Faculty Leaders

Joshua Landy

associate professor of French

Professor Joshua Landy arrived at Stanford as an assistant professor in the fall of 1996. He has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies (French) and Director of Graduate Studies (French).

Professor Landy’s research interests include philosophical literature, literary philosophy, philosophy of literature, symbolist poetry, and the first-person novel (with particular emphasis on Proust). Professor Landy is co-director of the Literature and Philosophy Initiative at Stanford, a program that offers new tracks within undergraduate humanities majors, as well as graduate student workshops and faculty events.

Professor Landy's next book, entitled How To Do Things with Fictions, will examine how a variety of texts seek to train, rather than teach, their readers. Landy is also the editor of The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age, a collection of essays by leading scholars in history, literature and philosophy published by Stanford University Press in 2009. With topics ranging from magic, mystery and wonder to purpose, order and meaning, the book explores the range of secular enchantments still on offer in a modern, rational world.