Miller, Christopher L. 1953-

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MILLER, Christopher L. 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born 1953. Education: Boston University, B.A., 1975; studied at L'École Normale Supérieure (Paris, France), 1981-82; Yale University, Ph.D., 1983.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Yale University, Department of French, New Haven, CT 06590. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Peace Corps, Institut Bondoyi, Muene Ditu, Zaire, English instructor; Yale University, New Haven, CT, assistant professor, 1983-87, Charles B. G. Murphy Associate Professor of French and Afro-American Studies, 1987-90, professor, 1990-99, chair of French department, 1997—, Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of French and African American Studies, 1999—. National Endowment for the Humanities, member of review committee.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Morse fellowship in the Humanities; Fulbright Africa research fellowship; Yale senior faculty fellowship; National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and Guggenheim fellowship, both 2003-04.

WRITINGS:

Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1985.

Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1990.

Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1998.

Contributor of scholarly articles to journals and books, including The Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Africa, A New History of French Literature and Literary Theory and African Literature.

SIDELIGHTS:

Christopher L. Miller is a professor at Yale University and a scholar of Francophone (French-language) African literature who has written several books on the topic, including Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French, Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa, and, more recently, Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture.

Nationalists and Nomads is a collection of six essays, four of which originated as articles Miller wrote for various journals. Taken together, the essays cover the history of Francophone African literature, which Miller argues began with the publication of Senegalese author Ahmadou Mapate Diagne's book Les trois volontes de Malic in 1920. In the second and third essays Miller discusses the relationship between France and its African colonies in the 1930s as reflected in the International Colonial Exposition held in 1931 and in a novel, Mirages de Paris, which was set at that exposition. The fourth essay covers the impact the emerging nationalist movements in Africa had upon the region's literature. Journal of African History contributor William B. Cohen commented particularly favorably upon this chapter, calling attention to Miller's "interesting and eye-opening discussion of Ferdinand Oyono's [novel] Houseboy. " In the final two essays Miller examines current debates in American academia over the proper ways of teaching African literature. "Miller's knowledge of theoretical and more pragmatic research on questions of curricular choice and on the evolution of critical theory itself is quite comprehensive," Louise M. Jefferson noted in Criticism. He added that Miller "builds his argument carefully and convincingly."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Affairs, January, 1992, Richard D. E. Burton, review of Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa, pp. 161-163.

African Studies Review, September, 1992, Janice Spleth, review of Theories of Africans, pp. 104-106.

Bookwatch, April, 1999, review of Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture, p. 8.

Choice, July-August, 1999, S. R. Schulman, review of Nationalists and Nomads, p. 1952.

College Literature, October-February, 1992, Paul Stoller, review of Theories of Africans, pp. 242-245.

Comparative Literature, fall, 1989, Mildred Mortimer, review of Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French, pp. 408-409.

Contemporary Literature, fall, 1992, Alan Isaacs, review of Theories of Africans, pp. 563-572.

Criticism, winter, 2002, Louise M. Jefferson, review of Nationalists and Nomads, pp. 90-96.

French Review, December, 2001, Janis L. Pallister, review of Nationalists and Nomads, p. 361.

International Affairs, April, 1992, Patrick Chabal, review of Theories of Africans, p. 383.

International Journal of African Historical Studies, summer, 1991, William B. Cohen, review of Theories of Africans, p. 646-648; winter, 2000, Isaac Bazie, review of Nationalists and Nomads, pp. 202-203.

Journal of African History, July, 2000, William B. Cohen, review of Nationalists and Nomads, p. 336.

Research in African Literature, fall, 2000, Ambroise Kom, review of Nationalists and Nomads, p. 175.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1991, Evelyn Uhrhan Irving, review of Theories of Africans, p. 753; autumn, 1999, Harold A. Waters, review of Nationalists and Nomads, p. 793.