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Andre Benhaim

Department/Program(s):

Position: Associate Professor

Title: Associate Professor of French and Italian

Office: 331 East Pyne

Phone: 609-258-7332

Email: abenhaim@princeton.edu

Profile

A native of Paris, France, André Benhaïm received a Maîtrise de Lettres Modernes from the Université de Paris-7, and a Diplôme d’Etudes Avancées from the Université de Lille-3, before obtaining his Ph.D. from Emory University. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2001. Professor Benhaïm’s main areas of research and teaching are 20th-century French prose literature and culture and Francophone literature and culture from North Africa and the Mediterranean. Particularly interested in questions of identity and representation, and the relation between ethics and aesthetics, he also focuses on the relationship between “canonical” literature (Proust, Camus…), contemporary works (Chevillard, Modiano…), and “popular culture.” A Proust scholar, he is the author of Panim. Visages de Proust (2006), and has just undertaken the publication of a collection of essays: The Strange M. Proust (forthcoming, 2008). He has also co-edited Ecrivains de la Préhistoire (2004), and a special issue of the journal Revue des Sciences Humaines entitled “Petits coins. Lieux de Mémoire” (2001). Lately, his research has led him to study French and Francophone bandes dessinées (and graphic novels), from Hergé’s Tintin to Joann Sfar’s Le Chat du Rabbin. Professor Benhaïm is currently writing a book on the Mediterranean as a space of passages and transformations. Professor Benhaïm recently joined “Animalittérature / Animaliterature,” a CNRS team (the French National Center of Scientific Research) devoted to the study of animals in French literature.

Teaching Interests

Professor Benhaïm regularly teaches graduate seminars and undergraduate courses on Marcel Proust and the Mediterranean. Some of his favorite courses include one on Paris in the 20^th century (“Visions of Paris”), and one on hospitality (“ Tales of Hospitality: France, North Africa, and the Mediterranean”), cross-listed with Comparative Literature. He recently offered a Freshman Seminar entitled “People of the (Comic) Book. Jews and Their Images in American and French Popular Culture” (sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion).

Current Projects

Mediterranean Passages. Tales of Travels, Strangers, and Transformations. Chapters include studies on Homer’s The Odyssey, Albert Camus, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, Albert Cohen, and Childhood in the Mediterranean through film (The Battle of Algiers, Caché, Azur et Asmar), and graphic novels (from Carnets d’Orient to The Rabbi’s Cat).

Recent Publications

The Strange M. Proust
A. Benhaïm ed. Oxford: Legenda, 2009

Panim. Visages de Proust
Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2006

Écrivains de la préhistoire
A. Benhaim and M. Lantelme eds. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, collection “Cribles”, 2004.