Forum on the Humanities and the Public World

Tzvetan Todorov, Theorist
"Memory, a Remedy for Evil?”

Monday, May 4, 2009
4:00 pm | Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

From his earliest publications on literary theory in the mid 1960s to his moral inquiries into identity, responsibility, and ethics in his more-recent historical studies, Tzvetan Todorov continues to be one of the foremost contemporary European literary and cultural theorists. While the fields of literary criticism and cultural history continue to relax their boundaries, thereby increasingly accommodating and influencing each other, Todorov ranks among the finest of writers whose works have moved easily between literary theory and its application in critical readings of important historical narratives.

Todorov is Director of Research at the National Social Sciences Research Center (CNRS) in Paris, and he has been a visiting professor at several universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and the University of California at Berkeley. His written work has been translated into over twenty-five languages; among his books are The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre; Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps; The Conquest of America: the Question of the Other; and Theories of the Symbol. Todorov is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Charles Lévêque Prize of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques and the first Maugean Prize of the Académie Française. He was also awarded the Prince of Asturias Foundation Award for the Social Sciences in 2008.

Links

Articles:
“Global Warning,” in the New Humanist

“Civilized Talk,” in Project Syndicate

Videos:
Video interview by Euro News

Interviews:
“Memory of Evil, Enticement to Good,” interview in Eurozine

Acceptance Speech for Prince of Asturias Foundation Award