Anthony Cascardi, director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities

Anthony J. Cascardi is a Professor of Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, and Spanish. He also is director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities, whose Forum on the Humanities and the Public World brings the humanities into dialogue about critical public issues through public presentations by eminent artists, political leaders, writers and scholars.

Cascardi’s research interests include the relations between literature and philosophy; aesthetic theory; the novel; and early modern Europe.

He is general editor of Penn State Studies in Literature and Philosophy. His recent publications include “Consequences of Enlightenment” and “The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes.”