Caroline Elizabeth Weber (born 1969) is an American author. She is a professor of French and comparative literature at

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

within

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Her book ''Proust's Duchess'' was a finalist for the 2019

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author." Award winners receive ...

Early life and education

Weber was born in 1969. She received her

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in literature (

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

) from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and her PhD in French literature from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Career

After earning her PhD, Weber joined the faculty at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

as an assistant professor of Romance languages. While at the University of Pennsylvania, she authored ''Terror and its Discontents: Suspect Words and the French Revolution'' and co-edited ''Fragments of Revolution'' with Howard G. Lay. After seven years at the University of Pennsylvania, Weber joined the faculty at

as a professor of French and comparative literature. While there, her book ''Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the French Revolution'' was published in 2007 and described Antoinette's life starting from her arrival from Austria into France. The biographical novel focused on Antoinette's control over her image through her autonomy of fashion. While conducting research for her book ''Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris'', Weber discovered one unknown and one lost essay by

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...

about Parisian high society. As she was sifting through Élisabeth Greffulhe's personal archive, Weber discovered an unfinished and unpublished essay by Proust from 1902 to 1903 titled "The Salon of the Comtesse Greffulhe." Greffulhe's husband had ordered her to not publish the essay for its vulgar contents, which she agreed to in fear of being beaten. Weber used these essays to trace the lives of three high-society female models for the Duchesse de Guermantes, from childhood to adulthood, in ''

In Search of Lost Time ''In Search of Lost Time'' (), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early twen ...

'', Proust's novel in seven volumes. Upon publishing the book, Weber was named a finalist for the 2019

and received the 2019 French Heritage Society Literary Award.

Personal life

Weber is married to economist

Paul Romer Paul Michael Romer (born November 6, 1955) is an American economist and policy entrepreneur who is a Seidner University Professor in Finance at Boston College. Romer is best known as the former Chief Economist of the World Bank and for co- ...

. Their wedding occurred in 2018, the morning Romer accepted his

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, Caroline Living people 1969 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women historians American women non-fiction writers Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Harvard College alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Barnard College faculty 21st-century American women writers