Françoise Meltzer (born 1947) is a professor of Philosophy of Religion at the

University of Chicago Divinity School The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate professional school at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries. Formed under Baptist auspices, the school today is without ...

. She is the Chair of

Comparative Literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Work

Meltzer's scholarship includes work on contemporary critical theory and nineteenth-century

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of Franc ...

. She marshals

postmodern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...

critical theories in order to explore literary representations of the subject. In her book ''Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality'', she examines the ideas of originality and authorship in a series of case studies from Descartes to

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

. In her book on

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc ( ; ; – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...

, she undertakes a study of that figure in relation to subjectivity as it is treated in philosophical and literary theoretical courses. Meltzer co-edited a ''Symposium on od' for the journal ''

Critical Inquiry ''Critical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Department of English Language and Literature (University of Chicago). While the topics and historica ...

''. With Jas' Elsner, Meltzer co-edited a special issue of ''Critical Inquiry'' on theories of saints and sainthood in three monotheistic religions. She is co-editing a book on religion and postmodernist texts, and also working on two monographs; one about 1848 in France, and the concept of rupture from a philosophical, political, and literary point of view; the other about the gendering of subjectivity.

Education

*Ph.D. Comparative Literature,

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, 1975 *M.A. Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley, 1971 *B.A. Ohio University, 1969

Bibliography

*(1987) ''Salome and the Dance of Writing: Portraits of Mimesis in Literature'' *(1988) ''The Trial(s) of Psychoanalysis'', sed. *(1994) ''Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality'' *(2001) ''For Fear, Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity'' *(2011) ''Double Vision: Baudelaire's Modernity''

References

1947 births Living people American literary critics American women literary critics Philosophers of religion University of Chicago faculty University of Chicago Divinity School faculty Comparative literature academics {{reli-philo-bio-stub

Work

Education

Bibliography

See also

References