Timothy Hampton
Professor of Comparative Literature and French, University of California at Berkeley
Timothy Hampton is professor of comparative literature and French at the University of California at Berkeley, where he holds the Aldo Scaglione and Marie M Burns Distinguished Professorship. His books include Fictions of Embassy: Literature and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (2011), Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work (2019) and Cheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History (2022).
Written by Timothy Hampton
essay
Stories and literature
The sonnet machine
A sonnet contains an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel
Timothy Hampton
essay
History of ideas
Reasons to be cheerful
A cheery mood, you might think, is a terribly self-absorbed response to serious times. But history tells us otherwise
Timothy Hampton