Nelly Furman, Director of the Office of Programs and the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, Modern Language Association

Nelly Furman is a scholar of French nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature with an interest in textual criticism, women, and feminist studies. She currently serves as Director of both the Office of Programs and the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages at the Modern Language Association, and is a Professor Emerita at Cornell University. She is the author of La Revue des Deux Mondes et le Romantisme (1831-1848) (1975) and co-editor of Women and Language in Literature and Society (1980).

"Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." - C. A. Kolczynski, CHOICE

"This volume is one of the most brilliant critical interpretations of Carmen as a historical phenomenon of mythic proportions. Furman's literary virtuosity makes this book indispensable to anyone interested in the many facets of Carmen, from Mérimée's conception of novella to Bizet's operatic realization and subsequent filmic adaptations of her character." - Silvio J. dos Santos, University of Florida

"In this long-awaited and definitive study, Nelly Furman presents the Carmen story as the central myth of modernity — not of its founding but of its simultaneous unfounding, in which the femme fatale emerges as a projection of anxieties of race, gender, and other 'others.' As readable as it is refined, this wise and wonderful book teaches us not only about opera, film, literature, and language, but about ourselves." - Michael P. Steinberg, Professor of History and Music, Brown University