Anne-Lise François

Anne-Lise François is an Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Her work bridges 18th- and 19th-century British literature with contemporary environmental humanities, focusing on themes of ecological ethics, literary minimalism, and non-productive temporalities. Current research explores pastoral worldliness and commons-based economies in Romantic and modernist texts.

Key scholarly contributions include her prize-winning book *Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience* (2007), which examines 'affirmative reticence' in works by Jane Austen, Mme de Lafayette, and Emily Dickinson. Her recent projects address climate crisis narratives, food politics, and the intersection of aesthetic theory with ecological urgency.

• Teaching emphasizes transhistorical literary studies and environmental criticism
• Active in interdisciplinary collaborations across literature, philosophy, and environmental science
• Current book project: *Provident Improvisers: Parables of Subsistence from Wordsworth to Benjamin*

Her writing synthesizes close textual analysis with broader socio-ecological frameworks, challenging Enlightenment models of productivity and advocating for 'recessive fulfillment' in both art and life.