Thomas C. Spear

Thomas C. Spear - Professor -  profile photo

Research Interests

  • Contemporary French and Francophone Literature
  • Autobiography

Education

  • Ph.D.

Contact

Affiliated Campus(es)

  • Lehman College

Books:

See full listings below.

Selected translations:

  • Leslie Kaplan, Brooklyn Bridge. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1992.
  • Edouard Glissant, Faulkner, Mississippi (with Barbara Lewis) New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999; paperback: Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 2000.

Editor:

  • "Autobiographical Que(e)ries," two special issues of a/bAuto/Biography Studies, volume 15, numbers 1 and 2 (Spring and Fall 2000).

Fiction/récits:

  • "Le Scorpion." L'Atelier d'écriture 7 (January 2010): 43-84.
  • "Pour Sergine." Le Serpent à Plumes pour Haïti. Paris: Du Rocher, 2010: 115-20.
  • "Point of View." Haiti Rising: Essays on Haitian History, Culture and the Earthquake of 2010. Ed. Martin Munro. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010: 35-42.
  • "Moderato con variazioni." IntranQu'îllités 1 (mai 2012): 70-77. 
  • "Priape."  IntranQu'îllités 5 (novembre 2020): 53-55. .
  • "Métamorphoses à Manhattan" (with English translation, "Manhattan Metamorphoses" by Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert). Vingt ans après le 11 Septembre/Twenty Years After 9/11. Ed. Suzanne Dracius. Paris: Idem, 2021

Selected articles:

  • "Dame Duras: Breaking through the Text." In Language and in Love; Marguerite Duras: The Unspeakable. Ed. Mechthild Cranston. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1992: 12-36. Adapted to hypertext in 1996.
  • "Literature and Politics: an Interview with Tahar Ben Jelloun." Trans. Caren Litherland. Yale French Studies 83 (1993): 30-43. Rpt. Contemporary Literary Criticism 180 (2004): 125-131.
  • "Doo-doo in the Classroom; Doubrovsky's Professorial Performances." Genre 26.1 (Spring 1993): 109-125.
  • "Staging the Elusive Self." Robbe-Grillet and the Fantastic. Eds. Virginia Harger-Grinling and Tony Chadwick. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994: 55-76.
  • "Jouissances carnavalesques: représentations de la sexualité." Penser la Créolité. Ed. Madeleine Cottenet-Hage et Maryse Condé. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1995: 135-152. English translation (by Richard D. Reitsma): "Carnivalesque Jouissance: Representations of Sexuality in the Francophone West Indian Novel." Jouvert 2.1 (1998).
  • "Le 'véritable' Jean Genet." Europe 808-809 (août-septembre 1996): 26-33.
  • "Autofiction and Nationality." Sites, the Journal of Twentieth-Century/ Contemporary French Studies 2.1 (Spring 1998): 89-105.
  • " 'Foreign' Sexualities in Francophone Contexts." Modern Language Studies 28.3 (Fall 1998): 193-200.
  • "La plume bifide, le cœur québécois; l'usage de l’anglais chez les écrivains québécois francophones." Globe, Revue internationale d'études québécoises 4.1 (2001): 71-91.
  • "Émile Ollivier: enracinerrant de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce." Études françaises 34.3 (été 2002): 15-27.
  • "Variations sur la langue de Molière; l'enseignement du français aux États-Unis." Présence francophone 60 (2003): 12-38.
  • "Patrimoine haïtien (Ayiti Toma)." Africultures 58 (mars 2004): 11-18.
  • "Élans du bicentenaire haïtien." Revi Kiltir Kreol, Journal of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture (Mauritius) 4 (October 2004): 1-13.
  • "Productions marginales et décentrées: l'exemple d'Haïti." Les Représentations de la déviance. Ed. Corinne Duboin. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005: 185-194.
  • "Réseaux créoles et insulaires." Situations créoles: pratiques et représentations. Ed. Carlos Célius. Québec: Nota Bene, 2006: 281-297.
  • "Lectures francophones ex-centrées". L'Écrivain dans l'espace francophone. Paris: Les Dossiers de la Société des Gens de Lettres, 2006: 95-97.
  • "Identités virtuelles." Autofiction(s); Colloque de Cerisy. Claude Burgelin, Isabelle Grell and Roger-Yves Roche, ed. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2010: 441-460.
  • "(R)Evolutions." Trans. Teresa Bridgeman. Transnational French Studies; Postcolonialism and Littérature-monde. Alec G. Hargreaves, Charles Forsdick and David Murphy, ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010: 164-177.
  • "Introduction: Mauritius in/and global culture: politics, literature, visual arts" (by Françoise Lionnet, with Thomas C. Spear). International Journal of Francophone Studies 13.3-4 (February 2011): 371-400.
  • "Poles and Centers." Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. 15.1 (January 2011): 37-45.
  • "Paulette Poujol Oriol's Polyphonic Tragicomedies." Journal of Haitian Studies 17.1 (Spring 2011): 15-26.
  • "La tronche de Bolya." Bolya: nomade cosmopolite mais sédentaire de l'éthique. Françoise Naudillon, ed. Montréal: Mémoire d'encrier, 2012: 61-64.
  • Marginalisations prothétiques." Femmes en francophonie; Écritures et lectures du féminin dans les littératures francophones. Isaac Bazié et Françoise Naudillon, ed. Montréal: Mémoire d'encrier, 2013: 25-41.
  •  "Marie Chauvet: The Fortress Still Stands." Yale French Studies 128 (2016): 9-24.
  • "Souffles numérique." Une saison ardente; Souffles, 50 ans après. Casablanca: Sirocco, 2016: 243-50.
  • "Cent ans de silence." En amour avec Marie. Emmelie Prophète, ed. Port-au-Prince: L'Imprimeur II, 2016: 181-187.
  • "Entr'hommes." Pourquoi Doubrovsky? Isabelle Grell, ed. Paris: Le bateau ivre, 2018: 161-170.
  • "Straight, No Chaser,” translated by Sam Ferguson and Jon Templeman. Jean-Claude Charles: A Reader’s Guide.Eds. Martin Munro and Eliana Văgălău. Liverpool University Press, forthcoming (2022).

Selected broadcast radio interviews:

  • "L'avenir de la langue française dans le monde." Interviewed by Réginald Martel for "Signes des Temps" on Radio-Canada, as response to citation in "Le français piégé par le multiculturalisme américain" (Le Monde 27 February 1994, Le Devoir 1 March 1994). Broadcast 6 March 1994.
  • "L'Anniversaire de l'Abolition de l'Esclavage dans les Antilles." Interviewed by Donald Jean for "L'Invité du jour" on Radio Vision 2000 (Port-au-Prince). Broadcast 1 September 1998.
  • "Le Magazine du Net." Interviewed by Dominique Desaunay on RFI with "île en île" as web site of the week. Broadcast 26 November 2001.
  • "Entre Nous." Interviewed (with Joëlle Vitiello) by Jan J. Dominique for Radio Haïti-Inter. Broadcast 17 November 2002.
  • "Francophonie" on RFI, interviewed by Dominique Baillard. Invited guest for the publication of La Culture française vue d'ici et d'ailleurs. First broadcast 14 February 2003. Reproduced on audio CD, RFI Magazines, Francophonie April 2003.
  • "French-bashing." Interviewed by Léo Kalinda for "Dimanche Magazine" on Radio-Canada. Broadcast 16 February 2003.
  • "La langue française vue d'ailleurs." Invited guest on Radio-Méditerranée, interviewed by Christophe Drevet, for the publication of La Culture française vue d'ici et d'ailleurs. Broadcast 6 April 2003. 
  • Invited guest for the program "Signes particuliers" on RFI, interviewed by Pierre-Edouard Deldique, broadcast 19 March 2008.
  • Invited guest on Radio Plus FM (Réunion), interviewed by Bernard Colomb, broadcast daily on Radio Plus FM, 6-12 September 2009.
  • "Conversation: Haitian Literature Is a Living Art." Interviewed by Jeffrey Brown. Art Beat, PBS NewsHour. Broadcast 14 January 2011.
  • From 2013 to 2017, fourteen, short chronicles for Franco Nuovo's program, "Dessine-moi un dimanche" on Radio-Canada (archives available online).
  • Invited guest, “Dimanche Culture” on Radio One (Mauritius), hosted by Finlay Salesse (25 November 2018).

Selected television interviews:

  • CUNY-TV, for the program, "Canapé," hosted by Jerry Carlson, broadcast September 2003, archived online.
  • France2, featured guest on "Double je," interviewed by Bernard Pivot, broadcast on France 2 (May 2004) and internationally on TV5 and Tempo (June 2004) and in New York on CUNY-TV (July-October 2004).
  • France Ô, "Frictions francophones," platform hosted by Christian Tortel, broadcast 22 March 2006.
  • Canal Bleu (Haïti), featured guest on "Kiskeya, l'île mystérieuse," hosted by Marie-Alice Théard (3 July 2011).
  • MBC (Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation), featured guest, “Portrait d’artiste” hosted by Sedley Assonne (29 November 2018).

Distinctions and Awards:

  • Trophée de la diversité culturelle (one of the "Trophées de la langue française"), for Île en île web site, Amiens, March 2005.
  • Excellence in Research, Scholarship & Creative Works Award, Lehman College, May 2007.
  • Le Trophée du Gardien du Livre, for his promotion of Haitian literature, Livres en Folie, Port-au-Prince, 2016.
  • Le Prix du rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises, L'Académie française, 2018.
  • Member of L'Ordre des Francophones d'Amérique, 2018.

Elected positions:

  • The Francophone Association of CUNY (FRACUNY). Secretary. 1993-2002.
  • Advisory Committee on the MLA International Bibliography, 2000-2003.
  • Executive Committee of the Division on Francophone Literatures and Cultures, Modern Languages Association, 2000-2004.
  • Member of the Committee on Information Technology of the Modern Language Association, 2005-2008.

Web links:

 

Thomas C. Spear - Professor -  profile photo

Contact

Affiliated Campus(es)

  • Lehman College

Books