A. James Arnold

Professor Emeritus

aja@virginia.edu; arnoldfrenchexpert@gmail.com

Education

A.B., Hamilton College; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison; Certificates in Phonetics and Modern Literature, Université de Paris.

Personal

Joined U.Va. French faculty in September 1966; founded interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature in mid-1970s; founded Ph.D. Certificate Program in New World Studies in early 1990s. Emeritus status since January 2008.

Teaching

Twentieth-Century literature and culture—Surrealism, Existentialism, Literature of Occupation (Second World War); Colonial and Postcolonial literature and theory, Comparative Caribbean literature and culture; taught abroad at University of Paris III (1981); University of Leiden (1995); University of Potsdam (2006).

Honors

Elected Visiting Fellow, Trintiy College, Cambridge University, 2006

Named by French Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 2015

Major Grants

ACLS Fellow (1975-76);
NEH Fellow (1989-90), NEH Summer Stipend (1977, 1988, 2004);
National Humanities Center (1989-90);
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (1992, 2004);
Fulbright-Hays Fellow (1965-66, 1995);
Rockefeller Foundation (2004);
Visiting Fellow, University of Queensland, Summer 1995;
Fulbright Specialist (Bangladesh), 2025.

Editorial Positions

Editor CARAF Books, 1985-1995;
New World Studies, 1992-2005;
Contributing Editor, Plantation Society in the Americas;
Advisory Editor, The New West Indian Guide; Review, Latin American Literature and Arts. Editor-in-Chief, Équipe Aimé Césaire, Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes (ENS), 2010-2013.
 

Recent Scholarship

Reading the French Caribbean (1981-2025). Oxford: Peter Lang, 2025.

La littérature antillaise entre histoire et mémoire (1935-1995). Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2020. (Prix Robert Delavignette de l’Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer).

Aimé Césaire: Genèse et transformations d’une poétique. Würzburg: K&N, 2020.

Aimé Césaire: Poésie, Théâtre, Essais et Discours. Paris: CNRS-Editions, 2014.

Recent Published Translations

The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire. Trans. and ed. with Clayton Eshleman. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017.

Poetry Readings (with Clayton Eshleman):

Maison Française, Columbia University, November 8, 2019: https://pluton-magazine.com/2017/11/22/colloque-a-luniversite-columbia-new-york-autour-de-poesie-de-cesaire/

Washington and Lee University, September 19, 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZy0hKQseAI

Digital Profile: https://pluton-magazine.com/2024/01/25/high-profile-albert-james-arnold-professeur-emerite-universite-de-virginie-usa/