Robert Barsky's Vanderbilt Site

Journal Work

Maymester in Montreal 2009

Émile Zola

English 244

Robert Barsky's Vanderbilt Website
 
periodistadigital, Agencia EFE, lunes, 10 de octubre 2005
Bob's sons, Tristan and Ben: scubadiving, basketball, ...; Bob's wife Marsha's new contemporary dance company called Company Rose, and her son Kai.
Some recent projects
Curriculum vitae
Books and Journals

The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower, Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2007; paperback 2009.

Table of Contents and sample chapters

Facebook page for The Chomsky Effect

Quests Beyond the Ivory Tower:  Public Intellectuals, Academia and the Media, Edited by Saleem H. Ali and Robert Barsky, a special issue of AmeriQuests, 2006. 

Introduction by Ali and Barsky

Quebec and Canada in the Americas, edited by Robert Barsky, as special issue of AmeriQuests, 2006.

Introduction by Barsky

Marc Angenot and the Scandal of History, a special issue of the Yale Journal of Criticism that features articles by Marc Angenot, Robert Barsky, Fredric Jameson, Marie-Christine Leps, Michel Pierssens, Darko Suvin. 2004. 

Introduction to Marc Angenot and the Scandal of History

Workers Councils, by Anton Pannekoek. A new and revised edition, edited and with comments by Robert Barsky, interviews with Noam Chomsky, Ken Coates and Peter Hitchcock, and a republication of a seminal piece by Paul Mattick. London/SF: AK Press, 2002.

Introduction to Workers Councils including a discussion between Chomsky and Barsky

Arguing and Justifying: Assessing the Convention Refugee Choice of Moment, Motive and Host Country. Aldershot; Burlington; Sydney; Singapore: Ashgate, 2001.

Paris-SubStance-America. A special issue of SubStance devoted to French theory. 2001.

Introduction à la théorie littéraire. Quebec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 1997. 

Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge; London: MIT Press, 1997, 1998.

Constructing a Productive Other: Discourse Theory and the Convention Refugee Hearing, Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994.

Bakhtin and Otherness. A special issue of Discours social/Social Discourse edited by Robert Barsky and Michael Holquist, 1991.

Introduction to Bakhtin and Otherness

Translation:

Philosophy and the Passions: Toward a History of Human Nature, Penn State Press, 2000, Robert Barsky's translation and introduction of Michel Meyer's Le Philosophe et les passions (Paris: Livres de poche).

Introduction to Philosophy and the Passions


Forthcoming book:

Zellig Harris’s America: Linguistics, Radical Politics and Zionism in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2010.

 
Research Areas and Selected Publications
1. Literary and Language Theory; translation; Literature and Law

2. Refugee, Border and Migration Studies

3. The Milieus of Noam Chomsky and Zellig Harris
4. Selected Translations
  • with Tristan Barsky, La Vie de Mohamet, vue par Aisha, une de ses femmes, forthcoming.
  • “What Can Literature do? From Literary Sociocriticism to a Critique of Social Discourse” by Marc Angenot, Yale Journal of Criticism 17.2 (Fall 2004): 217-232.
  •  “A State of Social Discourse” by Michel Pierssens, Yale Journal of Criticism, 17.2 (Fall 2004): 255-262.
  •  Denise Helly, “Social cohesion and Ethnic Minorities,” for the Canadian Journal of Anthropology and Sociology (2003).
  • Denise Helly, “Ethnic and National Minorities” for the Canadian Journal of Anthropology and Sociology (2002).
  • Philosophy and the Passions, a translation (with a preface, introduction and bibliography) of Le Philosophe et les Passions (Livre de Poche) for Penn State Press Literature and Philosophy Series, dir. Anthony Cascardi, 2000..
  •  “Rhetoric and the Theory of Argument” by Michel Meyer. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 196.2 (1996): 325-358.
  •  “The Problematological Interpretation of the Cogito: Is There a Distinctive Argumentative Structure in The Meditations?” by Michel Meyer. Revue internationale de Philosophie 195 (1996): 23-49.
  •  “The Representamen, The Sign and the Abduction”, by Jean Fisette, Pierce Papers. Toronto Semiotic Circle, 1996.
  •  “The Mirror, The Beaker and the Touchstone: or, What Can Literature Do For Science?” by Jean Marc Lévy Leblond, SubStance 71/72: 1 26.
  •  “The Political Regulation of Cultural Plurality: Foundations and Principles,” by Denise Helly, for Canadian Ethnic Studies / Études Ethniques au Canada 25.2 (1993): 15 35.
  •  [with Sydney Mintz] “Introduction” Chinese Emigration: The Cuba Commission Report. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, pp. 1 30.
  •  [with Dominique Michaud] “Bakhtin and Postmodernism: An Unexpected Encounter. Notes on Jean-Paul Goude’s ‘Marseillaise’,” by Régine Robin. Discours social / Social Discourse 3.1-2 (1991): 229 232.
  •  “Following the Thread,” by Marc Angenot. Science Fiction Studies, 16.2 (July 1989): 218 222.

5. Selected reviews

  • Review of Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009, for New Books Online 19, 2009
  • Review of Michael Welch, Scapegoats of September the 11th: Hate Crimes and State Crimes in the War on Terror, for Le travail/Labor, 2008.
  • Review of Jonah Raskin, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' and the Making of the Beat Generation, University of California Press, 2004, for AmeriQuests 1.2, 2006.
  • Review of Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls, in Journal of Refugee Studies 2001, 14, 205-7.
  • Review of Wai Chee Dimock, Residues of Justice: Literature, Law, Philosophy. University of California Press, 1997 [1996], for Literary Research 31, 1999.
  • Review of Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998, for Literary Research 30, 1999.
  • Review of Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, for Literary Research 29, 1998.
  • Review of Robin West, Caring for Justice. New York University Press, 1997, “The Limits of Caring in Justice” for Literary Research 16.32 (1999): 233-239.
  • Review of Michael Gardiner, The Dialogics of Critique: M.M. Bakhtin and the Theory of Ideology, for Slavic Review 53.1 (Spring 1994): 306-308.
  • Review of Peter Hitchcock, The Dialogics of the Oppressed. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 1992. for Discours social/Social Discourse 6.3-4, (1994).
  • Review of Stephen L. White, The Unity of the Self. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, for Discours social/Social Discourse 5.3 4 (1993): 192-194.
  • Review of M. Pierrette Malcuzynski. Entre-Dialogues avec Bakhtin, for Slavic Review 53.4 (Winter 1994): 1198-1199.
  • Review of Critical Studies II, 1 2, 1990: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Epistemology of Discourse, Ed. Clive Thomson, for Semiotic Inquiry 12.3.
  • Review of Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard UP, 1981, for Modern Language Quarterly 52.4, December 1991, pp. 466-468.
  • Review of Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson and Edward Said, Nationalism, Colonialism, Literature. Minnesota: U Minnesota P, 1990, for Discours Social / Social Discourse 4.1 2, pp. 179-180.
  • Review of Cohan, Stevan and Linda M. Shires. Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction. NY: Routledge, 1988, for Literary Research 18, pp. 16-17.
  • Review of Chamberlain, Daniel Frank, Narrative Perspective in Fiction: A Phenomenological Mediation of Reader, Text, and World. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1990, for Literary Research 18, p.14.
  • Review of Literature, Language and Politics, Ed. Betty Jean Craige. Athens & London: U of Georgia P, 1988, for Literary Research 14 15, pp. 14-15.  
  • Review of George Levine, Darwin and the Novelists: Patterns of Science in Victorian Fiction. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1988, for Literary Research 13 pp. 25-26.
  • Review of Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard. Paul Dumouchel, Ed. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1988, for Literary Research 11, pp. 12-13.
  • Review of Buitenhuis, Peter. The Great War of Words: British, American and Canadian Propaganda and Fiction, 1914-1933. Vancouver: U of BC P, 1987, for Literary Research 11, pp. 15-16.
  • Review of Dick, Susan et al. Essays for Richard Ellman: Omnium Gatherum. Montréal: McGill UP, 1989, for Discours social/Social Discourse Vol. 2, 4 pp. 207-208.
  • Review of Morton Beiser, Strangers at the Gate: The Boat People's First Ten Years in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999 for Asian Pacific Migration Journal 9.3 2000, 387-388.
  • Review of Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls. By Teresa Hayter. London; Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000, for the Oxford Journal of Refugee Studies, 2001.
  • Review of Joe Thomas, Ethnocide: A Cultural Narrative of Refugee Detention in Hong Kong. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999 for Oxford Journal of Refugee Studies, 2000.
Courses at Vanderbilt
Courses spring 2010

FREN395 “Crime, Punishment and Confession” Thursdays 3-6. This course, to be taught in English, combines primary works of literature written in the 19th and 20th centuries with secondary critical works which address concerns of the law and literature movement from various perspectives. First, we will survey the field by examining some of the foundational texts used in the “field” of literature and law. We will then look to issues relating to the community that adjudicates in both literature and law, raising issues of interpretation, reader response, and pre-conceived notions about fields and disciplines. With some theoretical and literary material in hand, we will then look to issues raised in feminism as they relate to both the legal and the literary fields. Finally, we shall discuss the problem of ‘constructing a productive other’ as it applies to both author-hero relations in fiction, and individual-claimant relations in law.

ENGL272 The Beat Generation's French Connection: Artaud, Genet, Rimbaud, Sade and the Parisian Beat Hotel. Tuesdays 3-6. There are remarkable connections between the Beats and the French, both in terms of French Quebec (via Jack Kerouac, whose first language was French and whose family hearkened from Quebec) and through the many ties they had, personally and intellectually, with France (and Algeria). In this course we will explore these overlaps by discussing key contemporaries, as well as an array of individuals who had personal relations with French and francophone literature and ideas.
           
Courses fall 2009

ENGL 244-01. Critical Theory: "Finding Theories of Laughter, Passion, Recollection and Forgetting in Great Fiction” 'Theory' doesn’t seem critical to most people, unless they can be turned on to the exciting work that is being done on the carnivalesque, the mind/brain relation, the origins of human language, and why it is that we can be so turned on, or upset, or inspired, or shocked, by the stories that are told in literature. In this course we shall read great works of fiction in English that move us to reflect upon the really basic questions about reading, writing, and telling stories, and along the way we’ll be inspired by powerful words to laugh, to cry, to dream and to wonder why fiction is the gateway to the magic of abstract exploration of our minds, and the possible worlds they can create.

FREN 362. Zola: Naturalism to History: This course will introduce students to Emile Zola’s fiction, including examples of work from the long series of novels called Les Rougon Macquart, about a family under the Second Empire. Different facets of Zola’s writings will be discussed, including his method of researching his subject matter, the style of his writing, as well as the "environmental" influences of violence, prostitution, alcoholism and what he described as “the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world.” Students will also be introduced to the idea of studying history through literary texts, with discussions of realism and naturalism.

    Courses previously taught at Vanderbilt University

    New book! Hardcover 2007, and out in paperback in the fall of 2009!
    The Chomsky Effect, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2008.

    For more information, please contact Robert F. Barsky.
    copyright Robert F. Barsky, 2006