William (Will) M. Burton is an assistant professor in the Department of French. Professor Burton's research examines how 'literary' authors position their work with regard to other disciplines and domains in the 18th and 20th centuries. The authors that Burton studies are concerned with imaginative writing's political potential and its capacity to produce knowledge. In often formally daring, genre-defying texts, these writers both adopt and contest philosophical, political and scientific concepts to articulate their views on what we now call 'literature'.