RLL invites you to join the France and the World Seminar (MHC) on November 12 at 5pm in Barker 114 for a talk by Peter Szendy (Brown) on "The Readee, or: Reading in the Subjunctive Mood." The lecture will introduce the notion of the readee, the addressee of reading (with all the misdirections that such an address can involve). It will then explore, guided by some passages in Paul Valéry’s “My Faust,” the idea of reading in the subjunctive mood, as a promise of reading that constantly shadows reading itself.
Peter Szendy is Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature at Brown University and musicological advisor for the book series published by La Philharmonie de Paris. His writings include: Powers of Reading: From Plato to Audiobooks (Zone Books, 2025); For an Ecology of Images (Verso, 2025); The Supermarket of the Visible: Toward a General Economy of Images (Fordham University Press, 2019); Of Stigmatology: Punctuation as Experience (Fordham University Press, 2018); All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage (Fordham University Press, 2007); Listen: A History of Our Ears (Fordham University Press, 2001). He curated the exhibition The Supermarket of Images at the museum of the Jeu de Paume in Paris (February-June 2020).
If you have any questions about the event, please reach out to Hannah Frydman (hfrydman@fas.harvrad.edu)