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Department ofModern Languages and Literatures

Catherine Montfort

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Catherine Montfort

Professor Emerita of French

Biographical Information

Catherine R. Montfort is Professor of French and Women's and Gender Studies at Santa Clara University. She was born in Marseille, France and received her PhD from Stanford University. She is the author of several books (among them Les Fortunes de Mme de Sévigné au XVIIème et XVIIIème siècle), and has written more than forty articles and chapters on various French literary notables including Agrippa d’Aubigné, Mme de Sévigné, Charlotte Corday, Mme de Staël, Mme Campan, Vigée Lebrun, Mme de La Tour du Pin, Simone de Beauvoir, Annie Ernaux and Pierrette Fleutiaux. She edited a book entitled Literate Women and the French Revolution of 1789, and has been editor of Simone de Beauvoir Studies, Pacific Coast Philology and Women in French Studies. She has also edited or co-edited a number of Special Issues for Women in French Studies: 1) French and Francophone Women, 16th-21st Centuries: Essays on Literature, Culture and Society with Biographical and Media Resources, 2) French/Francophone Culture and Literature Through Film; 3) Les femmes et la lecture; and 4) Les femmes et le voyage. She is currently working on Paula Dumont and Irène Némirovsky.

Research Interests

  • The Epistolary Genre/Mme de Sévigné
  • French Women Writers and Artists
  • Reception History of Works by 17th and 18th Century Women Writers
  • Francophone Writers: The Caribbean and Sub-Sahara Africa
  • Sixteenth Century Epic Poetry
  • Film Studies
  • Translation Studies

Awards and Honors

  • PAMLA Distinguished Service Award, 2019.
  • Advisory Board, Women in French Studies, 2009-.
  • Recognition for scholarly activity, Santa Clara University, 2007.
  • Re-elected to PAMLA Executive Committee, 2007-2010.
  • Advisory Board, Pacific Coast Philology, 2005-2006, renewed 2006-2007, for a 3-year term, 2007; for a 3-year term, 2011.
  • President of PAMLA (Pacific and Ancient Modern Language Association), 2003.
  • Recognition for scholarly activity, SCU, 2003.
  • University Award for Sustained Excellence in Scholarship, Santa Clara University, 2002.
  • Elected President of the International Women in French Association (WIF), 2000-2002. Re-elected, 2002-2004.
  • PAMLA Executive Committee, 1997-2000.
  • Creative and Scholarly Activity Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Santa Clara University, 1993.
  • Teaching, Advising and Curriculum Development Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Santa Clara University, 1993.
  • Elected to the Executive Council of the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French), 1989-91. Re‑elected 1991.
  • Elected Representative to the MLA Delegate Assembly for the Division of Seventeenth Century French Literature, 1985.
  • Named "Distinguished Alumna" by the Foreign Languages Department of San Jose State University, at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the university, 1982.

 

Courses

Courses Taught

  • Introduction to Literary Analysis: poetry, novel and drama
  • Women in French Literature from the Middle Ages to 20th Century: Authors and Characters
  • Introduction to Francophone Studies: From the Caribbean to Vietnam
  • African and Caribbean Women Writers
  • The French Revolution in its Global Context
  • Comedy in French Theater
  • French Business Culture and Institutions
  • Politics of Love
  • Culture and Civilization of the Francophone World: From Quebec to Africa
  • Advanced French Conversation: La France contemporaine à travers ses films
  • French and Francophone Novels and Films: Culture, Gender and Social Classes

Publications

Books and Journal volumes 

  • Women and Traveling. Les femmes et le voyage, co-editor (Christine McCall Probes). Women in French Studies. Special Issue, Volume 7, 2018.
  • Les femmes et la lecture, Women in French Studies. Special Issue, 2012.
  • Women in French Studies, editor. Vol. 16, 2008; Vol.15, 2007; Vol.14, 2006; Vol.13, 2005.
  • French and Francophone Literature and Culture through Film, co-editor (Michèle Bissière). Women in French Studies. Special Issue, 2006.
  • Associate Editor of Pacific Coast Philology. Journal of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (San Francisco, Logos Press). Vol. 39, 2004; Vol. 38, 2003; Vol. 37, 2002.
  • French and Francophone Women from the XVIth to the XXIst Centuries: Essays on Literature, Culture and Society with Bibliographical and Media Resources, co-editor (with Marie-Christine Koop). Women in French Studies. Special Issue, 2002.
  • L’Amitié féminine from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century. Women in French Studies 7 (1999): 3-132.
  • Associate Editor of Simone de Beauvoir: Ten Years Later (with Mary Lawrence Test). Simone de Beauvoir Studies. 13, 1996.
  • Literate Women and the French Revolution of 1789, editor. Summa Publications, 1994.
  • Appel. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. (Co‑authors: J. Ollivier, M. Morran); 2nd ed. 1988.
  • Les Fortunes de Mme de Sévigné au XVIIè et au XVIIIè siècles. Préface de Roger Duchêne. Collection: Etudes littéraires françaises. Paris: Jean‑Michel Place, 1982.

Selected articles

  • "Mme de La Tour du Pin, 1770-1853: LeJournal d'une femme de cinquante ans.” Dalhousie French Studies 108 (Spring [2017]): 39-51.
  • “Madame de La Tour du Pin: An Aristocratic Farmer in America.” New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century 1 (Spring 2015): 35-47.
  • “Mme de Sévigné et la lecture.” Les femmes et la lecture. Women in French Studies. Special Orange Issue (2012): 56-84.
  • “Deuil et écriture : Des phrases courtes, ma chérie de Pierrette Fleutiaux.” Dalhousie French Studies 94 (fall 2011): 123-39.
  • “Self-Portraits, Portraits of Self: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Women Artists of the Eighteenth Century.” Pacific Coast Philology 40 (2005): 1-18. 
  • “Alexandrine Claude Guérin de Tencin (1682-1749).” The French Enlightenment. Ed. Samia Spencer. Bruccoli Clark Layman Publishers, Summer 2005. 172-80.
  • “Romans et leurs adaptations cinématographiques : héroïnes à l’écran.” French and Francophone Women from the XVIth to the XXIst Centuries. Special Orange Issue of Women in French Studies (2002): 380-401.
  • “Mme de Sévigné and the Jesuits in the Siècle des Lumières.” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 12 (2001): 167- 77.
  • “Mme de Sévigné (Marie de Rabutin-Chantal: Lettres (1648-1696).” Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women, from Marie de France to Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun. Eds. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H. Winn. Garland publishing, 2000. 17. 327-59.
  • “Love and amitié: Madame de Sévigné’s Letters.” Women in French Studies 7 (1999): 25-45.
  • "Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de (1626-1696)." The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature. Ed. Eva Sartori. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. 510-11.
  • "Les méchancetés de Mme de Sévigné" (with student Rima Lanning)." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 50 (1999): 131-58.
  • "Madame de Sévigné et le Chevalier de Grignan : ‘Le Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche’" (with student Leah Ball). In Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) : Provence, spectacles, "lanternes." Grignan: Direction des Archives de France, 1998. 93-108
  • "Les images féminines dans Les Tragiques d’Agrippa d’Aubigné." Albineana, Cahiers d’Aubigné, 8 (1997): 97-109.
  • "La belle et la bête : Charlotte Corday en prison." Sur la plume des vents. Mélanges de littérature épistolaire offerts à Bernard Bray. Paris: Klincksieck, 1996. 245-54.
  • "Vigée Le Brun : Une Artiste exemplaire (1755-1842)." Nottingham French Studies 2 (Autumn 1996): 41-51
  • "La ‘souriante maternité’ de Vigée Le Brun : Le point de vue de Simone de Beauvoir." Dalhousie French Studies 36 (Fall 1996): 113-21.
  • "'La vieille née’ : Simone de Beauvoir, Une mort très douce and Annie Ernaux, Une femme." French Forum3 (September 1996): 349-364.
  • "Mme de Sévigné: 17th Century Feminist?" French Studies2 (April 1996): 144-56.
  • "Mme Campan's Institution d’Education: A Revolution in the Education of Women" (with Terrie J. Quintana). Australian Journal of French Studies1 (1996): 30-41.
  • "For the Defence: Charlotte Corday's letters from prison." Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 329 (1995): 235-47.
  • "Charlotte Corday: femme-homme" (with Nina Corazzo). Literate Women and the French Revolution of 1789.  Catherine Montfort.  Summa Publications, 1994. 33-54.
  • "Women's Voices and the French Revolution" (with J.J. Allison). Literate Women and the French Revolution of 1789.  Catherine Montfort. Summa Publications, 1994. 3-17.
  • "Sévigné et Bussy : Une relation ambiguë." Bussy-Rabutin: L'homme et l'oeuvre. Dijon: Société des amis de Bussy-Rabutin, 1993. 143-56.
  • "Ordre et contestation chez Mme de Sévigné." Ordre et contestation au temps des classiques. Eds. Roger Duchêne et Pierre Ronzeaud. 2 vols. Paris: Biblio 17. Vol. II. 73 (1992) :17‑31.
  • "Grouvelle, lecteur de Mme de Sévigné : la `scandaleuse édition' de 1806." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature37 (1992): 501‑14.
  • "Mme de Sévigné et Grouvelle : Une admiration intempestive." Correspondances. Eds. Wolfgang Leiner et Pierre Ronzeaud. Collection: Etudes littéraires françaises. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag and Aix‑en‑Provence, 1992. 447‑53.
  • "Voltaire as Critic: The Case of Mme de Sévigné." Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 266 (1989): 213‑23.
  • "From Myths to Metaphors in Les Tragiques." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 16 (1989): 407‑18.
  • "Quelques réflexions sur les fortunes de Mme de Sévigné." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 15 (1981): 153‑62.

 Additional comment

 Translation of Cajas de cartón by Francisco Jiménez from Spanish to French.