Periods: Twentieth century, early modern period (especially lyric poetry)

Languages: French, Italian, Latin

Research Interests: translation, literary theory, twentieth-century French and Italian literature (particularly poetry), comparative literature, historiography as it intersects with literary theory

Prof. Bermann is Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Comparative Literature. In addition to articles and reviews in scholarly journals, she is author of The Sonnet Over Time: Studies in the Sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire; translator of Manzoni’s On the Historical Novel; co-editor of Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation; and co-editor of A Companion to Translation Studies. Her current projects focus on lyric poetry, translation studies, historiography and literary theory, migration and literature, and new directions in comparative literature.

A recipient of Whiting and Fulbright Fellowships, she has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Columbia University Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall in Paris. At Princeton, she chaired the Department of Comparative Literature for twelve years, served as Head of Whitman College and of Stevenson Hall, co-founded the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, and led the President’s Working Group on the Bridge Year Program. She completed a term as President of the American Comparative Literature Association in 2009 and is currently President of the International Comparative Literature Association (2019-2022).

Prof. Bermann is interested in working with graduate students whose research interests in some way overlap with her own: lyric poetry, short story forms, translation and migration, comparative literature in contemporary contexts, translation studies.

Books

A Companion to Translation Studies (co-editor with Catherine Porter)

Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation (co-editor with Michael Wood)

Manzoni’s On the Historical Novel (translator)

The Sonnet Over Time: Studies in the Sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire

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