1201 17th St door 10
David Ferris (Ph.D., SUNY-Buffalo) is Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities. Prior to teaching at CU-Boulder he held concurrent positions in Comparative Literature, English and German at the Graduate School and in Comparative Literature at Queens College of the City University of New York, in Comparative Literature and English at Yale University, and in English at Haverford College. His recent publications include essays on Jacques Ranci猫re, Giorgio Agamben, Schiller, Adorno and Modernism, Benjamin and photography, Vattimo and the postmodern. He is also a contributor to the American Comparative Literature Association鈥檚 Ten Year Report on the Discipline and will conribute an essay to the Blackwell Companion to Comparative Literature. His current projects include two books: Politics after Aesthetics and Postmodern Mimesis: The Ethics of Distortion. He has received a Senior Faculty Research Fellowship from the ACLS, NEH Summer Research Grant, and has been a Fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale. He will be a fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge, UK, during the Easter Term, 2010.
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Teaching Interests
Modern European literature-especially poetry, modernity and the postmodern, photography and painting, reception of the Enlightenment in the 19th and 20th centuries, lyric poetry, 19th and 20th century aesthetics and literary theory, the Frankfurt School, Walter Benjamin, political theory, 18th and late 20th century painting.
Recent Courses
- HUMN 2000: Methods/Approaches to the Humanities
- HUMN 3660: The Postmodern
- HUMN 4060: Reading Theory
- HUMN 4093: Modernity/Postmodernity
Books
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Cambridge University Press, 2008 | |
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Cambridge University Press, 2004 | |
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Stanford University Press, 2000 | |
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Stanford University Press, 1996 | |
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Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993 |
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Recent Articles
- 鈥淎gamben Messianic,鈥 in Messianic Thought Outside Theology, ed. Anna Glazova and Paul North, forthcoming.
- 鈥淧olitics After Aesthetics: Disagreeing with Jacques Ranci猫re,鈥 in Parallax 15.3 (2009), 37-49.听 Special issue on the work of Jacques Ranci猫re, ed. Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp.
- 鈥淭he Gift of the Political: Schiller and the Greeks,鈥 in Schiller Gedenken鈥擵ergessen鈥擫esen, ed. Rudolf Helmstetter, Holt Meyer, and Daniel M眉ller Nielaba, (Paderborn: Fink Verlag, forthcoming).
- 鈥Fragments of an Interrupted Life: Keats, Blanchot and the Gift of Death,鈥 in The Meaning of 鈥楲ife鈥 in British Romantic Poetry and Poetics, ed. Ross Wilson (New York: Routledge, 2009).
- 鈥淧reserving Aesthetic Ecstasy: Bohrer鈥檚 Suddenness and the Moment of the Modern,鈥 in English Language Notes 46.1 (Spring/Summer 2008).
- 鈥淒econstruzione e secolarizzazione di Sant鈥橧vo,鈥 in Dopo il Museo, ed. Federico Liusetti and Giorgio Margliano (Turin: Trauben, 2006).
- 鈥Indiscipline,鈥 in American Comparative Literature Association: Ten Year Report on the Discipline, ed. Haun Saussy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2006).
- 鈥The Shortness of History or, Photography in Nuce: Benjamin鈥檚 Attenuation of the Negative,鈥 in Walter Benjamin and History, ed. Andrew Benjamin (London: Continuum, 2005)
- 鈥Politics and the Enigma of Art: The Meaning of Modernism for Adorno,鈥 Modernist Cultures, 2005. (URL: )
- 鈥,鈥 Romantic Circles, April 2005. )
- 鈥淩eading Benjamin,鈥 in The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
- 鈥The Question of a Science: Encyclopedistic Romanticism,鈥 The Wordsworth Circle, 35:1 (Winter 2004).
- 鈥Post-modern Interdisciplinarity: Kant, Diderot and the Encyclopedic Project,鈥 Modern Language Notes (Comparative Literature issue) 118:5 (December 2003), 1251-1277.
Recent Conferences & Guest Lectures
- 鈥淎gamben Messianic,鈥 The Literary and Critical Theory Seminar, Institute of English Studies, University of London, March 2009.
- 鈥淧olitics After Aesthetics: Disagreeing with Ranci猫re,鈥 The Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University, November 2008.
- 鈥淭he Gift of the Political: Schiller and the Greeks,鈥 Dept. of German/Deutsches Haus, New York University, November 2008.
- 鈥淭he Distortion of Presence: Sebald鈥檚 Ethical Memory,鈥 W.G. Sebald International Conference, University of East Anglia, September 2008.
- 鈥淧ostmodern Obstructions: Dogma and Obstruction in Lars von Trier鈥檚 The Five Obstructions,鈥 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, April 2008.
- 鈥淭aking Exception to Romanticism,鈥 Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi Romantici/North American Association for the Study of Romanticism, University of Bologna, March 2008.
- 鈥淯npresenting Law: Aesthetic Crisis in Schiller鈥檚 Politics,鈥 Special Session, Joint Conference, North American Association for the Study of Romanticism/British Association for Romantic Studies, Bristol University, July 2007.
- 鈥淟鈥橢sitazione di Vattimo,鈥 Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, April 2006.
- 鈥淒ocumenting Politics: Walter Benjamin and Photography,鈥 Queens University, Belfast, April 2006.
- 鈥淲alter Benjamin: Founding the Politics of Modernity,鈥 Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, April 2006.
- 鈥淐elebrating Schiller Celebrating Greeks: The Return of the Political,鈥 Schiller Bicentennial, University of Erfurt, Germany, October 2005.
- 鈥淔rom Interruption to Obstruction: Modernity and the Postmodern in Heinrich B枚ll and Lars von Trier鈥 Dept. of German, Johns Hopkins University, September 2005.
- 鈥淪hadows on the Wall of Reason: Diderot before Fragonard,鈥 Dept. of French and Italian, Princeton University, October 2004.
- 鈥淧olitics of the Useless: Art between Heidegger and Benjamin 1935-36,鈥 Dept. of German, Princeton University, October 2004.
- 鈥淎n Art for Postmodernity?鈥 Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, Italy, May 2004.
- 鈥淐aptions for Modernity: Atget with Benjamin,鈥 Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, Italy, May 2004.
- 鈥淜ant with Diderot: Interdisciplinarity and the Englightenment of Reason,鈥 Center for the Study of Theory and Criticism, University of Western Ontario, Canada, October 2003.