Tracy McNulty

Tracy McNulty is a Professor of French and Comparative Literature in the Department of Comparative Literature at Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. Her office is located in Klarman Hall (266) and she can be reached at tkm9@cornell.edu. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Irvine and a BA in French and English from U.C. Berkeley.

Her educational background includes:

• BA in French and English, University of California, Berkeley
• PhD in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine

Professor McNulty's research spans comparative and world literature, French and German studies, literary theory and translation studies, politics and aesthetics, and psychoanalysis and trauma studies. Her work focuses on 20th-century French literature, psychoanalytic theory (especially Freud and Lacan), contemporary French philosophy, and political theory. She explores themes such as the origins of language, myth and symbolic thought, eroticism and perversion, and philosophical theories of subjectivity. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges literary analysis with clinical psychoanalysis and political philosophy.

Her recent publications demonstrate a consistent trajectory examining the intersections of psychoanalysis, political theory, and literary studies. The articles reveal deep engagement with Freudian and Lacanian concepts applied to political acts, mass psychology, aesthetic transmission, and perverse structures. Key recurring themes include unconscious transmission mechanisms, the role of the death drive in political aesthetics, and the speculative dimensions of psychoanalytic theory in dialogue with contemporary philosophy.

Professor McNulty actively advises graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature and contributes to the Theory Colloquium and Theory Network, which foster interdisciplinary dialogue on critical theory. She teaches specialized courses such as The Case of the Perversions and has been involved in the department's 50th-anniversary celebrations. Her current research includes two book projects examining mathematical formalization in the libertine tradition and bodily transmission in psychoanalysis and politics.