Cadava capitalizes on crossroads of disciplines to create links

by Jennifer Greenstein Altmann
Professor Eduardo Cadava works at the intersection of disciplines. While he is a member of the English department, he also is the dissertation adviser for nine students in four other academic departments; holds the position of associate member of the School of Architecture and the German and comparative literature departments; and explores disparate subjects in his scholarly work that include photography, mourning and even 19th-century fertilizer importation.

His work draws from literature in American, English, French, German, Spanish, Greek and Arabic, and spans several disciplines, including philosophy, history, politics, photography and the natural sciences.

"Nothing happens in isolation," Cadava said. "I'm very interested in thinking about the relation between literature and these other disciplines, between literature and the arts, between literature and technology. One of the things that makes literature literature is that it's never just about itself. It's always touched by history, politics, economics and religion."

Kerry Bystrom, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in English, said of Cadava, "I think it is really important for the English department to have professors like Eduardo, who go out and make connections with work being done in other fields. He has an expansive sense about what the study of literature should be, and this openness helps create links between students and faculty in different departments and different periods of specialization that are very fruitful."

Read the full story in the Weekly Bulletin.