About Avital Ronell

New York, NY

Avital Ronell (CBA ’16) is University Professor of the Humanities and a professor of German, English, Comparative Literature at New York University. She has taught at U.C. Berkeley, Princeton University, Université Paris VIII, and the European Graduate School in Switzerland, among other institutions and universities. She has recently been awarded Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic for her contributions to the advancement of French thought and letters. Prof. Ronell has authored numerous works, including Dictations (1986) The Telephone Book (1989), Crack Wars (1992), Finitude’s Score (1994), Stupidity (2001), The Test Drive (2005), The ÜberReader (2008), Lignes des Front (2010), Fighting Theory (2010), and, most recently, Loser Sons: Politics and Authority (2012). She has given a series of 9 performances at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and her critical-autobiographical theater piece, What Was I Thinking? A Spectral Colloquy was performed with Laurence Rickels and Susan Bernstein at Hau3 in Berlin.

The Dance of Philosophy and a Literary Pas de Deux

Ronell investigated manifestations of bodily motion in philosophy. Exploring the manifold postures and figures of thinking on the move—be it the dance, the stroll, the jump, the leap, instants of staggering and slipping, floating and cruising— the project exposed philosophy’s severance from performance as a myth, a story that philosophers tell themselves to get away from the fictional and performative angles of the origin of thinking. Get ready to zone in on uplifting moments of manic joy––and subsequent crashing!

Gallery