Jean-Jacques
Thomas received his Doctorate degree at the Sorbonne (Paris, France). He
is Distinguished Professor and Emeritus Melodia E. Jones Chair in the
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the State University
of New York. From 1990 to 2004 he was the Director of the Institute of
French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. From 2003 to 2008 he was the Director of Canadian Studies at
Duke University; in 2008 he became Associate Director of Canadian
Studies for Québec Affairs and Programs at the State University of New
York -UB. He taught at the Université de Paris-VIII, the University of
Michigan, Columbia University and Duke University; for three years he
was a Visiting Professor at UQÀM; in 2005 he was appointed Associate
Faculty Member at the Centre d'Etudes Poétiques of the Ecole Normale
Supérieure (Lyon). He was a member of the COS (Comité d'Orientation
Scientifique - International Expert, Humanities) for the French
Universities of Aix-Marseille (Provence, Méditerranée, Paul Cézanne). He
has published several books and edited volumes on linguistics, poetics
and contemporary literary criticism: Lire Leiris: essai d'étude
poétique d'un fonctionnement analinguistique
(Paris : P.V. 1972); Poétique
générative
(Paris : Larousse 1978); Poética Generativa (Buenos Aires : Hachette,
1982; new and augmented edition, 1989); La langue, la poésie
(Lille : Septentrion, 1989); Yves Bonnefoy: A Concordance (New
York : Mellen, 1990); La langue volée (Paris/ Berne: Peter Lang,
1989). He translated into French The Semiotic Web [La Toile sémiotique]
by Thomas Sebeok (Bruxelles : Degrés, 1981) and Semiotics of Poetry
[Sémiotique
de la poésie]
by Michael Riffaterre (Paris : Seuil, 1983). With Bernardo Schiavetta he
published the issue 14 of Formules (“Forme / Informe”, 2009);
with Hermes Salceda he edited the volume Le Pied de la lettre
(2010) and he edited the special issue of SubStance 123 (“Pierre
Alferi”) (2011). In 2012 with Camille Bloomfield and Marc Lapprand he
edited the issue 16 of Formules (“Oulipo”). He also published
several recent books: Perec en Amérique (Bruxelles: Impressions
Nouvelles, 2019) Oulipo: Chroniques des années héroïques (1978-2018)
(New Orleans: PUNM) and Joël Des Rosiers: l’échappée lyrique des
damnés de la mer (Montréal: Nota Bene, 2022). He is a founding
executive editor (2003-2013) of Formes poétiques Contemporaines (FPC)
now published by Les Presses Universitaires de Liège. He was is a member
of the editorial boards of Studies in 20th-Century Literature,
SubStance, The New Centennial Review, Québec
Studies,
and a former member of the Advisory Editorial Committee of PMLA.
He is Directeur Littéraire (Editor-in-chief) of PUNM (New Orleans) and
Executive Editor of the international journals
Formules
and the webzine
Arcade/Formules.
He was chair of several MLA divisional committees (1993-1998 Theoretical
linguistics; 2001-2004 -- Politics of the Profession; 2009-2014
Linguistic Approaches to Literature). He was a member of the Coalition
Group of Foreign Languages Specialists which produced the National
Standards for Foreign Languages (Project 2000). In recent year he
organized or co-organized several colloquia: “Urbanités
Littéraires /Cityscapes” (SUNY, 2009), “Le Pied de la lettre”
(Universidad de Vigo, Spain, 2010); “Les Automatistes” (Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, Buffalo, 2010),”Oulipo@50 – L’Oulipo à 50 ans” (SUNY,
2011); “Spectacular Quebec” / ACQS Annual Outreach Seminar (SUNY, 2013),
etc.. He was a member of the Organizing Committee for the UB campus
visit of the French Ambassador to the US (2011) and he organized the
visit of the Québec Délégué Général at UB (2013). He was an elected
member of the MLA Delegate Assembly (2014-2017), a Councilor on the
ACSUS Executive Board (2012-2015), a CAS Senator at SUNY - UB
(2013-2019), a Member of the CAS Dean’s Priorities Council, a member of
the SUNY - UB AP&T committee, and he was an invited Member of SUNY
Faculty Diversity Fellowship Board (2013).
Education:
-
Ph.D. Doctoral Mention "Très bien" Université de Paris-Sorbonne
(Paris-VIII)
-
Maîtrise ès-Lettres Classiques Université de Lille, France.
Research Interests:
Poetry and Poetics, Linguistics, Semiotics,19th and 20th Centuries
French literature and culture, Quebec and Canadian studies, Francophonie
in North-America.
