Instructor Profile: still crazy after all these years

I became a professor of French by a rather circuitous path, never having studied French officially. I started my college career as a classicist in Greek literature. Discovering quickly that I could not do serious work without German and Italian as research languages, I persuaded the university to let me take a year off (I had skipped the first year and was ahead of schedule) and go to Europe to learn them. Off I went on a Finnish freighter to Hamburg, and after a brief detour via Munich and the Oktoberfest, went to the Goethe-Institut in a little town south of Munich where I studied German six hours a day. It was there I met my future French wife, Marie-Claude... in German! She started teaching me French songs on the guitar... and in short order we were talking at least of the possibility of getting married! A month later I went on to a second Goethe-Institut and started writing letters in French to Marie-Claude, now working in Munich, with the help of a German-French pocket dictionary. She would correct the gross errors... That's how I learned to write in French, and now write almost all my academic stuff in French. So you never know where things will lead.

After an extended German student vacation hitch-hiking around Greece and back up through Italy, I studied at the University of Munich where, for some reason I don't remember, I became a German medievalist. I spent a few weeks in France at the end of the year, switched from Classics to German when I returned to the States, and continued to learn French on the side, having dinner at the French Table and writing to my future wife back in Paris. By the time she came over to see if this was serious between us, my French was fluent. The next year I spent at the Sorbonne on a Fulbright studying medieval French and Provençal, got married twice (once at city hall in Paris, once in a tiny town of 65 inhabitants in Normandy), returned to the US to do a doctorate in Comparative Literature (German, French, English--mostly modern), and, by total accident, got my first teaching position in French rather than German. The rest, as they say, is history. I have been at UMB since 1968 (though as all my students know, I am still only 35) and am still having fun. My complete CV is on my website if you want the details.

Besides this First-Year Seminar, I teach French language from elementary to advanced (this semester I'm teaching French 301: Composition et stylistique and French 411: Thème et version), 20th-century novel, existentialism, and other such things. I also have a radio show on MIT radio, WMBR-FM, Mondays 6-8am. It's called "French Toast" and presents music from the French-speaking world, announced in both English and French. It's also available 24/7 archived at wmbr.org. My 24/7 webcast, "L'Air du temps," on wumb.org presents similar music without interruption. You can listen while doing your email or whatever. Check it out!

For several years I organized a 10-day music festival all around town and beyond, but now do concert series with visiting French artists through the Centre National de la Chanson which I founded here at UMB. One of my singer-songwriter friends, Eric Vincent, will be coming through in October on a two-month US tour and will probably give a concert at UMB. Check it out on my web site.

Since 1980 Marie-Claude and I have run a summer camp in Vermont for inner-city youngsters and, since 1985, a tutoring/mentoring program right next door on Columbia Point. My wife is executive director, and a chaplain at Harvard where she recruits and trains tutors. You could check out the organization at www.umb.edu/ev. Our sons grew up with the camp. Eric is now senior staff attorney for Childrens Rights, Inc. Dan teaches at Berklee College of Music where he is assistant chair of Production and Engineering. Both are also singer-songwriters. They used to sing around Harvard Square or in clubs in Paris as the Thompson Brothers but now place their songs in films and on TV (including "E.R.", "Touched by an Angel" and "The Sopranos"). They each have two great kids and we see one another regularly for various family events, occasional vacations in ski country or in France, or a game of tennis.