Edward J Ahearn
University Professor, Professor of Comparative Literature and French Studies:
Departments of Comparative Literature and French Studies
Phone:
Edward_Ahearn@brown.edu
Professor Ahearn has research interests in many phases of Comparative Literature and 19th and 20th century French literature and poetry, literary theory, and literature and the city. Forthcoming: Urban Confrontations in Literature and Social Science, 1848-2001: European Contexts, American Evolutions (Ashgate Publishing LTD). Contact: ashgate.com/isbn/9780754668824.
Interests
Comparative literature; including 19th century French poetry and novel, but including as well some 25 articles on literature in France, England, America and Germany on literature and the city, ecstatic and visionary writing, literature and philosophy, literary theory, Marx's writings in relation to literature.
Interdisciplinary approaches: history, the arts, psychology, political theory, literature and the social sciences, especially urban studies; literature and the city. The larger role of higher education, including a number of articles, in the MLA annual publication Profession and elsewhere; NEH seminars for high school teachers; local and national university/high school collaborative seminars and programs ("Texts and Teachers"). Most recently completed book: Urban Confrontations in Literature and Social Science, 1848-2001: European Contexts, American Evolutions (Ashgate Publishing LTD, February 2010)
Degrees
Ph.D. Yale University. Comparative Literature
Awards
Woodrow Wilson Fellow, 1959
Danforth Fellow, 1959-63
Fulbright Fellow, Aix-en-Provence, France, 1961-62
Scholarship, Bryn Mawr College Inst. des Etudes Françaises d'Avignon, 1963
Junior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois, 1967-68
Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching, 1970
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1977-78
National Endowment for the Humanities College Teachers' Summer Seminar, 1984
National Endowment for the Humanities Secondary Teachers' Summer Seminar, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2003: "The Paris of Balzac, Baudelaire and Flaubert," in Paris and in French
Jacob Ziskind Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature, Brandeis University, Sem. I, 1989-90
Francis Wayland Professor, 1990-95
Co-Director, "Texts and Teachers," NEH grant for interdisciplinary courses at Brown and local and other colleges and high schools, 1992-95; 1997-2000
University Professor, 1995-
The John Row Workman Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities, Brown University, 1997
National Endowment for the Humanities Secondary Teachers' summer seminar, "The Paris of Balzac and Baudelaire," July, 1997, in Paris and in French
National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar for School Teachers, "The Paris of Balzac, Baudelaire and Zola," Paris, July 6-August 2, 2003, in Paris and in French
Mary L. Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities, Wellesley College, 2004-05
Affiliations
Modern Language Association
Teaching
Interdisciplinary studies of the modern city--literature, film, the social sciences.
18th-20th century literature in France, England, Germany, the United States
Visionary and apocalyptic writing from Blake to the modern age.
Nineteenth century French literature, especially poetry.
Funded Research
N/A