Overview
Mitchell Greenberg, who is the Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Romance Studies, received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor of French literature specializing in sixteenth and seventeenth century French and Comparative Romance literatures, he is interested in modern critical readings of early modern texts. He teaches courses on the Baroque and Classical periods, Freudian and and post-Freudian psychoanalysis and Comparative Romance literatures.
RECENT COURSES
- The Theaters of the Self
- Versions of Versailles
- Occupied France through Film
- Racine: From Ancient Myth to Modern Tragedy
- Freud, an Introduction
- 17th Century Theater and Fiction
Research Focus
- Sixteenth and seventeenth century French and Comparative Romance literatures
- Modern critical readings of early modern texts
Publications
Books
- A Cultural History of Tragedy, ed. vol. 4 1650-1800 (Bloomsbury/Methuen, 2019)
- Des Corps Baroques: Sexualité et Politique au 17ème siècle (Classiques Garnier, 2019)
- Racine: From Ancient Myth to Tragic Modernity (University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
- Baroque Bodies: Psychoanalysis and The Culture of French Absolutism (Cornell University Press, 2001)
- Canonical States, Canonical Stages: Oedipus, Othering and Seventeenth-Century Drama (University of Minnesota Press, 1994)
- Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth Century Drama and Prose: The Family Romance of French Classicism (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
- Corneille, Classicism and the Ruses of Symmetry (Cambridge University Press, 1986)
- Detours of Desire: Readings in the French Baroque (Ohio State University Press, 1984)
Select Articles
- “La mort comme héros dans les tragédies de Corneille” in Héros et Personnages, ed. M. Dufour-Maitre, Presses des Universités Rouen-Le Havre (PURH), 2014.
- “Corneille et la Mort Absolue” in Japanese. Special issue the Acts of the International Corneille conference “L’Univers théâtral de Corneille," held at Sophia University, Tokyo, Nov. 9-11, 2006, pp.222-240, edited by H. Ogura, Tokyo, Sophia University Press, 2010.
- “La modernité de Racine" in La littérature, le xviie siècle et nous: dialogue transatlantique, ed. H. Merlin, Paris: Presse de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2008. pp.269-283.
- “Corneille/Racine: French Neo-Classical Tragedy” in A Companion to Tragedy, ed. R. Bushnell, (Oxford, Blackwell) 2005.
- “Molière’s Body Politic” in High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France, edited by K. Long (Kirksville, Truman State Universtiy Press, 2002) pp. 139-165.
- “Racine, Tragedy and Absolutist Fantasies.” Diacritics, vol 28, Fall 1998, pp. 40-62.
- “Racine’s Oedipus.” L’Esprit Créateur, edited by H. Stone, Summer, l998, pp. 105-117.
- “Molière: Corpus Politicum” Le Labyrinthe de Versailles: Festschrift in Honor of A. Eustis, ed. M. Debaisieux, Rodopi, Paris, l998, pp. 85-101.
- "Absolutism and Androgyny: the Abbé de Choisy and the Politics of Trompe-l’oeil" in Repossessions: Psychoanalysis and the Phantasms of Early Modern Culture, eds. T. Murray, A. Smith, University of Minnesota Press, 1998, pp.221-260.
- “Molière’s Tartuffe and the Scandal of Insight” in Literature and Criticism From 1400- 1800, ed. by J. Person, Gale Research, l996. Reprinted from Subjectivity and Subjugation... (Cambridge University Press, l992).