Uploaded January 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
2017 Humanities Day Keynote Address
University of Chicago
October 21, 2017
What is classicism? As an aesthetic ideal, the “classical” is often identified with timeless notions such as order, reason, and clarity. The wide variety of its incarnations across time and place, however, reveal a richly multifaceted and metamorphic concept. The case of the French Classical Age of Louis XIV will open a comparative study placing in dialogue diverse historical periods, artistic media, and literary forms.
Larry F. Norman is a specialist in seventeenth– and eighteenth–century French literature, theater, and intellectual history. Specifically his research focuses on how individual works paly with social norms and literary expectations. Editor or co-editor of several volumes, Norman is the author of The Shock of the Ancient: Literature and History in Early Modern France (2011) and The Public Mirror: Moliere and the Social Commerce of Depiction (1999). He most recently co-curated the exhibition Classicisms at the Smart Museum of Art. Norman is the Frank L. Sulzberger Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies.
If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to humanities@uchicago.edu.
2017 Humanities Day Keynote Address
University of Chicago
October 21, 2017
What is classicism? As an aesthetic ideal, the “classical” is often identified with timeless notions such as order, reason, and clarity. The wide variety of its incarnations across time and place, however, reveal a richly multifaceted and metamorphic concept. The case of the French Classical Age of Louis XIV will open a comparative study placing in dialogue diverse historical periods, artistic media, and literary forms.
Larry F. Norman is a specialist in seventeenth– and eighteenth–century French literature, theater, and intellectual history. Specifically his research focuses on how individual works paly with social norms and literary expectations. Editor or co-editor of several volumes, Norman is the author of The Shock of the Ancient: Literature and History in Early Modern France (2011) and The Public Mirror: Moliere and the Social Commerce of Depiction (1999). He most recently co-curated the exhibition Classicisms at the Smart Museum of Art. Norman is the Frank L. Sulzberger Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies.
If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to humanities@uchicago.edu.
