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Robert E. Mitchell, Professor of English

Robert E. Mitchell

Please note: Robert has left the "Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

My research focuses on the long history of relationships among the sciences and the arts, with especial focus on the eighteenth century/Romantic era, and our present moment. I have published four single-author monographs: Sympathy and the State in the Romantic Era: Systems, State Finance, and the Shadows of Futurity (Routledge, 2007), Bioart and the Vitality of Media (U of Washington P, 2010), Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature (Johns Hopkins UP, 2013), and Infectious Liberty: Biopolitics between Romanticism and Liberalism (Fordham UP, 2021). I am also co-author (along with sociologist Catherine Waldby) of the monograph Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (Duke UP, 2006), and co-author (along with media theorist Orit Halpern) of The Smartness Mandate (MIT Press, 2023). I am co-editor of several collections of essays, including Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information (Routledge, 2003), Romanticism and Modernity (Routledge, 2011), and Releasing the Image: From Literature to New Media (Stanford UP, 2011). I have published articles in humanities, social science, and natural science journals, including Science, The American Journal of Bioethics, Biosocieties, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, European Romantic Review, Grey Room, South Atlantic Quarterly, Studies in Romanticism, and PMLA. My current research concentrates on relationships among biopolitics, the logic of populations, and the arts, and also on critical histories of the sciences, especially those of Hannah Arendt and Roberto Esposito.

My research approach is especially suited to graduate students interested in approaching the Romantic era as an inflection point within longer histories, particularly (though not exclusively) those that help us to understand the relationships of literature, the arts, and the sciences.

Contact Info:
Office Location:  302A Allen, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:  (919) 684-2741
Email Address: send me a message

Teaching (Spring 2024):

  • ENGLISH 101S.02, THE ART OF READING Synopsis
    Reuben-Coo 329, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM
  • ENGLISH 290S-2.01, SP TOP 18TH & 19TH CENTURY LIT Synopsis
    Perkins 085, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM
Office Hours:

Office hours available by appointment, email rmitch@duke.edu.
Education:

Ph.D.University of Washington2001
M.A.University of California - Irvine1995
B.A.University of Washington1994
Specialties:

British Literature
Romanticism
Eighteenth Century Literature
Science and Literature
Critical Theory
Research Interests: British Literature of the Romantic Era; Romanticism; 18th Century Literature; Literature and Science

Robert Mitchell is interested in the role of theories of emotional communication (for example, sympathy and identification), as well as the role of science, in the prose and poetry of the Romantic era. He is also interested in contemporary intersections between information technologies, genetics, and commerce, especially as these have been played out in the legal and literary spheres. He has published articles about the role of sympathy in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, the vision of science in Percy Bysshe Shelley's early poetry, and is co-editor of a collection of essays entitled Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body. He is currently revising a manuscript that outlines the history of theories of sympathy in the Romantic era, and he is also working on a multimedia project that investigates contemporary issues in genetic commerce.

Areas of Interest:

British Romanticism
German Romanticism
British and French Literature of the Enlightenment/Eighteenth-Century Critical Theory/History of Criticism
Media and Communication History and Theory
Twentieth-Century French and German Philosophy
European Intellectual History

Keywords:

Europe • Britain • Germany • France • Romanticism • Enlightenment • Literature • Theory • Intellecual History • Media • Communication

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

  • Deanna Koretsky  
Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Mitchell, R, Experimental life: Vitalism in Romantic science and literature (January, 2013), pp. 1-309, The Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 9781421410883 (2013 British Society for Literature and Science Annual Book Prize Winner; 2014 Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.) [experimental-life]  [abs]
  2. Mitchell, R, Bioart and the Vitality of Media (2010), University of Washington Press [ref=sr_1_1]
  3. with Mitchell, R; Burgess, H; Thurtle, P, Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information (DVD-ROM) (2008), University of Pennsylvania Press (DVD-ROM.) [available here]
  4. Mitchell, RE, Sympathy and the State in the Romantic Era: Systems, State Finance, and the Shadows of Futurity (2007), Routledge [102-8880685-5627335]
  5. with Waldby, C; Mitchell, R, Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (2006), Duke University Press [102-8880685-5627335]
  6. with Pfau, T; Mitchell, R, Romanticism and Modernity, edited by Pfau, T; Mitchell, R, vol. 21 (2011), pp. 267-273, Routledge [doi]
  7. with J. Khalip, Releasing the Image: From Literature to New Media, edited by Mitchell, R; Khalip, J (2011), Stanford University Press [ref=sr_1_1]
  8. Mitchell, R, Bioart e biotechnologie dal punto di vista filosofico di Simondon, in Il Divenire della Conoscenza: Estetica e contingenza del reale, edited by Long, A; Masiero, R (2013), Mimesis Edizioni
  9. with Conley, JM; Mitchell, R; Cadigan, RJ; Davis, AM; Dobson, AW; Gladden, RQ, A trade secret model for genomic biobanking., The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics : a Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, vol. 40 no. 3 (January, 2012), pp. 612-629 [doi]  [abs]
  10. Mitchell, R, US biobanking strategies and biomedical immaterial labor, Biosocieties, vol. 7 no. 3 (September, 2012), pp. 224-244, Springer Nature [doi]  [abs]
  11. Mitchell, R, Simondon, Bioart, and the Milieux of Biotechnology, Inflexions, vol. 5 (2012) [html]
  12. Mitchell, R, Cryptogamia, in Romanticism and Modernity (2011), pp. 199-219, Routledge ((reprint of essay).)
  13. Mitchell, R, Suspended animation, slow time, and the poetics of trance, Pmla, vol. 126 no. 1 (January, 2011), pp. 107-122, Modern Language Association (MLA) [doi]  [abs]
  14. with Mitchell, R, Sell: Body wastes, information, and commodification, in Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information, edited by Mitchell, R; Thurtle, P (January, 2011), pp. 121-136, Routledge, ISBN 9780203873274 [104-7461896-1670304], [doi]


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