Indiana University Bloomington

Faculty Member, French & Italian

Other Affiliations: Pomona College, Romance Languages and Literatures
Université Paris Diderot, LAC

Assistant Professor of French

Thesis Title: A Transverse Self: Montaigne and His Philosophers

About

My research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of the Renaissance and extends to the 17th and 18th centuries to study genre, reception (theater), and morality.  My approach is interdisciplinary (philosophy and literature, music and literature) and often fits into the categories of history of the book, reception theory, and genre studies.

My book manuscript A Transverse Self: Montaigne and the Lives of the Philosophers situates Montaigne and Diogenes Laertius in the history of life writing in the Renaissance and Classical Age in France. 

In my current research project, Motion and Emotion in Early Modern French Drama, I am exploring the reading, staging and stagecraft of composite drama (court ballet, machine plays, comedy-ballets, and opera). With key authors like Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx, Honorat de Bueil de Racan, Honoré D’Urfé, Jean Mairet, Pierre Corneille, Isaac de Benserade and Philippe Quinault, I aim to show that the libretto, parallel to and concurrently with the novel, trained readers not only to imagine greater fictional possibilities than before, but also to feel (sometimes to practice) more diverse emotions.


In am currently (Spring 2012) teaching a graduate course on Early Modern French Drama and the Arts (1571-1691) in which we read dramatic poetry in relationship to the artistic production around it (dance, music, machines, scenography, etc.).

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