Jonathan Culler, Chair, Romance Studies

E-mail: jdc9@cornell.edu

Jonathan Culler is Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Educated at Harvard University (BA in History and Literature, 1966) and Oxford University (B. Phil. In Comparative Literature, 1968; D. Phil. In Modern Languages, 1972), he has worked on 19 th century French literature (especially on Flaubert and Baudelaire) and on contemporary literary theory and criticism (especially structuralism, deconstruction and French theory generally). He teaches primarily courses on literary theory and on aspects of the history of the lyric. His best known works are Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty, Structuralist Poetics, Roland Barthes, Ferdinand de Saussure, On Deconstruction, and Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. He is completing a term as President of the American Comparative Literature Association.

Selected Publications:

Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty. London: Elek Books; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974. Revised edition: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Ithaca: Cornell Univer­sity Press, 1975. Revised edition: Routledge Classics, 2002. Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, and Croatian translations.

Saussure (American Title:  Ferdinand de Saussure). London: Fontana; Brighton: Harvester, 1976.  New York: Penguin, 1977.  Second revised edition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986; London: Fontana, 1987. Japanese, Serbian, Slovenian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Finnish translations.

The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 198l. Revised edition, “Routledge Classics,” Routledge, 2001, Cornell University Press, 2002. Japanese translation.

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism.  Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1982; London: Routledge, 1983. Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Serbian, Chinese, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, and Czech translations.

Barthes (American Title:  Roland Barthes).  London: Fontana; New York:  Oxford University Press, 1983. Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese translations. Revised and expanded edition, Roland Barthes: A Very Short Introduction , OUP, Oxford, 2001.

Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997; reedition 1999). Polish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish, Croatian, Japanese, and Romanian translations.

Ed., with Kevin Lamb, Just Being Difficult? Academic Writing in the Public Arena (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).

Ed. Deconstruction: Critical Concept, 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 2003).

Ed. with Pheng Cheah, Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson, Routledge, 2003.

Research interests:
Contemporary literary theory
Baudelaire
The history and theory of the lyric
Narratology

Recent courses taught:
Literature and Theory
Baudelaire
Baudelaire and Hopkins
Baudelaire in Context
Baudelaire and the Devil
Baudelaire and Romanticism
Derrida and Literature
Theory of the Lyric
Major Poets