About

Katie Chenoweth joined the Department of French and Italian at Princeton University as an Assistant Professor of French in 2013. She earned her PhD in French Studies from Brown University in 2010 and has previously taught at Washington and Lee University. She was also a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago. Her research intersects literature, philosophy, media studies, and the history of the book, with primary specialization in the Renaissance (sixteenth century) and contemporary French thought, focusing on deconstruction and Jacques Derrida's work. Chenoweth has published articles on Montaigne, Derrida, media history, and related topics in various academic venues. Her first book, 'The Prosthetic Tongue: Printing Technology and the Rise of the French Language,' charts the technological reinvention of the French language during the sixteenth century. She is currently working on a book titled 'Strange Flowers: Radical Quotation from Montaigne to Derrida,' which reassesses citationality and Montaigne’s Essays for modern thought. Additionally, she is the director of the Bibliothèque Derrida at Éditions du Seuil and leads the digital humanities project 'Derrida’s Margins,' dedicated to Derrida’s personal library housed at Princeton.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Literature
• Art
• Linguistics
• Political Science
• Visual arts
• Epistemology
• History

Selected publications

• Faute de frappe : Derrida dactylo

  Philosophiques · 2021-02-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  « Je tape très vite, très mal, avec beaucoup de fautes », confesse Jacques Derrida dans une entrevue tardive. Suivant cette idée, cet article propose que l’erreur typographique — habituellement perçue comme un simple « accident » devant être corrigé ou normalisé — puisse en fait être comprise comme le site opérant de lectures et de réflexions déconstructives. En analysant le manuscrit dactylographié du séminaire « Le fantôme de l’autre » (1984-1985) à partir duquel sont dérivés les textes Geschlecht II et Geschlecht III et en m’appuyant sur la suggestion provocatrice de Nietzsche selon laquelle la machine à écrire « collabore » en quelque sorte à la réflexion, j’examine l’omniprésence des fautes de frappe chez Derrida et son rapport particulier à la machine à écrire. Je me concentre plus précisément sur les lectures de Heidegger dans ce séminaire afin de situer la pensée derridienne de la frappe (du Schlag ), c’est-à-dire du coup, de la marque, de l’empreinte, au coeur de tous les « types » (une autre des nombreuses significations du mot allemand « Geschlecht »). J’affirme ainsi que la faute de frappe dans ce séminaire doit être considérée comme une condition de possibilité de tout type et qu’elle révèle une différence significative entre Derrida et Heidegger.

  PublisherDOI

• Faute de frappe: Derrida’s Typos

  Research in Phenomenology · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Epistemology
  • Literature

  Abstract “I type very quickly, very badly, with many errors [ fautes ],” Jacques Derrida confessed in a late interview. This paper proposes that the typographical error – usually viewed as a mere “accident” – may in fact be understood as a productive site for deconstructive reading and thought. Drawing on Nietzsche’s suggestion that the typewriter acts as a “collaborator” in thinking, this paper examines Derrida’s use of the typewriter, with particular attention to his typos. Following Derrida’s reading in the Geschlecht series and his own typographical practice, this paper argues that the typo should be thought of as the condition of possibility of every type – and as a defining difference between Derrida and Heidegger.

  PublisherDOI

• The Corrector as Critic

  2021-05-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter proposes that the print shop emerges in the sixteenth century as a key site for the production of literary criticism. Of particular interest is the figure of the printer’s corrector, an expert in error and artisan of precision whose task is to discover and amend faults before a text goes into print. Taking as an exemplary case the French poet, literary critic, and orthographic reformer Jacques Peletier du Mans (1517–1582/3)—who maintained close relationships with his printers and was employed as a corrector in the workshop of Jean de Tournes in Lyon—the chapter examines how the practice of correction and the mechanical ethos of printing inform early meta-poetic work in France, including Peletier’s seminal translation of Horace’s Ars poetica and his own Art Poëtiquɇ of 1555.

  PublisherDOI

• Chapter 5. Grammatization: Pedagogies of the Mother Tongue

  University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2020-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Geschlecht III: Sex, Race, Nation, Humanity

  2020-09-30 · 7 citations

  book

• Chapter 1. The Artificial Tongue: Beginnings

  University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2020-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Chapter 7. Survival: Du Bellay and the Life of Language

  University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2020-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Notes

  University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2020-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• chapter 5. Derrida at Montaigne

  Fordham University Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Literature
  • Art
  PublisherDOI

• Chapter 6. Prosthetic Sovereignty: François I and the Ear of the People

  University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks · 2020-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Alexander Baron-Raiffe

  8 shared

• Renée Altergott

  7 shared

• Rebecca Sutton Koeser

  Princeton University

  7 shared

• Benjamin Hicks

  7 shared

• Chad Córdova

  5 shared

• Jean Bauer

  Akamai (United States)

  5 shared

• Austin Hancock

  5 shared

• Rodrigo Therezo

  University of Freiburg

  5 shared