Marc Blanchard (12 October 1942 – 8 November 2009) was a professor of

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

and

Critical Theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...

at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

. He was born in 1942 to a French father and French Jewish mother who were fleeing Nazi persecution and was brought up in Argentina and Egypt. The family returned to Paris after the war, where he earned a degree at the Sorbonne in 1965, in Agrégation de lettres classiques (Romance Languages, Comparative Literature, and Classics-“Sciences Humaines”). Prior to joining the University of California campus in 1971, Blanchard taught at

Yale 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 wor ...

and Columbia. Though he was trained as a classics scholar, Blanchard's longstanding research interests were in

Semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

and the Critique of Culture. His articles and books included: ''La Révolution et les Mots'', ''Description: Sign, Self, Desire: Critical Theory in the Wake of Semiotics'', ''In Search of the City'' and ''Trois portraits de Montaigne''. He published more than seventy articles in major journals on topics of Theory, European, Latin American, Caribbean and especially Cuban Literature. He lectured at New York University (NYU),

CCNY The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City ...

UNC Chapel Hill UNC is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to: Education * University of Northern California (disambiguation), which may refer to: ** University of Northern California (Santa Rosa), in Petaluma, California, United States ** University of Nor ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

, Germany and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1985. Blanchard also ran a

study abroad International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying. In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...

course in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

, one of the few programs in the United States that did so at the time. Blanchard and Raquel Scherr created and taught a program entitled Americans in Paris, a month-long program in Paris run through the UC Davis Summer Abroad program. The program educated hundreds of students and was last taught by Blanchard/Scherr in 2008. Marc Blanchard died on November 8, 2009, after a long battle with cancer. He was married with one daughter.

References

1942 births 2009 deaths French expatriates in Egypt French expatriates in Argentina University of Paris alumni French emigrants to the United States American expatriates in Cuba Comparative literature academics Critical theorists University of California, Davis faculty Yale University faculty Columbia University faculty {{US-academic-bio-stub