Matthew Senior
- Ruberta T. McCandless Professor of French
Notes
Matthew Senior Contributes Chapter
October 24, 2018
Matthew Senior, Ruberta T. McCandless professor of French, contributed a chapter,“Classify and Display: Human and Animal Species in Linnaeus and Cuvier,” to Animals, Animality and Literature, Bruce Boehrer, Molly Hand, and Brian Massumi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2018. The essay examines the intersection and overlap between systems of classification for plants and animals and those used to classify humans according to racialized anatomical differences. For this article Senior consulted rich holdings in natural history in the Special Collections department of Oberlin Libraries, including a famous illustration from the work of Linnaeus depicting intermediate species between Homo sapiens and members of the ape family.
Matthew Senior Presents Invited Paper
December 8, 2016
Ruberta T. McCandless Professor of French Matthew Senior presented an invited paper, “Taxonomy: Human and Animal Patterning, 1485-1760,” at the Patterns in Early Modern France conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Matthew Senior Presents Papers at Conferences
January 21, 2016
Ruberta T. McCandless Professor of French Matthew Senior presented two papers at international conferences during the Fall 2015 semester. '"Only the soul feels': Disembodied Emotions in Descartes" was part of the interdisciplinary conference Compassion in Early Modern Culture, 1550-1700, hosted by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, September 19, 2015.
The second paper, "Le visage de l'animal (XVIe-XVIIIe siecles): de l'anthropomorphisme au zoomorphisme," was presented at the Portraits: regards sur l'animal et son language conference, hosted by the universities of Le Mans and Angers, October 8, 2015.
Matthew Senior Co-edits, Contributes Essay
November 9, 2015
Ruberta T. McCandless Professor of French Matthew Senior co-edited and contributed an essay to the spring 2015 issue of Yale French Studies. The special volume, Animots: Postanimality in French Thought, co-edited with Carla Freccero (University of California Santa Cruz) and David L. Clark (McMaster University), examines the role of real and figural animals in French philosophy, literature, and art, ranging from Georges Bataille’s writings on prehistoric art to medieval bestiaries, animals in Holocaust literature, and animals in contemporary cinema. Senior’s essay is "'L'animal que donc je suis': Self-Humaning in Descartes and Derrida.”
Matt Senior Presents, Publishes
May 27, 2014
Professor of French Matthew Senior gave an invited talk, “1671: The Zoomorphic Face in Charles Le Brun,” at an interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley, April 11-12. Entitled “About Faces,” the conference examined philosophical theories of the face as well the history of the face in film, literature, physiognomy, portraiture, surveillance, and plastic surgery.