David Ferris (Ph.D., SUNY-Buffalo) is Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities. Prior to teaching at CU-Boulder he held concurrent positions in Comparative Literature, English and German at the Graduate School and in Comparative Literature at Queens College of the City University of New York, in Comparative Literature and English at Yale University, and in English at Haverford College. His recent publications include essays on Adorno and Modernism, Benjamin and photography, Vattimo and the postmodern. He is also a contributor to the ACLA's Ten Year Report on the Discipline. His current projects include two books: Politics after Aesthetics and Postmodern Mimesis: The Ethics of Distortion. He has received a Senior Faculty Research Fellowship from the ACLS, NEH Summer Research Grant, and has been a Fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale.

Teaching Interests

Modern European literature-especially poetry, modernity and the postmodern, photography and painting, reception of the Enlightenment in the 19th and 20th centuries, lyric poetry, 19th and 20th century aesthetics and literary theory, the Frankfurt School, Walter Benjamin, political theory, 18th and late 20th century painting.



Current Courses


 COML 6040: 1968: Politics after Aesthetics (Fall 2008)   Course Website  (Syllabus)


 HUMN 2000: Methods/Approaches to the Humanities (Fall 2008)




Upcoming Courses


 HUMN 3660: The Postmodern (Spring 2009)  Course Website  (Syllabus)


 HUMN: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (2009-2010)


 HUMN: Cinematic Narrative




Recent Courses


 COML 5370/ENGL 5549: Modern Lyric


 COML 6040: Histories of the Real: The Modern and the Postmodern


 HUMN 4093: Modernity/Postmodernity


 COML 6040: Politics and Aesthetics


 COML 5000: Proseminar in Comparative Literature

Books

(excerpt) The Cambridge Introduction to Walter Benjamin. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Editor. The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Silent Urns: Romanticism, Hellenism, Modernity. Stanford University Press, 2000. Editor. Walter Benjamin: Theoretical Questions. Stanford University Press, 1996. Theory and the Evasion of History. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Recent Articles

"Das Geschenk des Politisches: Schiller und die Griechen," in Schiller Gedenken—Vergessen—Lesen, ed. Rudolf Helmstetter, Holt Meyer, and Daniel Müller Nielaba, (Paderborn: Fink Verlag, forthcoming).

"Fragments of an Interrupted Life: Keats, Blanchot and the Gift of Death," in The Meaning of 'Life' in British Romantic Poetry and Poetics, ed. Ross Wilson (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).

"Preserving Aesthetic Ecstasy: Bohrer's Suddenness and the Moment of the Modern," in English Language Notes 46.1 (Spring/Summer 2008).

"Deconstruzione e secolarizzazione di Sant'Ivo," in Dopo il Museo, ed. Federico Liusetti and Giorgio Margliano (Turin: Trauben, 2006).

"Indiscipline," in American Comparative Literature Association: Ten Year Report on the Discipline, ed. Haun Saussy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2006).

"The Shortness of History or, Photography in Nuce: Benjamin's Attenuation of the Negative," in Walter Benjamin and History, ed. Andrew Benjamin (London: Continuum, 2005)

"Politics and the Enigma of Art: The Meaning of Modernism for Adorno," Modernist Cultures, 2005. (URL: http://www.js-modcult.bham.ac.uk/index.asp)

"Aesthetic Violence and the Legitimacy of Reading Romanticism," Romantic Circles, April 2005. (URL: http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/aesthetic/ferris/ferris.html)

"Reading Benjamin," in The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

"The Question of a Science: Encyclopedistic Romanticism," The Wordsworth Circle, 35:1 (Winter 2004).

"Post-modern Interdisciplinarity: Kant, Diderot and the Encyclopedic Project," Modern Language Notes (Comparative Literature issue) 118:5 (December 2003), 1251-1277.

Recent Conferences & Guest Lectures

"The Distortion of Presence: Sebald's Ethical Memory," W.G. Sebald International Conference, University of East Anglia, September 2008.

"Postmodern Obstructions: Dogma and Obstruction in Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions," University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, April 2008.

"Taking Exception to Romanticism," Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi Romantici/North American Association for the Study of Romanticism, University of Bologna, March 2008.

"Unpresenting Law: Aesthetic Crisis in Schiller's Politics," Special Session, Joint Conference, North American Association for the Study of Romanticism/British Association for Romantic Studies, Bristol University, July 2007.

"L'Esitazione di Vattimo," Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, April 2006.

"Documenting Politics: Walter Benjamin and Photography," Queens University, Belfast, April 2006.

"Walter Benjamin: Founding the Politics of Modernity," Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, April 2006.

"Celebrating Schiller Celebrating Greeks: The Return of the Political," Schiller Bicentennial, University of Erfurt, Germany, October 2005.

"From Interruption to Obstruction: Modernity and the Postmodern in Heinrich Böll and Lars von Trier" Dept. of German, Johns Hopkins University, September 2005.

"Shadows on the Wall of Reason: Diderot before Fragonard," Dept. of French and Italian, Princeton University, October 2004.

"Politics of the Useless: Art between Heidegger and Benjamin 1935-36," Dept. of German, Princeton University, October 2004.

"An Art for Postmodernity?" Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, Italy, May 2004.

"Captions for Modernity: Atget with Benjamin," Dept. of Philosophy, University of Turin, Italy, May 2004.

"Kant with Diderot: Interdisciplinarity and the Englightenment of Reason," Center for the Study of Theory and Criticism, University of Western Ontario, Canada, October 2003.