Dr. David M. Posner

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Associate Professor, French Language and Literature
Executive Director, Midwest Modern Language Association,
and Editor, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association

dposner@luc.edu

Research Interests

• European literatures (French, Italian, German, English) of the Renaissance and 17th century, in particular prose narrative, epic, theater, and the essay
• The reception of Classical antiquity in the Renaissance
• Modern and contemporary Francophone literatures, especially those of sub-Saharan Africa
• Philosophy and literature
• Literature and opera

Selected Publications

• “What do Philosophers Want? Love and Loss in the Essais of Montaigne”, in Teoria 29:2 (2009): 95-107.
• “De Re Ædificatoria: Panurge and the Walls of Paris”, forthcoming in Modern Philology.
• “Mortality, Melancholy, and the Limits of Knowledge in the Quart Livre”, in Esprit généreux, esprit pantagruélicque (Genève: Droz, 2008): 197-208.
• “Rhetoric, Redemption, and Fraud: What We Do When We End Books”, in the MLA’s Profession 2005: 179-82.
• “Religious Economies in The Merchant of Venice”, in Annals of Scholarship 16:1-3 (2004): 139-53.
• “French Literature”, “Montaigne”, “Rabelais”, and “Racine”, articles for Europe 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003).
• The Performance of Nobility in Early Modern European Literature.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Education

• Ph. D., Comparative Literature, Princeton (1992).
• AB, Comparative Literature, Stanford (1984).

Courses Regularly Taught

• French 309, Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean
• French 316, Survey of XVIc. Literature
• French 317, Survey of XVIIc. Literature
• French 318, Survey of XVIIIc. Literature
• Honors 101/02, Developments in the History of Western Thought
• Honors 216, Encountering Europe
• LITR 280, Voyages to the Underworld
• LITR 280, Theater
• LITR 280, Renaissance Road Trips
• LITR/INTS/BWS 283, Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean
• LITR 284, African Film
• LITR 285, Literature and Opera
• LITR 290, The Renaissance
• FREN/ITAL/GERM/SPAN 308, Literary Theory Ancient and Modern

Professional Memberships and Activities:

• Modern Language Association
• Midwest Modern Language Association
• American Comparative Literature Association
• Renaissance Society of America
• Sixteenth Century Studies Conference
• American Association for Italian Studies
• Société des Amis de Montaigne
• African Literature Association