Eric H. du Plessis
Éric Hollingsworth du Plessis (born in France, September 19, 1960) is an author and educator living in Radford, Va. He is professor of French Studies at Radford University, Radford, Virginia and director of Radford University's French Program at The Universite Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France Centre International Des Études Françaises.
Du Plessis has published books, articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries on literature, linguistics, and historical/cultural studies in such journals and encyclopedias as Revue de Littérature Comparée, Poe Studies, European Studies Journal, Dalhousie French Studies, Cahiers du CIRhill, Short Story Criticism, The World Education Encyclopedia, ALFA and the World Press Encyclopedia.
Early life
Du Plessis was born to Jean-Pierre, a World War II veteran with the British SAS and architect, and Simone Jeanne, a therapist for dyslexic children. He moved to Richmond, Virginia and attended Virginia Commonwealth University, supporting himself by cleaning floors at Johnston-Willis Hospital, working as a waiter, a substitute teacher at an all-black school, and as a campus police officer for one summer. After graduating from VCU with a degree in philosophy, he studied at the University of Richmond, where he received a master's degree, and went on to the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia, where he obtained his Ph.D. He then relocated to College Station, Texas where he became an assistant professor at Texas A&M University.
Current
Du Plessis is Professor of French Studies in the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures at Radford University, and a Faculty Fellow in the university's Honors Academy where he teaches ethics. He has been married and divorced three times and has five children: Carey Jennifer, David Lindsay and Kenneth Jean-Pierre (twins), Harrison Asher and Miriam Isabelle. A portrait photographer and a fourth-degree black belt in Daito-Ryu Aikijitsu, du Plessis also holds a student pilot license.
Publications
- The Nineteenth-Century French Novel: A Reader's Path to Classic Fiction. Mellen, 2013. Reviewed by Jean Mazaheri in Romance Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 2 (2014): 151-152, and by Kathryn Hacklin in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3&4 (2014).
- * Exiled From Paris: Growing up French in the 1960s. (Createspace and Amazon, 2009; revised, second edition 2012), reviewed by Mary Wellington in Modern and Contemporary France (Routledge, London), Vol. 18 (2010): 127-129, and in The University of Virginia Magazine, Vol. XCIX, No. 3 (2010): 58.
- An English Translation of Balzac's Novel Wann-Chlore. Mellen, 2005. Reviewed by Homayoun Mazaheri in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2007): 676-677,[1] and by Stephane Vachon in L'Annee Balzacienne Vol. XXIII (2008): 452-454.
- The NightCharmer and Other Tales of Claude Seignolle. Texas A&M University Press, 1983, with a preface by Lawrence Durrell. Reviewed by Jack Sullivan in The New York Times Book Review, Vol. 89. February 26, 1984, p. 22, and in Choice, Vol. 21 (1984): 985.
- Nietzsche en France, 1891-1915 with a preface by Michel Guerin. UPA, 1982. Reviewed by William Carter in The French Review, vol. 59. No. 1 (1985): 139-140, and by C.H. Moore in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Vol. X, No. 3 (1983): 447-450.
Education
- Former student, University of Paris Medical School
- B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University
- M.A., University of Richmond
- Ph.D., University of Virginia
References
External links
- Radford University: Department of Foreign Languages and Literature — French Faculty