Professor Emily Apter engages in extraordinarily wide-ranging research spanning political theory, critical theory, translation theory, and praxis. Her work has left its impact on the fields of continental and new French philosophy, psychoanalysis, gender and ontology, aesthetic theory and poetics, and critical pedagogies. Moreover, she is a leading figure in the opening up of comparative literature to global perspectives. Her groundbreaking books include The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature (Princeton University Press, 2006); Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability(Verso, 2013); the co-edited and monumental Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon (Princeton University Press, 2014); and Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic (Verso, 2018). Since 2000 she has served as editor of the book series Translation/Transnation for Princeton University Press.

Serving her profession at its highest levels, she is president of the American Comparative Literature Association and a member of the executive council of the Modern Language Association of America. She is the recipient of an array of prestigious fellowships, including Guggenheim, Mellon, Rockefeller, National Endowment for the Humanities, and American Council of Learned Societies. She teaches courses in French criticism and theory and politics and translation, among many other subjects.

Professor Apter has served as Professor of French and Comparative Literature at NYU since 2002, and currently chairs the Department of Comparative Literature. She earned her BA in history and literature from Harvard University, and her MA and PhD in comparative literature from Princeton University.