Jean Jacques Thomas

Jean-Jacques Thomas is a littérateur, academic, and an author. He is a Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY), and the Founder of Big Buffalo Quebec Cinema Week, Québec Cinema Week at Duke, and Paris based, EDUCO Association. He held the Melodia E. Jones Endowed Chair in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures until 2020. His research interests range from poetics, French linguistics, semiotics to poetry and visual culture, and new world francophone studies and atlantic literatures and culture of the United States. He has published several books on poetics and contemporary French poetry as well as Francophone literature and theory including, Poética generativa, Perec en Amérique, Poeticized Language: The Foundations of Contemporary French Poetry, and Joël Des Rosiers: L’échappée Lyrique Des Damnes De La Mer.

Thomas’ research interests span French literature and culture of 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries, poetry and poetics, French and general linguistics, European modernism, and francophone in North America, and he has authored numerous books, essays, ciné-poems, and critiques on the subjects.

Thomas’s book Perec en Amérique received a review in the webzine for information on French and Francophone literature and art, Acta Fabula in 2019. Jean Daive who is a poet specialized in international translations also reviewed Perec en Amérique and argued that it investigates foreign influences and trends in the work of Perec and "sheds light differently and with more accuracy on biography." He suggested that since French critical establishment only wanted to see Perec as a French writer of novels, "The book appears in 2019 in a great silence. No reaction. No article..." and is mostly ignored by them. Cecile De Bary in the book review indicated how author highlighted the paradox regarding the reception of Georges Perec in America, "who today has everything of a classic, remained confidential for a long time" and analyzed the impact of American culture on his writing. Defining the comprehensive synthesis in Thomas's work, the reviewer states that writer investigated tangible elements of Perec's journey granted the access to unpublished sources in the American archives, consequently leading him to dedicate the book chapters "to the American episodes of Perec's life..." and present it in an "organized chronologically" manner. De Bary states that Thomas's work, "restores with great clarity a number of fact... by the figures of the future French Theory". In another review of the book, biographer Bellos pointed out that Thomas's book aims to describe why Perec could not find footing in the literary scene in US and calls attention to an important point different than that of Thomas, "Perec had no academic qualifications, did not write literary criticism, and did not express himself in theoretical terms, so he could hardly be considered a ‘French intellectual’ in American eyes". Bellos also suggests readers to fact-check as, "Perec made three, not two films for cinema and television (p. 21); his mother’s death certificate was issued in 1958, not 1968...".

Thomas is the co-founder and Member of the editorial board, Literary Semiotics, and Formes Poétiques Contemporaine. Since 2008, he has been the executive director of Formulas: revue des créations formelles.

In 1990, Thomas held an appointment of chair for the Department of Romance Studies for five years, followed up by an appointment as a Director for the Institute of North American and Canadian Studies at the Duke University. He has served as Director of French Summer Institute of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California from 1989 to 2005, and Director of Big Buffalo Quebec Cinema Week (Spring) from 2014 to 2019, and Quebec Cinema Week (Fall) and from 2005 to 2008 based in University at Buffalo.

Thomas started his academic career as a Research Assistant from 1970 to 1972 at the University of Paris (Sorbonne, Paris-8). Subsequently, he took an appointment as Visiting Lecturer in the department of romance languages and literatures at the University of Michigan. From 1975 to 1981, he was an assistant professor at Columbia University. Later on, he held a brief appointment as associate professor, and in 1990 was promoted to a professor in the department of romance studies and department of Linguistics at the Duke University. From 2008 to 2020, he held the concurrent appointments of Melodia E. Jones Endowed Chair, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and an Affiliate Faculty for Comparative Literature department, and Poetics Program in English Department. Currently, he serves as a Distinguished Professor in the department of romance languages and literatures at the State University of New York (SUNY).

Thomas graduated with a Bachelor of Classics in 1968, and M.A. of grammar, literature and stylistics from the University of Lille. He did his Ph.D. in Poetics, Linguistics, and Stylistics at Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis. Subsequently, he joined the University of Michigan and completed his post-doctoral degree in Linguistics there.