2016-2017 Marc Crépon

The Humanities Institute named Marc Crépon, Director of the Department of Philosophy at the École Normale Superieure in Paris, as the 2016-2017 WBFO/Eileen Silvers Visiting Professor in the Humanities.

A world-class scholar of philosophy, literature, and history and the author of fifteen books and numerous articles, Professor Crépon is also a public intellectual concerned with such pressing issues as contemporary culture, violence, state security, and democracy. David E. Johnson, professor of Comparative Literature, calls Marc Crépon “one of France’s most important philosophers and public intellectuals” whose “work crosses the borders between literature, philosophy, and contemporary events.”

While on campus in the fall of 2016, Professor Crépon interacted with students, faculty, and the broader public through a number of events. His work was featured as part of a day-long symposium on “Fear, Hatred, Terror: Paris and Elsewhere” on Friday, September 9th; he also co-taught a seminar in Comparative Literature and, on September 14th, offered a workshop open to all graduate students on “Becoming a Public Intellectual.”  In addition, Professor Crépon met with undergraduates from the Honors College and the Academies to discuss contemporary philosophy and the culture of terror.

This award was endowed in 2013 by alumna Eileen Silvers (UB ’70) and has supported two previous Visiting Professors, Rosalyn Diprose of the University of New South Wales in Australia and the Chicago-Based experimental theater director Sean Graney.