Ari Blatt

My scholarly work combines an interest in contemporary France (in all of its messy complexity) with a passion for reading books and looking at art (and, especially, reading books that tell tales about art and looking at art that gestures toward reading). I’ve dabbled with other, more eclectic topics (like fictions about TV, narratives about walking, the photography of ruined landscapes, stilled motion in the movies, and texts of various kinds that attend lovingly, and seriously, to trees, to give just a few examples). I spend a lot of time burrowing into cultural and intellectual rabbit holes, chasing down insights and seeking out chance trouvailles. Which might help explain why, when I teach, discussions occasionally go off on tangents, only to circle back around to the task at hand. It turns out that the tangential can be surprisingly relevant, if you tweak your perspective a bit. Generally, though, I believe that the best classes make even the most obscure or abstract of materials matter to students, not only for their studies and future careers, but also for their lives. I’m also a firm believer that Engagements courses should be rigorous and engaging (obviously), but also fun.