Research Corner

For this year’s “Research Corner” we have asked a faculty member from each rank to share with the Department their thoughts, experiences, and progress on their current research.

Francis Assaf, Distinguished Research Professor of French, divides his research into two categories: “general research,” and “main research.” The latter encompasses more long-term projects, such as the book and critical edition he is currently working on. The former include conference papers, articles, even book reviews (although he considers book reviews more service than research).

Prof. Assaf has three general research projects going on right now, all three culminating in conference papers to be read between mid-March and the end of June of this year. The paper he is working on concerns representation and the burlesque genre in the theatre of Paul Scarron (1610-1660), and the aesthetic/imagological relation of burlesque to baroque. It will be read at an international French 17th-century conference in Kiel (Germany). Next, he will write a paper on the narrator’s voice in the memoirs of the chevalier d’Arvieux (Laurent d’Arvieux: 1635-1702), one of the most active French travelers and diplomats in the Mediterranean during the reign of Louis XIV. It will be read at an international conference on travel literature in Toronto in early May. After that, he will read a paper at another international French 17th-century conference, at the end of June at Oxford University, on modernity and its narrative strategies in Le Roman bourgeois (1666) by Antoine Furetière (1619-1688).

Prof. Assaf’s main research focuses presently on a book, a literary biography of Antoine Houdar de La Motte (1672-1731), a late-17th, early 18th-century academician, poet, fabulist, playwright and literary critic. He has just completed an edition of La Motte’s adaptation of the Iliad (1714, 2nd ed. 1720), a work that ignited the second Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns in France towards the end of Louis XIV’s reign (1714-1717). He is also pursuing a critical edition of two journals, written successively by the Antoines, a father and sons who were valets, respectively, of kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Both recount in detail and from a very close perspective the illness and death of their respective masters. He hopes to publish these as a joint edition. The La Motte literary biography stems from his longtime interest in that author. Prof. Assaf sees it as a continuation of the Iliad edition project he has just finished. The Louis XIII/Louis XIV journals edition stems both from his second book (on the literary consequences of the death of Louis XIV) and his abiding interest in the representation of the king’s body and kingship in 17th-century France.

Having the funds attached to Prof. Assaf’s research professorship helps a lot, especially with international conferences, but he also considers himself lucky in the past (before the professorship) in receiving UGA travel and other research grants. Where teaching is concerned, Prof. Assaf does not know whether these research projects will have much of an impact at the undergraduate level, but he might use some of the information thus gleaned in graduate courses.
“If I have any advice to give colleagues or graduate students who are at the beginning of their research careers,” says Prof. Assaf, “it’s to constitute early on a coherent yet well-diversified research plan. Being acknowledged as a specialist is highly desirable, but at the same time, one must take care to maintain sufficient breadth of interests to avoid falling into a rut. Funding is important, but it’s even more important to have at all times three categories of works: in print, in press, and in project.”

Luis Correa-Díaz, Associate Professor of Spanish, spent the entire Fall 2005 semester in Chile, with the quick exception of a November trip to Berlin, Germany, where he participated in a symposium organized by the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (http://www.iai.spk-berlin.de/indexee.htm). The Facultad de Letras of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (http://www.uc.cl/letras) invited Dr. Correa-Díaz as its twelfth Writer in Residence, an honor that annually distinguishes two Latin American writers. At PUC he had to conduct a poetry workshop and give a graduate course on “teorías culturales.” “Both experiences,” according Dr. Correa-Díaz, “were extremely demanding but totally satisfying, particularly due to the passionate engagement of the poets and students, respectively.” While there, Dr. Correa-Díaz had to tour the University at large, giving talks on his research subjects and reading from his creative work, one of which occurred at the Physics Department because of the cosmological-quantic focus of his latest poetry. He met with Faculty, writers, and students of different college units, “which was necessarily exhausting, although undeniable rewarding.” He feels similar emotions when describing other talks/readings at several universities, for instance Universidad de Playa Ancha, Universidad de Valparaíso, and Universidad de Chile. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Correa-Díaz managed to finish the manuscript of one of his current research/writing project, Cervantes y (las) América(s): mapa de campo y bibliografía razonada soon to be released in Germany and Spain by Edition Reichenberger (http://www.reichenberger.de). He also published a poetry book: Diario de un poeta recién divorciado (http://www.rileditores.com). A second volume, entitled Mester de soltería, will be published by Altazor Ediciones in 2006. Dr. Correa- Díaz wants to sincerely thank Dr. Hugh Ruppersburg, Senior Associate Dean, Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, and Dr. Noel Fallows, Professor and Head, Romance Languages Department. His gratitude also goes to the entire Faculty at the Facultad de Letras at PUC, particularly Professors José Luis Samaniego, Dean; Roberto Hozven, Graduate Director, and Patricio Lizama, Head of the Department of Literature. All these colleagues, and others who cannot be listed here due to space constraints, generously made possible his stay in Chile.

Robert Moser, Assistant Professor of Portuguese, writes “My current research semester has allowed me to indulge in three unrelated, but equally engaging endeavors. In order of priority these are: 1) To prepare my manuscript The Carnivalesque Defunto: Death and the Dead in Modern Brazilian Literature for eventual publication. My most recent research in this area focuses more specifically on the topos of the posthumous and other narrative “dislocations” in Machado de Assis’s novels, short stories, poetry, and crônicas. I am fascinated by this author’s use of posthumous narration, as well as related rhetorical strategies such as wills, suicide notes, eulogies, epitaphs and “last words.” 2) To organize and edit an anthology of writings by Lusophone (Portuguese, Brazilian, Luso-African) authors who are living, or have lived, in North America. 3) To translate the play As Aventuras do Tio Patinhas by Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal (founder of the Theater of the Oppressed) for possible stage production next year by UGA’s Deparment of Theater and Film Studies.”