Georges Yves-Francois Van Den Abbeele

Picture of Georges Yves-Francois Van Den Abbeele
Professor, Comparative Literature
School of Humanities
Professor, English
School of Humanities
Professor, European Languages and Studies
School of Humanities
B.A., Reed College, 1976
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1981, Romance Studies
University of California, Irvine

Mail Code: 3375
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
French and European philosophical literature, travel narrative and tourism/migration studies; critical theory and aesthetics
Academic Distinctions
Blaise Pascal Medal, European Academy of Science
Research Abstract
Full list of research interests: French and European philosophical literature (early modern: Montaigne, Descartes, the moralistes, classicism, and Enlightenment; modern/postmodern: surrealism, existentialism, the Frankfurt School, structuralism and poststructuralism, Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida); travel narrative and tourism/migration studies; critical theory and aesthetics; francophone literature (Belgian, Canadian, Caribbean and Vietnamese); history of cartography; media history and theory (print culture, cinema history, especially classic Hollywood, Italian neo-realism and French nouvelle vague, and digital media); the fable as genre; history of the French intellectual; European studies; Western American literature and history; site interpretation and preservation; humanities and public policy.
Publications
Books and Edited Volumes:

The Work of Jean-François Lyotard, special issue of Diacritics 14:3 (Fall 1984).

The Discourse of Travel, special issue of L'Esprit Créateur 25:3 (Fall 1985).

Community at Loose Ends, introduced by G. Van Den Abbeele and ed. by G. Van Den
Abbeele, J. Creech, S. Nimis, B. Harwood, M. Greenberg and M.-C. Vallois (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991)

Travel as Metaphor: From Montaigne to Rousseau (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1992).

Writing Between the Lines (Censored), special issue of Diacritics 27:2 (Summer 1997).

Travels and Travelers/Voyages et voyageurs, special issue of Sites 5:1 (Spring 2001),
co-edited with Roger Celestin and Eliane Dal Molin.

French Civilization and its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race, ed. with Tyler
Stovall (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

A World of Fables, ed. with Brenda Schildgen (Berkeley, CA: Pacific View Press, 2003).

Tourism and Tourists in Language and Linguistics, special issue of Textus XXV (2012: no. 1), co-edited with Luisanna Fodde.
Books Translated:

Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988). Listed in The Philosopher's Index

Eric Alliez, Capital Times: Tales from the Conquest of Time I (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

Jean-François Lyotard, Postmodern Fables (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).

Jean-François Lyotard, Enthusiasm: The Kantian Critique of History (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2009).

Jean-François Lyotard, The Poverty of Philosophy (in progress).
Articles:

"Sightseers: The Tourist as Theorist," Diacritics 10 (Winter, 1980), pp. 3-14.

"The Order of Commentary: Foucault, History and Literature," SCE Reports 11 (Spring, 1982), pp. 32-54.

"Cartesian Coordinates: Metaphor, Topography, and Presupposition in Descartes," Biblio 17 (Voyages: Récits et Imaginaire) 11 (1983), pp. 1-15.

"Utopian Sexuality and its Discontents: Exoticism and Colonialism in the Supplément au voyage de Bougainville," Esprit Créateur 24 (Spring, 1984), pp. 43-52.

"Up Against the Wall: The Stage of Judgment," Diacritics 14 (Fall, 1984), pp. 90-98.

"Montesquieu touriste, or a view from the top," L'Esprit Créateur 25 (fall, 1985), pp. 64-74.

"La vérité en négligé: le 'Nouveau Monde' de Marivaux," French Studies 40 (July, 1986), pp. 287-303.

"Foucault, Sade and the Scene of Enlightenment Lucidity," Stanford French Review 11 (Spring, 1987), pp. 7-16.

"1668. Moralists and the Legacy of Cartesianism," in A New History of French ; ed. D. Hollier (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 327-34.

"Pascal and the Forgery of Belief," Romanic Review LXXXI (May, 1990), pp.320-38.

"Fabula est Mundus: On the Plurality of Fontenelle's Worlds," Biblio 17 (Actes de Columbus) 17 (1990), pp. 165-80.

"Introduction" to Community at Loose Ends, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), pp. ix-xxvi.

"Communism, the Proper Name," in Community at Loose Ends (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), pp. 30-41. Listed in The Philosopher's Index

"Algérie l'intraitable: Lyotard's National Front," L'Esprit Créateur XXXI (Spring 1991), pp. 144-57.

"Duplicity and Singularity in André Thevet's Cosmographie de Levant, L’Esprit Créateur XXXII (No. 3: Fall,1992), pp. 25-35.

"Singular Remarks (on Jean-Luc Nancy)," Paragraph 16:2 (1993), pp. 180-86.

"Sites blindés/Armored Sights," in Visite aux armées: Tourismes de guerre/Back to the Front: Tourisms of War, ed. L. Diller and R. Scofidio (Caen: Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, 1994), pp. 219-77.

"Goodbye Columbus: Madame Du Boccage and the Migration of Identity, or not exactly La Vie de Marie-Anne," Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996), 409-24. Rpt. Bolletino del Centro di Viaggio nella Italia (1997)

"L'école des témoins -- ou, entre livre et monde à la renaissance," (le) Télémaque: éducation et philosophie 9 (février 1997), pp. 51-60.

"Lost Horizons and Uncommon Grounds: For a Poetics of Finitude in the Work of Jean-Luc Nancy," in On Jean-Luc Nancy: The Sense of Philosophy, eds. Darren Sheppard, Simon Sparks, and Colin Thomas (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 12-18. Listed in The Philosopher's Index.

“The Persecution of Writing: Revisiting Strauss and Censorship,” Diacritics 27:3 (Summer 1997), 3-17.

“‘Taboo to Totem’: Montaigne, Freud and the Anthropophagic Imaginary,” Montaigne Studies IX (November 1997).

“Fabel,” Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch der Marxismus, ed. Wolfgang Fritz Haug
(Berlin: Argument-Verlag, 1999); English translation, in Historical Materialism
16.4 (2008), 233-38.

“L’Asie fantôme: Malraux’s Inhuman Condition,” MLN 115:4 (Fall 2000), 649-61.

“The Concept of Colony: From Laudonnière to d’Iberville,” Nouveaux Actes de New
Orleans, ed. Erec R. Koch, Biblio 17, 131 (2001), pp. 143-50.

“No Joking Matter: the ‘Other’ Belgium,” Social Identities. 7:4 (2001), 511-24; and
reprinted in Ulf Hedetoft and Flemming Christiansen, The Politics of Multiple
Belonging: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe and East Asia (London:
Ashgate, 2004), pp. 207-20.

“Cultural Studies and the Retreat of Ideology,” Cultural Studies 2 (2002), pp. 94-
106. Chinese translation.

“Theory and the Chunnel: Cultural Studies and the Retreat of Ideology,” Symploke
11.1/2 (2003), 15-32. English original of article previously published in
Chinese.

“Lethal Mobilities: Calvin and the Smart Bomb,” Annali d’Italianistica 21 (2003), pp.
363-78.

“The Children of Belgium,” in French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism,
Colonialism, Race, ed. with T. Stovall (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003),
pp. 323-42.

“Film and Theater,” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: The
Pacific Region, ed. Jan Goggans with Aaron DiFranco (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 2004), pp. 185-212 (in collaboration with John T. Caldwell, Jan Goggans, and Jeff Purdue).

"Lyotard," The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought, ed. L.
Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 598-601.

"Postmodernism," The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought, ed. L.
Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 88-92.

“‘Tears at the End of the Road’: The Impasse of Travel and the Walls at Angel Island,”
in Writing Travel, ed. John Zilcosky (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), pp. 239-60.

“Gender, Exile and Return in Viet-Kieu Literature,” in Transnational Spaces and
Identities of the Francophone World, eds. Hafid Gafaiti, Patricia Lorcin, and David Troyansky, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), pp. 321-43.

“Enthusiasm,” “Intellectuals,” “Pragmatics,” in A Lyotard Dictionary
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), ed. Stuart Sim, pp, 67-68, 106-
108, 195-197.

“Postmodernism and Critical Theory,” in The Routledge Companion to
Postmodernism, 3rd edition (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 15-24.

“Réflections préliminaires à une étude du theme de l’eau et de l’extase dans la littérature
et le cinéma franco-vietnamiens,” Carnets: revista electrónica de estudos franceses (outono/inverno -2010/2011), pp. 215-23.

“'L’expérience continue': La poétique clandestine et le temps chez Paul Nougé," Tiempo: texto e imagien / Temps: texte et image, ed. José Manuel Losada Goya (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2011), pp. 723-28.

“Rencontres précoloniales: conflits maritimes entre la France et le Portugal avant 1580,”
Carnets No. especial (2011-2012), pp. 147-54.

"Introduction," Tourism and Tourists in Language and Linguistics, special issue of Textus XXV (2012 : no. 1), pp. 7-18.

“La deception touriste: Gautier en Belgique,” in Art et création chez Théophile Gautier, eds. Ana Clara Santos, Maria Jesus de Cabral and Maria de Nascimento Carneiro (Paris: Editions Le Manuscrit, collection “Exotopies”, 2013), pp. 155-65.

"Les transformateurs Lyotard: l'intellectuel et l'art des métamorphoses," Carnets V, 2013, pp. 165-72.

“Qu’est-ce qu’un truchement?: entre étranger et compatriote à l’époque des
découvertes,” in L'Etranger tel qu'il (s')écrit, ed. Ana Clara Santos and José Domingues de Almeida (Biblioteca Digital: Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, 2014), pp. 189-96.

“Monograms: Then and 'Now',” in Nancy Now, eds., Verena Conley and Irving
Goh (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2014), 59-89.

"Structuralism and Semiotics," in The Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory, ed. Stuart Sim (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2016), pp. 55-70.

"Discourse Theory," in The Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory, ed. Stuart Sim (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2016), pp. 125-39.

"Russian Formalism and Narratology," in The Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory, ed. Stuart Sim (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2016), pp. 385-400.

“La Comtesse des Fées en périple ibérique: Mme d’Aulnoy et l’Espagne du grand siècle
français,” in Présences et interférences franco-ibériques : langue, littérature et
culture, eds., Maria Teresa Garcia Castanyer, Lluna Llecha-Llop Garcia, y Alicia Piquer Desvaux (Bern: Peter Lang, 2016), pp. 219-226.

"Belgium has Divided and Decentralized itself almost out of Existence," The
Conversation, March 25, 2016: https://theconversation.com/belgium-has-divided-and- decentralized-itself-almost-out-of-existence-56716 ; Spanish translation in Crónica Global: http://www.cronicaglobal.com/es/notices/2016/04/la-descentralizacion-ha-puesto-belgica-al-borde-de-la-disolucion-36323.php


"Introduction" to UC Irvine special edition of Orange County: A Field Guide, eds., Lisa Alvarez and Andrew Tonkovich (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2017), pp. iii-iv.

"Literary Intransigence: Between Hillis Miller and Ranjan Ghosh," CounterText 3:3 (2017), pp. 316-28.

"Cartesianism," Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary and Cultural Theory, ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 406-7.

"Butchered Belgian Babies?: Atrocities, Propaganda, and National Identity," in Europe and the World: World War I as Crisis of Universalism, eds. Kai Evers and David Pan (Candor, NY: Telos Press, 2018), pp. 142-54.

"As the World Turns: Heidegger and the Origin of Poetry," in Ranjan Ghosh, ed., Philosophy and Poetry: A Continental Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019), pp. 23-42.

"The Post-Marxist Gramsci: A Reply to James Martin," Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs 9:2 (2019), pp. 323-28.

"Challenges for a Left Populism: A Response to Chantal Mouffe," Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs 9:2 (2019), pp. 439-43. Listed as Editor's Choice. Rpt. in Post-Marxism, ed. Stuart Sim (Bristol: Bristol University
Press, 2022).

"Unsettling the Principles of Human Geography: Recalling Pascal's Ideal Perspective and Louis Marin's Utopics," in Espacialidades: Revisões do espaço na literatura.
Eds. Ana Paula Coutinho, Gonçalo Vilas-Boas, Jorge Bastos da Silva, Maria de Fátima Outeirinho, Maria Hermínia Amado Laurel (Lisboa: Edições Afrontamento / Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa, 2019), pp. 59-71.

"What Does it Mean to be Human in a Time of Rapid Technological Change?: Questions and Provocations," Chinese journal of Marxist Aesthetics (October 2019): https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Nm3mNeGJmW589zKZtohh8g

“Through Discerning Eyes: Origins and Impact of Critical Theory at UCI,” prologue to
Ewa Bobrowska, UCI Critical Theory and Contemporary Art Practice: Jacques
Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Bruce Nauman, and Others (Berlin: Peter Lang,
2020), pp. 34-43.

“Of Blood and Tea,” Preface to Ranjan Ghosh, Trans(in)fusion: Reflections for Critical
Thinking (New York, Routledge, 2021), pp. xi-xviii.



“Pathways to the Obscene in Calvin and Calvinism," The Politics of Obscenity in the Age
of the Gutenberg Revolution, edited by Nelly Labère and Peter Frei (London: Routledge, 2022).

"The Iterative Cogito or the Sum of Each and Every Time (Reading Descartes with Nancy)," in I. Goh, ed., Jean-Luc Nancy Among the Philosophers (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2022).

“A Diacritical Apprenticeship,” Diacritics Blog, July 23, 2021:
https://www.diacriticsjournal.com/diacritics50-a-diacritical-apprenticeship/

“Can the Precariat be Organized?: Gig Work and the Challenge of Mutual Aid,” Telos
(forthcoming 2022).

"Archives communautaires et communautés d'archives," with Audra Eagle Yun (under
review).

"A Matter of Time: Color, Affect, and the Suffering of Thought," in Lyotard and Critical
Practice, edited by Kiff Bamford and Margret Grebowicz (Bloomsbury,
forthcoming).
Articles Translated:

Sarah Kofman, "The Narcissistic Woman: Freud and Girard," Diacritics 10 (Fall, 1980), pp. 36-45. Rpt. in French Feminist Thought: A Reader, ed. Toril Moy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1987), pp. 210-26.

Jean-François Lyotard, "The Différend, the Referent, and the Proper Name," Diacritics 14 (Fall, 1984), pp. 3-15.

Jean-François Lyotard, "Discussions, or Phrasing 'After Auschwitz'," Working Papers from the Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-- Milwaukee (Fall 1986: Working Paper No. 2). Rpt. in A Lyotard Reader, ed. Andrew Benjamin (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). Expanded translation of
post-talk discussion in Jean-Francois Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates, ed. Kiff Bamford (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 53-58.

Félix Guattari, "Ritornellos and Existential Affects," Discourse 12:2 (Spring-Summer 1990), pp. 66-81.

Jean-François Lyotard, "Unbeknownst," in Community at Loose Ends (in collaboration with James Creech), pp. 42-48.

Jean-François Lyotard, "Voices of a Voice," Discourse 14:1 (Winter 1991-92),
pp. 126-45. Rpt. in Readings in Infancy, eds. K. Bamford and R. Harvey (K
London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

Jane Nardal, “Black Internationalism,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Jane Nardal, “Exotic Puppets,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Paulette Nardal, “In Exile,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Paulette Nardal, “Acts of Grace,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Paulette Nardal, “The Awakening of Race Consciousness among Black Students,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

“Letter from Lieutenant-Commander Bayle, Chief of Information Services, to the Editor of the review Tropiques,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

“Response from Tropiques,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Suzanne Césaire, “The Malaise of a Civilization,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Suzanne Césaire, “The Great Camouflage,” in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Negritude Women: Race Women, Race Consciousness, Race Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) (edited and translated in collaboration with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting).

Georges Sylvain, “Crow and Fox,” from Cric? Crac! Fables Créoles, in A World of Fables, eds. B. Schildgen and G. Van Den Abbeele (Berkeley, CA: Pacific View Press, 2003), pp. 85-87.

Colette, “The Bear and the Old Lady,” in A World of Fables, eds. B. Schildgen and G. Van Den Abbeele (Berkeley, CA: Pacific View Press, 2003), pp. 109-111.

Jean Jonassaint, “For a Caribbean Intertext: On Some Readings of Maryse Condé’s Crossing the Mangrove” in French Civilization and Its Discontents: Race, Nation, Colonialism, eds. T. Stovall and G. Van Den Abbeele (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), in collaboration with Sharon O’Toole-Dubois.

Edouard Glissant, “The French Language in the Face of Creolization,” in French Civilization and Its Discontents: Race, Nation, Colonialism, eds. T. Stovall and G. Van Den Abbeele (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

Jean-François Lyotard et al, "Debate on "Discussions, or Phrasing 'After Auschwitz'," at
Cerisy conference, "Les fins de l'homme: à partir du travail de Jacques Derrida, in
Jean-Francois Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates, ed. Kiff Bamford
(London: Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 53-58.
Grants
Co-principal investigator, Humanities Network Initiative, University of California, 2009-14 Chairman’s Grant, National Endowment for the Arts, for Robinson Jeffers symposium, 2008. Principal Investigator, California Council for the Humanities, 2004, for Angel Island Immigration Station Documentation and Oral History project Production Grant, UCTV for “Re-Assembling California: A Conversation with John McPhee and Eldridge Moores,” videotaped November 19, 2004 and aired six times between February and June 2004 Conference Support Grant for “Beyond Consuming: Food and Culture in the Pacific United States,” University of California Humanities Research Institute with additional funding from Charles Soderquist Foundation, 2004 Conference Support Grant, “Discontents and French Civilization,” April 2004, University of California Humanities Research Institute Conference Support Grant, “Digital Divides: Remaining Human in the Age of Electronic Culture?” Pacific Rim Research Program and University of California Humanities Research Institute Principal Investigator, National Endowment for the Humanities, Implementation Grant for Pacific Regional Humanities Center, 2002-2004, 3:1 matching requirements met June 2004 for total endowment of $ 1.3 million Co-principal investigator, National Endowment for the Humanities, Planning Grant for Pacific Regional Humanities Center, 1999-2001 Conference Support Grant, “Material Events,” 1998, University of California Humanities Research Institute Conference Support Grant, “(Im)migrant Identities,” 1996, University of California Humanities Research Institute and J. Paul Getty Foundation Research Fellow, Oregon Humanities Center, Summer 1998 Faculty Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1996 Resident Fellow, University of California Humanities Research Institute, Winter 1996 Fellow, Davis Humanities Institute, Spring 1996 Undergraduate Instructional Improvement Grants, UCD, 1995-96; 1996-97 Faculty Research Grants, UCD, 1994-95; 95-96; 96-97; 97-98, 98-99, 00-01, 01-02, 02-03, 03-04 Mini-grants, Teaching Resources Center, UCD, 1992-1993, 2002, 2003 Fellow, Davis Humanities Institute, 1990-91 Summer Research Appointment, Miami University, 1988 Mentor, Alumni Teaching Scholars Program, Miami University, 1987-88 Fellow, National Humanities Center, 1985-86 (declined) Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship, Harvard University, 1984-85 Junior Fellow, Cornell Society for the Humanities, 1984-85 (declined) University of California Research Grants, 1983-84, 1984-85 Berkowitz Travel Grant (for study in France), Spring 1981 Berkowitz Summer Fellowships, 1980, 1981 Sage Graduate Fellowship, 1980-81 Dale Corson French Prize, 1980 Cornell Summer Fellowship, 1979 Dorothy O. Johansen Honorary Scholarship, Reed College, 1975-76
Last updated
09/20/2021