Shoshana Felman is an American

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

and current Woodruff Professor of Comparative Literature and French at

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

. She was on the faculty of

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 ...

from 1970 to 2004, where in 1986 she was awarded the Thomas E. Donnelly Professorship of French and Comparative Literature. She specializes in 19th and 20th century French literature,

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

, trauma and testimony, and

law and literature The law and literature movement focuses on connections between law and literature. This field has roots in two developments in the intellectual history of law—first, the growing doubt about whether law in isolation is a source of value and mean ...

. Felman earned her Ph.D. at the University of

Grenoble Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...

in France in 1970.

Work

Felman works in the fields of psychoanalytic literary criticism,

performativity Performativity is the concept that language can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change. The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields such as anthropology, social and cultural geography, economics, gender stu ...

theory,

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

testimony, and other areas, though her writings frequently question, ironize, or test the limits of the very critical methods being employed. Often in her writing a reversal will occur so that the critical vocabulary gets subjected to and converted into the terms of the literary or cultural object being scrutinized rather than simply settling the meaning of the object; thus in Felman's style of criticism there is no fixed hierarchy of theory over and beyond the reach of the literary object. As such, her methods share an affinity with

deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...

, for which she is sometimes associated with the Yale School and colleagues such as Paul de Man.

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...

is a significant influence on Felman and she was among the vanguard of theorists—and perhaps foremost among those addressing Anglophone audiences—to rigorously apply his concepts to the study of literature. Since the 1990s Felman has written texts on testimony and trauma, particularly in the context of the

and other collective trauma.

Bibliography

* ''The Claims of Literature: The Shoshana Felman Reader'', ed. by Emily Sun, Eyal Peretz, Ulrich Baer, Fordham University Press, 2007 * ''The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century'', Harvard University Press, 2002 * ''What Does a Woman Want? Reading and Sexual Difference'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993 * ''Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature Psychoanalysis and History'' (co-authored with Dori Laub, M.D.) (1992) * ''

and the Adventure of Insight: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture'' (1987) * Editor, ''Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading–Otherwise'' (1982) * ''Le Scandale du corps parlant. Don Juan avec Austin, ou la Séduction en deux langues'' (1980), translated as ''The Literary Speech Act. Don Juan with Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages'' (1984), reissued as ''The Scandal of the Speaking Body. Don Juan with Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages'' (2002) * ''Writing and Madness: Literature/Philosophy/Psychoanalysis'' (1985), reissued with added materials and interviews (2003) * ''La Folie et la chose littéraire'' (1978) * ''La "Folie" dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Stendhal'' (1971).

References

External links

Shoshana Felman
.

Department of French and Italian faculty biography. {{DEFAULTSORT:Felman, Shoshana Living people Emory University faculty Yale University faculty Grenoble Alpes University alumni American literary critics American women literary critics Year of birth missing (living people) Feminism and psychoanalysis