Faculty

Biography

Robert Doran is Professor of French and Comparative Literature and an Affiliate Faculty member of the Music Theory Department of the Eastman School of Music. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and a PhD in General and Comparative Literature from the Sorbonne Nouvelle-University of Paris 3.

He is the author or editor of eight books, including the monographs The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant (Cambridge University Press, 2015/2017), which was translated into Spanish in 2021, and The Ethics of Theory: Philosophy, History, Literature (Bloomsbury, 2017). Most recently, he has edited Liszt and Virtuosity (University of Rochester Press, 2020, paperback 2025), co-winner of the 2023 Alan Walker Triennial Book Award, sponsored by the American Liszt Society, and two volumes of Hayden White’s late essays for Cornell University Press (vol. 1, 2022; vol. 2, 2023). He is currently completing a book entitled Revolutionary Aesthetics: The Sublime in French Romanticism.

He has lectured extensively in Europe, including, in Paris, a four-lecture series at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2025 and a lecture at the Collège de France in 2023. He gave a keynote address in Jena, Germany, at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität in 2023 and a lecture at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary, in 2021.

His teaching focuses on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French literature and culture, in particular on the novel, Romanticism, theater, Napoleon, and Paris. He also regularly teaches courses on continental philosophy, aesthetics, and twentieth-century French thought.

Research Overview

			"New book explores ‘ethical turn’ of critical theory" - UR Newscenter article, 12/20/17

Research Interests

• Nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature and culture
• the novel
• continental philosophy
• literary theory
• aesthetics
• intellectual history
• European cinema
• existentialism

Courses Offered (subject to change)

• CLTR 200:  Topics in Critical Thinking: The Antihero (Spring 2022)
• CLTR 389:  MLC Research Seminar (Fall 2017)
• FREN 202:  Introduction to Literature in French (Spring 2027)
• FREN 207:  French in France (Summer 2027)
• FREN 229:  Existentialism (Fall 2019)
• FREN 230:  French Social Thought (Fall 2025)
• FREN 232:  Hugo's "Les Misérables" (Fall 2024)
• FREN 233:  Realists and Romantics (Fall 2015)
• FREN 245:  Revolution and Romanticism (Fall 2026)
• FREN 246:  Dumas's "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Fall 2017)
• FREN 249:  Napoleon: Image, Myth, History (Fall 2021)
• FREN 254:  Camus and Sartre (Fall 2014)
• FREN 255:  Intro to Continental Philosophy (Fall 2026)
• FREN 259:  Les Philosophes and the French Enlightenment (Fall 2019)
• FREN 262:  French Philosophy Since 1960 (Fall 2021)
• FREN 265:  Aesthetics (Fall 2025)
• FREN 266:  Balzac and Baudelaire in Paris (Fall 2013)
• FREN 267:  Baudelaire: Poetry and Modernity (Fall 2016)
• FREN 268:  Jean Renoir and Cinema (Spring 2017)
• FREN 269:  Foucault and the Ethics of Theory (Spring 2025)
• FREN 277:  Postmodernism: Philosophy, Fiction, Media (Fall 2023)
• FREN 281:  French Cinema: 1930-1960 (Fall 2014)
• FREN 289:  Philosophy of Art (Fall 2024)
• FREN 293:  Modern French Theater (Fall 2021)
• FREN 296:  Philosophy of Music (Spring 2027)
• FREN 297:  Narrative Theory: Literature, History, Film (Spring 2024)

Selected Publications

Single-Authored Books

• The Ethics of Theory: Philosophy, History, Literature. Bloomsbury, 2016.
• The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge UP, 2015. [Spanish Translation: La teoría de lo sublime de Longino a Kant. Trans. Luisa Fernanda Lassaque. Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros, 2021.]

Edited Books

• Editor. The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, Volume II, 2007-2017. By Hayden White. Foreword by Mieke Bal. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023.
• Editor. The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, Volume I, 1998-2007. By Hayden White. Foreword by Judith Butler. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022.
• Editor. Liszt and Virtuosity. University of Rochester Press, 2020 (cloth), 2025 (paper). The Triennial Alan Walker Book Award (2023), sponsored by the American Liszt Society.
• Editor. Philosophy of History After Hayden White. Bloomsbury, 2013. Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy.
• Editor. The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957-2007. By Hayden White, Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. [Spanish Translation: La ficción de la narrativa: Ensayos sobre historia, literatura y teoría, 1957-2007. Translated by María Julia de Ruschi, Eterna Cadencia, 2011. Chinese Translation by Lili Ma and Yun Ma. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2013/2019.]
• Editor. Mimesis and Theory: Essays on Literature and Criticism, 1953-2005. By René Girard, Stanford UP, 2008. Cultural Memory in the Present.

Journal Issues

• Editor. Rethinking Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009). Spec. issue of Yale French Studies, no. 123, 2013. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/i23643867.
• Editor. Cultural Theory After 9/11: Terror, Religion, Media. Spec. issue of SubStance, vol. 37, no. 1, 2008. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/i25195151.

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

• “The Sublime and French Romanticism,” The Oxford Handbook of the Sublime, ed. Emily Brady, Patrick Cheney, and Philip Hardie (Oxford: Oxford University Press), forthcoming 2027.
• “On the Sublime by Longinus,” in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co), forthcoming 2027.
• “The Tradition of the Sublime in Early Modern Europe,” The Cambridge History of Rhetoric, Vol. 4: Rhetoric from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Dietmar Til and Adam Potka (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2027), 191-215.
• “Two Visions of Left Politics,” Comparative Literature Studies 63.4 (2026): 701-713.
• “La sérialité selon Sartre et l’aliénation sociale : La question du réfugié en Europe et au Moyen Orient du 2015 à la guerre Israël-Hamas de 2023-25,” Fabula / Les colloques (April 19, 2025).
• “Hayden White, Interpretation, and the Ethics of Narrative,” Editor’s introduction to Hayden White, The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, Volume II, 2007-2017. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023, xxi-xxxix.
• “Hayden White, History, and the Ethics of Narrative,” Editor’s introduction to Hayden White, The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, Volume I, 1998-2007. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022, xxi-xxxix.
• “Existentialism as World Literature: De Beauvoir, Heidegger, and Tolstoy,” in Philosophy as World Literature, ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 233-246.
• “Hayden White and the Ethics of Truth” (Chinese only), trans. Zhang Zuocheng, The World History Review 7.3 (2020): 89-105.
• “Virtuosity and Liszt,” Editor’s introduction to Liszt and Virtuosity, ed. Robert Doran (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2020), 1-38.
• “The History and Fulfillment of Western Rationality: Martin Jay’s The Eclipse of Reason”: Journal of the Philosophy of History 14.1 (2020): 93-103.
• “Writing in the Shadow of Sartre’s Genet: Derrida’s Glas and the Ethics of Biography,” in Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism, ed. Jean-Michel Rabaté (London: Bloomsbury, 2019): 208-225.
• "Kant and the Theory of the Sublime: A Response to Paul Guyer." Nature and Freedom: Proceedings of the XII. International Kant Congress, ed. Violetta L. Waibel and Margit Ruffing (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2018): 3007-3013.
• “Meta-história e a ética da historiographia” in Do passado histórico ao passado pactico: 40 anos de Meta-história, trans. Hugo Ricardo Merlo, ed. Verónica Tozzi and Julio Bentivoglio (Serra: Editora Milfontes, 2017): 245-261. [Portuguese translation of “Metahistory and the Ethics of Historiography”]
• “Metahistoria y la ética de la historiografía,” in Hayden White: cuarenta años de Metahistoria: Del “pasado histórico” al “pasado práctico” ed. Verónica Tozzi and Julio Bentivoglio (Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros, 2016): 189-200. [Spanish translation of “Metahistory and the Ethics of Historiography”]
• "Metahistory and the Ethics of Historiography." Metahistory Forty Years After, edited by Claudio Fogu and Kalle Pihlainen. Spec. issue of Storia della Storiografia, 65.1 (2014): 153-62.
• "Imitation and Originality: Thinking Creative Mimesis in Longinus, Kant, and Girard." René Girard and Creative Mimesis, edited by Vern Neufeld Redekop and Thomas Ryba, Lexington-Rowman and Littlefield, 2014, pp. 111-22.
• "Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason and the Debate with Lévi-Strauss." Rethinking Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), edited by Robert Doran. Spec. issue of Yale French Studies, no. 123, 2013, pp. 41-62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23645874.
• "Choosing the Past: Hayden White and the Philosophy of History." Philosophy of History After Hayden White, edited by Robert Doran, Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 1-33. Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy.
• "The Work of Hayden White I: Mimesis, Figuration, and the Writing of History." The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory, edited by Nancy Partner and Sarah Foot, SAGE, 2013, pp. 106-18.
• "Mimesis and Aesthetic Redemption." Rethinking Mimesis: Concepts and Practices of Literary Representation, edited by Saija Isomaa, et al., Cambridge Scholars, 2012, pp. 203-27.
• "René Girard's Concept of Conversion and the Via Negativa: Revisiting Deceit, Desire, and the Novel." Religion and Literature, vol. 43, vol. 3, Autumn 2011, 170-79. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23347096.
• "René Girard's Apocalyptic Modernity." Sagrado e Modernidade. Spec. issue of Comunicação e Cultura, no. 11, 2011, 37-52.
• "Ambiguity in Jean Renoir’s La Règle du jeu." Contemporary French Civilization, vol. 34, no. 2, 2010, 167-90. Liverpool UP Online, doi:10.3828/cfc.2010.18.
• "Introduction: Humanism, Formalism, and the Discourse of History." The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957-2007, by Hayden White, edited by Robert Doran, Johns Hopkins UP, 2010, pp. xiii-xxxii.
• "Erich Auerbach’s Humanism and the Criticism of the Future." Erich Auerbach, edited by Mario Domenichelli and Maria Luisa Meneghetti. Spec. issue of Moderna: Semestrale di teoria e critica della letteratura, vol. 11, no. 1-2, 2009, pp. 99-108.
• "Logique et Sublimité: Dupuy et Vertigo de Hitchcock." De l’auto-organisation au temps du projet. Autour de Jean-Pierre Dupuy – Colloque de Cerisy, Carnets Nord, 2009, pp. 1-17.
• "Introduction: Terrorism and Cultural Theory: The Singularity of 9/11." Cultural Theory After 9/11: Terror, Religion, Media, edited by Robert Doran. Spec. issue of SubStance, vol. 37, no. 1, 2008, pp. 3-19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25195153.
• "Literature as Theory." Introduction. Mimesis and Theory: Essays on Literature and Criticism, 1953-2005, by René Girard, edited by Robert Doran, Stanford UP, 2008, pp. xi-xxvi.
• "Literary History and the Sublime in Erich Auerbach's Mimesis." New Literary History, vol. 38, no. 2, Spring 2007, pp. 353-69. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20058007.

Recent Translations

• Translator. "Rupture and Literary Creation in Jean-Paul Sartre [1968]." By René Girard. Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 22, Spring 2015, pp. 1-16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/contagion.22.1.0001.
• Translator. "Living with Others: Reciprocity and Alterity in Lévi-Strauss." By Marcel Hénaff. Rethinking Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), edited by Robert Doran. Spec. issue of Yale French Studies, no. 123, 2013, pp. 63-82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23645875.
• Translator. "The Future of the Novel [1957]." By René Girard. Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 19, 2012, pp. 1-8. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41925330.

Selected Invited Presentations

• “La sérialité selon Sartre et l’aliénation sociale,” Le Collège de France, June 1, 2023.
  
  
• "On the Use and Reuse of History: Reading Hayden White's The Practical Past." Is Theory Critical? UCI Critical Theory, 22-23 May 2016, U of California, Irvine.
  
  

Interviews

• "The Ethics of Theory." Inteviewed by Rhys Tranter. RhysTranter.com, 5 May 2017, rhystranter.com/2017/05/05/robert-doran-ethics-of-theory/.
• "An Interview with Robert Doran at the International Kant Congress 2015." YouTube, uploaded by Cambridge Academic Books, 22 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSu5hYwxjGo and www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cg2g_BYFi8.