Thomas Pavel

Thomas Pavel (born Toma Pavel, April 4, 1941 in Bucharest, Romania) is a literary theorist, critic, and novelist, who currently is Emeritus professor at the University of Chicago.

Biography

Thomas Pavel received an MA in Linguistics from the University of Bucharest in 1962 and a Doctorat 3e cycle from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, in 1971, after defecting to France in 1969.[1] He taught at the University of Ottawa from 1971 to 1981, the University of Québec at Montréal from 1981 to 1986, the University of California Santa Cruz from 1986 to 1990, and Princeton University from 1990 to 1998. He was a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. From 1998 to 2021, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he was the Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Departments of Romance Languages and Comparative Literature. In 2021 he retired, becoming Emeritus Professor at the University of Chicago.

In 1999, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2004 and received the Romanian Order of Cultural Merit in 2011.[2] He held the International Chair at the Collège de France, Paris in 2005-2006 and was a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin in 2010–2011. In 2023 he received "Le Prix de la Francophonie" (The Prize of Francophony) granted by the Académie Française.

Career

Studies in narratology

Pavel began his scholarly career as a contributor to structuralism and semiotics, two movements that experimented with linguistic techniques in the study of literature. His books La Syntaxe narrative des tragédies de Corneille (1976) and The Poetics of Plot (1985), sketched out a transformational grammar of literary plots inspired by Noam Chomsky's linguistics. A story or a play, he argued, is not a mere succession of pre-established moves, but involves the passage from an initial problem (a transgression or a lack) to a series of successful or unsuccessful solutions. Pavel's model used tree-like structures to represent the links between the challenges faced by the characters and the actions they take. To explain these actions, Pavel's plot-grammar included "maxims" expressing the right or wrong ideals that guide the characters. The plot of Shakespeare's historical tragedies, for instance, wouldn't make sense if the main characters didn't follow the maxim according to which "an earthly crown is the highest good". Pavel also criticized period-style notions, e.g. baroque, showing that they do not always account for the way in which narrative and dramatic plots are structured.

An assessment of structuralism

While interested in the experimental use of linguistic models in literature, Pavel was opposed to the dogmatic use of structuralism as a universal method for the study of culture. In Le Mirage linguistique (1988), translated and expanded as The Spell of Language (2001), he argued that several major French thinkers (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault) used linguistic notions in a metaphorical rather than rigorous fashion. In the same vein, in Inflexions de voix (Voice Inflexions) (1976), Pavel describes language as the privileged site of ideals and, at the same time, as the existential proof that humans can rarely fulfill them.

Fictional Worlds and literary history

Seeking to account, beyond narrative syntax, for the content of literary works, Pavel became interested in the logic of possible worlds, as well as in the philosophy of art and literature. In Fictional Worlds (1986), Pavel pointed out that the general truth of a literary text is not dependent upon the truth of the individual propositions belonging to that text. Reflection on literary fiction doesn't need to identify and eliminate false propositions – as it is necessary to do in history or in science. Literary works are salient structures in which a secondary, fictional world includes entities and states of affairs that lack a correspondent in the basic, primary world. By dividing the universe into sacred and profane areas, the religious mind posits such salient structures; similarly, a work of fiction in which London includes Sherlock Holmes among its inhabitants is fictionally salient with respect to the actual city. Literary texts, Fictional Worlds argues, do not depend on one and only one salient fictional world: they may as well refer to alternative fictional worlds, to the actual world, to active religions or to discarded mythologies. Since literature involves cultural habits and traditions, and obeys specific genre and style constraints, Pavel recommended that fictionality be examined from three points of view: the semantics of salient structures, the pragmatics of cultural traditions, and the stylistics of textual constraints.

Like The Poetics of Plot, Fictional Worlds is critical of historicist generalizations. Discussing the notion of mimetic modes (high, low, ironic) which, according to Northrop Frye, replaced one another during the history of European fiction, Pavel argued that these three modes – and perhaps other modes as well – can be found in virtually all cultures and historical periods.

In L'Art de l'éloignement (The Art of Distance) (1996), his position became more nuanced. The book explores the multiple imaginary worlds put forth by French 17th-century literature, thus rejecting the idea of a homogeneous period-style, sometimes called Zeitgeist or episteme. Pavel claimed, however, that by emphasizing the distance between its fictional worlds and the actual world, 17th-century literature is historically different from the later, 19th -and 20th- century literature, which most often tries to stay as close as possible to its public's experience.

De Barthes à Balzac (From Barthes to Balzac) (1998), co-authored with Claude Bremond, includes a study of Balzac's short story Sarrasine which brings together close reading, structural analysis, and historicist considerations.

The appeal of literature: The Lives of the Novel

Later, in his Comment écouter la littérature (How to Listen to Literature), Pavel turned his attention to the direct, unproblematic appeal of literary works. The exploration of what makes literary works appealing continued in The Lives of the Novel: A History (2013), a substantially revised version of La Pensée du Roman (2003).

Readers, he now argued, can just listen to literature, instead of studying and over-interpreting it, because literary works, independently of the region and historical period in which they were created, bring out ideals and norms that are accessible to all. The Lives of the Novel narrates the history of the novel from its Ancient Greek origins to the present, based on the assumption that older as well as more recent narratives are all about human beings, their values, their passions, and their actions, thus being comprehensible across the borders of time and cultures. Pavel points out that the genre has always involved a strong debate between the idealization of human action and the critique of its imperfection. 21st-century readers do not live in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the 18th-century, yet, because of this debate, the sublime story of Tristan, the comic one of Don Quixote, and the problematic one of Moll Flanders are still immediately accessible to them. History, Pavel concludes, must be sensitive to the layer of permanence that underlies cultural change.

Other activities

Pavel published two works of fiction: Le Miroir persan (The Persian Mirror), a cycle of stories playing with fictional worlds, and La sixième branche (The Sixth Branch), a novel of love, betrayal, and forgiveness.

He co-founded and co-edited with Mark Lilla the series New French Thought, Princeton University Press (1994 – 2010), dedicated to bringing innovative French intellectual debates to the English-speaking audience. The series issued translations of books by Jacques Bouveresse, Monique Canto-Sperber, Antoine Compagnon, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Marcel Gauchet, Blandine Kriegel, Gilles Lipovetsky, Pierre Manent, Alain Renaut, Pierre Rosanvallon, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer.

Pavel's works have been published in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Czech, and Japanese.

Bibliography

  • Fragmente despre cuvinte.(Essay). Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură, 1968.
  • La Syntaxe narrative des tragédies de Corneille: Recherches et propositions. Paris: Klincksieck, 1976.
  • Inflexions de voix. (Essay). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1976.
  • Le Miroir persan. (Stories). Paris: Denoël & Montréal: Quinze, 1978.
  • The Poetics of Plot: The Case of English Renaissance Drama. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
  • Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
  • Le Mirage Linguistique, Paris: Minuit, 1988.
  • The Feud of Language: A History of Structuralist Thought. Blackwell, 1992, English version of Le Mirage linguistique.
  • L'Art de l'éloignement: Essai sur l'imagination classique. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
  • De Barthes à Balzac: Fictions d'un critique et critiques d'une fiction. (With Claude Bremond.) Paris: Albin Michel, 1998.
  • The Spell of Language: Poststructuralism and Speculation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, revised, expanded version of The Feud of Language.
  • La sixième branche. (Novel). Paris: Fayard, 2003.
  • La Pensée du roman. Paris: Gallimard, 2003.
  • Comment écouter la littérature. Paris: Fayard, 2006.
  • The Lives of the Novel: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013, revised, expanded version of La Pensée du roman.

References

  1. ^ Parvulescu, Ioana (2002). "Toma Pavel: "Nouă ne place lumea asta păcătoasă, cu cărţi..."". Romania literara. Archived from the original on May 19, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  2. ^ "Thomas Pavel". Archived from the original on June 9, 2010. Retrieved June 8, 2014.

Read other articles:

UOB Kay Hian Holdings LimitedNama asli大华继显控股有限公司JenisPublicKode emitenSGX: UOKHIndustriFinancial servicesDidirikanEarly 1900s (as Kay Hian & Co) (Early 1900s (as Kay Hian & Co))PendiriKhoo Kay HianKantorpusatSingaporeTokohkunciChairman: Mr. Wee Ee-chaoJasaBrokerage servicesCorporate financial advisoryPrivate wealth managementResearchPendapatanSGD$375 juta[1]Laba operasiSGD$124 juta[1]Laba bersihSGD$75 juta[1]Karyawan3,036[2]Indu...

 

bupati tapinLambang kabupaten TapinPetahanaMuhammad Syarifuddinsejak 20 September 2023KediamanRumah jabatan Bupati TapinMasa jabatan5 tahun bupati 1tahun untuk pejabatPejabat perdanaPatih H. NaseriDibentuk1965Situs webhttps://portal.tapinkab.go.id/ Berikut ini adalah daftar bupati Tapin yang menjabat sejak pembentukannya pada tahun 1964. No Potret Bupati Mulai menjabat Akhir menjabat Partai Wakil Bupati Periode Ref. 1 Patih H. Naseri 1964 1965   N/A 1 2 Muhammad Hanafiah 1965 1966 &...

 

فير هيفن الإحداثيات 43°19′27″N 76°42′19″W / 43.3242°N 76.7053°W / 43.3242; -76.7053   [1] تقسيم إداري  البلد الولايات المتحدة[2][3]  التقسيم الأعلى مقاطعة كايوغا  خصائص جغرافية  المساحة 7.596693 كيلومتر مربع7.569142 كيلومتر مربع (1 أبريل 2010)  ارتفاع 87 متر  عدد الس�...

بيتشكرافت كوين إيرمعلومات عامةالنوع طائرة خفيفةبلد الأصل الولايات المتحدةالمهام طيران عام — طيران تجاري سعر الوحدة 135,000 (Model 80 in 1962), دولارالتطوير والتصنيعالصانع بيتشكرافتسنة الصنع 1960الكمية المصنوعة 930سيرة الطائرةدخول الخدمة 1960أول طيران 28 أغسطس 1958الوضع الحالي في الخدمة�...

 

Синелобый амазон Научная классификация Домен:ЭукариотыЦарство:ЖивотныеПодцарство:ЭуметазоиБез ранга:Двусторонне-симметричныеБез ранга:ВторичноротыеТип:ХордовыеПодтип:ПозвоночныеИнфратип:ЧелюстноротыеНадкласс:ЧетвероногиеКлада:АмниотыКлада:ЗавропсидыКласс:Пт�...

 

Untuk film Indonesia dengan judul yang hampir sama, lihat Dear Nathan. Dear Nathan the SeriesPoster Dear Nathan the Series di RCTI+Genre Drama Roman Remaja PembuatRapi FilmsBerdasarkanDear Nathanoleh Erisca FebrianiSkenarioAzmya Nasira RaeshaCeritaAzmya Nasira RaeshaSutradara Indra Kobutz Rafki Sati Peppiona Cheppy Pemeran Zikri Daulay Syifa Hadju Randa Septian Keisha Ratuliu Luna Shabrina Penggubah lagu temaHIVI!Lagu pembukaMata ke Hati — HIVI!Lagu penutupMata ke Hati — HIVI!Penata ...

American drummer This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous.Find sources: Slim Jim Phantom – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Slim J...

 

Voce principale: Frosinone Calcio. Associazione Sportiva FrosinoneStagione 1984-1985 Sport calcio Squadra Frosinone Allenatore Mario Santececca, poi Umberto Mannocci, poi Mario Santececca Presidente Giuliano Giurgola Serie C23º posto nel girone D Coppa Italia Serie CSedicesimi di finale Maggiori presenzeCampionato: Benini, Martini (33) Miglior marcatoreCampionato: Viviani (12) 1983-1984 1985-1986 Si invita a seguire il modello di voce Questa voce raccoglie le informazioni riguardanti l...

 

هنودمعلومات عامةنسبة التسمية الهند التعداد الكليالتعداد قرابة 1.21 مليار[1][2]تعداد الهند عام 2011ق. 1.32 مليار[3]تقديرات عام 2017ق. 30.8 مليون[4]مناطق الوجود المميزةبلد الأصل الهند البلد الهند  الهند نيبال 4,000,000[5] الولايات المتحدة 3,982,398[6] الإمار...

Species of true bug Not to be confused with harlequin beetle. Harlequin cabbage bug Adult (left) and nymph (right) Scientific classification Domain: Eukaryota Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hemiptera Suborder: Heteroptera Family: Pentatomidae Genus: Murgantia Species: M. histrionica Binomial name Murgantia histrionica(Hahn, 1834) Aggregated nymphs The harlequin cabbage bug (Murgantia histrionica), also known as calico bug, fire bug or harlequin bug, is a black...

 

Scenic viewing point in New Zealand Te Kopikopiko o te WakaArtistFayne Robinson, Brent BrownleeYear2022LocationGillespies Beach Road, Fox Glacier, New ZealandCoordinates43°27′06″S 169°54′54″E / 43.4516°S 169.9151°E / -43.4516; 169.9151 Te Kopikopiko o te Waka, also known as Peak View Lookout or Fox Glacier View Point, is a scenic viewing point and cultural heritage site located nine kilometres (5.6 mi) to the west of the Fox Glacier township in the Sou...

 

本條目存在以下問題,請協助改善本條目或在討論頁針對議題發表看法。 此條目需要編修,以確保文法、用詞、语气、格式、標點等使用恰当。 (2013年8月6日)請按照校對指引,幫助编辑這個條目。(幫助、討論) 此條目剧情、虛構用語或人物介紹过长过细,需清理无关故事主轴的细节、用語和角色介紹。 (2020年10月6日)劇情、用語和人物介紹都只是用於了解故事主軸,輔助�...

Album by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Concerto for Group and OrchestraLive album by Deep Purple & The Royal Philharmonic OrchestraReleasedDecember 1969 (US)January 1970 (UK)Recorded24 September 1969VenueRoyal Albert Hall (London)GenreClassical crossoverprogressive rockLength59:26LabelTetragrammaton (US)Harvest (UK)Polydor (Canada)ProducerDeep PurpleDeep Purple chronology Deep Purple(1969) Concerto for Group and Orchestra(1969) Deep Purple in Rock(1970) Concerto for...

 

Dutch settlement (1624–1664) This article is about the settlement that became New York City. For other uses, see New Amsterdam (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: New Amsterdam – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this mess...

 

Ongoing COVID-19 viral pandemic in Gagauzia 2020 coronavirus pandemic in GagauziaMap of Gagauzia, an autonomous unit within Moldova DiseaseCOVID-19Virus strainSARS-CoV-2LocationGagauzia, MoldovaFirst outbreakWuhan, Hubei, China via Turkey or RussiaArrival date1 April 2020(4 years, 2 months and 2 weeks)Confirmed cases1,731 (as of 12 August 2020)[1] The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, in Moldova, in April 2020. ...

Railway station in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales LlanharanLlanharan railway station from footbridgeGeneral informationLocationLlanharan, Rhondda Cynon TafWalesCoordinates51°32′17″N 3°26′28″W / 51.538°N 3.441°W / 51.538; -3.441Grid referenceST001830Managed byTransport for Wales RailPlatforms2Other informationStation codeLLRClassificationDfT category F2HistoryOriginal companySouth Wales RailwayPre-groupingGreat Western RailwayKey dates1850Opened2 November 1964Clos...

 

يفتقر محتوى هذه المقالة إلى الاستشهاد بمصادر. فضلاً، ساهم في تطوير هذه المقالة من خلال إضافة مصادر موثوق بها. أي معلومات غير موثقة يمكن التشكيك بها وإزالتها. (نوفمبر 2020) هذه المقالة يتيمة إذ تصل إليها مقالات أخرى قليلة جدًا. فضلًا، ساعد بإضافة وصلة إليها في مقالات متعلقة بها...

 

Sampurnanandसंपूर्णानंदSampurnanand (kiri) dengna Jawaharlal Nehru pada April 1936. Gubernur RajasthanMasa jabatan16 April 1962 – 16 April 1967PendahuluGurumukh Nihal SinghPenggantiSardar Hukam SinghKetua Menteri Uttar Pradesh ke-2Masa jabatan28 Desember 1954 – 7 Desember 1960PendahuluGovind Ballabh PantPenggantiChandra Bhanu Gupta Informasi pribadiLahir(1891-01-01)1 Januari 1891Varanasi, Uttar PradeshMeninggal10 Januari 1969(1969-01-10) (umur ...

Lo xiston di Alessandro Magno - particolare dal mosaico romano Battaglia di Isso. Xyston (ξυστόν, lancia o giavellotto in Greco antico) era una lancia da cavalleria in uso nell'Antica Grecia. Arma molto lunga, 3,5-4,25 m (11-13,9 piedi), era realizzata in legno di corniolo con una punta in metallo. Lo xiston viene sempre citato come arma degli Hetairoi (ἑταῖροι), la cavalleria d'élite del Regno di Macedonia usata come arma risolutiva dai sovrani Filippo II di Macedonia ed Ales...

 

Cet article est une ébauche concernant le Japon et la bière. Vous pouvez partager vos connaissances en l’améliorant (comment ?) selon les recommandations des projets correspondants. Sugidama accrochée à une brasserie de saké à Nara, le lieu de naissance des sugidama. Une sugidama brune au-dessus de l'entrée d'une brasserie de saké à Takayama. Sugidama. Sugidama suspendue(brasserie de saké Senjo). Une sugidama ou sugitama (杉玉?), parfois également dite sakebayashi, est...