Bruce Hayes
- Professor of French
- Chair, Department of French & Italian
Contact Info
Tuesdays 10-11am, Thursdays 12:30-1:30pm and by appointment
Personal Links
Biography —
Bruce Hayes is a professor of French specializing in Renaissance literature and culture, as well as humor studies. His most recent book, Hostile Humor in Renaissance France (University of Delaware Press, 2020) deals with religious polemics and sardonic humor. His previous book, Rabelais’s Radical Farce (2010), focuses on the interplay between popular culture and humanist satire in Rabelais’s works. He has published on a variety of Renaissance authors and has co-edited a special issue of Yale French Studies (2018), titled “The Construction of a National Vernacular Literature in the Renaissance” and a special issue of Oeuvres & Critiques on the Catholic polemicist Jean Boucher. His latest project explores the birth of atheism in France through the lens of comic satire.
Education —
Research —
Research interests:
- French Renaissance Literature and Culture
- Renaissance Studies
- Late Medieval and Renaissance Drama
- Humor Studies
- Religious Polemics
Teaching —
Recent Graduate Courses Taught
The Obscene and the Grotesque
French Women Writers of the Renaissance
Masculinity in the Renaissance
Rabelais and Montaigne
Poésie lyrique à la Renaissance
Recent Undergraduate Courses Taught
French for Business
French Women Writers of the Renaissance
Humor from the Margins of French Literature
The Obscene and the Grotesque in French Literature
French Literature of the Renaissance
Introduction to French Literature
Selected Publications —
Books
Hostile Humor in Renaissance France. University of Delaware Press, 2020.
Rabelais’s Radical Farce: Late Medieval Comic Theater and Its Function in Rabelais. Ashgate, 2010.
Co-edited volumes
Yale French Studies no. 134 (2018): “The Construction of a National Vernacular Literature in the Renaissance.” Co-edited with Jessica DeVos.
Œuvres et Critiques 38.2 (2013): “Jean Boucher, 1548–1646 (?) : prêtre, prédicateur, polémiste.” Co-edited with Paul Scott.
Articles
“Comic Satire and the Birth of Atheism in France.” The Routledge Companion to Literature and Humour. Edited by Andrew McConnell Stott. Forthcoming.
“Laughter Is the Best Medicine: Dr. Laurent Joubert’s Medical Exploration of Laughter in the Traité du ris (1579).” Brill’s Companion to Humour in Early Modern Europe (1400-1700). Edited by Marc Laureys, Karle Enenkel, and Bernd Renner. Forthcoming.
“Rabelaisian Satire and the Conciliation of the Satyre Ménippée.” Lingua Romana 17 no. 1 (Spring 2023): 104-14.
“The Contested Politics of Humour at the End of the French Wars of Religion.” Australian Journal of French Studies 59.4 (2022): 348-60.
“La farce hybride dans l’œuvre rabelaisienne : les exemples de Thaumaste et de Dindenault.” Rabelais et l’hybridité des récits rabelaisiens. Diane Desrosiers, Claude La Charité, Christian Veilleux, and Tristan Vigliano, eds. Études Rabelaisiennes 56 (2017): 77–85.
“The Affaire des placards, Polemical Humour, and the Sardonic Laugh.” French Studies 70.3 (2016): 332–47.
Frances Devlin and Bruce Hayes. “A Faculty/Librarian Collaboration to Restructure a Graduate Research Methods Class for French Literature Students.” The French Review 89.2 (2015): 146‑61.
“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.