Robert Morrissey
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
1115 E. 58th Street.
Chicago, IL 60637
Office: Wieboldt 219
Phone: 773/702-8479
Email: rmorriss@uchicago.edu
Benjamin Franklin Professor, French Literature, Committee on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, and the College
Robert Morrissey, who began teaching at the University in 1978, earned his Ph.D. with honors in French literature from Chicago in 1981. Morrissey specializes in 18th- and 19th-century French history, literature and critical theory. His work concentrates on themes and cultural currents over the longue durée. His publications include L'Empereur à la barbe fleurie: Charlemagne dans la mythologie et l'histoire de France, which received the Grand Prix d'histoire Chateaubriand d'Histoire (Eng. trans. Charlemagne and France: A Thousand Years of Mythology), and La Rêverie jusqu'à Rousseau; Recherches sur un topos littéraire. Critical editions: L'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert (on-line edition), Rousseau's Rêveries d'un promeneur solitaire. He is Director of ARTFL and of the France-Chicago Center.
Education
- PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 1981.
Awards, Honors and Professional Experience
- Director of ARTFL and of the France-Chicago Center.
- Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite, 1999.
- Grand Prix d'Histoire Chateaubriand, 1997.
- Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 1990.
- Visiting professorships at Princeton University and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
Selected Courses Taught
Courses on the French Enlightenment : major authors (Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau); New Approaches to the Encyclopédie; Les "Philosophes".
Courses on Nineteenth Century literature and culture: major authors Stendhal, Hugo, Flaubert; Napoléon and the arts.