Jean Starobinski

Jean Starobinski (born in 1920 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a Swiss literary critic.

Biography

Jean Starobinski studied classical literature, and then medicine at the University of Geneva, and graduated from that school with a doctorate in letters (docteur ès lettres) and in medicine. He taught French literature at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Basel and at the University of Geneva, where he also taught courses in the history of ideas and the history of medicine.

His existential and phenomenological literary criticism is sometimes grouped with the so-called "Geneva School." He has written landmark works on French literature of the 18th century – including works on the writers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, etc. – and also on authors of other periods (such as Michel de Montaigne). He has also written on contemporary poetry, art, and the problems of interpretation. His books have been translated in dozens of languages.

His knowledge of medicine and psychiatry brought him to study the history of melancholia (notably in the "Trois Fureurs", 1974). He was the first scholar to publish work (in 1964) on Ferdinand de Saussure's study of anagrams.

Jean Starobinski is a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, the Institut de France, and other French, European and American learned academies. He has honorary degrees ("honoris causa") from numerous universities in Europe and America.

Works

* "Montesquieu", Paris, Seuil, 1953; reedited, 1994.
* "Jean-Jacques Rousseau: la transparence et l’obstacle", Paris, Plon, 1957; Gallimard, 1971.
* "Histoire du traitement de la mélancolie, des origines à 1900" Thèse, Bâle, Acta psychosomatica, 1960.
* "L’Œil vivant", Paris, Gallimard, 1961.
* "L’Invention de la Liberté", Geneva, Skira, 1964.
* "Hamlet and Freud" in "Hamlet and Oedipus" by Ernest Jones, introduction by Jean Starobinski, Tel Gallimard, Poche, ISBN 2-07-020651-3
* "Portrait de l’artiste en saltimbanque", Geneva, Skira, 1970; Paris, Gallimard, 2004.
* "La Relation critique", Paris, Gallimard, 1970; coll. «Tel», 2000.
* "Les Mots sous les mots: les anagrammes de Ferdinand de Saussure", Paris, Gallimard, 1971.
* "1789: Les Emblèmes de la Raison", Paris, Flammarion, 1973.
* "Trois Fureurs", Paris, Gallimard, 1974.
* "La conscience du corps" in "Revue Française de Psychanalyse", 1981, n0 45/2,
* "Montaigne en mouvement", Paris, Gallimard, 1982.
* "Claude Garache", Paris, Flammarion, 1988.
* "Table d’orientation", Lausanne, L’Âge d’homme, 1989.
* "Le Remède dans le mal. Critique et légitimation de l’artifice à l’âge des Lumières", Paris, Gallimard, 1989.
* "La mélancolie au miroir. Trois lectures de Baudelaire", Paris, Julliard, 1990.
* "Diderot dans l’espace des peintres", Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1991.
* "Largesse", Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1994.
* "Action et réaction. Vie et aventures d’un couple", Paris, Seuil, 1999.
* "La Poésie et la guerre, chroniques 1942-1944", Zoé, Geneva, 1999.
* "La Caresse et le fouet, André Chénier", with engravings by Claude Garache, Editart, D. Blanco, Geneva, 1999.
* "Le poème d'invitation", La Dogana, Geneva, 2001.
* "Les enchanteresses", Seuil, Paris, 2005.

References

:"This article is based on an abridged version of the article Jean Starobinski from the French Wikipedia, retrieved on September 30, 2006."

External links

* [http://www.asmp.fr/fiches_academiciens/STAROBINSKI.HTM Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques] (in French)
* [http://www.jjrousseau.org/bio/starobin.html Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau] (in French)
* [http://archives.tsr.ch/search?q_doc-id=personnalite-starobinski Video "Starobinski, Jean"] (in French)