Alek Toumi

 

Office: CCC 414
​Email: atoumi@uwsp.edu

Biography

Alek Baylee Toumi holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with specializations in French and Francophone studies, 20th century literature Camus-Sartre, theater, French civilization and language and culture. He has taught at Lawrence University, Middlebury College, Louisiana State University, Bates College and Franklin and Marshall College. He has published a series of articles and book reviews on French and Francophone issues, as well as nine books, among them Maghreb Divers, on the problem of French language in post colonial North Africa, Albert Camus: Aujourd 'hui, and Albert Camus Précurseur: Méditerranée d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. A poet and playwright, he is the author of the Sartre-Beauvoir trilogy "Madah-Sartre", "Taxieur" and “De Beauvoir à beau voile” (on the question of veil, school and secularism), as well as "Albert Camus: entre la mère et l’injustice". The English version of Madah-Sartre was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2007 while the French version has been reedited by Editions du Marais in Canada in 2009.

Education

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D., French and Francophone Studies, 1993.

Dissertation

“Langue française et identités nord-africaines": A study of the problem of French language and North-African identities in the works of Albert Memmi and Kateb Yacine, December 1993

 

 

Honors

Teaching Award
University Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, May 2012
Scholarship Award
University Scholar Award, for the 2006 University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point Scholar, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, May 21, 2006

Language Teaching Award
Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award,
(given to top 2%, 24 out of 1500 UW TAs) for 1991 Outstanding University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistant, from the Letters and Science Teaching Assistant Instructional Development Program Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 1991

Courses taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

  • Fr 470 Les Intellectuels: Camus-Sartre
  • Fr 381 Culture Clash: The Franco-American Experience (cinema and society through modern films)
  • Fr 370 Francophone Literatures and Cultures
  • Fr 370 Modern French Theater
  • Fr 340 Introduction to French Literature
  • Fr 317 Advanced Conversation and Composition
  • Fr 313 Conversation, Culture and Composition
  • Fr 102 Second Semester French Language
  • Fr 101 First Semester French Language

Recent Publication

- Pourquoi cette pièce sur Albert Camus ?

- Sans doute parce que la peste est de retour en Amérique.

Dans les années 50, le maccarthysme sévissait aux États-Unis. Le sénateur Joseph McCarthy encourageait les Américains à dénoncer les « espions communistes » imaginaires qui auraient infiltré le pays.
Durant cette « peur rouge », des dizaines de milliers de personnes étaient accusées, déclarées coupables, puis renvoyées de leur travail. L'auteur de cette pièce a imaginé Albert Camus à l'automne 1959, quelques mois avant sa mort. Invité par Germaine Brée, son amie de la Résistance, il s'est rendu dans la région de Chicago, encore gravement touchée par la peste maccarthyste.

You can purchase this volume from the publisher Harmattan or from Amazon.