BOOKS

Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics (in press)

“Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics” takes up a set of deeply-rooted questions regarding literature and politics in relation to one of the pillars the European literature:  Don Quixote.

Bookended by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and centrally engaging Plato’s Republic, Cervantes’ novel is fundamentally involved in assessing the place of literature within the state.  Cervantes explores the limits of the possible languages for speaking about politics, implicitly responding to the frankness of Machiavelli ‘s discourse about rulership in the new state and offering literature as an alternative to Hobbes’ and Bacon’s “science of politics.”  At the same time, Cervantes responds to a specific set of historical conditions surrounding the political imagination of the early modern nation and its empire.  These were conditions in which nearly all forms of public speech were constrained, and in which literature provided an opportunity for speaking the truth about politics without speaking about politics directly.

The book provides a thorough reading of Don Quixote as well as a wide-ranging and scholarly treatment of Cervantes’ relationship to his many early modern predecessors, including humanists and rhetoricians.  It deals with the practical roots of political theory in travel writing, and the legacy in Cervantes of classical political questions as engaged by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.  The book also makes a broader argument defining the potential role of literature in the discourse of politics.

UPDATE May 06th 2011.

Dear Colleagues,

Chancellor Birgeneau and I are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Anthony Cascardi as the new Dean of Arts and Humanities, effective July 1, 2011.

Tony holds appointments in the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature, and Rhetoric.  Besides being a respected scholar, he also has extensive campus leadership and administrative experience.  He has chaired two departments, Comparative Literature and Rhetoric, and was Interim Dean of Arts and Humanities in 2005-06.   He is currently the Director of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities.

Tony’s record of scholarship also makes him eminently qualified for the job of Dean of Arts and Humanities.  He has produced a substantial body of work in his primary field of Golden-Age Spanish literature, and he has been highly productive as well in the field of philosophical aesthetics, especially twentieth-century European aesthetic theory, and in narrative theory.  In addition to literature and philosophy, he has published on painting and film.

Tony has a deep understanding of the needs and ambitions of the faculty, staff, and students, and has shown himself to be a creative and successful leader.  He has earned the trust of the administration and the respect and admiration of his colleagues.

Please join us in congratulating Tony on his new appointment and in thanking him for his service to the University.

Sincerely,

George Breslauer
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost