Professor Thomas Baldwin

School of Languages and Cultures

Head of School

SLC Head of School Tom Baldwin
Profile picture of SLC Head of School Tom Baldwin
t.baldwin@sheffield.ac.uk
Jessop West

Full contact details

Professor Thomas Baldwin
School of Languages and Cultures
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I studied for a BA in French and German at University College London, and for a DPhil in French at New College, Oxford. Before coming to Sheffield, I was Reader in French and Co-Director of the Centre for Modern European Literature and Culture at the University of Kent. I am a member of the Society for French Studies Executive Committee, and General Editor of the MHRA/Legenda Research Monographs in French Studies book series.

Qualifications

DPhil in French (‘The Material Object in the Work of Marcel Proust’), New College, University of Oxford

MSt in European Literature, New College, University of Oxford

BA in French and German, University College London

Research interests

My research interests are in modern French literature, philosophy and culture, and in particular the interrelations of critical theory, literature and visual art. I have published widely on the work of Marcel Proust. My most recent book (Roland Barthes: The Proust Variations) examines Barthes’s sustained engagement with Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu between the 1950s and 1980. I am currently developing two projects, one on Salon criticism and ekphrasis from the eighteenth century onwards, and the other, with Professor Patrick ffrench (King’s College London), on intersections between modern European literature, philosophy and law.   

Teaching interests

I have taught undergraduate and postgraduate modules on modern French literature, philosophy and visual culture, as well as French language at all levels. 

I offer research supervision in the fields of modern French literature, philosophy and text-image relations.

Publications

Authored books and co-edited volumes

  • Roland Barthes: The Proust Variations (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019), 208pp. ISBN: 9781789620016.
  • What’s So Great About Roland Barthes?, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Katja Haustein and Lucy O’Meara, L’Esprit Créateur (Johns Hopkins University Press), 55/4 (Winter 2015), 180pp. ISSN: 0014-0767.
  • Questions of Influence in Modern French Literature, ed. Thomas Baldwin, James Fowler and Ana de Medeiros (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 256pp. ISBN: 9781137030290.
  • Text and Image in Modern European Culture, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Natasha Grigorian and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012), 280pp. ISBN: 9781557536280.
  • The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze (Oxford: Legenda, 2011), 134pp. ISBN: 9781907625039.
  • The Flesh in the Text, ed. Thomas Baldwin, James Fowler and Shane Weller (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), 289pp. ISBN: 9783039111022. 
  • The Material Object in the Work of Marcel Proust (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), 192pp. ISBN: 9780820472478.

Journal articles and book chapters

  • ‘The Unanswered Demand: Barthes and Proust’, in Unavailable: The Joy of Not Responding, ed. Marie-Luise Goldmann and Anna Hordych (Berlin: Kadmos Kulturverlag, 2023).
  • ‘Proust Machine: Gilles Deleuze’ (co-authored with Patrick ffrench), in The Proustian Mind, ed. Anna Magdalena Elsner and Thomas Stern (London: Routledge, 2022).
  • ‘Finding a Way Out: Proustian Semiotics in Deleuze and Guattari’ (co-authored with Patrick ffrench), in Proust’s Way: Theorisations, Hybridisations, Mythologies, ed. Emanuela Piga Bruni, Ruggero Ragonese, and Marion Schmid, E/C (February 2022).
  • ‘Understanding Barthes, Understanding Proust’, in Understanding Barthes, Understanding Modernism, ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Zahi Zalloua (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). 
  • ‘Theories of the Novel’, in The Cambridge History of the Novel in French, ed. Adam Watt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). ISBN: 9781108497077.
  • ‘Roland Barthes, les variations Proust’, in Barthes et la musique, ed. Claude Coste and Sylvie Douche (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018), pp. 203–12. ISBN: 9782753575455.
  • ‘Marcel Proust, On and Off’, in Lucidity: Essays in Honour of Alison Finch, ed. Ian James and Emma Wilson (Oxford: Legenda, 2016), pp. 121–31. ISBN: 9781907625039. 
  • ‘On Garréta on Proust’, French Studies, LXX/1 (2016), 33–43. ISSN: 0016-1128.
  • ‘Rewriting Proust’, What’s So Great About Roland Barthes?, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Katja Haustein and Lucy O’Meara, L’Esprit Créateur (Johns Hopkins University Press), 55/4 (Winter 2015), 70–85. ISSN: 0014-0767.
  • ‘Introduction: What’s So Great About Roland Barthes?’, What’s So Great About Roland Barthes?, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Katja Haustein and Lucy O’Meara, L’Esprit Créateur (Johns Hopkins University Press), 55/4 (Winter 2015), 1–6. ISSN: 0014-0767. 
  • ‘Félix Guattari’s Swann’, Swann at 100 / Swann à 100 ans, ed. Adam Watt, Marcel Proust Aujourd-hui, 12 (October 2015), 35–49. ISSN: 1571-5647.
  • ‘Charlus/z’, Writing, Reading, Grieving: Essays in Memory of Suzanne Dow, ed. Ruth Cruickshank and Adam Watt, Nottingham French Studies, 53/1 (Spring 2014), 90–101. ISSN: 0029-4586.
  • ‘Speaking of “Nobody Spoke”: Script for a Theory Installation by the Jackson Pollock Bar’, in Art & Language: Nobody Spoke (Exhibition Catalogue), ed. Matthew Jesse Jackson, Nicholas Logsdail and Joanna Thornberry (London: Lisson Gallery, 2014), pp. 133–141.
  • ‘Preface’, in Questions of Influence in Modern French Literature, ed. Thomas Baldwin, James Fowler and Ana de Medeiros (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. vii–xvi. ISBN: 9781137030290.
  • ‘Mid-twentieth-century views, 1960s to 1980s’, in Marcel Proust in Context, ed. Adam Watt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 199–205. ISBN: 9780521769563.
  • ‘Philosophy’, in Marcel Proust in Context, ed. Adam Watt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 75–82. ISBN: 9780521769563.
  • ‘Proust’s Picture Plane’, in Proust and the Visual, ed. Nathalie Aubert (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), pp. 131–48. ISBN: 9780708325483.
  • ‘Grazing with Marcel Proust’, in Modernist Eroticisms: European Literature after Sexology, ed. Anna Katharina Schaffner and Shane Weller (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 63–79. ISBN: 9781137030290. 
  • ‘Photography and Painting in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu’, in Text and Image in Modern European Culture, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Natasha Grigorian and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012), pp. 76–87. ISBN: 9781557536280.
  • ‘On Barthes on Proust’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 48/3 (June 2012), 274–87. ISSN: 0015-8518.
  • ‘The Thickness of Art: Paintings and Photographs in Proust’s Recherche’, Modern Language Review, 106/1 (January 2011), 86–98. ISSN: 0026-7937.
  • ‘Ekphrasis and Related Issues in Diderot’s Salons’, in New Essays on Diderot, ed. James Fowler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 234–47. ISBN: 9780521769563.
  • ‘Proust and Zola: Name that Picture’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 46/1 (January 2010), 29–42. ISSN: 0015-8518.
  • ‘Proust et les jets d’eau d’Hubert Robert’, Cahiers de l’AIEF, ed. Marian Hobson, 62 (2010), 223–39. ISSN: 0571-5865.
  • ‘“Et tout le reste est littérature”: Deleuze reads Le Temps retrouvé’, in ‘Le Temps retrouvé’, Eighty Years After, ed. Adam Watt (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 267–78. ISBN: 9783039118434.
  • ‘Proust’s Eyes’, in The Flesh in the Text, ed. Thomas Baldwin, James Fowler and Shane Weller (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), pp. 95–108. ISBN: 9783039111022.
  • ‘Introduction’ to The Flesh in the Text, ed. Thomas Baldwin, James Fowler and Shane Weller (Bern, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), pp. 9–18. ISBN: 9783039111022.
  • ‘Jacques Bouveresse: Being UnFrench, Metaphorically’, French Cultural Studies, 18/3 (October 2007), 321–33. ISSN: 0957-1558.
  • ‘Proust, a Fountain and Some Pink Marble’, French Studies, LIX/4 (2005), 481–93. ISSN: 0016-1128.
  • ‘Deleuze’s Bacon’, Radical Philosophy, 123 (January–February 2004), 29–40. ISSN: 0300-211X.