Tzvetan Todorov, an internationally renowned writer and director of research at the Centre National de Recherches (CNRS) in Paris, will visit Cornell University on March 24-28 as a Clark Fellow. The highlight of his visit will be a lecture titled "History and Ethics" on Monday, March 24, at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Todorov also will host a seminar on his lecture and his work on Tuesday, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. in the Guerlac Room of the A.D. White House.

Todorov has published 21 books, including The Poetics of Prose (1971), The Conquest of America (1982) and Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps (1991). As the titles reflect, his historical interests have focused on such crucial issues as the conquest of the Americas and the Nazi and Stalinist concentration camps.

He has been a visiting professor at several universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley.

His honors have included the Bronze Medal of the CNRS, the Charles Lévque Prize of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques and the first Maugean Prize of the Académie Franaise; he also is an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

"In his early work, Todorov's approach tended to be structuralist, and he was noted for his brilliant analyses of literary texts," said Dominick LaCapra, director of the Society for the Humanities and the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies and professor of history. "More recently, he has become interested in historical and moral problems, notably including ethics in everyday life. He has tried to rehabilitate what he calls 'ordinary virtues' and to criticize the prominence often given to heroic or sublime values."

During his Cornell stay, Todorov will be based in the A.D. White House. His visit is sponsored by the Society for the Humanities. Anyone wishing to contact him should call Mary Ahl at the Society for the Humanities at (607) 255-4086.

The Clark Fellowship brings distinguished scholars to the university for several days to deliver one or two public lectures. It is one of Cornell's most distinguished honors. Previous Clark Fellows have included Arthur Miller, Barber Conable and George Mosse.