Events at Reed

Jonathan Culler has served as president of the American Comparative Literature Association and chair of the English, comparative literature, and Romance Studies departments at Cornell, where he has also been senior associate dean of arts and sciences. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2006. Known especially for the book On Deconstruction and Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, he is working on Baudelaire and on the theory of the lyric. In this talk, Culler will examine a number of "hyper-canonical poems," ranging from Sappho to Ashbery, in order to explore the parameters of a theoretical account of the lyric. Sponsored by the Division of Literature and Languages. [Photo courtesy of Cornell University.]