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 private graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries. Formed under Baptist auspices, the school today lacks any s ...

. She is the Chair of

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

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of 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 citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than Fr ...

. She marshals

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

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 and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewi ...

. In her book on

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 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 corona ...

, 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 land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, 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 Diegesis 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 Women literary critics Philosophers of religion University of Chicago faculty University of Chicago Divinity School faculty Comparative literature academics American women critics {{reli-philo-bio-stub

Work

Education

Bibliography

See also

References