Jean Starobinski, one of Europe's foremost literary critics, examines the life that led Rousseau, who so passionately sought open, transparent communication with others, to accept and even foster obstacles that permitted him to withdraw into himself. First published in France in 1958, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains Starobinski's most important achievement and, arguably, the most comprehensive book ever written on Rousseau. The text has been extensively revised for this edition and is published here along with seven essays on Rousseau that appeared between 1962 and 1970.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction

STAROBINSKI, Jean.

Biographies & Memoirs

University of Chicago Press

Educated in the humanities and trained in psychiatry, Jean Starobinski is a central figure in the Geneva School of criticism. His classic work, Montaigne in Motion, is a subtly conceived and elegantly written study of the Essais of Montaigne, whose deceptively plainspoken meditations have entranced readers and stimulated philosophers since their first publication in 1580 and 1595.Here Starobinski offers a decidedly postmodern reading of Montaigne. In chapters dealing with the themes of public and private life, friendship, death, the body, and love, Starobinski reveals much that will remind us that Montaigne’s thought is as apropos to our time as it was to his own.“The most important contribution to Montaigne studies since Friedrich’s work . . . . [It] will be the critical framework in which scholars will discuss Montaigne in the years to come.”—Choice  “Starobinski brings Montaigne to life by treating him as our contemporary and asking him modern questions.”—Hudson Review 

Montaigne in Motion

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Educated in the humanities and trained in psychiatry, Jean Starobinski is a central figure in the Geneva School of criticism. His classic work, Montaigne in Motion, is a subtly conceived and elegantly written study of the Essais of Montaigne, whose deceptively plainspoken meditations have entranced readers and stimulated philosophers since their first publication in 1580 and 1595.
Here Starobinski offers a decidedly postmodern reading of Montaigne. In chapters dealing with the themes of public and private life, friendship, death, the body, and love, Starobinski reveals much that will remind us that Montaigne’s thought is as apropos to our time as it was to his own.
“The most important contribution to Montaigne studies since Friedrich’s work . . . . [It] will be the critical framework in which scholars will discuss Montaigne in the years to come.”—Choice 
“Starobinski brings Montaigne to life by treating him as our contemporary and asking him modern questions.”—Hudson Review

In 1990 the Department of Graphic Arts at the Louvre made their holdings available to guest curators for a program called Parti Pris, or "Taking Sides". In this program, major cultural figures outside of the discipline of art history organized exhibitions based on the department's collection. Within its first several years, this novel collaboration produced exhibitions curated by philosopher Jacques Derrida and filmmaker Peter Greenaway. Jean Starobinski, noted literary critic and intellectual historian from the University of Geneva, was selected as the third curator in the program. In his exhibition and accompanying essay, Starobinski explores the theme of largesse in its broadest sense. Arguing that gift giving and receiving are fundamental human gestures, he examines graphic and textual representations from the offering of the apple to Eve to Salome's gift of the head of John the Baptist, from the giving of laws to the gift of death. Charity, the poetic gift, and the benefits of Fortune all play a role in Starobinski's extended meditation on the act of donation. Lavishly illustrated and dazzling in its scope and imagination, Largesse is an exemplar of the rich intellectual work that can result from crossing disciplinary boundaries and considering history as a dense network of themes and allusions.

Largesse (The Parti Pris Series)

Largesse (Parti Pris (Reunion Des Musees Nationaux (France)).)

We often look to the theater for spectacle and wonder, but in opera, we find pure enchantment. What is it about the marriage of music and the stage that fills us with such bewilderment and passion? How does the sensual space of opera transport us into the realm of dream? Jean Starobinski considers the allure of several seducers and seductresses from nineteenth-century opera-Monteverdi's Poppea, Handel's Alcina, and Massenet's Manon, among others-and how their stories are woven into the fabric of Western culture. A talented storyteller and renowned critic of literature and music, Starobinski moves from musical analysis and textual exegesis to an investigation of the political, social, and aesthetic scene of Europe at the time. He traces the elements of theater, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance, and music as they occur in operatic performance, and shows how opera's use of narrative genres, especially the fairy tale, in turn influenced many important short stories, novels, and other works. Nineteenth-century romantics were drawn to opera because of their desire to revive a religious vision of the world that the Enlightenment suppressed. Starobinski revisits the experiences of Rousseau, Stendhal, Hoffmann, Balzac, and Nietzsche, major writers who fell for opera's portrayal of "heaven," the loss of one's love, and the task of the artist, whether composer or performer. Starobinski's critical breadth and depth, as well as his eclectic taste and keen observation, echo such great comparative critics as Erich Auerbach, René Wellek, George Steiner, Harold Bloom, and Angus Fletcher. This spellbinding book will enchant not only fans of the opera, but also those who wish to understand the form's enduring heritage in Western culture.

Enchantment: The Seductress in Opera (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

Arts & Photography

Music

Columbia University Press

1789: The Emblems of Reason

In this classic text on the 18th century and neoclassicism, Jean Starobinski pursues a subtle and brilliant meditation on the connections between art and revolution, comparing the style of the French Revolution as a political event to style in the contemporary visual arts. Rather than seeking a set of causal links between history and art, Starobinski finds ways to read the messages of both. Moving with graceful erudition over painting, architecture, music, philosophy, and political history, he enables us to see the art of David, Fuseli, Goya, Mozart, Boullée, Ledoux, and a host of others in a new perspective, as integral part of the events that changed the course of modern history. Jean Starobinski is a Professor Honoraire at the University of Geneva.

History & Criticism

Mit Pr

Text: English, French (translation)

Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand De Saussure

Yale Univ Pr

Invention of Liberty, 1700-89 (Art Ideas, History)

Skira; [Distributed in the U.S. by World Pub.

L'invention De La Liberte 1700-1789 (French Edition)

French & European Pubns

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by STAROBINSKI, Jean.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by STAROBINSKI, Jean.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by STAROBINSKI, Jean.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction

Montaigne in Motion

Montaigne in Motion

Largesse (The Parti Pris Series)

Largesse (Parti Pris (Reunion Des Musees Nationaux (France)).)

Enchantment: The Seductress in Opera (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

1789: The Emblems of Reason

Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand De Saussure

Invention of Liberty, 1700-89 (Art Ideas, History)

L'invention De La Liberte 1700-1789 (French Edition)