B.A. Rutgers University,
1966A.M., Brown University, 1967
Ph.D., Brown University, 1971
B.A. Rutgers University,
1966
A.M., Brown University, 1967
Ph.D., Brown University,
1971
I am Chancellor Professor Emeritus of French Literature at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where I also enjoyed teaching Freshman English and various courses in computer science, women's studies, education and democracy, language and the mind, thinking in the future tense, and multidisciplinary research and writing.
Honored eight times by the National Endowment for the Humanities to be a seminar director in the NEH program of Summer Seminars for School Teachers (1987-2006; see the link below for specifics of my last seminar), I retired in May 2007 after a 36-year career. During that time, I was the first Director of the 9-discipline Master of Arts in Teaching Program, whose creation I spearheaded at UMass Dartmouth. I also served the university as President of the Faculty Senate, Chairman of Foreign Literature & Languages, Chairman of the University Council on Tenure and Promotion, Director of the Honors Program, Director of the Humanities Program, Director of the Boivin Center for French Language and Culture, and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. (Because I received such a tremendous response to my farewell email to the university community, I have posted it here.)
I have written a book on the French novelist, Emile Zola, and have published more than 60 articles and reviews related to French literature and art of the 19th and 20th centuries and recent trends in literary theory and criticism. (If you're interested in reading abstracts, abridgements, and reviews of some of these writings, please go to LK Writings). I have also taught at the University of Grenoble in France and have served as an external evaluator of programs and personnel at Georgetown University, the SUNY system, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The range of subjects that I have taught is not, I believe, as surprising as may initially strike some people. Whether teaching students to write about literature (in English or in French), training them to use style and organization more effectively in various kinds of essays, or showing them how to solve problems through top-down design and step-wise refinement in a particular programming language, I have always tried to improve students' abilities to communicate their thoughts and ideas as clearly and as distinctly as possible while also reflecting their individual style. This interdisciplinary approach to education is one reason for my involvement as a member of the advisory board of Academic Exchange Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal focusing on practical and theoretical issues related to teaching. I also serve on the editorial board of Excavatio, an international journal devoted to naturalism in literature, film, and art.
The word "explorcations" results from a combination of the words "exploration," especially through the World Wide Web, and "explication de texte," a particularly French approach to the processes of close reading and literary analysis. All of my courses in writing and literature have sought to combine these two avenues in ways that, hopefully, have made the learning and writing experiences both unique and exciting for everyone involved.
My primary purpose has always been to provide students with a central location from which they can
* submit written work, including evaluations of one another's writings, without having constant recourse to paper and without having to worry about the normal restraints of time and space* develop those writings through their various individually discovered links to the Web
* link to one another's work and to me for ongoing peer and teacher evaluations, thereby allowing writing to unfold as a process rather than as a fixed product
My initial effort was with my Fall 1995 course in French Poetry: FRN 411 (revised for Fall 2005). I have sinced added and offered the following courses:
Balzac and Zola: Esthetics and Ethics in the Novel July 10-28, 2006 |
The World Wide Web provides an enormous variety of resources for France and subjects relating to the French world. If you wish to look at just some of the possibilties available to you, click French World
