Robert J. Niess Collegiate Professor of French Literature and Art
About
My interests cover a broad range of topics in nineteenth-century literature, art, and culture. I have written on the theory of parody and on Decadence (Parody and Decadence. Laforgue's Moralités légendaires, Ohio State, 1989); Baudelaire, the city, modernity, and Walter Benjamin (Baudelaire and Caricature. From the Comic to an Art of Modernity, Penn State, 1992; "The Allegorical Artist and the Crises of History: Benjamin, Grandville, Baudelaire," Word & Image, 1994). I have developed a special interest in the relations between text and image, as well as art criticism and theory. In this context, I am a specialist on the work of the painter Delacroix: Painting and the Journal of Eugène Delacroix, Princeton, 1995).
I published a major new edition, in French and with commentary, of Delacroix's Journals, a project which led me to consider the relations between autobiography and history: how a personal, private diary can be a particular "écriture de l'histoire." Eugène Delacroix. Journal, 2 vols.(Paris, José Corti, 2009). I have also worked extensively on Delacroix's 1832 journey to the Maghreb, including a translation of his "Moroccan" writings (Eugène Delacroix, Journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia, 1832, Penn State, 2019) and a facsimile edition of the six sketchbooks and notebooks that he took on the trip, including two that came to light only recently ( Eugène Delacroix. Carnets de voyage au Maghreb et en Andalousie, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2023).
I published a book on the relations between the writing of art and the writing of history, focusing on the work of Michelet: Jules Michelet. Writing Art and History in Nineteenth-Century France (Penn Sate, 2019). I am currently working on early photography in the Mediterranean. I am also translating Delacroix's journals into English.
I am particularly interested in poetry.
I was the faculty lead on the University's Mediterranean studies initiative.
Recent and Selected Publications
Eugène Delacroix. Carnets de voyage au Maghreb et en Andalousie. Facsimile edition of the six known notebooks and sketchbooks (including 2 unpublished ones) from Delacroix’s journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia, with volume of commentary and transcriptions. 7 vols (Paris: Citadelles et Mazenod, 2023)
"Delacroix in Morocco and Andalusia: rediscovered notebooks and drawings," The Burlington Magazine, vol. 1440, no. 165 (March 2023), 226-257
Jules Michelet: Writing Art and History in Nineteenth-Century France (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019)
Eugène Delacroix, Journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia, 1832. Translation into English of the section of Delacroix’s Journal covering his journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia. With introduction, notes, biographies, and bibliography. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019)
"The Art of Wandering: Alexander Svoboda and Photography in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean," in The Art of Travel: The Mobility of People and Things in the Early Modern Mediterranean, ed. Elisabeth Fraser, New York, Routledge, 2019, 131-51.
"Horace Vernet’s Orient: Photography and the Eastern Mediterranean in 1839," The Burlington Magazine, CLVIII (April 2016), Part I, 264-271. Part II (June 2016), 430-439
"Practices of Photography: Circulation and Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean," History of Photography 40, 1 (February 2016), 3-27
"Delacroix and the ends of civilizations," in Delacroix and the Question of Finish, exhibition catalogue, ed. Eik Kahng, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2013, pp. 76-93
"Reading the Trial of the Fleurs du mal," Modern Language Review 106, 2 (April 2011), pp. 374-387
"Peinture et correspondances dans l'oeuvre de Baudelaire," Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études françaises 62 (May 2010), pp.207-221
Eugène Delacroix, Journal, ed. Michèle Hannoosh, 2 vols, Paris, José Corti, 2009
"Delacroix, ‘J.’ and Still Life with Lobsters," The Burlington Magazine, September 2009
“Imagination esthétique et conscience historique : Jules Michelet et les arts plastiques,” in Romantismes. L’esthétique en acte, ed. Jean-Louis Cabanès (Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest, 2009), pp. 347-357
“Between Ingres, Delacroix and the Pre-Raphaelites: A (No Longer) Anonymous Painter in Italy,” The Burlington Magazine, CL, 1262 (May 2008), pp. 301-311
“Théophile Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants: Art Criticism and Photography,” The Art Bulletin LXXXVIII, 4 (December 2006), pp. 729-755
Painting and the Journal of Eugene Delacroix (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)
"The Allegorical Artist and the Crises of History: Benjamin, Grandville, Baudelaire." Word and Image X, vol.1 (1994): 38-54
Baudelaire and Caricature. From the Comic to an Art of Modernity (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992)
Parody and Decadence. Laforgue's Moralités légendaires (Columbuds Ohio State University Press, 1989, reprinted 2016)
Recent graduate courses taught:
In the Salon of Germaine de Staël: the Invention of Romanticism
Baudelaire
Literature and Photography
Fictions of Fashion in Nineteenth-Century France: Art, Literature, Theory (team-taught course with Prof. Susan Siegfried of the History of Art department)
Restoration France 1815-1830: Romanticism and the Arts
Representing Revolution in Nineteenth-Century France
Walter Benjamin
Figuring the Artist in Nineteenth-Century France (team-taught course with Prof. Susan Siegfried of the History of Art Department)
Poetry and Painting in Nineteenth-Century France
Forms of Autobiography
Recent undergraduate courses taught:
Littérature et Justice
Lire la poésie
La Bohème
Le Procès: Littérature et art devant la loi
Poésie du XIXe siècle
L’Espagne romantique
Literature on Trial (Romance Languages & Literatures course)
Révolution, Restauration, Romantisme
Paris, capitale du XIXe siècle
Réalisme et idéalisme dans le roman français du XIXe siècle
Research Areas(s)
- Nineteenth-century French literature, art, and society
- art criticism, relations between the arts, text-image relations
- the city, Walter Benjamin, the history of modernity
- the representation of history
- poetry
- the Mediterranean
