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Interview
BiographyBorn in Geneva in 1920, Jean Starobinski graduated in Literature at the University of Geneva, then pursued a medical career, obtaining a Federal Diploma and a doctorate in medicine. He was also awarded a doctorate in Literature in 1958. He has taught at John Hopkins University and at the Universities of Basel and Geneva. Author of "Montesquieu" (1953) and "La Transparence et l'Obstacle" (1957) on Jean-Jacques Rousseau he has dedicated much of his time to the study of the art and literature of the nineteenth century, publishing "L'invention de la Liberté" (1964), "1789: les Emblèmes de la Raison" (1973) and "Diderot dans l'Espace des Peintres" (1991). "Largesse" (1994) accompanied an exhibition of the Louvre Museum on the gesture of donation. A further series of works, "L'Oeil Vivant", "La Relation Critique", "Portrait de l'Artiste en Saltinbanque", "Trios Fureurs", "La Mélancolie au Miroir", "Le Reméde dans le Mal" are concerned with problems of the theory of criticism and the history of ideas. Jean Starobinski was president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau society from 1967 to 1992. He received the Prix Balzan in 1985, the Prix de Monaco in 1988 and the Goethe Prize from Hamburg in 1994. He is an associated member of the Accadémie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of Paris, the Accademia dei Licei, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the Deutsche Akademie fuer Sprache und Dichtung. |
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| Currently working on the semantic history of the word "reaction" in the natural sciences, medicine, politics and psychiatry, he is also about to publish an account of his studies on the history of melancholy, the subject of a course he gave at the Collège de France and intends to continue his research on "the form of the day" in literary history. He continues to study Rousseau, in particular his theory of music, his use of eloquence and his relationship with Montaigne. |  |
