Van Kelly
- Professor of French
- Director of Graduate Studies
Contact Info
1445 Jayhawk Blvd
Lawrence, KS 66045-7594
TR 10am-10:50am
Biography —
Van Kelly specializes in contemporary French and Francophone studies with emphases on modern poetry, the recent novel /« autofiction », cinema, and comparative urban cultures. His teaching and research focus on the conjuncture of tactile expression and sequencing (gesture, rhythm, image, sound and silence, pov, montage, collage) with broader questions of self-crafting and ideology (liberation and resistance, human rights, immigration, social and political thought, utopias and dystopias, urban space, multilingualism). He is a member of the West African Research Association, the African Studies Association, and the African Literature Association.
Education —
Research —
Modern French and Francophone poetry and novel, film as cultural artefact, Senegal, Wolof language and culture, Empires and Postcolonies, human rights and civil society, sub-Saharan Francophone literature and cultures, urban cultures, Abel Gance, René Char, Lorand Gaspar, Aimé Césaire, Jorge Semprun, Agnès Varda, Ousmane Sembene, Aimé Césaire, J-M G. Le Clézio, Claire Denis, Patrick Deville, Ken Bugul, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Boubacar Boris Diop, Felwine Sarr, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Cheikh Alioune Ndao, Alain Gomis.
Research interests:
- Modern French poetry and novel
- Senegal, Dakar, Wolof
- Film qua film and as cultural artefact
- Digital humanities and the global south
- Urban cultures, empires and post-colonies
- Human rights and civil society
- Sub-Saharan Francophone literature and cultures
Teaching —
Recent Graduate Courses Taught
Postcolonial Francophone Cinema
Francophone African Novel
Empire and Beyond Empires
Introduction to Modern French Poetry—Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Char, Césaire
Orality, Witnessing, and the Encounter of Voices—Modiano, Le Clézio, Eugène Guillevic, Wajdi Mouawad, Maryse Condé
Writing and Mortal Risk—Malraux, Semprun, Boubacar Boris Diop, Duras, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Le Clézio
Introduction to Graduate Studies
Recent Undergraduate Courses Taught
Francophone Postcolonial Cinema
Francophone Literature
Paris, City of Legends, City of Light
Tale of Two Cities, Paris/Dakar
Film In and Beyond France
French Literature of the Twentieth- and Twenty-First Centuries
Selected Publications —
Current Projects
“Against the Sense of an Ending: René Char and the Paradoxes of Totality, 1938-1948.” Book.
“Cityscapes and Mindscapes: Mapping ‘Border Crossings’ within Political, Social, and Spiritual Spaces of Dakar and Saint-Louis, Senegal, through the Optic of Literature and Film.” Book.
“The Language Desert: Ecosystems of Praise and Barrenness in Saint-John Perse’s Anabase And Lorand Gaspar’s Sol absolu.” Article.
Recent and Selected Publications
“Au-delà du crépuscule de Samba Diallo: le cercle de Tarman Dankaro et Salif Bâ, les ombres de Léopold Senghor et Mamadou Dia, et la reprise du débat entre tradition et modernisation dans Les Gardiens du Temple.”In Cheikh Hamidou Kane: Questions d’avenir. Edited by Alioune et al. Presses de l'Université Cheikh Anta Diop. Forthcoming.
“Numinous Thirdspace: Recrafting the African City in Ken Bugul’s Rue Félix-Faure.” South Central Review vol. 37, nos. 2-3, 2020, pp. 16-32.
“Mapping Self and/as Other: Attempts to Fuse Horizons in Modiano and Le Clézio.” Special Issue: “’Detecting’ Patrick Modiano.” Yale French Studies, no. 133, June 2018, pp. 39-57.
“La poésie de Jude Stefan entre le lisible et le scriptible.” L’illisibilité en questions. Edited by Bénédicte Gorillot and Alain Lescart. Presses du Septentrion 2014, pp. 233-241.
“Sols/seuils de la légende et du mythe dans Ourania de J.-M. G. Le Clézio: la place du sacré dans l'écriture de Daniel Sillitoe” In Chances du roman, charmes du mythe. Edited by Marie-Hélène Boblet. Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013, pp. 179-187.
“La Rhétorique d’HHhH: entrer dans le virage avec Binet, Heydrich, Gabčik et Kubiš.” In Mémoires occupées: Fictions françaises et Seconde Guerre mondiale. Edited by Marc Dambre Christopher D. Lloyd, Richard J. Golsan, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013, pp. 137-144.
“Difficile Traversée: Dakar, Gorée et les passeurs dans « Barsa, ou barsaq » de J.-M. G. Le Clézio.” Spec. issue: “J.-M.- G. Le Clézio.” Edited by Isabelle Gillet-Roussel and Sabrinelle Bedrane. Romans 20-50, no. 55, June 2013, pp. 51-64.
“Tentation du minimalisme et puissance du bricolage: Jean Echenoz vs. Agnès Varda.” Romanciers minimalistes 1979-2003. Edited by Marc Dambre and Bruno Blanckeman. Colloque de Cerisy. Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013, pp. 271-281.
“Ghérasim Luca, Mental Capture, and the Omega Point.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies vol. 15, no. 5, Dec. 2011, pp. 563-572.
“Mythes contrastés de la France résistante: René Char et Charles de Gaulle.” La France des écrivains : éclats d'un mythe littéraire. Eds. Marie Odile André, Marc Dambre, and Michel P. Schmitt. Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2011, pp. 41-51.
“Jorge Semprun’s Broken Mirror: The Broader Text of Resistance, the Shoah, and Camps in L’écriture ou la vie and Le retour de Carola Neher.” L’Esprit créateur vol. 50, no. 4, Winter 2010, pp. 20-33.
“Du bon usage des ruines : feux croisés de Céline et Volodine.” Écritures de la guerre aux XXe et XXIe siècles. Edited by Marie-Hélène Boblet and Bernard Alazet. Éditions Universitaires de Dijon, 2010, pp. 143-153
“À la lisière de l’horreur: Jorge Semprun et ses retours à Buchenwald.” À la baïonnette et au scalpel: comment l’horreur s’écrit. Edited by Caroline de Mulder and Pierre Schoentjes. Romanica Gandensia XXXVIII, Droz, 2009, pp. 149-161.
“René Daumal’s Exceptional French and Hindu Poetics: Poetry as Inward Theatre, Posture, and Meditation in the Light of Tzara, Desnos, and Dupin.” Sites: Contemporary French and Francophone Studies vol. 12, no. 3, August 2008, pp. 393-401.
“La poésie de René Char: un parcours initiatique des arts de l’espace, du Tombeau des secrets à Recherche de la base et du sommet,” in Michel Collot, Yves Peyré, and Maryse Vassevière, eds., La bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet: archive de la modernité. Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle et Editions des Cendres, 2007, pp. 188-209.
“Passages beyond the Resistance : René Char’s Seuls demeurent and its Harmonics in Semprun and Foucault.” Sub-stance vol. 32, no. 3, 2003, pp. 110-32.
"René Char." In J.F. Leroux, ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 258: Modern French Poets. Gayle Research, 2002, pp. 104-125.
"The Ambiguity of Individual Gestures: Revisions of World War I in Abel Gance's Film J'accuse, Alain’s Mars ou La guerre jugée, and Bertrand Tavernier’s La vie et rien d’autre.” South Central Review vol. 17, no. 3, fall 2000, pp. 6-34.
“Cinéma engagé: Activist Filmmaking in French and Francophone Contexts.” Edited by Van Kelly and Rosemarie Scullion Special Issue. South Central Review vol. 17, no. 3, fall 2000.
“Literature Between Philosophy and History: Essays in Memory of Professor Edouard Morot- Sir.” Edited by Van Kelly and R. J. Golsan. Special issue. Romance Notes vol. 35, no. 3 1995.
Epic and Epoch: Essays on the Interpretation and History of a Genre. S. Oberhelman, Edited by Van Kelly and Richard J. Golsan, Comparative Literature Series, Texas Tech UP, 1994.
Pascalian Fictions: Antagonism and Absent Agency in Pascal's Wager and Other Pensées. Summa, 1992.