Married to Dr. Boyce Bennett
Positions Held
Distinguished Professor Emerita and Resident Professor of English, French, and
Comparative Literature 2018
Visiting Professor in French at Sarah Lawrence College (1965-66)
Barnard College (1962-3)
University of Kansas, visiting assistant professor in French, 1963
Princeton University – visiting professor in Humanities (1979-80)
School of Visual Arts – faculty, master’s program in Humanities (1994-5)
Université de Paris VII (Jussieu)
Hunter College, CUNY lecturer (1964-5), assistant professor of French (1966-67), Hunter College and Graduate School, associate professor (1970-74), professor of Romance Languages and ComparativeLitereature (1974—1983), distinguished professor of French,English, and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, 1983Comparative Literature Graduate School, CUNY2018
Executive Officer of the Comparative Literature Ph.D. Program, Graduate School, CUNY 1974-83; of the French Ph.D. Program, Graduate School, CUNY
Co-Director, Henri Peyre French Institute 1980-2002
Elected Positions and Positions Held
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (inducted 2010)
President, Association for Study of Dada and Surrealism, 1971-75
President, Modern Language Association of America, 1983-4
President, Academy of Literary Studies, 1984-5
President, American Comparative Literature Association, 1989-91
Life member, Clare Hall, Cambridge University
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Lecturer
New York Humanities Lecturer
New York Humanities Institute Fellow
Romance Studies Institute, London, Senior Fellow
Honors
Doctor of Humane Letters, Union College 1983
Officier, Palmes Académiques,
Chevalier, Ordre des Arts et Lettres
Trustee, 1996-2005, French Institute of Washington
Listings:
Who's Who in the World
Who's Who in America
Who's Who in the East
World Who's Who of Women
Who's Who of American Women
World Who's Who of Women in Education
Writer's Directory
Contemporary Authors
Dictionary of International Biography
International Who's Who of Authors
Who's Who in Poetry and International Poets’ Encyclopedia
Directory of American Scholars
Fellowships:
Guggenheim Fellow
Fulbright Fellow (travel)
National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellow
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
Clare Hall, Cambridge University (elected Life Member)
Getty Scholar 1989-90
Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio) 1994; 2005
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, October, 2012
Editorships and Advisorships(Past and Present)
Editor, Le Siècle éclaté (Paris: 1973-6)
Co-Editor, Dada and Surrealism, 1980--
Chief Editor, HarperCollins World Reader, 1994
Editorial Board, Publications of the Modern Language Association,1979-81
French Review, 1970-80
New York Literary Forum
Diacritics
Twentieth Century Studies
Comparative Literature Studies
Comparative Studies
Modern Fiction Studies
College Literature
LIT
Contemporary World Writers
Sites
Orbis Litterarum
Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern Poetry
Journal of Surrealism in the Americas
Memberships:
Authors' Guild
PEN
MLA
Life member, Clare Hall, Cambridge University
Romance Studies Institute, London, Senior Fellow
Member, Century Association
Fellow, New York Humanities Institute
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Palmes Académiques
Ordre des Arts et Lettres
Books: Authored
Surrealism and the Literary Imagination. The Hague: Mouton, 1966.
The Poetry of Dada and Surrealism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.
The Inner Theatre of Recent French Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
André Breton. Boston: Twayne, 1974.
The Presence of René Char. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
René Char Boston: Twayne, 1976.
The Surrealist Voice of Robert Desnos. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977.
La Main de Pierre Reverdy. Geneva: Droz, 1979.
The Eye in the Text: Essays on Perception, Mannerist to Modern. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
A Metapoetics of the Passage: Architextures Surrealist and After. Hanover: University of New England Press, 1981.
L'Oeuvre filante de René Char. Paris: Nizet, 1981.
Yves Bonnefoy. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Reading Frames in Modern Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986
Edmond Jabès. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988.
The Art of Interference: Stressed Readings in Visual and Verbal Texts. Cambridge: Polity, and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Women of Bloomsbury: Virginia, Vanessa, and Carrington. New York and London: Routledge, 1990; paper: 1991
Robert Motherwell: What Art Holds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. (supported by a grant from the Getty Foundation)
Carrington and Lytton/ Alone Together. London: Cecil Woolf publisher, 1996 (Bloomsbury Heritage Series)
André Breton, Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1996.
The Surrealist Look: An Erotics of Encounter. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1997
Surrealism and the Art of Display, catalogue for Wexner Center's Surrealism exhibition, Fall, 1997
Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends, with Sarah Bird Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, U.S. and Britain, 1999. (supported by a grant from the Florence Gould Foundation)
Dora Maar With and Without Picasso: A Biography (London Thames and Hudson, 2000); Picasso's Weeping Woman: The Life and Art of Dora Maar (Boston: Bulfinch); Les Vies de Dora Maar: Bataille, Picasso, et les surrealistes. (Paris: Thames and Hudson); Dora Maar con y sin Picasso (Madrid: Destino); Dora Maar: Die Kunsterin an Picassos Seite (Berlin: Nicolai)—also in Danish, Chinese, etc.
Virginia Woolf: Illustrated Life. Penguin Illustrated Lives. London: Penguin, 2001; New York, Overlook 2002; London: Overlook Duckworth 2003; paper, 2004
Robert Motherwell with Pen and Brush. London: Reaktion, 2003
Marcel Proust: Illustrated Life. New York and London: Overlook Duckworth, 2003-(Featured at Chicago Humanities Festival, November, 2003)
To the Boathouse: a Memoir. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004
Jerome Hill: Living the Arts, 2005
Pablo Picasso: Critical Lives. Reaktion Books, 2005, also in Italian, German
Henry James: Illustrated Life. New York and London: Overlook Duckworth, 2006
Glorious Eccentrics: Modernist Women Painting, Writing, Resisting. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
Surprised in Translation. Chicago:Chicago University Press, 2006.
Salvador Dali: Critical Lives. Reaktion Books, 2008.
Provençal Cooking: Savoring a Simple Life in France. Pegasus Books, 2008.
How Vita Matters, Cecil Woolf publisher (Bloomsbury Heritage Series), 20011
Surrealism: New Worlds, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, November, 2001
André Masson: A Mythology of Desire, catalogue for exhibition, Blain/Di Donna, April, 2012
Jean Arp: A Collection of Wood Reliefs and Collages, catalogue for exhibition, Blain/Di Donna, November, 2012
Elspeth Halvorsen, retrospective 2013, Sand, Swings, and Moon, Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, 2013
Modern Art Cookbook. London: Reaktion Books, 2013. Paperback, 2018.
Selected Poems of Pierre Reverdy, New York Review Books: (ed. and co-tr.), 2013
Pierre Reverdy, Early to Late , Black Widow Books, 2014
Blaise Pascal: Miracles and Reason: Reaktion Books, 2016
Glorieuses modernistes: Art, écriture et modernisme au féminin, with Anne Reynes-Delobel, Presses Universitaires de Liège (Série Littératures), 2015
Undoing Art, with Michel Delville. Macerata: Quodlibet Elements, 2017.
Creative Gatherings: Meeting Places of Modernism : London: Reaktion Books, 2019
Mina Loy (Critical Lives: Reaktion Books) 2021
Alice Paalen Rahon: SHAPESHIFTER, New York Review Books/Poets, 2021
Mina Loy: Apology of Genius, Reaktion Books, 2022
BOOKS: Edited:
About French Poetry from Dada to Tel Quel: Theory and Text. Detroit: Wayne State, 1984.
The Prose Poem in France (co-ed with Hermine Riffaterre). New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Le Manifeste et le caché. Paris: Minard, 1981. (Le Siècle éclaté)
Théorie/Tableau/Texte. Paris: Minard, 1983. (Le Siècle éclaté)
Le texte et son double. Paris: Minard, 1985. (Le Siècle éclaté)
Writing in a Modern Temper. Stanford: Anma Libri, 1984.
Textual Analysis: Some Readers Reading. New York: Modern Language Association, 1986.
Perspectives on Perception: Philosophy, Art, and Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 1988.
Edmond Jabès, ed. with Richard Stamelman. Geneva: Editions
de la Montagne, 1989.
co-edited (with Eugène Nicole): Reading Proust Now, New York: Peter Lang, 1990.
co-edited (with Tina Jolas) and translated: Selected Poems of René Char. New York: New Directions, 1992.
co-ed (with Ruedi Kuenzli and Gwen Raaberg): Women and Surrealism, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1991
ed., City Images. Philadelphia, Gordon and Breach, 1991
ed., Joseph Cornell's Theater of the Mind: Selected Journals, Letters, and Files. . New York and London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
Chief Editor: HarperCollins World Reader. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
co-edited (with Nancy K. Miller, Elizabeth Houlding, and Cheryl Morgan): Contre-Courants: Les femmes s'écrivent à travers les siècles, Prentice Hall, 1994.
co-edited (with Mary Jean Green, Marianne Hirsch, Ronnie Scharfman): Carto-graphies. Yale University Press, 1995.
ed., The Surrealist Painters and Poets, M.I.T. Press, 1997
Around Yves Bonnefoy, co-ed, L'Esprit Créateur, 1997
The Surrealist Painters and Poets, ed., Cambridge and London: M.I.T. Press, 2001
MANIFESTO: A century of isms, Modernist Manifestos and Statements, ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001
Reception of Virginia Woolf in Europe, 2000. (for the British Academy), co-ed. with Nicola Luckhurst, London: Continuum, 2001
Surrealist Love Poems, ed. and co-tr. London: Tate Modern Museum, 2001; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002; reprint, 2003
Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings ed. New York and London: Palgrave, 2002; paper, 2003
Mallarmé in Prose, co-tr. and ed, New York: New Directions, 2001
Maria Jolas: Woman of Action. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2004
Yale Book of 20th Century French Poetry, ed. and co-tr. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004
Surrealism, ed.London and New York: Phaidon (Themes and Movements Series), 2004
Ed. and tr. Tristan Tzara: L’Homme approximatif, and other texts. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2004.
Ed and tr.with Jean-Pierre Cauvin: Poems of André Breton. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2005.
Ed. and tr. With Patricia Terry and Nancy Kline: Paul Eluard, Capital of ‘Pain. Boston: Black Widow Books,2006.
Ed. and tr. : The Essential Desnos. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2007.
René Char: Furor and Mystery and Other Texts, ed. with Nancy Kline. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2011
Ed. and tr. with Nancy Kline, Lorand Gaspar: Absolute Earth. Contramundum, 2015
Kay Sage: Catalogue Raisonné, Prestel, 2018, with Stephen Robeson Miller, 2018
Milk Bowl of Feathers: Essential Surrealist Writings, New Directions,2018
Co-ed with Michel Delville, Edinburgh Companion to the Prose Poem, 2020
French Prose Poem, NYRB poets = Together:Early Prose Poems (Manifold editions)
Alice Paalen Rahon, NYRB POETS January, 2021
BOOKS Translated
Tristan Tzara: Approximate Man and Other Writings, 1974.
Co-tr. with Jonathan Griffin. Poems of René Char. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Co-tr.and ed. with Patricia Terry. Roof Slates and other Poems of Pierre Reverdy. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981.
Selected Poems and Prose of Stephane Mallarme. New York: New Directions, 1982.
co-tr. with Jean-Pierre Cauvin. Poems of André Breton. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Reprinted 1991.
Selected Poems of St-John Perse. New York: New Directions,
André Breton, Mad Love. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
Translations of René Char, The Hammer with no Master, and The Nuptial Countenance for Pierre Boulez Concerts, January , 1989.
co-tr. with Geoffrey Harris. Andre Breton, Communicating Vessels. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
tr. Marcelin Pleynet, Robert Motherwell. Paris: Daniel Papierski, 1990
Ed. and Co-tr. with John Ashbery and Patricia Terry, Selected Poems of Pierre Reverdy. Winston-Salem: Wake Forest University Press, 1991.
Selected Poems of René Char, ed. with Tina Jolas, and co-tr. New York: New Directions, 1991.
Translations of René Char's Visage nuptial and Le Marteau sans maître for the BBC, and the program, Barbican Centre, London, 1991; Translations of René Char for Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry, Norton, 1992
Translations of Victor Hugo for Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Sixth Expanded Edition
tr. Jacques Derrida and Paule Thévenin, The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1998
Co-ed, André Breton, Lost Steps, with Mark Polizzotti. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996;
Co-trans, and co-ed., with Mark Polizzotti, André Breton, Break of Day. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999
Mallarmé in Prose, co-tr. and ed, New York: New Directions, 2001
Louis-René des Forêts, Ostinato, tr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001
Translation of catalogue for MACBA (Museum of contemporary art) in Barcelona, 2004: Mallarmé et l’action restreinte
Ed. and tr. Tristan Tzara: L’Homme approximatif, and other texts. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2004.
Ed and tr.with Jean-Pierre Cauvin: Poems of André Breton. Boston: Black Widow Press, 2005.
Ed. and tr. With Patricia Terry and Nancy Kline: Paul Eluard, Capital of ‘Pain. Boston: Black Widow Books,2006.
Ed. and tr. : The Essential Desnos. Boston: Black Widow Books, 2007.
René Char: Furor and Mystery and Other Texts, ed. with Nancy Piore..Boston: Black Widow Books, 2010.
Ed. and tr, Ghérasim Luca, Self-Shadowing Prey, Contramundum, 2013
Essential Poems and Other Writings of Pierre Reverdy, ed. and co-tr. with Patricia Terry. Boston: Black Widow Books, 2013
Earth Absolute: Lorand Gaspar, with Nancy Kline, Contramundum, 2015
Art catalogs on
Surrealism and the rue Blomet. London and New York, Eykyn Maclean 2013
Dora Maar and Picasso on camera (Gagosian)
Larry Poons (Loretta Howard Gallery)
Robert Motherwell and Collage (Paull Kasmin Gallery)
André Masson: A Mythology of Desire, catalogue for exhibition, Blain/Di Donna, April, 2012
Jean Arp: A Collection of Wood Reliefs and Collages, catalogue for exhibition, Blain/Di Donna, November, 2012
Elspeth Halvorsen, Sand, Swings, and Moon. Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, 2013
Surrealism in the New World (Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco
Kay Sage, co-Authored with Stephen Robeson Miller, 2018