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Education:

B.A., Tel-Aviv University
Maîtrise, Doctorat de 3ème Cycle, Université Paris VIII-Vincennes
Habilitation, Université Paris VIII-Vincennes

Fields of Research:

19th- and 20th-Century Literature, Theory of Modern Political Discourse

My research centers on the role of literary imagination in the formation of political discourse in post-revolutionary France and Europe. This interest guided me in writing Territoires occupés de l'imaginaire juif (Christian Bourgois, Paris, 1980), Fictions de l'anarchisme (Christian Bourgois, Paris, 2001; Spanish translation, Ficciones del anarquismo, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2004), and Naissance littéraire du fascisme (Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2013). A more specific focus on the weakening belief in the narrative nature of truth at the end of the nineteenth century has led me to explore the peculiar late 19th century imagination of acts of violence that cannot be easily told: the mysterious crime in detective fiction, studied in Autopsies du roman policier (10-18, Paris, 1983) and Le Récit impossible (Christian Bourgois, Paris, 1986); the rise of so-called “terrorism,” on which I wrote several articles, as well as some chapters of my Fictions de l'anarchisme; and the late 19th century European fascination with dueling, as I describe it in my book Le Duel introuvable (Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, Saint-Denis, 2017). My interest in political imagination is also at the center of my book on Zionist discourse, Le Sionisme fut un humanisme, published by le Seuil in 2019.

Books (click on image for details):


Le sionisme
fut un humanisme
(2019)
Le Duel introuvable cover
Le Duel introuvable
(2017)
NaissanceLitteraireduFascisme
Naissance littéraire du fascisme

(2013)
urificcionesdelanarquismobookcover5
Ficciones del anarquismo
(2004)
eisenzweig
Fictions de l'anarchisme

(2001)
urilerecitimpossiblecover
Le récit impossible: Forme et sens du roman policier

(1986)
uriautopsiesduromanpolicierbookcover
Autopsies du roman policier

(1983)
urilesjeuxdelecriturebookcover
Les jeux de l'écriture dans l'Etranger de Camus
(1983)
Territoires occupes de limaginaire juif
Territoires occupés de l'imaginaire juif: Essai sur l'espace sioniste
(1980)
urisylviebookcover
L'espace imaginaire d'un récit: "Sylvie", de Gérard de NERVAL
(1976)
   

Other publications:

Edited:  Le Roman policier, special issue of Littérature (Paris), February 1983, 128 pp.


Articles and chapters in books:

“Fiction et violence entre auteur et Créateur,” Etudes Littéraires, 2011, pp. 17-27.

"Violence Untold: The Birth of a Modern Fascination” Yale French Studies 108, Winter 2005, pp. 20-35.

"Poétique de l’attentat : anarchisme et littérature fin-de-siècle,"  Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France,  1999:3, pp.439-452.

"Représentations illégitimes: Dreyfus, ou la fin de l'anarchisme," Romantisme, Spring 1995,  pp.75-86.

"Le Capitaine et la femme de chambre. L'Affaire Dreyfus et la crise de la vérité narrative," Romantisme 84, Fall 1994, pp.79-92.

"Absence du terrorisme," Le Genre Humain, Winter-Spring 1992, pp.267-277.

"La place de la fiction," Poétique 81, February 1990, pp.77-88.

“Quando il giallo divenne un genere” (translation of my introduction to Autopsies du roman policier, 1983), in G.Lippi (ed.), 150 anni in giallo. Milano: Mondadori, 1989.

"Terrorism in Life and in Real Literature," Diacritics, Fall 1988, pp. 32-42.

"Madness and the Colonies: French and Anglo-Saxon Versions of the Mysterious Origins of Crime," L'Esprit Créateur  XXVI:2, Baton Rouge, Summer 1986, pp. 3-14.

"Zionism and Detective Fiction: A Case in Narratology," Telos, New York, Summer 1984, pp. 132-140.

"Le roman policier," in J.-P. De Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty, & Alain Rey (eds.), Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française (Paris: Bordas,  1984) t.III, pp.1988-1992.

"Un concept plein d'intérêts," Texte 2, Toronto, 1984, pp. 161-170.

"Aux origines du sionisme politique," Esprit, Paris, April 1983, pp. 3-15

"Présentation du genre," Littérature 49, Paris, February, 1983, pp. 3-15.

"Chaos et maîtrise: le discours romanesque de la méthode policière," Michigan Romance Studies 2, 1982, pp.139-163.

"L'instance du policier dans le romanesque. Balzac, Poe et le mystère de la chambre close," Poétique 51, Paris, 1982,  pp. 279-302.

"About Some Problems in Semiotical Analysis" (in Hebrew), in Iyunim Bevalshanuth Uvesemiotika. Haifa: Haifa University Publications, 1982, pp.111-117.

"An Imaginary Territory: The Problematic of Space in Zionist Discourse," Dialectical Anthropology, Amsterdam, 1981,  pp. 261-285.

"L'espace imaginaire du texte et l'idéologie," in C.Duchet (ed.), Sociocritique. Paris: Nathan, 1979, pp.183-187.

"Genèse et structure du roman policier. Hypothèses de travail," Degrés, Brussels, December 1978,pp.d1-d15.

"Métalangage: les paradoxes du référent," Littérature 27, Paris, 1977, pp. 105-115.

"La construction de l'objet dans 'La Chanson de Fortunio'," Europe, Paris, 1977, pp. 174-191.

"La recherche du référent: l'église de Combray," Littérature 20, Paris, 1975, pp. 17-31.

"Proustian Writing and the Church of Combray," (in Hebrew), Keshet, Tel-Aviv, Winter 1975, pp. 49-58.

 

Some other forms of publication:

“La Nuit américaine,” in Les Inrockuptibles 306, September 25 - October 1, 2001 (special issue on the events of September 11, 2001).

"Israël entre terre et territoire,” Les Cahiers de la Villa Gillet n°8, April 1999, pp.7-19.

“Dreyfus, après,” La Quinzaine littéraire, 16-31 January 1998, pp. 5-6.

“Autonomy and the Other: Palestinian and Israeli Scholars Debate,” Federation Review, Journal of the State Humanities Councils VIII:3, May-June 1985, pp.15-18.

"Aux origines du sionisme politique," Esprit, Paris, April 1983, pp. 3-15.

"Entretien" (interview of Alain Robbe-Grillet), Littérature 49, Paris, February   1983.

“Poe, Paris, 1846: la Lettre pillée” (presentation of pre-Baudelairian French translations of “Murders in the Rue Morgue”), Littérature 49, Paris, February 1983, pp.63-68.     

Graduate Courses:

  • The Duel in the Narrative Prose of the 19th Century
  • The French Short Story of the 19th and 20th Centuries
  • Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity
  • Stendhal or Balzac
  • Introduction to Literary Theory
  • Modern Narrative and the State
  • The 1890s as a Turning Point in French Intellectual History
  • Anarchism, Literature, and the Crisis of Representation
  • Modernity, Action, and the Novel

Undergraduate Courses:

  • Approaches to French Literature
  • Introduction to Literary Theory
  • Fiction and Ideology
  • Individual Acts of Violence and Nineteenth Century Western Fiction
  • Songs of Modern France
  • The French Novel
  • French Literature between 1848 and 1914
  • Sartre and Camus
  • Censorship in Literature
  • The Dreyfus Affair
  • History and Fiction
  • The French Song (Senior Seminar)

Program Connections:

Former Director, the Transliteratures Project, 2000-2011
Comparative Literature