Investigates invention, reconfiguration, and use of literary fictions over time. Examines major theoretical models: Assmann on cultural memory; LeGoff on history vs. memory; Rancière, Agamben on Temporality and anachrony; Benjamin, Bon on media and transmission. Readings from modern, premodern, and contemporary fiction, crossing genres and modes—narrative, poetic, dramatic, verbal, pictorial, cinematographic (including e.g. Hugo, Villon, Glissant, troubadour poetry, Aragon, Pichette, Christine de Pizan, Dreyer, Artaud, Bernard, Lamartine, Chartier, Lurçat, the Bayeux tapestry). Research projects to be developed with collaborators at European universities and archives. Taught in English.
Manuscript Pictured: Gar 09, MS 05, F.17, John Work Garrett Library, Johns Hopkins University; 15th century French manuscript on parchment, depicting Office of the Virgin.