Dr Christophe Barnabé
Research
My research broadly includes 20th and 21st century French literature, especially poetry, as well as modern poetry in Spanish and English written on both sides of the Atlantic. I am particularly interested in the study of literary discourse as a means to dismantle traditional dichotomies opposing art and knowledge, magic and science, or rational and irrational modes of thinking. My doctoral research was mainly concerned with the notion of healing. My thesis studies four European poets (Philippe Jaccottet, Antonio Gamoneda, Ted Hughes and Paul Celan) whose work spans the second half of the 20th century. It aims to understand how and why these poets, each in their own way, all seem to call on poetry’s ancient healing roots, precisely at a time when medical science has reached an unprecedented level of efficiency.
Besides my work in the field of medical humanities, I have also written or taught about the intersection of poetry, painting, and music; fiction and hagiography; and, more recently, about the reconstruction of a poem’s genesis through archival research.
Teaching
French language and literature, from the 19th century onwards, especially translation into French, modern poetry, and literary theory. I also run a French poetry creative writing workshop at the Maison Française.
Publications
‘Magie’, Dictionnaire du lyrique, Antonio Rodríguez (ed.), Paris, Classiques Garnier. (Forthcoming 2023.)
‘Sur le Nil. En longeant les carnets d’Esther Tellermann’, L’Étrangère, no. 56 (2022), pp. 106-121.
‘Philippe Jaccottet lisant L’Été: comprendre un malaise’, in Albert Camus et la poésie, ed. by Danièle Leclair and Alexis Lager (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2022), pp. 47-58.
‘Thierry Metz et le cas de L’homme qui penche (1997)’, Fabula/Les colloques: Littérature et écritures du cas (2021), online.
‘Mutam cinerem’ (on Anne Carson’s Nox), Critique, no. 879-880 (2020), pp. 658-669. (Available here.)
‘Du bruissement des organes à la musique des vers: la cénesthésie à l’œuvre dans “Les Nerfs” de Jules Supervielle’, in La figure du poète-médecin, XXe-XXIe siècles, ed. by Alexandre Wenger et al. (Geneva: Georg, 2018), pp. 79-98.
‘Abrupt Majesty. Francis Ponge Face to Face with Fautrier’s Paintings’, in Jean Fautrier. Matière et lumière (Paris: Paris Musées, 2018), pp. 178-189.
‘Les notes indiscrètes de Pablo Montoya’, Europe, no. 1038 (2015), pp. 226-236.
‘Le lieu du perpétuel commencement: Mark Strand, Haydn, et les sept dernières paroles du Christ’, Europe, no. 1026 (2014), pp. 291-304.
(For a full list of publications see my Faculty profile.)
