Eric Gans

(See also Professor Gans' personal website and Wikipedia entry.)

Teaching & Research Interests

Literature since 1800, critical theory, Generative Anthropology, film

• Born Bronx, NY, 1941
• Bronx HS of Science, 1957
• Columbia BA 1960 (summa cum laude)
• Johns Hopkins PhD 1966 (with distinction)
• Taught at Fredonia, NY (SUNY) and Indiana University; came to UCLA in 1969.
• Chair 1974-77, 81-86, 2002-03 (acting).

Selected Publications

Books

• The Discovery of Illusion; Flaubert's Early Works, 1835-1837. (1971)
• Un pari contre l'histoire; les premières nouvelles de Mérimée (Mosaïque) (1972)
• Essais d'esthétique paradoxale (1977)
• Le paradoxe de Phèdre suivi de Le paradoxe constitutif du roman (1975)
• Musset et le "drame tragique"; essai d'analyse paradoxale (1974)
• The Origin of Language : A Formal Theory of Representation (1981)
• The End of Culture : Toward a Generative Anthropology (1985)
• Madame Bovary : The End of Romance (1989)
• Science and Faith : The Anthropology of Revelation (1990)
• Originary Thinking : Elements of Generative Anthropology (1993)
• Signs of Paradox : Irony, Resentment, and other Mimetic Structures (1997)

Selected Recent Articles

• "Aesthetics and Cultural Criticism." boundary 2 25, 1 (Spring 1998): 67-85.
• "The Little Bang: The Early Origin of Language." Anthropoetics 5, 1 (Spring / Summer 1999). Also in Contagion 7 (Spring 2000): 1-17.
• "The Last Word in Lyric: Mallarmé's Silent Siren." New Literary History 30, 4 (Autumn 1999): 785-814.
• "'Staging as an Anthropological Category.'" New Literary History 31, 1 (Winter 2000): 45-56.
• "The Sacred and the Social: Defining Durkheim's Anthropological Legacy." Anthropoetics 6, 1 (Spring /Summer 2000)
• "Form Against Content: René Girard's Theory of Tragedy." Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 56, 1-2 (Jan.-June 2000): 53-65.
• "The Body Sacrificial." in The Body Aesthetic: From Fine Art to Body Modification, ed. Tobin Siebers, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000, 159-78.
• "Originary Democracy and the Critique of Pure Fairness." In The Democratic Experience and Political Violence, ed. David Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg, London: Frank Cass, 2001, 308-24. Also issued as Terrorism and Political Violence 12, 3-4 (Autumn/Winter 2000).
• "Mallarmé contra Wagner." Philosophy and Literature 25, 1 (April 2001): 14-30.

For a more complete listing, see Professor Gans' personal website.

Professional Activities

• Organized and participated in Colloquium on Generative Anthropology, UCLA, April 1990.
• Chaired panel on "Anthropoetics" at the MLA annual meeting in San Diego, December 1994.
• Founded Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, May 1995.
• Weekly Web column, "Chronicles of Love and Resentment" July 1995 - present.
• Organized five-colloquium series on "Generative Anthropology and Religion" for UCLA Center for the Study of Religion, Spring 1997.
  
  

Honors and Awards

• Prix de la langue française - Académie Française 1977
• Chevalier des Palmes Académiques 1982

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