Elizabeth Fox ’05 (right)
Fox majored in French and plans to attend the University of Virginia Medical School this fall.

Maurice Blanchot and the Murmur at the Heart of Literature

Kevin Newmark, associate professor, Romance languages and literature

“Elizabeth Fox’s project represents a literary and philosophical endeavor of great subtlety and complexity. By doing comprehensive research on the little-known and difficult French writer, Maurice Blanchot, Elizabeth demonstrated rare intellectual insight, perseverance, and even courage. Blanchot's writings, while obscure and unsettling, interrogate in highly original ways some of the most compelling ethical, intellectual, and politico-historical issues of our times. Elizabeth's patient and elegant examination of these issues illuminated the way literary fictions can provide privileged access to questions that are more easily avoided or disposed of by other modes of discourse. This enabled her own writing to reach a level of understanding and sophistication usually reserved for only the most advanced graduate students.”