Keynote Speakers
Marc Redfield studies British, American, French and German literature and literary theory of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on romanticism and on the history, philosophy, and politics of post-romantic aesthetics. He has written on the Bildungsroman; on intersections of nationalism, media, and technics; on terrorism and war; and on the history and practice of literary theory, particularly deconstruction. Redfield studied at Yale and Cornell, and taught at the Université de Genève and Claremont Graduate University before coming to Brown. He is the author of three books: Phantom Formations: Aesthetic Ideology and the Bildungsroman (1996), The Politics of Aesthetics: Nationalism, Gender, Romanticism (2003), and The Rhetoric of Terror: Reflections on 9/11 and the War on Terror (2009). He has edited Legacies of Paul de Man (2007) and co-edited High Anxieties: Cultural Studies in Addiction (2002), and served as the guest editor of special issues of Diacritics, Romantic Praxis, and The Wordsworth Circle.
Professor Redfield's talk, “The ‘Cultured Nazi’ and the Cut of the Shibboleth: Inglourious Basterds and the Globalization of English,” argues that a certain fascination with “Nazism” in mainstream Western English-language culture plays a role in managing anxieties about the displacing power of media and helps prop up enduring fantasies of will and identity. A close reading of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds allows us to link the problem of media(tion) to the globalization of English, on the one hand, and the essential permeability of languages, on the other.
Professor Redfield's talk, “The ‘Cultured Nazi’ and the Cut of the Shibboleth: Inglourious Basterds and the Globalization of English,” argues that a certain fascination with “Nazism” in mainstream Western English-language culture plays a role in managing anxieties about the displacing power of media and helps prop up enduring fantasies of will and identity. A close reading of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds allows us to link the problem of media(tion) to the globalization of English, on the one hand, and the essential permeability of languages, on the other.
Shirley Samuels works at Cornell in several departments, including six years as Chair of History of Art and Visual Studies, four years as Director of Women’s Studies, three years as the Flora Rose House Professor and Dean, as well as an ongoing engagement as Professor of English and American Studies. Her books include The Cambridge Companion to Abraham Lincoln (2012), Reading the American Novel 1780-1865 (2012), Facing America: Iconography and the Civil War (2004); Companion to American Fiction, 1780-1865 (2004); Romances of the Republic: Women, the Family, and Violence in the Literature of the Early American Nation (1996); and The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in 19th Century America (1992). In addition to Cornell, she has taught at Princeton University, Brandeis University, and the University of Delaware.
Professor Samuels's talk, "Looking at Lincoln," contends that to look at Abraham Lincoln is to discover a man so visible he can scarcely be seen. The paradox of that enhanced visibility might be increased by the way that his words are so familiar that we can scarcely hear him. To see Lincoln anew and to hear his words afresh becomes the challenge. This talk considers how Lincoln appeared, stiff hair rising as a disheveled crown, top hat silhouetted above the crowd, when he was looked at by artists and writers. It also considers how Lincoln looked at himself, mocking his own appearance, and proposing at once rigorous and passionate systems of belief. To carry out attention to the visibility of Lincoln as a writer and politician, the talk will consider his orations as well as his written statements, listening to his words.
Professor Samuels's talk, "Looking at Lincoln," contends that to look at Abraham Lincoln is to discover a man so visible he can scarcely be seen. The paradox of that enhanced visibility might be increased by the way that his words are so familiar that we can scarcely hear him. To see Lincoln anew and to hear his words afresh becomes the challenge. This talk considers how Lincoln appeared, stiff hair rising as a disheveled crown, top hat silhouetted above the crowd, when he was looked at by artists and writers. It also considers how Lincoln looked at himself, mocking his own appearance, and proposing at once rigorous and passionate systems of belief. To carry out attention to the visibility of Lincoln as a writer and politician, the talk will consider his orations as well as his written statements, listening to his words.