Bio

For the last two decades, Margaret Cohen has been researching and teaching the literature and imagination of the oceans. Her most recent book is The Underwater Eye: How the Movie Camera Opened the Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy that appeared in April 2022 with Princeton University Press. Her The Novel and the Sea ( Princeton University Press, 2010) was awarded the Louis R. Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the George and Barbara Perkins Prize from the International Society for the Study of the Narrative. She co-edited The Aesthetics of the Undersea (Routledge, 2019) with Killian Quigley. She is general editor of A Cultural History of the Sea (Bloomsbury, 2021), and she is volume editor of A Cultural History of the Sea in the Age of Empire, the fifth volume of this six volume set spanning from antiquity to the present.

Professor Cohen's fields of expertise also include critical theories of cultural modernity and the history of the European novel. Her other monographs are Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution (University of California Press, 1993) and The Sentimental Education of the Novel (Princeton University Press, 1999), which received the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione prize in French and Francophone literature. In addition, Margaret Cohen co-edited two collections of scholarship on the European novel: The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel with Carolyn Dever ( Princeton University Press, 2002), and Spectacles of Realism: Body, Gender, Genre with Christopher Prendergast ( University of Minnesota Press, 1995). She edited and translated Sophie Cottin's best-selling novel of 1799, Claire d'Albe ( Modern Language Association, 2003), and has edited a new critical edition of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary that appeared with W.W. Norton in 2004. She is current Director of Stanford's Center for the Study of the Novel.

Academic Appointments

  • Professor, English
  • Professor (By courtesy), French and Italian
  • Professor (By courtesy), Comparative Literature

Administrative Appointments

  • Director, Center for the Study of the Novel, https://novel.stanford.edu (2018 - 2025)

Honors & Awards

  • Project Award, "Public Knowledge Infrastructures of the Ocean," PI, Public Humanities Program, Stanford (9/23-8/25)
  • Project Award, "Connecting the Blue Humanities and the Ocean Sciences" PI, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment (9/23-12/24)
  • Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2017-2018)
  • George and Barbara Perkins Prize, International Society for the Study of the Narrative (2012)
  • Violet Andrews Whittier Faculty Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2011-2012)
  • Harry Levin Prize, Honorable Mention, American Comparative Literature Association (2011)
  • Louis R. Gottschalk Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2011)
  • Faculty Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2004-2005)
  • Fellow, John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander O. Vietor Fund for maritime history (2002-2003)
  • Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione prize in French and Francophone literature, Modern Language Association (2000)
  • Fellow, Project for Cities and Urban Knowledges, International Center for Advanced Study, New York University (1999-2000)
  • Presidential Fellowship, New York University (1992)
  • American Council of Learned Societies grant for recent recipients of the Ph.D., ACLS (1991-1992)

Professional Education

  • Ph.D., Yale University (1988)
  • M.A., New York University (1982)
  • B.A., Yale University (1980)
  • Student, Universität Konstanz (1981)

Contact

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 2087

Links

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Across her career, Professor Cohen has explored the literature and culture of modernity. Her books include Profane Illumination (1993), which showed the impact of surrealist Paris on Walter Benjamin and The Sentimental Education of the Novel (1999), recovering the forgotten role of women writers in shaping 19th-century French realism. In her most recent book, The Novel and the Sea (2010), she revealed the impact of the ship’s log and the history of writing about work at sea on the development of the modern novel, foregrounding the importance of adventure fiction in the history of this form.

Professor Cohen's The Underwater Eye, appearing in April 2022 with Princeton University Press, is a book showing how film and TV created a modern imagination of the underwater and undersea environments that even today few experience directly, yet whose well-being is integral to life on our planet.

Professor Cohen is general editor for A Cultural History of the Sea, a six-volume set spanning from antiquity to the present that appeared with Bloomsbury in April 2021, as well as editor of the fifth volume in the set, The Age of Empire. Throughout her research and teaching, she emphasizes the importance of engaging with the reality and diversity of marine environments.

Projects

  • A Cultural History of the Seas

    General Editor of a six-volume set surveying the global history of the seas, from antiquity to the present. Volume Editor of "The Age of Empire." Publisher, Bloomsbury Press

    Location

    Stanford University

    Collaborators

    • Elizabeth Lambourn, Editor, Medieval Volume, DeMontfort University
    • Marie-Claire Beaulieu, Editor, Antiquity Volume, Tufts University
    • Steven Mentz, Editor, Early Modern Volume, St. John's University
    • Jonathan Lamb, Editor, Enlightenment Volume, Vanderbilt University
    • Franziska Torma, Editor, Twentieth Century to the Present Volume, Technische Universitat, Munich
  • Ocean Cultures, Underwater Worlds, Sydney Environment Institute

    Location

    University of Sydney

    Collaborators

    • Iain McCalman, Co-Director, University of Sydney
    • Killian Quigley, Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Sydney
    • Jonathan Lamb, Research Affiliate, Vanderbilt University
    • Maria Byrne, Key Researcher, University of Sydney
    • William Figuera, Key Researcher, University of Sydney
    • Ann Elias, Key Researcher, University of Sydney
  • Visualizing the Oceans (9/9/2013 - 10/2016)

    Pilot project to promote collaborations among scholars and arts practitioners representing world's oceans

    Location

    Stanford University

    Collaborators

    • Anne Higonnet, Professor, Barnard University
    • Jonathan Lamb, Mellon Professor of the Huamnities, Vanderbilt University
    • Iain McCalman, Professional Research Fellow, Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney
    • Melissa Langer, Filmmaker , Stanford University
    • Catharine Axley, Filmmaker, Stanford University
    • Patrick Trefz, Filmmaker, Independent Arts Practitioner
  • Podcast host, Center for the Study of the Novel, Center for the Study of the Novel

    In 2019, the Center launched a podcast series Café, for conversations among our visitors on timely subjects in literary studies and the humanities.

    Location

    Stanford University

2024-25 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • The Underwater Imagination From Environment to Film Set, 1954-1956 ENGLISH LANGUAGE NOTES Cohen, M. 2019; 57 (1): 51–71

    View details for DOI 10.1215/00138282-7309677

    View details for Web of Science ID 000462694700005

  • A Feminist Plunge into Sea Knowledge PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Cohen, M. 2019; 134 (2): 372–77

    View details for Web of Science ID 000467196100011

  • The shipwreck as undersea gothic AESTHETICS OF THE UNDERSEA Cohen, M., Cohen, M., Quigley, K. 2019: 155–66

    View details for Web of Science ID 000488226500012

  • The Aesthetics of the Undersea Cohen, M. 2019
  • Submarine aesthetics Introduction AESTHETICS OF THE UNDERSEA Cohen, M., Quigley, K., Cohen, M., Quigley, K. 2019: 1-+

    View details for Web of Science ID 000488226500001

  • Seeing Through Water: The Paintings of Zarh Pritchard The Sea in 19th-Century Anglophone Literary Culture Cohen, M. Routledge. 2017
  • Seeing Through Water: The Paintings of Zarh Pritchard Coastal Works: Cultures of the Atlantic Edge Cohen, M. Oxford University Press. 2017
  • The Bonds of the Sea, Review of William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days Cohen, M., Borius, H. Public Books, The Guardian. 2016
  • Atlantik/Pazifik: Die imaginäre Erschliessung der Ozeane im Zeitalter der Segelschifffahrt Handbuch Literatur & Raum, Cohen, M. De Gruyter. 2015
  • Underwater Optics as Symbolic Form French Politics, Culture and Society ohen, M. 2015
  • Reading the Book of Water WAX Cohen, M. 2015
  • In a Fish's Eye WAX Cohen, M. 2015
  • On Time: Kairos and the Arts of Action WAX Cohen, M. 2014
  • Denotation in Alien Environments: The Underwater Je Ne Sais Quoi Representations Cohen, M. 2014
  • The International Novel in a National Age The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Volume 3, 1820-1880 Cohen, M. Oxford University Press. 2012
  • "Artists' Blood" and "Interview with Patrick Trefz" Surfer's Blood Trefz, P., Cohen, M., et al powerHouse Books. 2012
  • Literary Studies on the Terraqueous Globe PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Cohen, M. 2010; 125 (3): 657-662

    View details for Web of Science ID 000280898500009

  • The Novel and the Sea Cohen, M. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2010
  • Narratology in the Archive of Literature REPRESENTATIONS Cohen, M. 2009: 51-75

    View details for DOI 10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.51

    View details for Web of Science ID 000270995900003

  • The Right to Mobility in Adventure Fiction NOVEL-A FORUM ON FICTION Cohen, M. 2009; 42 (2): 290-296

    View details for DOI 10.1215/00295132-2009-017

    View details for Web of Science ID 000271363300017

  • Review of Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience by Anne-Lise Francois Rmanticism and Victorianism on the Net (RaVoN) Cohen, M. 2009
  • Flaubert lectrice: Flaubert lady reader ('Madame Bovary') MLN Cohen, M. 2007; 122 (4): 746-758

    View details for Web of Science ID 000252265900006

  • Historical Fiction Oxford Book of Maritime History Cohen, M. Oxford University Press. 2007
  • Modernity on the Waterfront: The Case of Haussmann's Paris Locating the City Cohen, M. University of Minnesota Press. 2007
  • The Chronotopes of the Sea History of the Novel Cohen, M. Princeton University Press. 2006
  • Madame Bovary: contexts, critical reception Cohen, M. New York: W.W. Norton. 2005
  • Madame Bovary Flaubert, G. edited by Cohen, M. W.W. Norton. 2004
  • Fluid States: The Maritime in MOdernity Cabinet Cohen, M. 2004
  • Modernity as Phantasmagoria: Benjamin's Arcades Companion to Walter Benjamin Cohen, M. Cambridge University Press. 2004
  • Complex Culture The Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture Reader Cohen, M., Higonnet, A. Routledge. 2004
  • Traveling genres (Literary history, novel) NEW LITERARY HISTORY Cohen, M. 2003; 34 (3): 481-499

    View details for Web of Science ID 000186720200006

  • Claire d'Albe Cottin, S., Translated by Cohen, M. edited by Cohen, M. New York: Modern Language Association. 2003
  • Traveling Genres New Literary History Cohen, M. 2003
  • Claire d'Albe: an English translation Cohen, M. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 2002
  • Sentimental Communities The Literary Channel Cohen, M. Princeton University Press. 2002
  • Empatia e sensibility nell’evoluzione del romanzo Storia del Romanzo Cohen, M., Alliston, A. Einaudi. 2002
  • Il Mare Storia del Romanzo Cohen, M. Einaudi. 2002
  • The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel edited by Cohen, M., Dever, C. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2002
  • Claire d'Albe: the original French text Cohen, M. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 2002
  • The literary channel: the inter-national invention of the novel Cohen, M. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2002
  • Les Mysteres de la rue et les mysteres du coeur La Modernite avant Haussmann Cohen, M. Editions de la Recherche. 2001
  • Mania, Melancholy and the Reproduction of the Dead Father Seductions of the Novel: Stael's Corinne in Critical Inquiry Cohen, M. Bucknell University Press. 1999
  • Walter Benjamin and Surrealism Encyclopedia of Aesthetics Cohen, M. Oxford University Press. 1998
  • Women and French Fiction in the Nineteenth Century Companion to the Modern French Novel Cohen, M. Cambridge University Press. 1997
  • Spectacles of realism: body, gender, genre Cohen, M. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1995
  • Red Mothers, Wise Grandmothers: Women's Non-Realist Representations of 1789 Literature Women and the French Revolution Cohen , M. Summa Press. 1995
  • In Lieu of a Chapter on Some French Women Realist Novelists Spectacles of Realism: Body, Gender, Genre Cohen, M. 1995
  • Panoramic Literature and the Invention of the Everyday Rethinking 1895: Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life Cohen, M. University of California Press. 1995
  • Spectacles of Realism: Body, Gender, Genre edited by Cohen, M., Prendergast, C. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1995
  • Translation of Etienne Balibar, "Althusser's Object" Cohen, M., Robbins, B. Social Text. 1994
  • Review of Robert Alter's "Necessary Angels" Comparative Literature Cohen, M. 1994
  • Profane illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of surrealist revolution Cohen, M. Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles, CA; London: University of California Press. 1993
  • Review article on Susan Suleiman's "Subversive Intent" and Maud Lavin's "Cut With the Kitchen Knife" Annals of Scholarship Cohen, M. 1993
  • The Homme Fatal, the Phallic Father, and the New Man Cultural Critique Cohen, M. 1992
  • The Most Suffering Class boundary 2 Cohen, M. 1991
  • Walter Benjamin's Phantasmagoria New German Critique Cohen, M. 1989
  • A Woman's Place: La Petite Fadette v. La Voix des Femmes L'Esprit Createur Cohen, M. 1989
  • Mysteries of Paris: The Collective Uncanny in Andre Breton's L'Amour fou Dada/Surrealism Cohen, M. 1988