Bruce Hayes
Room 2104
Room 2067
Contact information
http://kansas.academia.edu/BruceHayes
ORCID iD
orcid.org/0000-0003-4681-6892
Ph.D., M.Phil., M.A. in French Studies, Yale University
M.A., B.A. in French Studies, Brigham Young University
About
Bruce Hayes is an associate professor of French literature and culture at the University of Kansas, where he has taught since 2001. He specializes in late medieval and Renaissance literature and culture, with a particular focus in popular culture and humor. His current book-length project, Castigating Comedy: Polemical Humor before and during the French Wars of Religion, explores both regionally (Nérac in southern France, Rouen, Geneva, and Paris) and historically (1534, the Affaire des placards to 1572, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres), the ideological and polemical uses of humor and satire during this turbulent time in France’s history. His work has appeared in journals and series such as Études Rabelaisiennes, Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance, French Forum, and Renaissance and Reformation. In 2010, he published a monograph, Rabelais's Radical Farce: Late Medieval Comic Theater and Its Function in Rabelais (Ashgate), which has been called “a thought-provoking contribution to late medieval and Renaissance studies” (Renaissance Quartlerly). Awards and fellowships he has received include a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, an American Philosophical Society Franklin Grant, and a Newberry Library Fellowship. At KU, he is currently the department’s Director of Graduate Studies. Recently, he was the Faculty Fellow for Graduate Studies (2013–14). That same year he was a Hall Center for the Humanities Research Fellow.
Recent Publications
Book
Rabelais’s Radical Farce: Late Medieval Comic Theater and Its Function in Rabelais. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 2010.
Co-edited volumes
Yale French Studies special issue: “The Construction of a National Vernacular Literature in the Renaissance.” Co-edited with Jessica DeVos. Forthcoming in 2018.
Œuvres et Critiques 38.2 (2013): “Jean Boucher, 1548–1646 (?) : prêtre, prédicateur, polémiste.” Co-edited with Paul Scott.
Articles
“The Affair of the Placards, Polemical Humour, and the Sardonic Laugh.” French Studies. Forthcoming.
“A Faculty/Librarian Collaboration to Restructure a Graduate Research Methods Class for French Literature Students.” The French Review. Forthcoming in 2015 (volume 89.2). Co-authored with Frances Devlin.
“La farce hybride dans l’œuvre rabelaisienne : les exemples de Thaumaste et de Dindenault.” Rabelais ou « Les adventures des gens curieulx ». Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, ed. Études Rabelaisiennes. Forthcoming in 2015.
“Le risus sardonicus de Jean Boucher.” Œuvres et Critiques 38.2 (2013): 25-38.
“The Transgressive Ethics of the Trickster in Late Medieval and Post-Reformation French Farce.” At Whom Are We Laughing? Humor in Romance Language Literatures. Zenia Sacks DaSilva and Gregory M. Pell, eds. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013: 41-54.
“Les perplexités de la masculinité : cynisme, scepticisme et caritas chrétienne dans le Tiers livre de Rabelais.” Les Interférences des écoles de pensée antiques dans la littérature de la Renaissance. Edward Tilson, ed. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2013: 205-20.
“‘De rire ne me puys tenir’: Marguerite de Navarre’s Satirical Theater.” La Satire dans tous ses états. Bernd Renner, ed. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance. Geneva: Droz, 2009: 183-200.
“A Decade of Silence: Rabelais’s Return to Writing in a More Dangerous World.” Études Rabelaisiennes 46 (2008): 101-13.
“Putting the ‘Haute’ Back into the ‘Haute Dame de Paris’: The Politics and Performance of Rabelais’s Radical Farce.” French Forum 32 (2007): 39-52.
Current Book Project
Castigating Comedy: Polemical Humor before and during the French Wars of Religion
Recent Graduate Courses Taught
Masculinity in the Renaissance
Rabelais and Montaigne
Poésie lyrique à la Renaissance
Events, Ideologies, and Literature Surrounding the French Wars of Religion
Introduction to Graduate Studies
Recent Undergraduate Courses Taught
The Obscene and the Grotesque in French Literature
French Literature of the Renaissance
The French Wars of Religion
La France d’aujourd’hui
Survey of French Culture, Middle Ages and Renaissance
Introduction to French Literature
Areas of Interest
French Renaissance Literature and Culture, Renaissance Studies, Late Medieval and Renaissance Drama, Humor Studies
