Robert F. Barsky
Department of French & Italian, Vanderbilt University Law School; the Max Kade Center for European Studies and German Studies; Political Science; and the Jewish Studies Program. Founding Director: Québec and Canadian Studies; Director, W. T. Bandy Center for European Modernism. Guggenheim Fellow (2023), Rockefeller Writing Resident (2018)
Education:
1994‑1996: Post-Doctoral Studies: European Centre for the Study of Argumentation, Institute of Philosophy, Free University of Brussels. Director: Michel Meyer.
1992‑1994: Post-Doctoral Studies: U of Québec-Montréal. Director: Marc Angenot.
1987‑1992: MA/PhD, English and Comparative Literature, McGill University, Montréal.
1981‑1984: Bachelor of Arts in English and American Literature, Brandeis University, Boston.
Distinctions and Honors (selected)
2024 Subvention for The Beltline Chronicles, Vanderbilt University.
2024 Mayor’s Office Individual Artist Award.
2023 Art on the Beltline ‘Beltline Flow’ grant for “The Beltline Chronicles”.
2022: Guggenheim Fellowship
2020-2024: SSHRC Insight Grant.
2019-2020: Canada Research Chair Tier 1.
March-April, 2018: Rockefeller Bellagio Writing Residency, Bellagio, Italy.
2009-2012: Quebec Government Program grant for Humanities Summit.
2005: Chancellor Heard Award for “Professor of the Year,” Vanderbilt University.
Books:
2025: The Beltline Chronicles, AmeriQuests/Knowledge Futures. Video description with Robert Barsky: https://beltline.org/blog/the-beltline-chronicles:-a-poetic-tribute-by-robert-barsky/ MIT Website: https://contours.pubpub.org/beltline-chronicles. Description of the project: https://beltline.org/art/beltline-chronicles-1/
2021/2022: Clamouring for Legal Protection: What the Great Books Teach Us About Vulnerable Migrants. Oxford: Hart Publishing / Bloomsbury Press, 2021.
2016: Undocumented Immigrants in an Era of Arbitrary Law, Routledge. Runner-up The Hart Socio-Legal Book Prize for the most outstanding socio-legal scholarship published in the last 12 months.
2016: Hatched [a novel]. Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunbury Press.
Zellig Harris: From American Linguistics to Socialist Zionism. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2011.
The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower, Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2005.
Arguing & Justifying: Assessing Convention Refugees Choice of Moment, Motive & Host Country Ashgate, 2001.
Introduction à la théorie littéraire. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1997.
Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge; London: MIT Press, 1997, 1998. 12 translations.
Constructing a Productive Other: Discourse Theory and the Convention Refugee Hearing, Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994.
Books and Journals Edited (selected)
The Mittens & the Dove AmeriQuests https://ameriquests.org/index.php/ameriquests/issue/view/238.
Cultural and Artistic Participation of Migrants Vol 16 No 1 (2021). Eds Robert F. Barsky and Marco Martiniello https://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/ameriquests/issue/view/232
Border-Crossing in Law and Literature, AmeriQuests 13.2 (2018) http://ameriquests.org/index.php/ameriquests/issue/view/207
The Reception of Baudelaire in Japan, and Sanctuary in “America”. AmeriQuests 13.1 (2017) http://ameriquests.org/index.php/ameriquests/issue/view/206
Editor, The Legacies and Future(s) of the Humanities, a special issue of AmeriQuests, (2012). This issue grew out of a McGill/Vanderbilt collaboration with Professor Paul Yachnin.
Editor, with Saleem H. Al, Quests Beyond the Ivory Tower: Public Intellectuals, Academia and the Media, a special issue of AmeriQuests, 2006.
Editor, Marc Angenot and the Scandal of History, a special issue of The Yale Journal of Criticism, 2004.
Editor, Workers Councils, by Anton Pannekoek. Edited and with comments by Robert Barsky, interviews with Noam Chomsky, Ken Coates and Peter Hitchcock, AK Press, 2002.
Editor, Paris-SubStance-America. A special issue of SubStance devoted to French theory. 2001.
Editor, with Michael Holquist, Bakhtin and Otherness. A special issue of Discours social, 1991.
Chapters in Books (selected)
Marsha Barsky; Robert F. Barsky “Mikhaïl Bakhtin, Modern Dance, and the Body’s Unmediated Presence in the World”, P. Birgy, Ed, Understanding Bakhtin, Understanding Modernism, 2023
“The Chomsky Approach”, in Gïnther Gruwendorf, Ed. Chomsky on State and Democracy, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2021.
“Friendship and the Dialogic Body”, Essays in Honor of Clive Thomson, Cambridge Scholars, 2020.
“Harris, Zellig,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2017.
Chomsky, Noam (1928–). In: James D. Wright (editor-in-chief), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol 3. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015. pp. 526–530.
Accessing Contextual Assumptions in Dialogue Interpreting: The Case of Illegal Immigrants in the United States, in The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Translation, in Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason. Manchester, St. Jerome Press, 2010.
“Teaching Narrative Theory in the Undergraduate Classroom,” Jim Phelan, ed., Teaching Narrative Theory, NY, MLA, 2010.
“Methodological issues for the study of migrant incarceration in an era of discretion in law in the southern USA,” edited by Ilse van Liempt/Veronika Bilger. The Ethics of Migration Research Methodology: Processes, Policy and Legislation in Dealing with Vulnerable Immigrants. Sussex, Sussex Academic Press, 2009, pp 25-48.
«La problématologie dialogique: quelle rôle joue le questionnement dans les domaines de la littérature et du droit ?» in Clive Thomson et André Collinot, Mikhaïl Bakhtine et la pensée dialogique, London, Mestengo Press, 2005, 55-63.
“Stories from the Court of Appeal,” Dis/Locations, eds. Mike Baynham and Anna de Fina, Manchester, UK and Northampton, MA: St. Jerome’s Press, 2005, 217-238.
“Cold War Beats” an entry for the Beat Encyclopedia, CA: ABC-CLIO Publishing, 2005.
“Introduction” for Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils, Oakland CA; Edinburgh UK, 2003, v-vii.
“Universal Grammar,” an entry for the Encyclopedia of Human Development, Sage Publishing, 2005, Vol 3, 1288-1291.
“Noam Chomsky,” an entry for the Encyclopedia of Human Development, Sage Publishing, 2005, Vol 1, 260-262.
“Kibbutz,” an entry for the Encyclopedia of Human Development, Sage Publishing, 2005, Vol 2 757-8.
“Introduction” for Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils, Oakland CA; Edinburgh UK, 2003, v-vii.
“Interview with Noam Chomsky” for Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils, Oakland CA; Edinburgh UK, 2003, viii-xvi.
“Interview with Ken Coates” for Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils, Oakland CA; Edinburgh UK, 2003, xvii-xxii.
“Interview with Peter Hitchcock” for Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils, Oakland CA; Edinburgh UK, 2003.
“Postmodernism”, entry for Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, London; NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 119-123.
“Noam Chomsky and Computer Sciences” for Dictionary of Computer Sciences, Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2001.
“La problématique dialogique: Quel rôle joue le questionnement dans les domaines de la littérature et du droit?” Actes du colloque Bakhtine de Cérisy, ed. Clive Thomson. London: Mestengo Press, 2001.
“Literary Knowledge: Marc Angenot and Noam Chomsky”, Dialogism and Cultural Criticism, Ed. by Clive Thomson and Hans Raj Dua. London, Ontario: Mestango P, 1995, pp. 21-46.
Poetry and Articles Published (selected):
“Clamouring for Legal Protection”, L’Ombra (Università di Torino), with Cécilia Laan and Andrea Schellino (September 2024) https://morettievitali.it/lombra/
How George Orwell Paved Noam Chomsky’s Path to Anarchism (adapted from Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent).
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-george-orwell-paved-noam-chomskys-path-to-anarchism/
Robert F. Barsky (2023) Mikhaïl Bakhtin and International Refugee Law: A Dialogic Approach to Treaty Negotiations and Cross-Cultural Legal Hearings, Law & Literature, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1535685X.2023.2267260 DOI: 10.1080/1535685X.2023.2267260
“From the 1965 Bellagio Colloquium to the Adoption of the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees”, International Journal of Refugee Law 32.2 (September 2020).
« La BEATification des écrivains modernistes français », Parade sauvage – revue internationale d’études rimbaldiennes (2019). Paris : Harmattan, 185-201.
« “J’ai volé cette édition de Fêtes galantes, de Paul Verlaine, parce qu’elle contenait la gravure d’un homme d’une beauté remarquable” », Revue Verlaine, n° 15, 2017, p. 17-20
“From the 1965 Bellagio Colloquium to the Adoption of the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees”, International Journal of Refugee Law 32.2 (September 2020).
“The Savage Pilgrimage: D.H. Lawrence’s Dialogic Journeys upon Monte Verità, the Mountain of Truth”, L’Analisi linguistic e letterri linguistica e letteraria 1-2 (2014): 117-129.
From Barak Obama’s Executive Order Concerning Undocumented Immigrants to Open Borders”, AmeriQuests 11.2 (2014). http://ameriquests.org/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/3999
“Introduction: Modern Obscenities from Baudelaire and Bovary to Remy Couture”, AmeriQuests 11.1 (2014). http://ameriquests.org/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/3899
“Zellig Harris: Language and Politics”, New Left Project, http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/zellig_harris_language_and_politics
“First Encounters: Knowledge Interpretation on the Front-Lines of Cross-Cultural Encounters,” Global Media Journal 2012: Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 53-74. (http://www.gmj.uottawa.ca/1201/v5i1_Barsky_e.html)
“Introduction” to Robert F. Barsky, ed., “The Legacies and Futures of the Humanities in North America and Beyond,” AmeriQuests 9.1-2, 2012.
“Academia in the era of Homeland Security” in Works and Days, a special issue on “Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University’, volumes 26/7 (2009): 95-125.
“Safe Spaces in an Era of Gated Communities and Disproportionate Punishment” for a special issue entitled “The Humanities at Work in the World” in Profession (MLA), 2008.
“From Problematology to the ‘problem’ of the dialogic body, in The International Journal of Philosophy (2008).
“Activist Translation in an Era of Fictional Law,” for a special issue called Translation and Social Activism, ed. Sherry Simon, Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction XVIII.2 (2007): 17-48.
“From Discretional to Fictional Law,” SubStance (Summer 2006): 1-52.
“Academia in the era of Homeland Security” in Works and Days, a special issue on “Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University’, volumes 26/7 (2009): 95-125.
Poetry: “The Soldier on the Tarmac” – “The House Atop the Hill” – “The Large Women in the National Museum”, New Hungarian Quarterly (1991).
Translations (selected)
Toto Kisaku, Requiem for an Electric Chair, performed in New Haven in June, 2018. https://www.requiemelectric.com
“What Can Literature do? From Literary Sociocriticism to a Critique of Social Discourse” by Marc Angenot (translated by Robert F. Barsky), Yale Journal of Criticism 17.2 (Fall 2004): 217-232.
“A State of Social Discourse” by Michel Pierssens (translated by Robert F. Barsky), Yale Journal of Criticism, 17.2 (Fall 2004): 255-262.
(co-translated) Denise Helly, “Social cohesion and Ethnic Minorities,” for the Canadian Journal of Anthropology and Sociology (2003).
(co-translated) Denise Helly, “Ethnic and National Minorities” for the Canadian Journal of Anthropology and Sociology (2002).
Passion and the Philosophers, a translation (with a preface, introduction and bibliography) of Le Philosophe et les Passions (Livre de Poche) for Penn State Press Literature and Philosophy Series, dir. Anthony Cascardi, 2000 (listed under books).
“What Can Literature Do?”, for Marc Angenot, a special issue of SubStance (2001).
“Rhetoric and the Theory of Argument” by Michel Meyer. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 196.2 (1996): 325-358.
Video Presentations (selected)
Prof. Robert Barsky (Author) – Hatched – Interview – YouTube www.youtube.com Interview with Robert Barsky at the Ottawa Book Fair (2020) for the novel Hatched barsky, 28:23 Robert Barsky (Author) – Hatched – Interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGiM8tHkeKI
Briefcase Humanities and the Law Podcast – University of Houston Law Center
Briefcase: Humanities and the Law, 2020. Host Leonard M. Baynes explores the importance of literature to society with Robert F. Barsky, Professor and Canada Research Chair In Law, Narrative, and Border Crossing. http://www.law.uh.edu/podcast/Dean%20Podcast%208-mixdown.mp3 Barsky has expertise in the combination of social justice, human rights, border and refugee studies, and he uses literary and artistic observations to examine the predicaments of vulnerable migrants.
The Chomsky Effect. “Noam Chomsky had two giant careers: one in the science of language, another in the rough and tumble of anti-war politics, beckoning the question is it one Chomsky or two? In our two weeks of interviewing, reading and discussing the man, I was searching for the larger idea or human impulse that drives the stubborn peacenik and the father of modern linguistics. You can feel some of the answer in Chomsky’s voice and presence, but we got outside clarification too from his biographer Robert Barsky, who’s puzzled through the Chomsky links for years – and talked with Chomsky about them. I asked Robert Barsky to lay out the foundational principles of Chomsky’s thought – first about language acquisition, and then about power:” (Christopher Lydon): http://radioopensource.org/chomsky-effect-robert-Barsky
The Art of the Review – Episode 12 The Long Review. The review we discuss in the interview is: Robert F. Barsky. Review of Cohen-Cole, Jamie Nace, The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. June, 2015. The Art of the Review is produced by Robert Cassanello and Yelena Kalinsky, and sponsored by H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online and the University of Central Florida’s Center for Humanities & Digital Research. https://networks.h-net.org/art-review-episode-12-long-review
The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual: From WWII to the Occupy Movement, Fulbright Keynote, Ottawa, Ontario, September 2012. he 10th annual Elizabeth Killam Rodgers and Constance Killam distinguished public lecture, entitled “The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual: From the buildup towards World War II to the Occupy Movement”, Thursday, September 13, 2012 at 5:00pm, by Dr. Robert Barsky, the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor at Vanderbilt University.
https://www.academia.edu/17759276/The_Changing_Role_of_the_Public_Intellectual_From_WWII_to_the_Occupy_Movement
Noam Chomsky: Dissent, Anarchism and Zionism, Robert Barsky in discussion with Preston Enright, The Public Mind, Fort Collins, Colorado, 2014 https://www.academia.edu/7307280/Robert_Barsky_and_Preston_Enright_discussing_Noam_Chomsky_in_Fort_Collins
The Case for Open Borders, Denver Peace and Justice, Colorado 2014: https://www.academia.edu/6441442/The_Case_for_Open_Borders; Q&A: https://www.academia.edu/6441491/The_Case_for_Open_Borders_Q_and_A
New Books in Language: Zellig Harris. From American Linguistics to Socialist Zionism, March 7, 2012 Chris Cummins:
Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Blackfriars College, Oxford University
German Expressionism: A Panel Discussion at the Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville TN: This panel discussion was presented in conjunction with the exhibition German Expressionism from the Detroit Institute of Arts on view at the Frist Center from October 19, 2012 through February 10, 2013.