Vitae

  • Education
    • Ph.D., French Literature, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 1998.
    • M.A., French Literature, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 1988.
    • B.A. (Christ College Scholar), Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana, 1987.
  • Employment
    • Professor of French, Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York. 2018-
    • Associate Professor of French, Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York. 2008-2018
    • Assistant Professor of French, Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York. 1999-2008
    • Lecturer, Humanities Collegiate Division, University of Chicago. 1991-1999.
  • Publications
    • “Mathews’s Algorithm,” in Taper #12: Tools (Spring 2024).
    • “Algorithms, Structures, Complexity: Oulipian Efforts to Explore Language with Computation,” in L’Alchimie des algorithmes, ed. P. Consenstein and D. Raymond, Presses Universitaires du Nouveau Monde, 2023.
    • “A Hundred Thousand Billion Color Combinations,” in Taper #10: Powers of Ten (Spring 2023).
    • “Des coups d’Un Coup de dés” and “The Roll of a Simulated Die Will Never Be Random,” in Taper #6: A Throw of the Dice (Spring 2021).
    • “Invoking the Oracle: Perec, Algorithms, and Conceptual Writing,” in The Afterlives of Georges Perec, ed. R. Wilken and J. Clemens, Edinburgh University Press, 2017, 85-101.
    • “Reading Potential: The Oulipo and the Meaning of Algorithms,” DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly 1/1 (Spring 2007).
    • “Rules of the Oulipian Game: Authorship and Posthuman Literature,” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 11/1 (Spring 2007), 111-118.
    • “Individuality and l’Esprit Français: On Gustave Lanson’s Pedagogy,” Modern Language Quarterly, 62/3 (September 2001).
    • “Western Novels As Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century France,” Mosaic 34/2 (June 2001).
    • Literary Objects: Flaubert. Catalogue of an exhibition at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2 May-18 June 1995. Co-authored with Philippe Desan.
    • “A World of flâneurs and coureurs des bois: Ethnography and the Picturesque in the Works of Gabriel Ferry,” French Literature Series 23 (Rodopi, 1996), 143-156.
    • “Poststructuralism and the ARTFL Database: Some Theoretical Considerations,” Information Technology and Libraries (1994: 13), 1-8.
  • Conferences
    • “Authorship and Responsibility: The Ethics of Reading Computer-Generated Texts,” paper presented at the 2024 IMPEC conference, Aix-en-Provence, France (July 3-5).
    • “Zeitgeisty Aphorisms,” paper presented at the 2023 Electronic Literature conference, Coimbra, Portugal (May 30-June 1).
    • “Learning About Literary Form Through Code: Oulipian Formalism and Paul Braffort’s USFAL,” paper presented at the 2022 Electronic Literature conference, Como, Italy (May 30-June 1).
    • “Computation and Rhetorical Invention: Finding Things to Say With word2vec,” paper presented online at the 2020 Digital Humanities conference (originally organized to take place in Ottawa, Canada).
    • “Invent Your Own Sonnet: Using Analytic Tools to Synthesize Texts,” paper presented at the 2019 Electronic Literature Conference, University College Cork, Ireland (July 2019).
    • “Algorithmic Invention,” paper presented at the 2018 Electronic Literature Conference, Université du Québec à Montréal (July 2018).
    • “Defining the Cooperesque Novel in Nineteenth-Century France,” poster presented at the  HTRC Uncamp 2018 (January 2018).
    • “From Leatherstocking to Bas-de-Cuir: The Cooperesque Novel in Nineteenth-Century France,” paper presented at the 21st International Cooper Conference, SUNY Oneonta (September 2017).
    • “Oulipian Stylometry,” long paper presented at the 2016 Digital Humanities conference (Kraków, Poland, July 2016).
    • “‘Tout ce qui n’est point vers, est prose’ : Raymond Queneau’s Matrix Analysis of Language, Syntactic Stylometry, and Exploratory Programming,” poster presented at the 2014 Digital Humanities conference (Lausanne, Switzerland, July 2014).
    • “Reading with Machines: Exploring Large Document Collections with Computational Tools,” talk given for 2013-2014 Hartwick Faculty Lecture Series (December 2013).
    • “Surveying a Corpus with Alignment Visualization and Topic Modeling,” poster presented at the 2013 Digital Humanities conference (Lincoln NE, July 2013).
    • “Decrypting Aphorisms: Oulipian Computer Code as Linearized Fragments,” paper presented at the 20th/21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium (Atlanta GA, March 2013).
    • “From Codex to Computer through the Matrix: Interfaces with the Cent mille milliards de poèmes,” paper presented at the 20th & 21st Century French & Francophone Studies International Colloquium (March 2012).
    • “Empiricism in Oulipian Writing: Jean Lescure’s S + 7 Method and Petit meccano poétique no. 00,” paper presented at the 39th Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900 (February 2011).
    • “Decoding the Oulipian Text: A Question of Access,” paper presented at the Twenty-Third Annual SLSA Conference in Atlanta, Georgia (November 2009).
    • “Playing Is Fundamental: The Oulipian Text as Game,” paper presented at the American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California (April 26, 2008).
    • “Remedial Computation: The Oulipo and the Materiality of Code,” paper presented at the Twenty-First Annual SLSA Conference in Portland, Maine (November 2007).
    • “Oulipian Mythologies,” paper presented at the 2007 Twentieth-Century Literature Conference at the University of Louisville (February 22).
    • “Evolution and Literary History in Late Nineteenth-Century French Education,” paper presented at the Twentieth Annual SLSA Conference in New York City (November 11, 2006).
    • “Reading Potential: The Oulipo and the Meaning of Algorithms,” paper presented at the ACH-ALLC 2005 conference at the University of Victoria, British Columbia (June 18).
    • “The Rules of the Oulipian Game: Authorship and Posthuman Literature,” paper presented at the 2005 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, University of Florida, Gainesville (April 1).
    • “Dispositions: Rhetoric and Taste in Late Nineteenth-Century French Education,” paper presented at the 2003 Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium at the University of Arizona, Tucson (October 25).
    • Oulipo, Machines, and Posthuman Literature,” paper presented at the 2003 Twentieth-Century French Studies Colloquium at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (March 29).
    • “Just-in-Time-Teaching in the Humanities: Lessons Learned from the Web Cahier,” paper presented at the ALLC-ACH 2002 conference in Tübingen, Germany (July 24-28).
    • “The Web Cahier: A Tool For Implementing Just-in-Time-Teaching in the Humanities,” poster presented at the ALLC-ACH 2002 conference.
    • “Histories of Nineteenth-Century Popular French Literature,” special session organized for the 2001 MLA Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana (December 27-30).
    • “Reading Western Novels in Nineteenth-Century France,” paper presented during the special session “Histories of Nineteenth-Century Popular French Literature” at the 2001 MLA Convention.
    • “Gustave Lanson and the Historical Novel: Defining Frenchness Against Cultural Plurality,” paper presented at the Nineteenth Century French Studies 2001 Conference, Madison, Wisconsin (October 18-20).
    • “ATE: ARTFL Text Encoding,” paper presented at the ACH-ALLC International Humanities Computing Conference, Charlottesville, Virginia (June 13, 1999). Co-authored with Mark Olsen and Leonid Andreev.
    • “At the Margins of Literary History: Gabriel Ferry and the Literary Field of Nineteenth-Century France,” paper presented at the 40th Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association, St. Louis, Missouri (November 7, 1998).
    • “Individualité, l’esprit français, and Literary History: Principles for a Secular Canon in the Writings of Gustave Lanson,” paper presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium, State College, Pennsylvania (October 25, 1998).
    • “The Rules of Popular Literature: Publishing Western Novels in 19th-Century France,” paper presented at the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium, Athens, Georgia (October 17, 1997).
    • “Moving readings: Early Train Travel in France and the Bibliothèque des Chemins de fer,” paper presented at the session “In Search of the Historical Reader” sponsored by the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) at the 1996 Modern Language Association convention in Washington, D.C.
    • “Moving scenery: Early Railway Travel in France and the Picturesque,” paper presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies in Dallas, Texas (October 7, 1995).
    • “A World of flâneurs and coureurs des bois: Ethnography and the Picturesque in the Works of Gabriel Ferry,” paper presented at the 23rd Annual French Literature Conference in Columbia, South Carolina (April 1, 1995).
  • Research Interests
    • Nineteenth-century French popular novels
    • Canon formation
    • Travel literature
    • Children’s literature
    • Nineteenth-century French literary pedagogy
    • Digital humanities
    • The Oulipo
    • Computation as a tool for rhetorical invention
    • Electronic literature