About Thomas Pavel

Thomas Pavel is Emeritus Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His works ask three major questions: What makes literary works intelligible? How do they interact with human moral concerns? How does diversity and competition shape literary-cultural history? He is the author of Fictional Worlds (1986), The Spell of Language: Post-structuralism and speculation (1989), L’Art de l’éloignement. Essai sur l’imagination classique (1996), La Pensée du roman (2003), and The Lives of the Novel (2013).

Speakers

Anne Duprat (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne/Institut Universitaire de France)

Françoise Lavocat (Professor of Comparative Literature, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Larry Norman (Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures, Theater and Performance Studies, Fundamentals, and the College, University of Chicago)

Nicholas Paige, chair (Professor and Chair of the Department of French, University of California, Berkeley)

Marie-Laure Ryan (Independent scholar)

This event was presented as part of the Impossible Fictions conference, March 2–5, 2022.