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2019 Walter A. Strauss Lecture Series: “The Author in the Margins”

The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities will host Elisabeth Ladenson, professor of French and romance philology at Columbia University, for three events as part of the 2019 Walter A. Strauss Lecture Series.

The series will be composed of the following events, all around the topic “The Author in the Margins”:

  • Nov. 11: “The Author in the Text: A Brief History”
  • Nov. 13: “Colette at the Gas Station: The Woman Author”
  • Nov. 15: “Proust and the Marx Brothers”

All three events will be from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Wolstein Research Building auditorium. They are free and open to the public.

About Ladenson’s lectures

In this series of lecture, Ladenson will offer a brief history of the place of the author in literary interpretation, along with two salient cases in which the author’s biography seems to be inseparable from the understanding of their works: Marcel Proust and Colette. 

“The Author in the Text: A Brief History”

Nov. 11

In this lecture, Ladenson will recount the history of interpretations of the author’s role in the reading of literary texts, from Romanticism through Barthes’ “Death of the Author” and beyond, with particular attention to the importance of Proust’s theory of the complete divergence between the biographical author and the “deep self,” which produces the work of art, and its influence on Barthes’ formulation of “the death of the author.”

Register for “The Author in the Text: A Brief History.”

“Colette at the Gas Station: The Woman Author”

Nov. 13

Colette (1873-1954) started her career as a music-hall dancer and ghostwriter of her husband’s salacious bestsellers; she went on to become the most famous woman author of her time. Almost all her works draw on her life, and were consistently read as semi-disguised autobiography. With reference to the recent Kiera Knightley biopic—among other popular renderings—Ladenson will discuss the relations between Colette’s life and her works, and what depictions of her scandalous life and career can tell us about the ways people read women’s literary works in particular.

Register for “Colette at the Gas Station: The Woman Author.”

“Proust and the Marx Brothers”

Nov. 15

Marcel Proust was the half-Jewish, homosexual author of a semi-autobiographical novel recounted by a Catholic heterosexual narrator who takes a keen interest in Jewishness and homosexuality. He was also a major influence on Barthes’ idea of the irrelevance of the author’s biography to the understanding of literary works. In this lecture, Ladenson will address what happens when Proust’s magnum opus is read with and without reference to the author’s life, while arguing that Groucho Marx’s line “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member” is key to understanding the entirety of Proust’s work.

Register for “Proust and the Marx Brothers.”

About the series

This lecture series, in memory of Walter A. Strauss (1923-2008), who was the Elizabeth and William T. Treuhaft Professor of Humanities, is generously supported by funds provided by the Paul Wurzburger Endowment.