Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, literary critic,
sociologist and essayist. He is the author of many books and essays, which
have a significant influence in anthropology, sociology, semiotics,
literary theory, thought history and culture theory. He was married to Nancy
Huston, with whom he has two children. Publications
Todorov has published a total of 21 books, including The Poetics of Prose,
Introduction to Poetics, The Conquest of America, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical
Principle, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps, On
Human Diversity, Hope and Memory, and Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of
Humanism. Todorov's historical interests have focused on such crucial issues as
the conquest of The Americas and the Nazi and Stalinist concentration camps.
Career Todorov has been a visiting professor at
several universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and the University of
California, Berkeley. Awards
Todorov's honors include the CNRS Bronze Medal, the Charles Lévêque Prize of the
Académie des sciences morales et politiques and the first Maugean Prize
of the Académie française and the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences;
he also is an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.
In 2015 he was awarded the [Wayne C. Booth] Award for lifetime achievement in
narrative studies by the [International Society for the Study of Narrative].
Thought Todorov's greatest contribution to
literary theory was his defining of the Fantastic, the fantastic uncanny, and
the fantastic marvelous. Todorov defines the fantastic as being any event that
happens in our world that seems to be supernatural. Upon the occurrence of the
event, we must decide if the event was an illusion or whether it is real and
has actually taken place. Todorov uses Alvaro from Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable
amoureux as an example of a fantastic event. Alvaro must decide whether the
woman he is in love with is truly a woman or if she is the devil.
Upon choosing whether the event was real or imaginary, Todorov says that we enter
into the genres of uncanny and marvelous. In the fantastic uncanny, the
event that occurs is actually an illusion of some sort. The "laws of
reality" remain intact and also provide a rational explanation for the fantastic
event. Todorov gives examples of dreams, drugs, illusions of the senses, madness,
etc. as things that could explain a fantastic/supernatural event. In the
fantastic marvelous, the supernatural event that occurs has actually taken
place and therefore the "laws of reality" have to be changed to explain
the event. Only if the implied reader cannot opt for one or the other
possibility is the text purely fantastic.
Aside from his work in literary theory, Todorov has also published studies of
philosophy. He wrote Frail Happiness about the writings of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. He focuses on Rousseau's ideas of attaining human happiness and how we
can live in 'modern' times. In one of his major works, Facing the
Extreme, Todorov asks whether it is true the Nazi concentration camps and the
Soviet gulags revealed that in extreme situations "all traces of moral life
evaporate as men become beasts locked in a merciless struggle for survival". That
opinion is commonplace of popularized accounts of the camps, and also appears
in accounts of survivors themselves. Primo Levi, quoted in Todorov, writes
that camp life is a "continuous war of everyone against everyone." To survive,
all dignity and conscience had to be sacrificed and everyone is alone.
Reports from gulag survivors are similar. However, in his reading of
actual survivor testimonies, Todorov says the picture is not that bleak, that
there are many examples of inmates helping each other and showing
compassion in human relationships despite the inhumane conditions and
terror. Survivors point out that survival always depended on the help of
others. He concludes that life in the camps and gulag did not follow the law
of the jungle and that the counter-examples are numerous, even in
Levi's work. Bibliography
Books Introduction à la littérature
fantastique, translated by Richard Howard as The Fantastic: A Structural
Approach to a Literary Genre in 1973 Conquest of America: The Question of the
Other, translated from the French by Richard Howard.
Mikhail Bakhtin: the dialogical principle, translated by Wlad Godzich.
On human diversity: nationalism, racism, and exoticism in French thought,
translated by Catherine Porter. French tragedy: scenes of civil war,
summer 1944, translated by Mary Byrd Kelly; translation edited and annotated
by Richard J. Golsan. Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in
Communist Bulgaria, Tzvetan Todorov; translated by Robert Zaretsky.
A Passion for Democracy: Benjamin Constant, translated by Alice Seberry.
Facing the extreme: moral life in the concentration camps, translated by
Arthur Denner and Abigail Pollack. Fragility of goodness: why Bulgaria's
Jews survived the Holocaust, a collection of texts with commentary by
Tzvetan Todorov. Life in common: an essay in general
anthropology, translated by Katherine Golsan and Lucy Golsan; with a new
afterword by the author. Frail Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau,
translated by John T. Scott and Robert D. Zaretsky
Imperfect garden: the legacy of humanism, translated by Carol Cosman.
Hope and memory: lessons from the twentieth century, translated by David
Belos. New world disorder: reflections of a
European, preface by Stanley Hoffmann; translated by Andrew Brown.
In Defence of the Enlightenment, translated by Gila Walker.
The fear of barbarians: beyond the clash of civilizations, translated by Andrew
Brown Muros caídos, muros erigidos, translated
by Zoraida de Torres Burgos Articles
"Humanisme, libéralisme et esprit des Lumières, entretien de Karim Emile Bitar
avec Tzvetan Todorov". L'ENA hors les murs. June 2007.
"'L'esprit des Lumières a encore beaucoup à faire dans le monde
d'aujourd'hui'". Le Monde. March 4, 2006.
"'In search for lost crime: Tribunals, apologies, reparations, and the search
for justice.'". The New Republic. January 26, 2001.
See also Fantastic
Genre studies Mikhail Bakhtin
References External links
Media related to Tzvetan Todorov at Wikimedia Commons
Tzvetan Todorov on the Enlightenment Today, a nineteen-minute interview on
Philosophy Bites The Tzvetan Todorov Book Interview
Interview with Tzvetan Todorov: “It is surprising to see so many walls erected
in the midst of globalisation”, Barcelona Metropolis, num. 78, Spring
2010