Celebrating faculty: Mathieu Smith-Perrot

What is the focus of your research/area of expertise?

I hold a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the Université Paris Nanterre (France), where I studied the anthropological ambitions of three poets (Henri Michaux, Aimé Césaire, and Allen Ginsberg), examining how they use poetry to represent cultures they have studied or encountered in their travels, and how the discoveries and methods of ethnography have enriched their writing. I have published a dozen scholarly articles on their works from diverse perspectives, including representations of aging and softness, drug experiments, brachylogia (a style marked by brevity), explorations of margins and marginalities, ecology, and political engagement. I have also published on other authors and themes, including the surrealist poets and writers Michel Leiris, with his “science of mistakes,” and Louis Aragon, with his reflections on humor, its elusive definition, and its ties to the essence of poetry. My publications further address the unfathomable in Jean Cocteau’s plays, jazz poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to the Beat Generation, queering Blackness with Lil Nas X and Danez Smith, and utopias in sub-Saharan Francophone literature. In my research, I explore how literature engages with other art forms, diverse cultures, and social and political contexts; how writers navigate and reimagine cultural and linguistic borders; and how their work creates spaces for encounters between different historical experiences, languages, and worldviews. In addition to my scholarly work, I am also a poet, and my creative practice continually informs my critical approach.

How do students benefit from your scholarship and research?

I design my classes as spaces where literature becomes a living, interdisciplinary conversation, linking the Francophone world to global debates on culture, identity, and art. Students don’t just study texts; they learn to uncover the nuances, complexities, and paradoxes they may encounter in a book, a film, a newspaper, social media, or a class discussion. I guide them to question their sources, develop a critical mindset and curiosity, and challenge what might appear self-evident or “common sense.”

My courses connect languages, eras, places, and cultures. We might explore how the French Revolution continues to resonate in 21st-century France, or analyze the challenges posed by recently written Afrotopias (or African utopias) and how they differ from European utopias of earlier centuries. Even in language classes, I encourage students to reflect on words or structures that have no direct equivalent in French and English (such as “home” versus “house”), to grapple with the challenges of grammatical agreements in inclusive writing, and to explore the philosophical implications of using a mood like the subjunctive.

Just as my scholarship enriches my teaching, my teaching continually shapes and expands my research. Preparing my First-Year Seminar on non-European monsters and monstrosities, for example, led me to works that sparked new ideas for studying monsters in Michaux’s poetics and the notion of fear in literature. Similarly, while teaching an advanced French seminar on Oedipus and Orpheus, I developed an article on the unfathomable in Cocteau’s poetics; my research deepened our class discussions on these mythical figures, and the preparation and exchanges with students helped shape several aspects of my text before I submitted it for publication. My classroom is a collaborative space where we think and rethink together, rather than a one-way lecture. My goal is not simply to bring knowledge to students, but to guide them toward knowledge (and empathy).

What will you be teaching in the fall?

This fall, I will be teaching elementary French courses. I recently designed and launched a two-year pilot for the French program that offers both French 101 and 102 every semester. Previously, students could only take French 101 in the fall followed by French 102 in the spring, which limited when they could begin their studies. This new model allows students to start learning the language and exploring Francophone cultures at any point in their college career, giving them more flexibility and opening more pathways for study abroad, minors, and majors. In addition to the pilot, I have organized a series of events for the College’s Bicentennial (films, talks, performances, and culinary experiences) that connect the Marquis de Lafayette’s legacy to French and Francophone cultural exploration on campus.

I will also be teaching “The Boring Class,” a First-Year Seminar that asks students to think deeply about boredom, its causes, cultural variations, and surprising benefits. In a world driven by productivity and constant entertainment, boredom often carries negative connotations, seen as a potentially harmful state of mind, yet it can also be a gateway to creativity, mindfulness, and self-discovery. Through readings from writers and thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Walter Benjamin, Samuel Beckett, and Lars Svendsen, along with contemporary studies on boredom in education and mental health, students will investigate questions such as: Has boredom always existed, or has it evolved with society? Do we all experience it in the same way across cultures? Who is most easily bored, and why? How can we define boredom when it encompasses so many emotions? While reflecting on their own experiences, students will also build essential academic skills for their first semester: crafting well-structured papers, managing time effectively, conducting research in the library, and navigating campus resources.

In January 2026, I will co-lead a new interdisciplinary study abroad program in Japan on the cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions of water. Through lectures, discussions, and immersive activities, students will examine water’s role in Japanese society, its symbolism, environmental challenges, economic importance, and political implications. This program builds on my master’s research at La Sorbonne University in France on monsters in Japanese literature, extends the work I began in my First-Year Seminar on non-European monsters (including aquatic yōkai and other entities such as the Kappa, Ryūjin, and Umibōzu), and reflects my passion for Japanese language and culture. It will enrich my advanced French courses through topics such as orientalism and japonisme (the 19th- century French fascination with Japanese art and design), and offer new perspectives for my travel literature seminar, which features works by Claudel, Michaux, Barthes, Duras, and Bouvier, all inspired by their travels to Japan.