Timothy Hampton

Aldo Scaglione and Marie M Burns 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

Painting of a man in colourful clothes sitting against a stone wall looking pensive with armour-clad figures in the shadows.

COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

The loving tongue

In Spanish, I wasn’t the clumsy son of the town amputee. Learning the language catalysed my reinvention

by Timothy Hampton

Photo of a person with a guitar leaning on a car in a forest with bright red foliage wearing a white shirt and hat.

MUSIC

Bob Dylan turned American folk traditions into modern prophecy

Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’ is the first truly modernist folk song: it reworks tradition into a prophetic warning

by Timothy Hampton