of clinical psychology and Silverman’s concept of historical trauma. The paper first examines the genre as a whole, followed by an exploration of elements c…[Read more]

In my paper ‘Postmodern Chinoiserie in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese’ (2014, Literature Compass 11 (1): 1–14), I propose that existing scholarship on the portrayal of Asians and Asian Americans in American comics has largely focused upon racist newspaper cartoons from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and modern Asian-A…[Read more]

Du paletot idéal de «Ma Bohème » à la robe de laine des anges de Mystique, les tissus se dématérialisent dans la poésie de Rimbaud. La portée du champ sémantique des étoffes et des vêtements dans l’œuvre du poète de Charleville structure, avec d’autres thèmes, l’esthétique de la Voyance. Le monde s’habille, en effet, d’âme, tandis que l’âme…[Read more]

If synesthesia is rare in “Le Spleen de Paris”, it is also differently constructed and shaped than in the Fleurs du Mal. This article aims to demonstrate that this evolution points out a shift in Baudelaire’s esthetics, that from Unity of Univers seems to move towards fragmentation of reality: actually, from Baudelaire to Proust.
Abstract in…[Read more]

If Jane Austen had wanted to write about zombies, what might she have known about the walking dead in the early nineteenth century? In this 2010 presidential address for EC/ASECS, subsequently published in the society’s newsletter, I examine this question and take a look at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

This is a longer version of my conference paper, in which I provide some ideas on how to merge scholarship on 18th-c France, especially the revolutionary period, with the kinds of advocacy promoted by the MLA. I foreground exciting new work done by colleagues in the US, UK, and Italy, and provide a “sneak peek” at materials to be included in the…[Read more]

This article offers an interdisciplinary perspective on Jean-Luc Godard’s video short Puissance de la parole (1988). It engages with key historical figures in film, visual art and music, positioning Godard’s video mashup as a violent intermedial space where past and future meet. Exploring techniques of fragmentation, decontextualization and rec…[Read more]

Online course

The course Au coeur de Paris, Baudelaire et Paris is a Massive Open Open Course, and focuses on the relation between Baudelaire’s poetry and the city of Paris, within an interdisciplinary approach that includes literary, geographic and artistic features.

In an essay entitled “Digital Blake,” J. Hillis-Miller (2006) asks a question which dominates discussions of William Blake’s relationship to New Media: “[w]ould Blake have approved of the William Blake Archive?” (p29). The Archive has itself been the focus of enormous theoretical reflection. The “Articles about the Archive” section on the Archive…[Read more]

In an essay entitled “Digital Blake,” J. Hillis-Miller (2006) asks a question which dominates discussions of William Blake’s relationship to New Media: “[w]ould Blake have approved of the William Blake Archive?” (p29). The Archive has itself been the focus of enormous theoretical reflection. The “Articles about the Archive” section on the Archive…[Read more]

Studying William Blake means studying the event of history, the way history merges with and emerges within theology, politics and philosophy. William Blake’s poetry has had a precarious relationship with history; his work resonates from very specific historical concerns and yet also seems to struggle against being confined to any formal h…[Read more]

Studying William Blake means studying the event of history, the way history merges with and emerges within theology, politics and philosophy. William Blake’s poetry has had a precarious relationship with history; his work resonates from very specific historical concerns and yet also seems to struggle against being confined to any formal h…[Read more]

Like other forms of treachery, translation can be either concealed or exposed. Though most literary translators work in the dark and some embrace invisibility as an ideal, all translations can be situated along the continuum of illusionist-anti-illusionist or domesticating-foreignizing. A variety of paratexts lay bare the devices of translation.…[Read more]