#  The Readee, or: Reading in the Subjunctive Mood 

 



    ![battle painting](/sites/g/files/omnuum4936/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/mahindra/files/france.jpg?itok=SU3GEcCa) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 12, 2025** 

 05:00PM - 06:30PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Barker Center, Room 114**  



 

 



 

## [FRANCE AND THE WORLD](/france-and-world)

## SPEAKER: Peter Szendy, Brown University

The lecture will introduce the notion of the *readee*, the addressee of reading (with all the misdirections that such an address can involve). It will then explore, guided by some passages in Paul Valéry’s *“My Faust”*, the idea of reading in the subjunctive mood, as a promise of reading that constantly shadows reading itself.

### About the speaker

Peter Szendy is Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature at Brown University and musicological advisor for the book series published by La Philharmonie de Paris. His writings include: *Powers of Reading: From Plato to Audiobooks* (Zone Books, 2025); *For an Ecology of Images* (Verso, 2025); *The Supermarket of the Visible: Toward a General Economy of Images* (Fordham University Press, 2019); *Of Stigmatology: Punctuation as Experience* (Fordham University Press, 2018); *All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage* (Fordham University Press, 2007); *Listen: A History of Our Ears* (Fordham University Press, 2001). He curated the exhibition *The Supermarket of Images* at the museum of the Jeu de Paume in Paris (February-June 2020).



 

 



 

 See also:- [ France and the World ](/seminars/france-and-world)
- [ Seminar ](/event-type/seminar)
 
 

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