Situated at the confluence of literature and poetics on the one hand and ideology and politics on the other, Robert Morrissey's work concentrates on themes and cultural currents over the longue durée. Morrissey attempts to identify significant topoi that act as windows onto French cultural history broadly writ as it has developed over time. It is the dialectics at work between tradition and innovation, between the collective identity and the individual that he finds most fascinating. Morrissey has worked to define the parameters of these topoi and to explore the tensions that play out on a range of levels: the descriptions of the intimate moments of reverie; the political and cultural affirmations derived from the foundational “myth-history” of Charlemagne; the origins and development of a specifically French discourse on glory that serves a key legitimating function for both self and nation.

Morrissey is the Director of the Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) and of the France Chicago Center.

For more details on his research and publications, please visit his profile page at the University of Chicago.