[Photo taken May 2008 in Vieux Montréal]I've recently become an avid reader of multiple blogs, most of them written by Americans living in Paris, and I realize that what keeps me going back to them is knowing there will be somewhat regular posts, creatively written, and engaging. I have not done a great job, if I have any regular readers, of keeping my blog up to date, but I also have not forgotten the very specific topic that I've chosen.
Right now I'm in Montreal (and soon in Quebec City) with a Canadian Government "faculty enrichment" research grant and my topic is not Pied-Noir studies. Instead, I am working on including Canadian (Quebec) content into my commercial French course and textbook which is in development. While this has been my focus for the past several months, I have not stopped working on Pied-Noir literature. I am in the process of reworking a paper for publication on Pied-Noir Photo-documentary works and I'm writing another about the recent Pied-Noir returns to Algeria for presentation in July. My first article in French, “« La valise ou le cercueil » : un aller-retour dans la mémoire des Pieds-Noirs” should be coming out later this year in the Revue Diasporas: histoires et sociétés later this year.
As I finish up my work in Canada in a couple of weeks, I will be getting back to my passion and hopefully finding my blog-voice. Part of the issue is that I'm still grappling with what I, a young American French professor, have to say about the traumas of the Pieds-Noirs. I have much to say ... in English or in French ... but to whom, here in a blog post, written in English?
