Adele Kudish
Professor
Chairperson
English
EMAIL: akudish@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: N-751G
Office Hours: Fall 2024: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2-5pm; Wednesdays/Fridays 9:30am-5pm
Phone: +1 (212) 776-6505
Professor Kudish’s current research interests include the European proto-psychological novel (English, French, Spanish, and Italian), particularly psychological love stories, as well as fashion theory, economics and literature, and early 20th century novels by women. At BMCC since 2012, Professor Kudish teaches composition courses, World Literature, and introduction to Literary Studies. In 2024, she was also appointed Professor of Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Expertise
Early Modern French, Italian, and English prose fiction; narratology; the history of the novel; early 20th-century women’s fiction in the US, England, and France.
Degrees
- Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center, Comparative Literature, 2012
- M.A., CUNY Graduate Center, Comparative Literature, 2006
- B.A., New York University, Comparative Literature, 2003
Courses Taught
- English Composition is the standard freshman writing course. The course introduces students to academic writing. By its conclusion, students will be ready for English 201 and for the writing they will be asked to do in advanced courses across the curriculum. Students completing ENG 101 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word, thesis-driven essay in conversation with two designated texts. Prerequisite: Pass the CAT-R and CAT-W or Accuplacer tests
- This is a course that builds upon skills introduced in English 101. In this course, literature is the field for the development of critical reading, critical thinking, independent research, and writing skills. Students are introduced to literary criticisms and acquire basic knowledge necessary for the analysis of texts (including literary terms and some literary theory); they gain proficiency in library and internet research; and they hone their skills as readers and writers. Assignments move from close readings of literary texts in a variety of genres to analyses that introduce literary terms and broader contexts, culminating in an independent, documented, thesis-driven research paper. By the conclusion of English 201, students will be prepared for the analytical and research-based writing required in upper-level courses across the curriculum; they will also be prepared for advanced courses in literature. Prerequisite: ENG 101
- Introduction to Literary Studies is an inquiry into what it means to study literature, involving close reading, critical and creative analysis of a wide variety of prose fiction, drama, and poetry, and informed by an introduction to some of theoretical issues currently invigorating literary studies. In addition to works of literature, students will read critical and theoretical works. This course combines a study of literature with continued training in clear and effective expression. It is designed for prospective Writing and Literature majors and other interested students. Prerequisite: ENG 101 or 121 Corequisite: ENG 201
- This course presents a global approach to literature by introducing prose, poetry and drama representative of different world cultures and historical periods, from antiquity to the early modern era. Students engage in close readings of individual texts and contextual/comparative analyses. Written and spoken activities are designed to enhance students' appreciation of literature and their awareness of the ways it arises from, shapes and reflects the world's cultures.
- This course presents a global approach to literature by introducing prose, poetry and drama representative of different cultures and historical periods, from the 17th century to the present. Students engage in close readings of individual texts and contextual/comparative analyses. Written and spoken activities are designed to enhance students? appreciation of literature and their awareness of the ways it arises from, shapes, and reflects the world?s cultures.
- European social and political ideas as they are reflected in the works of such novelists as Gide, Silone, Koestler, Camus, Sartre, Mann, and Kafka are examined and analyzed. Prerequisites: ENG 101 and 201, or ENG 121
- This course will focus on a specific theme, concept, cultural milieu, or major author to be announced in advance. Topics for the following semester will be made available by the English Department during registration. Each section of the course will cover in-depth a single special topic, such as one of the following: the Harlem Renaissance, Literature and the Environment, Utopian and Dystopian Literature, Literature and Medicine, The Beat Generation, Literature of the Working Class, Satire in the 18th Century, Censorship and Literature, Literature of Immigration, War in Literature, Madness and Inspiration in Literature, Gay and Lesbian Literature, and Women in Shakespeare. Prerequisites: ENG 101 and 201, or ENG 121
- This is a film history and appreciation course, with special emphasis on style, techniques, genres and themes. During one double period in which a full-length film is shown, students are encouraged to take notes. In the next class the film is discussed and analyzed. Students will read about the development of the cinema and write essays about well-known films. Pre-Requisite: ENG101 and ENG201 or ENG121
Research and Projects
- The European Roman d’analyse: Unconsummated Love Stories from Boccaccio to Stendhal This book (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) represents an important contribution to the history of the novel by defining and delineating for the first time a sub-genre that I call “analytical fiction.” Analytical novels (a translation of the French term in my book’s title) investigate the epistemology of troubled and failed love and deny the legitimacy of introspection. My book examines a selection of eight European texts written between 1343 and 1827 that illustrate a deeply pessimistic philosophy that questions the validity of every kind of communicative sign.
- Danae’s Daughters: Women and Money in Early 20th Century Fiction The ways in which women spend money has been fictionalized and satirized in a large body of literature, mostly written by men, including Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola, Theodore Dreiser, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many more. However, little has been written about the ways in which women themselves write about money. Danae’s Daughters: Women and Money in Early 20th Century Fiction will examine the relationships between women’s labor, capitalism, and dress in French, English, and American short stories and novels.
Publications
- “‘At the Very Moment of Attainment’: Self-Deception in La Princesse de Clèves and The House of Mirth,” The Edith Wharton Review, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2022, pp. 132-150.
- “’Selling Themselves Piecemeal’: The Economics of Beauty and Power in The Ladies’ Paradise and The House of Mirth.” In The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies. Eds. Eugenia Paulicelli, Veronica Manlow, and Elizabeth Wissinger. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.
- The European Roman d’Analyse: Unconsummated Love Stories from Boccaccio to Stendhal. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
- “’[La] plus jolie [de] toutes celles qui avaient jamais été écrites’: Madame de Thémines’s Letter as Proto-Psychological Fiction in La Princesse de Clèves.” The French Review 91.3 (2018), 56-69.
- “’Lost in a Sort of Wilderness’: The Epistemology of Love in Sir Charles Grandison.” Studies in Philology 114:2 (2017), 426-445.
- “John Lyly’s Anatomy of Wit as an Example of Early Modern Psychological Fiction.” Cerae: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Issue 3, 2016, 18 pages.
- “’Emotions so Compounded of Pleasure and Pain’: Affective Contradiction in Austen’s Persuasion.” The Explicator 74:2 (2016), 120-124.
- “European Literature,” entry in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship, & Sexuality Through History, Vol. 3, The Early Modern Period. Eds. Victoria L. Mondelli and Cherrie A. Gottsleben, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
Awards
- The Advanced Research Collaborative, CUNY Fellow (Spring 2023) (3 course releases)
- BMCC Interdisciplinary Poverty & Humanities Institute, Faculty Fellow (Summer 2021) (summer salary)
- PSC-CUNY Grant, Cycle 52 (2021-22) (summer salary)
- BMCC Faculty Development Grant, 2020-2021 (course release in Spring 2021)
- Fellowship Leave (Sabbatical), full year 2019-2020
- Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, 2017-2018 (course release in Spring 2018)
- PSC-CUNY Grant A, Cycle 47 (2016-17) (summer salary)
- PSC-CUNY Grant A, Cycle 48 (2017-2018) (research travel)
- Sponsored Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate Center of CUNY (2011–2012)
- Renaissance Studies Travel and Research Grant, Graduate Center of CUNY (2011-2012)
- CUNY Writing Fellowship (2009-2011)
Professional Memberships
- Modern Language Association
- Modernist Studies Association
- American Comparative Literature Association
- Northeast MLA
