Dr. Amy Reid

Professor of French Language and Literature

Director of Gender Studies

French Language and Literature | Gender Studies | Literature | Humanities | International and Area Studies | Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies

Education

M.A., Ph.D., Yale University; 1989 & 1996
A.B., Colgate University; 1986

Professor Reid offers courses and tutorials on a wide range of topics in French and francophone literature: from the Renaissance through the 19 century, as well as contemporary drama and francophone writing from Québec, the Caribbean and Africa; most of her seminars are cross-listed in Gender Studies or eligible for GS credit. In addition, she teaches courses at all levels of French language and tutorials on translation. She as a core member of the Gender Studies Program and currently director of the GSP (she was the program’s first director from 2006-2012), she also offers tutorials on women’s writing and feminist theory. She has served on the executive board of the American Council for Québec Studies (from 2009-2021), elected vice president (2010-2011) and president (2012-13), and served as Associate Editor for Book Reviews of the journal Québec Studies (2018-2021).

The focus of her research is on translation. She has worked extensively with authors from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Congo-RDC, and Haiti. She has two translations forthcoming in 2022: A Trail of Crab Tracks (FSG, 2022), the final volume of Patrice Nganang’s trilogy about Cameroonian independence, following Mount Pleasant  (FSG, 2016), and When the Plums Are Ripe (FSG, 2019); and The Blunder (Amazon Crossing, 2022), a translation of Mutt-Lon’s Les 700 aveugles de Bafia. Previous translations include: Nganang’s Dog Days (UVA/CARAF, 2006), Queen Pokou: Concerto for a Sacrifice (Ayebia Clarke, 2010) and Far from My Father (UVA/CARAF, 2014), both by Véronique Tadjo, as well as essays and short stories. Her publications also include articles on: French Naturalism, in particular works by J.-K. Huysmans and the Goncourts; on the Québécoise authors Anne Hébert, Marie-Célie Agnant, and Kim Thúy; and on recent fiction from Africa by Patrice Nganang and Véronique Tadjo.

Recent Courses

Women Writing of/from Africa: Feminist Truths, Feminist Fictions
‘Black Orpheus’ at the Turn of the 21st century: Novels and Short Stories from Francophone Africa
Literary Movements of 19th-century France
Performances of Gender: Readings in 19th-century French fiction
Francophone Literatures of the Americas: Giving Voice to Identity
On Stage in Paris and Montréal: Contemporary Francophone Theatre
Intermediate French I & II
Advanced French I & II

Recent Publications

Translations

Reid, Amy B. & Mutt-Lon. The Blunder [Les 700 aveugles de Bafia (Paris: Émanuelle Collas, 2020)]. Seattle, WA: Amazon Crossing. Forthcoming in 2022.

Reid, Amy B. & Patrice Nganang. A Trail of Crab Tracks [Empreintes de Crabe (Paris: Philippe Rey, 2018)]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Forthcoming in 2022.

Reid, Amy B. & Patrice Nganang (2019).When the Plums Are Ripe [La Saison des prunes (Paris: Philippe Rey, 2013)]. Patrice Nganang. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Reid, Amy B. & Patrice Nganang (2016). Mount Pleasant [Mont Plaisant (Paris: Philippe Rey, 2011)]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

“Manifesto against the presidency for life in Africa.” Tierno Monénembo, Véronique Tadjo, and Eugène Ébodé. The manifesto was published in multiple locations in French and in English, including the Mail & Guardian, South Africa, September 17, 2020. http://mg.co.za/africa/2020-09-17-manifesto-against-the-presidency-for-life-in-africa/

“In Defense of the Anglophones.” Patrice Nganang. An essay written in December 2017, when Nganang was held as a political prisoner in Cameroon. Published, January 2018. http://africasacountry.com/2018/02/in-defense-of-the-anglophones

“The Dawn of a New Republic.” Patrice Nganang. An essay written in December 2017, when Nganang was held as a political prisoner in Cameroon. Published, January 2018. http://nganang.com/blog/the-dawn-of-a-new-republic/

Reid, Amy B. & Véronique Tadjo (2014). Far from My Father [Loin de mon père (Actes Sud, 2010)]. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press/CARAF.

Reid, Amy B. & Véronique Tadjo (2010). Queen Pokou : Concerto for a Sacrifice [Reine Pokou: Concerto pour un sacrifice]. Ayebia-Clarke Press, Oxford, UK.

Reid, Amy B. & Patrice Nganang. (2010) “The Invisible Republic” [“La République invisible”]. Washington Square, summer/fall 2010: 137-146.

Reid, Amy B., & Patrice Nganang, (2006). Dog Days : An Animal Chronicle [Temps de Chien]. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press/CARAF.

Essays (selected)

Reid, Amy B. “Keeping Secrets: Kim Thúy’s Representation of Vietnamese Foodways,” in Reading Kim Thúy: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Miléna Santoro and Jack Yeager. Forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s UP, 2022.

Reid, Amy B. “When the Storyteller Speaks: The Voice of the Conteuse in Loin de mon père, by Véronique Tadjo.” Écrire, traduire, peindre : Véronique Tadjo : Writing, Translating, Painting. Ed. Sarah Davies Cordova and Désiré Kabwe-Segatti. Paris : Les Cahiers de Présence Africaine, 2016 : 285-299.

Reid, Amy B. “Véronique Tadjo et la traduction: une table ronde” avec Amy B. Reid, Peter Thompson, Christopher Fotheringham, and Nataša Raschi.  Écrire, traduire, peindre : Véronique Tadjo : Writing, Translating, Painting. Ed. Sarah Davies Cordova and Désiré Kabwe-Segatti. Paris : Les Cahiers de Présence Africaine, 2016 : 301-323.

Reid, Amy B. “A Daughter No More: (National) Identity and the Adult Orphan in Loin de mon père by Véronique Tadjo.” Women’s Lives in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature. Ed. Florence Ramond Jurney and Karen McPherson. Palgrave, MacMillan, 2016. Pp. 121-133.

Reid, Amy B. “Shades of Truth: Véronique Tadjo’s L’Ombre d’Imana: Voyages jusqu’au bout du Rwanda and Reine Pokou : Concerto pour un sacrifice.” Women in French Studies, Women in the Middle,” Special Issue (2009): 176-185.

Reid, Amy B. (2001). Resisting Documents: Huysmans’s Struggle to Represent Working-Class Women. French Literary Studies 28: 79-95.

Reid, Amy B. (2001). “The Textual Grounding of Québécoise Identity: Kamouraska and Le Premier Jardin.” In The Art and Genius of Anne Hébert. Ed. Janis Pallister. (pp. 273-284) Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press.

Reid, Amy B. (2000). “What’s so Troubling about the Woman behind the Mask?: Est-ce que je te dérange? by Anne Hébert.” Women in French Studies 8: 55-86.

“Resisting Documents: Huysmans’s Struggle to Represent Working-Class Women,” French Literary Studies​, vol. XXVIII (2001): 79-95.

“What’s so Troubling about the Woman behind the Mask?: ​Est-ce que je te dérange?​ by Anne Hébert,” ​Women in French Studies​, vol. VIII (2000): 55-86.

“Amitié féminine, Naturalism’s blind spot: the case of the Goncourts’ ​Renée Mauperin,​” Women in French Studies​, vol. VII (1999): 88-99.

“Take Two: Les Soeurs Vatard​​, Huysmans’s ‘experimental novel,’” Excavatio​​, vol IX (Fall 1997): 53-61.