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Jan Miernowski

Title: 
Professor
Course Chair
Degree: 

Doctorat, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 1988

Specialties: 

Literary aesthetics, 16th-century literature; Renaissance poetic and rhetoric, especially in relation to philosophy, theology and political discourse. Digital Humanities and e-learning.

Faculty Office: 
760 Van Hise
More Information: 

Distinctions:

  • Engage Recognition Award For Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Technology with Assignments (2011)
  • Kellett Mid-Career Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010)
  • “R1edu Award” for Distinguished Faculty Contribution to Online Learning (2007)
  • Pickard-Bascom Professorship (2004-2007) H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship (1998-2003)
  • Grant Komitetu Badań Naukowych (Polish Governement Research Committee Grant) (1997-1998)
  • NEH Fellowship for University Teachers (1994-1995) Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin at Madison (Spring 1993)

Selected Publications:

  • Dialectique et connaissance dans La Sepmaine de du Bartas, Discours sur discours infiniment divers, (Geneva: Droz, 1992).
  • Anteros, Actes de colloque de Madison, Edited in collaboration with Ullrich Langer, (Orléans: Paradigme, 1994).
  • Signes dissimilaires. La quête des noms divins dans la poésie française de la Renaissance, (Genève, Droz, 1997).
  • Le Dieu Néant. Théologies négatives à l'aube des temps modernes, (Leiden - New York - Koln, E. J. Brill, 1998).
  • L'ontologie de la contradiction sceptique. Pour une étude de la métaphysique des Essais, (Champion, Paris, 1998).
  • Piekne banialuki, ku najlepszej prawdzie wylozone, czyli alegoria jako prowokacja w literaturze starofrancuskiej [Fine idiocies interpreted in the most perfect sense. Allegory as Provocation in French Medieval and Early-Modern Literature]- (Warsaw, Czytelnik, 2000).
  • Bog-Nicosc, Teologie negatywne u progu czasow nowozytnych, (Warszawa, Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii, 2000).
  • Critical edition: Euvres poetiques intitulez louanges, by Jacques Peletier du Mans, co-authored with S. Arnaud and S. Bamforth (Paris, Champion, 2005).

Teaching and Research Interests: Jan Miernowski’s research and teaching interests focus on the aesthetic response of literature to the diverse discourses of early-modern culture such as philosophy, theology, science and politics. His doctoral thesis was devoted to the poetic expression of Renaissance logic. The subsequent books comprise a wide-ranging study of the impact of negative theology on French 16th-century poetry, on Medieval and Renaissance philosophy, as well as specifically on the poetics of Montaigne’s skepticism. The most recent books are a monograph on allegory in French literature from the Roman de la rose to Pascal, and a co-authored critical edition of poetry by Peletier du Mans. Jan Miernowski’s current projects include a monograph on the aesthetics of hatred in French literature from the Renaissance to the present times. Recently, Jan Miernowski led a team of multimedia specialists and scholars (Chris Kleinhenz, Ullrich Langer, Jane Tylus) who designed a fully online and highly interactive course on French and Italian Renaissance Literature (Lit. 360).

Primary Language: 
French