Jan Miernowski

Primary language

French

Specialties

French Literature and Culture; Renaissance Studies; Literary Responses to Early Modern Philosophy, Theology and Political Rhetoric; Early Modern Humanism, 20th-century Anti-humanism, and 21st-century Posthumanism; 20th- and 21st-century Literature and Philosophy; Digital Humanities and e-Learning.

Jan Miernowski’s research and teaching interests focus on the aesthetic response of literature to the diverse discourses of early modern and contemporary philosophy, theology, science and politics. His doctoral thesis was devoted to the poetic expression of Renaissance logic. The subsequent books comprise a wide-ranging study of the impact of negative theology on French 16th-century poetry, on Medieval and Renaissance philosophy, as well as specifically on the poetics of Montaigne’s skepticism. He published in Polish a monograph on allegory in French literature from the Roman de la rose to Pascal, and a co-authored critical edition of poetry by Peletier du Mans.

Jan Miernowski’s most recent books include a monograph on the aesthetics of hatred in French and Francophone literature from the 16^th to the 21^st century; an edited volume on the interplay between the grotesque and the sublime; and an edited collection of essays on the dialogue between Renaissance humanism and 20^th-century antihumanism. His current project tests the conditions of possibility of a humanism for our posthuman times.

Selected publications

• Dialectique et connaissance dans La Sepmaine de du Bartas, Discours sur discours infiniment divers, (Geneva: Droz, 1992).
• Anteros, Actes de colloque de Madison, Edited in collaboration with Ullrich Langer, (Orléans: Paradigme, 1994).
• Signes dissimilaires. La quête des noms divins dans la poésie française de la Renaissance, (Genève, Droz, 1997).
• Le Dieu Néant. Théologies négatives à l’aube des temps modernes, (Leiden – New York – Koln, E. J. Brill, 1998).
• L’ontologie de la contradiction sceptique. Pour une étude de la métaphysique des Essais, (Champion, Paris, 1998).
• Piekne banialuki, ku najlepszej prawdzie wylozone, czyli alegoria jako prowokacja w literaturze starofrancuskiej [Fine idiocies interpreted in the most perfect sense. Allegory as Provocation in French Medieval and Early-Modern Literature]– (Warsaw, Czytelnik, 2000).
• Bog-Nicosc, Teologie negatywne u progu czasow nowozytnych, (Warszawa, Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii, 2000).
• Critical edition: Euvres poetiques intitulez louanges, by Jacques Peletier du Mans, co-authored with S. Arnaud and S. Bamforth (Paris, Champion, 2005).
• La Beauté de la haine.  Essais de misologie littéraire, (Geneva:Droz, 2014).
• Le Sublime et le grotesque, ed. by Jan Miernowski, (Geneva:Droz, 2014).
• Early Modern Humanism and Postmodern Antihumanism in Dialogue, ed. Jan Miernowski (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

Distinctions

• Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2023)
• WARF-Named Professorship, “The Douglas Kelly Professor of French” (2017)
• UW-Madison Teaching and Learning Innovation Honorable Mention Award (2014)
• Professor in the Humanities (Title granted by the President of Poland in 2013)
• Engage Recognition Award For Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Technology with Assignments (2011)
• Kellett Mid-Career Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010)
• “R1edu Award” for Distinguished Faculty Contribution to Online Learning (2007)
• Pickard-Bascom Professorship (2004-2007) H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship (1998-2003)
• Grant Komitetu Badań Naukowych (Polish Governement Research Committee Grant) (1997-1998)
• NEH Fellowship for University Teachers (1994-1995) Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin at Madison (Spring 1993)