Profile

Peter Starr

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Literature

  • Additional Positions at AU

    Professor of Literature
  • Peter Starr joined American University as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2009. In this role, he bears principal responsibility for 279 full-time faculty in 17 departments, 1650 undergraduate majors, 1150 graduate students, and an annual operating budget of $44M.  His primary goals for the College include recruiting and supporting a more research-active and diverse College faculty, developing new, sharply-targeted doctoral programs in the sciences and humanities, and building bridges to partner organizations in the District and around the globe. 

    Before coming to AU, Starr was a professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California, where—but for a fellowship year at Harvard University—he had taught since 1985.  In 2006-2007, Starr served as interim Dean of USC’s College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.  In this role, he completed the College’s four-year Senior Hiring Initiative, markedly improved the College’s research support infrastructure, and raised a then-record amount toward the College’s $400M campaign goal.  

  • Degrees

    PhD, The Johns Hopkins University, Comparative Literature, 1985
    MA, The Johns Hopkins University, French, 1982
    AB with Distinction, Stanford University, Humanities Special Programs, 1978

  • OFFICE

  • CAS - Dean's Office
  • Battelle Tompkins - 200

  • CONTACT INFO

  • (202) 885-2446
  • Send email Profile UserID

  • MEDIA RELATIONS

  • To request an interview
    please call AU Media Relations
    at 202-885-5950 or
    submit an interview request form.

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

Logics of Failed Revolt: French Theory After May '68 (Stanford UP, 1995) studies the strategically central role played by a constellation of commonplace 'explanations' for the necessary failure of revolutionary action within French theoretical discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Commemorating Trauma: The Paris Commune and Its Cultural Aftermath (Fordham UP, 2006) shows how the enactment of confusion in novels, histories and films effectively parried the specific traumas of the so-called Terrible Year of 1870-1871. Starr recently completed version 1.0 of We the Paranoid, a web-based multimedia ‘book’ examining the mutations of what Richard Hofstadter famously called “the paranoid style” in American culture of the past two decades.

 

Selected Publications

Books

  • We the Paranoid. Web-based multimedia project on the ‘paranoid style’ in contemporary American culture.  Version 1.0 complete.
  • Commemorating Trauma: The Paris Commune and Its Cultural Aftermath. Fordham University Press, 2006.
  • Logics of Failed Revolt: French Theory After May '68. Stanford University Press, 1995.

Executive Experience

  • Dean (interim), USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, 2006-2007.
  • Dean of Undergraduate Programs, USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, 2005-2006.
  • Academic Vice President, USC Academic Senate Executive Board (transitions to President; declined for deanship), 2005.
  • Acting Chair, USC Department of French & Italian, Fall 2002, Fall 2003.
  • President, USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences Faculty Council, 1998-1999.
  • Chair, USC Department of Comparative Literature, 1994-1997, 1998-2001.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • Center for Excellence in Teaching Faculty Fellow, USC, 2005-2008
  • Mellon Faculty Fellow, Harvard University, 1988-1989
  • N.E.H. Summer Stipend, 1988
  • French Government Grant, 1984-1985
  • Camargo Foundation Grant, 1984
  • Phi Beta Kappa, Stanford University, 1978

AU Expert

Area of Expertise: Paranoia and conspiracy theories in contemporary American culture; literary theory; psychoanalytic theory; French literature of the 19th century

Additional Information:  Peter Starr is a renowned scholar in the fields of French literature and literary theory and an expert on paranoia and conspiracy theories in contemporary American culture. He recently completed version 1.0 of We the Paranoid, a Web-based multimedia ‘book’ examining how and why conspiracy theories have developed and taken root in American culture during the past two decades. His best-known research examines how literary, theoretical, and filmic texts bear the traces of significant traumatic events in the cultures from which they spring. His book Logics of Failed Revolt: French Theory After May '68 (Stanford University Press, 1995) studies the strategically central role played by a constellation of commonplace 'explanations' for the necessary failure of revolutionary action within French theoretical discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A second book by Starr, Commemorating Trauma: The Paris Commune and Its Cultural Aftermath (Fordham University Press, 2006), shows how the enactment of confusion in novels, histories, and films effectively parried the specific traumas of the so-called Terrible Year of 1870-1871.

Media Relations
To request an interview please call AU Media Relations at 202-885-5950 or submit an interview request form.

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