March 19, 2024

Gaines Speaks at Shakespeare Theatre

Professor Emeritus of Foreign Languages and Literatures Jim Gaines took part in a panel at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. on June 11. The panel was part of a program organized by the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s ASIDES enrichment series in coordination with its production of Moliere’s Tartuffe. Gaines spoke on the political and theatrical background of the play in reference to its creation between 1664 and 1669.

Gaines’s French Article Appears in International Journal

An article by Professor Emeritus of French Jim Gaines has been published in the international journal Papers in French Seventeenth Century Literature, vol. 42, no. 82.

The article ,”Les FauxMoscovites : ouverture intellectuelle ou quasi-turquerie?” deals with one of the first French comedies to portray Russians and its implications for European diplomatic thought.

Gaines Reads Poetry at Bridgewater International Conference

Emeritus Professor of French Jim Gaines recently read selections from his poetry at the 2nd Biennial Bridgewater International Poetry Conference hosted by Bridgewater College on Jan. 15-18, 2015. Approximately 60 poets from a variety of countries met for the gathering in the Shenandoah Valley, which had Skype links to poets in France and Japan. Gaines’s selections included samples of his original work and also from his translations of the French World War I poet Guillaume Apollinaire.

Gaines Translation “Locusts!” Published in Eerie Digest

The most recent translation by Jim Gaines (Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures) has been published in the April edition of the online journal Eerie Digest.  The short story “Locusts!” takes place in colonial Algeria in the late 19th century and concerns the descent of a plague of locusts on a farmstead.  The reaction of the local inhabitants and the gut-wrenching devastation that follows are vividly described.  The story forms part of Daudet’s collection, Letters From My Mill, that Gaines has been translating over the past couple of years, especially some of the sections that deal with the interactions of French settlers and travelers in the larger Mediterranean world.

Gaines Publishes Translation of “Moving In”

Professor Jim Gaines of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures has published a translation of Alphonse Daudet’s tale “Moving In” in the December 2013 issue of Eerie Digest/TAEM, an online journal originating in Washington with a large worldwide readership. The story, one of a series translated by Gaines from the book Letters From My Mill, deals with Daudet’s description of his home and the return of local shepherds from their summer pastures in the late 19th century.

Gaines Delivers Paper at SE17 in Los Angeles

Professor James F. Gaines, Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, attended the 23rd annual meeting of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth Century Studies, where he presented a paper entitled,  “The ‘Cantique à Madame de Maintenon’ and the Outbreak of Émigré Satire in 1695” in the session devoted to France and England. He also chaired a panel on “Material Things and Objects in Seventeenth Century Literature.” This international conference was jointly sponsored by University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California at Long Beach.  His paper dealt with a satirical poem against the wife of the king of France that circulated in the emigre community of London after the French defeat at the Second Siege of Namur.

Gaines’s Most Recent Translation Appears in TAEM

Jim Gaines, professor of modern foreign languages, recently contributed a translation of Alphonse Daudet’s short story, “The Ordeal of the Semillante,” to the emagazine TAEM/Eerie Digest. The story is part of Daudet’s collection, Letters From My Mill, and deals with a grisly shipwreck off the coast of Corsica in the 19th century, as remembered by the toughened crew of a customs patrol cutter. It appeared in the July edition and is still running on the opening page of the short story section of TAEM, which now reports a worldwide circulation of over 100,000 readers.

Gaines Translation Published in TAEM

Alphonse Daudet

James F. Gaines, Professor of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, has completed a translation of 19th century French writer Alphonse Daudet’s story, “The Lighthouse on Bloody Shoals,” in the spring issue of the online journal The Arts and Entertainment Magazine/Eerie Digest.  It is the second of Daudet’s Tales From My Mill that he has worked with and deals with the author’s impressions of seaside life in Corsica in the 1880’s.