Alice Yaeger Kaplan (June 22, 1954) is an American literary critic, translator, historian, and educator. She is the Sterling Professor of French and Director of the Whitney Center for the Humanities at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Biography

Alice Yaeger Kaplan was born on June 22, 1954, in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, the daughter of Sidney J. Kaplan, an attorney, and Leonore Kaplan, a social worker. In 1973, she did a year of study at the Université de Bordeaux III in

Bordeaux, France Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture ...

. She obtained her BA in French at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

in 1975 and her PhD in French at

in 1981. Before her arrival at Yale, she was the Gilbert, Louis and Edward Lehrman Professor of Romance Studies and Professor of Literature and History at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and founding director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies there. She is the author of ''Reproductions of Banality: Fascism, Literature, and French Intellectual Life'' (1986); ''French Lessons: A Memoir'' (1993); ''The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of

Robert Brasillach Robert Brasillach (; 31 March 1909 – 6 February 1945) was a French author and journalist. Brasillach was the editor of ''Je suis partout'', a nationalist newspaper which advocated fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot. After the liberat ...

'' (2000); and ''The Interpreter'' (2005), about racial injustice in the American army witnessed by

Louis Guilloux Louis Guilloux (15 January 1899 – 14 October 1980) was a French writer born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, where he lived throughout his life. He is known for his Social Realist novels describing working class life and political struggles in the mi ...

. In March 2012, Kaplan's book about the Paris years of

Jacqueline Bouvier Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A po ...

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

, and

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

, ''Dreaming in French,'' was published by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

. A French edition of ''Dreaming in French'', entitled ''Trois Américaines à Paris: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, Angela Davis'', was published by

Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard (), formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles. Founded by Ga ...

in October 2012, translated by Patrick Hersant. Kaplan is also the translator into English of Louis Guilloux's novel ''OK, Joe'', 's ''Madame Proust: A Biography'', and three books by

Roger Grenier Roger Grenier (19 September 1919 – 8 November 2017) was a French writer, journalist and radio animator. He was Regent of the Collège de ’Pataphysique. Biography As a youth, Grenier lived in Pau, where Andrélie opened a shop selling gla ...

: ''Piano Music for Four Hands'', ''Another November'', and ''The Difficulty of Being a Dog''. Kaplan's research interests include autobiography and memory, translation in theory and practice, literature and the law, twentieth-century French literature, French cultural studies, and post-war French culture. Her recent undergraduate courses include courses on

Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works ...

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

, and

Céline Céline, sometimes spelled Celine, is a French female first name of Latin origin, coming from ''Caelīna'', the feminine form of the Roman cognomen ''Caelīnus'', meaning "heavenly".

; theories of the archive; French national identity; “The Experience of Being Foreign”; and “Literary Trials.” Upcoming courses include “The Modern French Novel” (with

Maurice Samuels Maurice Samuels (born August 9, 1968) is the Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University. He graduated with a BA ('' summa cum laude'') in 1990 from Harvard University, where he also earned his MA (1995) and PhD (2000). Before moving ...

) and a film course on

French cinema French cinema consists of the film industry and its film productions, whether made within the nation of France or by French film production companies abroad. It is the oldest and largest precursor of national cinemas in Europe; with primary influ ...

of the Occupation. She currently sits on the editorial board at ''South Atlantic Quarterly'' and on the usage panel for the ''

American Heritage Dictionary American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

'', and is a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. She is represented by the Marly Rusoff Literary Agency.

Awards

''The Collaborator'' was awarded the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History and was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critic’s Circle awards.Alice Kaplan
/ref> ''The Interpreter'' was the recipient of the 2005 Henry Adams Prize from the

Society for History in the Federal Government The Society for History in the Federal Government (SHFG) is a private non-profit organization established in 1979 to promote an understanding of the history of the federal government in the United States and to represent historians A historian i ...

, and ''French Lessons'' was nominated for the 1993

National Books Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". She was the recipient of a fellowship from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

in 1994.

References

External links

Faculty Homepage
* Sterling Professor Appointment: https://news.yale.edu/2020/01/15/alice-kaplan-appointed-sterling-professor-french
Yale Office of Public Relations & Communications: 'Alice Kaplan Is Appointed the John M. Musser Professor'

essay by Alice Kaplan
Video interview with ''The Nation'' on ''Dreaming in French''
* Recent articles in ''The Nation''
"Ghostly Demarcations: On Ramon Fernandez""La Zone Grise"
(on novels concerning the World War 2 Occupation of France and the mass deportation of Jews during the period), an
"Love in the Ruins: Review of Irène Némirovsky's ''Suite Française''

Review of Susan Sontag's ''Reborn'' in French newspaper ''Libération''
(in French)

an

at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''
Excerpt from ''The Interpreter''

Macalester College talk on ''The Interpreter''
from

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

's ''

BookTV ''Book TV'' is the name given to weekend Block programming, programming on the American cable network C-SPAN2 airing from 8 a.m. North American Eastern Time Zone, Eastern Time Sunday morning to 8 a.m. Eastern Time Monday morning each week. The 2 ...

''
Steve Moyer's review of ''The Interpreter''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Alice 1954 births Yale University faculty Duke University faculty Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers American women historians Vassar College alumni American translation scholars 21st-century American translators