Specializations

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century French Literature,  Literary Criticism and Theory, Religion and Literature, French and American Cultural History, Women and Religion 

Research Areas 

The general direction of my intellectual interests was formed during my early years in Canada, particularly in secondary school up through grade 13, where my training included analysis, history, comparative approaches to culture, classical languages and French. In graduate school, a paper on Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, completed for the novelist Paul West, became a thesis on Hugo’s medievalism.  A Fulbright dissertation scholarship to Paris facilitated consultation of Hugo manuscripts and such scholars as Pierre Albouy and René Journet gave me assistance.  Consequently,  I began my career as a Hugo specialist, with a general interest in Romanticism.  At the same time, I had been mentored by Gian N.G. Orsini in the history of criticism so that I also published and taught in the fields of criticism, theory, and comparative methodology. 

Having held appointments at three institutions before coming to Vanderbilt, my responsibilities ranged widely in teaching and administration, but I continued to write in the fields of French and comparative literature.  Teaching, intellectual curiosity, and personal growth during a long career have led me to work in eighteenth-century “pre-romanticism,” in theories of reading, in Baudelaire studies,  and in issues relating generally to women, religion, and culture.   

The chance discovery that a German translation of an emblem book including the poetry of the French Quietist Madame Guyon (d. 1717) had been published  in Pennsylvania in the nineteenth century led me to a project of many years.  This has been a comparative cultural history  of the reading, reinterpretation, and cultural appropriation in America of the works of Madame Guyon and her defender François Fénelon.  In retirement, I have continued to expand my interests in French-American cultural history, and, in a sense, to synthesize this personal intellectual history into a coherent whole.

Representative Publications

Books and Monographs 

Experimental Theology in America:  Madame Guyon, Fénelon, and Their Readers.  Waco:  Baylor UP, 2009. Paperback edition, 2018. 

Baudelaire and the Poetics of Modernity.  Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2001. Edited volume. 

Carnet bibliographique Victor Hugo.  Œuvres et critiques (toutes langues) 1981-1983.   Co-author Bernadette Lintz Murphy.  Paris :  Minard, Les Lettres modernes, 1992. Annotated bibliography. 

 Carnet bibliographique Victor Hugo.  Œuvres et critiques (toutes langues) 1978-1980.  Paris : Minard, Les Lettres modernes, 1985.  Annotated bibliography. 

Christian Women at Work.  Co-author Martha Stout.  Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1981.  Paperback edition, 1984.  Work for a general audience. 

Joseph Joubert and the Critical Tradition.  Platonism and Romanticism.  Histoire des idées et critique littéraire, no. 189.  Geneva:  Editions Droz, 1980. 

The Medievalism of Victor Hugo.  Penn State Studies no. 39.  University Park and London: Penn State Press, 1975. 

Essays in Books 

“Fénelon et la culture américaine.  Lectures transformationnelles »,   pp. 359-370 in Lectures et Figures de Fénelon.  Ed. Charles-Olivier Stiker-Métral and François Tremolières.  Paris :  Classiques Garnier, 2023. 

«  Continental Spirituality and British Protestant Readers,” pp. 50-71 in Heart Religion: Evangelical Piety in England and Ireland, 1690-1850. Ed. John Coffey.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. 

“Fénelon and Classical America,” pp. 171-191 in Fénelon in the Enlightenment:  Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations. Ed. Christlph Schmitt-Maass, et al.  Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2014. 

« L’invective politique de V. Hugo :  serment, énoncé performatif », pp. 211-222 in Hugo et la langue, Colloque de Cérisy, août 2002.  Ed. Florence Naugrette et Guy Rosa.  Paris : Editions Bréal, 2005. 

« Hugo et le mythe de Mirabeau au 19e siècle, » pp. 335-346 In Hugo le fabuleux, Colloque de Cérisy. Ed. Jacques Seebacher.  Paris :  Seghers, 1985. 

Articles 

« Baudelaire et les neurosciences, Note bibliographique, » Bulletin baudelairien, 40 (nos. 1 and 2), 2005, 41-50.  Co-author Julie A. Huntington. 

« Ethics and Recent Literary Theory:  The Reader as Moral Agent.” Religion and Literature, 22, nos. 2-3 (Summer-Autumn 1990), 21-31. 

“’An Affair of the Heart’:  Ethics, Criticism, and the Teaching of Literature.”  Christianity and Literature, 39 {Winter 1990), 181-91. 

“Moral Ambiguities and the Crime Novels of P.D. James.” Christian Century, 101 (May 16, 1984, 519-522.  For a general audience, 

“Toward a Theology of Reading.” The Reformed Journal, 33 (May 1983), 16-19.  For a general audience, 

“Encoding in the Texts of Literary Movements:  Late European Romanticism.” Comparative Literature Studies, 18 (September 1981), 296-305.  

“Joubert and Vico.” Revue de littérature comparée, 55, no. 218 (April-June, 1981), 226-231. 

« Encoding in Romantic Descriptions of the Renaissance:  Hugo and Michelet on the Sixteenth Century.”  French Forum, 3 (May, 1978), 132-146. 

“Joseph Joubert on Language and Style.”  Symposium, 31 (Fall, 1977), 256-270. 

“Simone Weil, or Radical Sainthood.” Christianity Today, 20 (January 2, 1976), 17-18. For a general audience. 

“Anne Sexton’s Rowing Toward God.” Christianity Today, 20 (August 27, 1976), 18-19.  For a general audience.  

“Victor Hugo’s Creative Process in ‘Saison des Semailles’.” French Studies, 26 (October 1972), 421-429. 

“Nodier, Hugo, and the Concept of the Type Character.” The French Review, 45 (April, 1972), 944-953. 

“Coleridge’s Critical Theory of the Symbol.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 7 (1966), 15-32. 

Baudelaire and the Poetics of Modernity (edited). Vanderbilt University Press, 2001.

Experimental Theology in America: Madame Guyon, Fenelon and Their Readers. Baylor University Press. 2009.

Reviews: Books and Culture (March 2, 2010); Spiritus, 10 (2010): 109-111

Church History, 79 (2010): 475-471; Religion and the Arts, 14 (2010): 485-488.

Madame Guyon (1648-1717),” a chapter in The Pietist Theologians, ed. Carter Lindberg. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, 161-174.

“L’invective politique de V. Hugo: serment, énoncé performatif, impératif moral, ” a chapter in Hugo et la langue, ed. Florence Naugrette et Guy Rosa. Paris: Editions Bréal, 2005, 211-222.

“Fénelon among the New England Abolitionists,” Christianity and Literture,” 50 (Autumn 2000), 79-93.

“Contexts for Administering Graduate Programs,” Chairing the Foreign Language and Literature Department, Part 2, ADFL Bulletin, Special Issue, 32 (Spring 2001), 13-16.

“Why Major in Literature?– What We say to Our Students,” PMLA, 117 (May 2002), 519-521.

“Mapping the Traditions of Methodism and the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements: A Reply to David Bundy,” Wesleyan Theological Journal, 39 (Fall 2004), 256-267.

“New Notes on C.A. Bristed, Poe, and Baudelaire,” Bulletin Baudelairien, 39 (2004), 111-125.

“Baudelaire et les neurosciences, Note bibliographique,” Bulletin Baudelairien, 40 (2005), 41-50. Co-author Julie A. Huntington.

9 entries for the Cambridge Dictionary of Global Christianity (2010) and area editor for literature.

“Fenelon” and “Madame Guyon,” two entries for the Dictionary of Christian Literature (Scarecrow Press, 2010).

“Quietism,” one entry for the Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology (2011).

Lectures and Readings

“Madame Guyon and Popular Reading in the Eighteenth Century: The Problematic Heritage of Devotional Literature.” 39th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Eighteenth-Century Studies. University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Paper. April 2005.

“Establishing the Mythemes of 1789: Illustrated Editions of the Histories of Mignet and Thiers.” 31st Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium. University of Texas (Austin). Paper. October 2005.

“Harriet Beecher Stowe and Phoebe Palmer on Women’s Spirituality.” Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA.) Symposium in honor of Charles Edwin Jones. Invited Paper. February 2006.

“French Quietism in Early Pennsylvania.” 40th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Eighteenth-Century French Studies. Montreal, Quebe. Paper. March 2006.

“Fenelon and Eighteenth-Century Culture.” Organizer and Chair of Session. ASECS. March 2006.

“Scientific Contexts for Understanding Baudelaire’s Interest in Synesthesia.” 32nd Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium. Indiana University (Bloomington). Paper co-authored with Darci Gardner. October 2006.

“Women, Religion, and Literature in 17th and 18th Century France.” Roundtable on Teaching 18th Century Religious Texts. 41st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Atlanta. Paper. April 2007.

“American Women Artists at the Academie Julian.” Lecture. Vanderbilt Alumni Club. Paris. September 2008.

“Doing Faith and Learning.” Luncheon address as faculty consultant. Union University. Jackson, TN. October 2009.

“Americans in Paris: The All-Purpose Course.” Tennessee Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages. Invited Workshop Presenter. Nashville. November 2009.

“Unexpected Affinities: The Appropriation of Catholic Devotional Tradition within Popular American Protestantism.” Lumen Christi Institute and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago. Invited Yves Simon Memorial Lecture. November, 2009.

“Harriet Beecher Stowe, ses amis, et le quietisme francais: Courants culturels en Amerique, de 1830 a 1860”. Academie des sciences, agriculture, arts, et belles-lettres, Aix-en-Provence, France. Lecture as membre correspondant. March, 2010.

“After Mary Cassatt: American Women Painters and Sculptors in Fin-de-Siecle Paris.” Alliance Francaise de Nashville. April 2011.

Other Books and Monographs

The Medievalism of Victor Hugo (Penn State); Joseph Joubert and the Critical Tradition (Droz)

Carnet bibliographique Victor Hugo (two carnets, 1985 and 1992, the second with Bernadette Lintz Murphy, (Les Lettres modernes)

Christian Women at Work (with Martha Stout, Zondervan).

Exhibitions

“At the Forefront of Change: Paris, 1900-1970. Selections from the Pascal Pia Collection.” Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, February-March, 2005.

“Les Fleurs du Mal: Selections from the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies.” Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, March-April, 2006. (Prepared by Graduate Students in French under my direction.)