FRENCH STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

New College / Barbara A. Kwant

As its name indicates, New College is a relative newcomer to the University of Toronto, yet it is, by a couple of years, the oldest of the constituent colleges – New, Innis, Scarborough, and Erindale – that were added to the university in the 1960s. New College was founded in 1962. The intention was to provide residential accommodation for the increasing numbers of students enrolling in the university at that time. President Claude Bissell stated in his report for 1959-60 that, rather than create a massive student housing complex for 1,500 students, it would be preferable to construct “residential colleges” with a “social and intellectual as well as a physical identity.”¹⁵ In January 1960 the Board of Governors approved Bissell’s proposal, which called for the building of four residential colleges to serve the new academic buildings being constructed on the

west side of St George Street. The project would begin with the creation of the first multi-faculty college, later named New College, which would provide tutorial assistance in the sciences and mathematics. No mention was made at this point of the traditional “college subjects,” such as French and English.¹⁶

The college opened for business in September 1962 in temporary quarters. Two years later, shortly before student registration was to begin, the staff of the college moved into the north building on Classic Avenue and Huron Street, later named Wetmore Hall in honour of the first principal of the college. The second building, named Wilson Hall after the college’s first registrar, was not completed until almost five years later. During those five years the academic character of the college changed significantly. The staff had initially been made up of ten tutors – graduate students in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. They offered optional

tutorial help to the first-year students, who received their regular instruction in large classes. For college subjects the students went to University College. Eventually it was decided that New College needed its own teaching staff, of which the first were members of the English and French departments, at that time the largest teaching groups in the colleges. The first member of the French Department to come to New College was F.A. (Archie) Hare, who had been registrar at Victoria College for eleven years. On 1 July 1963, after the death of Stewart Wilson, he was appointed registrar of New College and professor of French, cross-appointed to University College. Hare continued as registrar of the college until his retirement, following a year’s leave of absence, in 1972.

In September 1964 Frederick Gerson and Paul Mathews moved from University College to offices in New College. Gerson had emigrated from France to the

United States when he was seventeen years old. After serving in Korea with the American army, he had enrolled at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he received his ba and PhD. He accepted a position in the French Department at University College in 1963 and moved to New College one year later. His thesis, L’Amitié au dix-huitième siècle: métamorphose d’un idéal, was published in 1974. Gerson has edited two volumes on literary and cultural problems in the western Mediterranean and served on the Board of Directors of the Society for Mediterranean Studies.

Paul L. Mathews, a University College graduate with a master’s degree from Harvard, had been a full-time member of the French Department at University College since 1959 when he accepted a cross-appointment to New College in 1964. Working with Professor Robert Finch, he successfully defended his

doctoral thesis, “The Rôle of the ’je’ in Baudelaire,” two years later. The extraordinary length of the thesis, 1,094 pages, is analogous to the unstinting care and patience with which he carried out the many tasks he undertook within the department, the college and the university. A minimal summary of these activities would include his work as secretary of the combined departments of French from 1964 to 1966 and chairman from 1971 to 1973. He was also treasurer of the University of Toronto Faculty Association from 1971 to 1972. On the retirement of Archie Hare, he accepted the position of acting registrar, then registrar, of New College, a position he held until 1976. During his last years he collaborated with Dana Rouillard on the history of the French Department. Mathews, who died suddenly in April 1982 in his fiftieth year, is remembered by his colleagues for his wry sense of humour and his willingness to share with them his considerable

knowledge and keen understanding of French literature. On his death, his friends, colleagues, and former students endowed the Paul Mathews Memorial Scholarship in the Humanities, which is awarded annually to a New College student in the Faculty of Arts and Science for outstanding achievement in the humanities.

Paul L. Mathews Chair, 1971-73 Combined Departments

Until the creation of the University Department of French in 1975, faculty members who taught French at New College were appointed by the head of the department at University College and cross-appointed to New College. Indeed, they were asked to teach in both colleges, and on a cold winter morning, it was not unusual for New College faculty members, heading east across St George Street to teach in University College, to meet colleagues from University

College heading west to teach the same courses in New College. Staff at New College served on the various committees of the University College department and were members of the councils of both colleges.

From 1965 to 1968 ten members of the French Department were cross-appointed to New College. Daniel F. Jourlait completed his undergraduate degrees at the Sorbonne before going to the University of Michigan as a visiting lecturer. Appointed at Toronto in 1965, he taught graduate courses on the seventeenth-century novel and on linguistics as applied to the teaching of French. He left in 1983 to live in Aix-en-Provence but returned to North America every summer as director of the French Summer Programme at the Middlebury Language School in Vermont. Another appointment in 1965 was Christina

Roberts. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Roberts graduated from University College before completing an ma at Radcliffe. She returned to Toronto, where she successfully defended her PhD thesis on Dostoevsky and Gide. After teaching at New College, she worked for the Canada Council in Ottawa.

Three recruits joined the New College staff in 1966. Edward A. Heinemann came to the college from graduate school at Princeton University. In 1970 he earned a PhD with a thesis entitled “The Roman de Roncevaux: Prolegomena to a Study of the Manuscript Tradition of the Chanson de Roland.” Heinemann served as secretary of the Graduate Department of French from 1975 to 1978 and in 1981-82. He also played a significant role in introducing the use of computers in the department. He has published a number of articles on the aesthetics of repetition and metre in the chanson de geste. His research interests also include

the history of the French language in France and Canada.

Owen Miller, a New Zealander, came to New College from Strasbourg, where he was completing his doctoral thesis. He spent his first year as a don in the Wetmore Hall men’s residence. The title of his thesis, “Katharine Mansfield in France,” anticipated his involvement with the Centre for Comparative Literature in the School of Graduate Studies, to which he has been cross-appointed since 1974. He was graduate co-ordinator of the centre for several years and its acting chair from 1976 to 1978. Miller has a continuing interest in fantastic literature and the theory of the short story. With Mario J. Valdés of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, he has edited volumes on Interpretation of Narrative (1978) and Identity of the Literary Text (1985).

Completing the 1966 triumvirate was a native of England, W. Andrew Oliver. From undergraduate studies at Cambridge University, he had gone to Quebec, where he completed his doctorate at Laval. His thesis on Constant’s Adolphe was published in 1970. Oliver has taught courses in the Graduate Department on problems of narrative and modern literary theory. Since 1989, under the imprint Éditions Paratexte, he has published textes électroniques of novels by Balzac, Constant, Maupassant, and Stendhal. Before moving to Trinity College in 1977, he was an active member, with Principal Donald G. Ivey and Paul Mathews, of a special college library committee which, after lengthy debate within the university, succeeded in maintaining a circulating collection in what is now the Donald Glenn Ivey Library.

The following year, 1967, saw two appointments to the French staff at New

College. Like Oliver, David Clandfield came to Canada from England. In 1976 he defended his doctoral thesis on Anglo-Norman literature at the Sorbonne. He helped pioneer the teaching of cinema in the Department of French and was a founding member of the university’s Cinema Studies Programme. His book Canadian Film was published by Oxford University Press in 1987. Clandfield served as undergraduate secretary for the University Department of French from 1986 to 1989 and was associate chair from 1989 to 1993. During that time he streamlined administrative procedures and implemented a restructuring of the undergraduate programme. His interest in education has extended beyond the university. He served as school trustee for the Toronto Board of Education from 1980 to 1982. A founder of the journal Our Schools/Our Selves in 1988, he was a contributor until November 1991, when he was seconded part-time as a policy adviser to the Ontario Ministry of Education.

John K. Gilbert had been teaching at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, when he accepted a position at the University of Toronto in 1967. Of English background, he had graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, before teaching English in Provence and at the British Institute in Turin. He then completed a PhD at Harvard with a thesis on “Symbols of Continuity in Modern French Fiction.” While continuing to teach French language and literature, Gilbert was one of the pioneers who introduced the Cinema Studies Programme at the University of Toronto. He also taught with the University College Drama Programme and was involved with the Drama Centre at Massey College for two years. He has become increasingly committed to the practice of theatre and cinema arts. Beginning in 1983 he was a member of the acting ensemble of the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake for six seasons. He has also worked with

distinguished Canadian directors Atom Egoyan and Denys Arcand and later in France with Philippe Noiret.

Frederick I. Case, who came to New College from England and France in 1968, was the first member of the college staff to become chair of the University Department of French, a position he held from 1985 to 1990. Later he was principal of New College, the first college fellow to hold that office. He also served as co-ordinator for graduate studies in the French Department from 1982 to 1984 and as associate chair for graduate studies from 1984 to 1985. Committed to making the university more accessible to all groups within Canadian society, he has been personally involved in introducing students from inner city primary and secondary schools to the university experience. In spite of a

heavy administrative load and a strong commitment to work within the community, Case has still been able to devote a significant amount of time to his research interests. His thesis on Émile Zola was published by the University of Toronto Press in 1974. More recently his main area of study has been African and Caribbean literatures, with a particular interest in questions of race, religion, and ethnicity. In this area he has published a study entitled Racism and National Consciousness and a volume on the Guadeloupean and Martiniquian novel. He is also the author of more than fifty articles and has presented numerous papers and addressses.

Barbara A. Kwant (née Richardson) also joined the staff in 1968. Born in England, she came to Canada with a ba from Durham. After completing an ma at the University of British Columbia, she taught at the University of Victoria. In

Toronto she was the first don in the New College women’s residence; the floor on which she lived was later named Kwant House. She completed her PhD with a thesis on the poetry of Robert Desnos and has published articles on Mallarmé and Desnos and on the communicative approach to language teaching. A native of Montpellier, Yannick Resch studied at the Université d’Aix-Marseille. She completed her diplôme d’études supérieures with a study of twentieth-century French literature. The last of the cross-appointments to New College, she arrived in 1968 but returned to France four years later. She subsequently taught at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence.

The sixties were also a time of expansion in the English Department, and the two disciplines at New College usually worked as a cohesive and compatible group. In the early days, faculty members enjoyed, together with the administrative staff, deans and dons in residence, meals served at high table in the Wetmore Dining Hall (a privilege eliminated long ago for financial reasons). Discussion continued over coffee in the adjoining Senior Common Room and long-lasting relationships were formed among those working in the college. With the signing, early in 1974, of the Memorandum of Understanding and the subsequent creation of a University Department of French, faculty members who had been cross-appointed to New College no longer had any official ties to University College. Since that time a number of the staff in French at New College have made important contributions to the development of new programmes, such as African Studies and Cinema Studies. They have also had significant roles in the administration of the college and the University Department of French.