Marcus Keller

Marcus Keller is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, affiliated with the Department of Comparative & World Literature, the Department of French and Italian, the Program in Comparative and World Literature, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the European Union Center, and the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

His research focuses on 16th- and 17th-century French literature and culture, particularly aesthetics and politics/ethics, with a current emphasis on French orientalist discourses of the sixteenth century, including literature, political discourses, cosmographical writings, and travel narratives. He explores the rise of national and European consciousness in early modern French texts, early globalization, early modern social networks, humanist ideals, and contemporary Belgian literature's engagement with colonial history.

His recent publications analyze topics such as the symbolic role of the Turk in French civil wars, paradoxes in Agrippa d'Aubigné's Tragiques, and Montaigne's dialectical approach to East-West encounters. He co-edits the series 'Rethinking the Early Modern' and has contributed to edited volumes on early modern orientalism and French cultural identity.

Scientific Awards & Editorial Contributions:

• Co-editor of 'Rethinking the Early Modern' series (Northwestern University Press, since 2012)
• Edited special issue 'The Turk of Early Modern France' (L'Esprit Créateur 53.4, 2013)
• Co-edited 'The Dialectics of Orientalism in Early Modern Europe' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)