Born on July 20 1950 in Brussels, Belgium.
Education and professional career
- École Polytechnique alumnus
- Ponts et Chaussées engineer
- 1975-1978 : Resident at the Fondation Thiers, CNRS research associate, French linguistics and literature
- 1978-1985 : Lecturer, École polytechnique, humanities and social sciences department
- 1980-1987 : Professor, French Institute of the United Kingdom, London
- 1981-1985 : Assistant lecturer, then senior lecturer, Université de Haute-Normandie, Rouen
- 1985 : Doctor of Letters
- 1985- : Professor of French, Columbia University, New York
- 1986 : Visiting Professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
- 1988 : Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
- 1989-1990 : Professor, Université du Maine, Le Mans
- 1990 : Visiting Professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
- 199- : Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York
- 1994 : Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford
- 1994-2006 : Professor, University of Paris-Sorbonne
- 2006-2020 : Professor, Collège de France, Modern and contemporary French literature : history, criticism, theory
- Since 2020 : Honorary Professor, Collège de France
