Thomas Pavel
Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor of French Literature, and the Committee on Social Thought
Office: Wieboldt 409C
tpavel@uchicago.edu
Professor Pavel's scholarship includes works on the theory of fiction, the history of the European novel, Renaissance literature, and French seventeenth- and twentieth-century literature and intellectual life. A native of Romania, he earned his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He has taught at various schools in Europe, Canada and the US. His books, Fictional Worlds and Le Mirage linguistique, have been translated into several languages. Presently he is working on an English version of his book La Pensée du roman, a history of the novel. Professor Pavel also writes fiction in French (Le Miroir persan, La sixième branche).
Education
- Doctorat 3e cycle, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1971
- MA in linguistics, University of Bucharest, 1962
Awards, Honors, and Professional Experience
- Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Chicago, 2007
- Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 2004
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999
- The René Wellek Prize, 1992
- Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, France, 1990
- The Jubiliary Medal of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second, Canada, 1977
- Has held full time positions at Princeton University, the University of California, Santa Cruz, Université du Québec à Montréal, and the University of Ottawa
- Has been a visiting professor at Collège de France, Université de Paris-IV (Sorbonne), l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Harvard University, and the University of Amsterdam
Selected Courses Taught
- Fiction and Moral Life
- The Reign of Passions in Seventeenth-Century Literature
- Cervantes, Don Quijote (with Professor Frederick de Armas)
- Balzac, Lost Illusions
- Novels of Self-Discovery—Stendhal, Flaubert, Fontane