Marina Van Zuylen

The Department of French & Italian Dept and the Program in Comparative Literature are pleased to present a lecture by
Professor Marina van Zuylen
"The Monomaniacal Imperative: How Literature Puts Obsession To Good (and Bad) Use"

This lecture will argue that certain obsessions have a therapeutic effect on their victims.Collectors and hypochondriacs, scholars and jealous lovers, often seem to find a curious solace in their compulsive torments. How do these "idées fixes" shield individuals against the tyranny of everyday? Using Pierre Janet's evidence about the cure lurking in obsession itself, we will discuss representative literary cases of this strange paradox. Representative excerpts of works by Flaubert (Correspondance), Baudelaire ("Mademoiselle Bistouri"), Thomas Mann ( The Magic Mountain), and George Eliot ( Middlemarch ) will be discussed. April 18, 2005, at 4:00pm UCEN, Santa Barbara Harbor Room (first floor) A reception will follow This lecture is based on Professor Marina van Zuylen's new book Monomania. The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art (Cornell University Press, 2005). Marina van Zuylen is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College . She is the author of a book on modernist literature, Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle and of numerous articles about aesthetics, literature, and philosophy.
This lecture is sponsored by the SERIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

This lecture will argue that certain obsessions have a therapeutic effect on their victims.Collectors and hypochondriacs, scholars and jealous lovers, often seem to find a curious solace in their compulsive torments. How do these "idées fixes" shield individuals against the tyranny of everyday? Using Pierre Janet's evidence about the cure lurking in obsession itself, we will discuss representative literary cases of this strange paradox. Representative excerpts of works by Flaubert (Correspondance), Baudelaire ("Mademoiselle Bistouri"), Thomas Mann ( The Magic Mountain), and George Eliot ( Middlemarch ) will be discussed.

April 18, 2005, at 4:00pm
UCEN, Santa Barbara Harbor Room (first floor)
A reception will follow

This lecture is based on Professor Marina van Zuylen's new book Monomania. The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art (Cornell University Press, 2005). Marina van Zuylen is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College . She is the author of a book on modernist literature, Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle and of numerous articles about aesthetics, literature, and philosophy.

This lecture is sponsored by the SERIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE