French

Education

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• M.A., University of Vermont
• B.A., University of Georgia

Research Interests

• Quebec Studies (Literature and Cultural Studies)
• Diaspora and Migration Studies
• Cultural Identity and Hybridity
• Haiti
• Space Theories and the City in literature
• Movement and Identity in 19^th Century French Literature

Teaching Interests

• Francophone literatures and cultures
• Québécois literature and culture (from origins to present)
• 19^th Century French Literature (poetry, drama, and prose)
• Robinson Crusoe in the French tradition
• All levels of French language

Professor Ketner’s research interests are centered upon Québec Studies, diasporic/migration studies, and cultural identity in literature.  He is particularly interested in how [(im)migrant] writing transforms discourses on belonging and identity within the host society, exposing literature and culture to be porous, while also testing their limits. The relationship between migration, space, and writing is one of Jay’s enduring interests, and creates corollaries beyond Québec Studies to include Haiti and 19^th Century France as additional sites of investigation. He views (im)migrant and minority narratives as attempting to reconstruct or recover homespaces of the past within the temporal present of writing, which like the migrant authors of these texts, finds itself grounded in new cultural spaces. Jay sees this dynamic as acting upon the collective cultural identity of migrant authors’ host society as expressed in writing, allowing hybrid texts, spaces, and identities to emerge and become legible. His dissertation, which examined the concept of ‘home’ in contemporary works produced by (im)migrant authors in Québec, received financial support from the Ministère des Relations Internationales du Gouvernement du Québec.

While his teaching interests are broad and ever-expanding, Jay’s scholarly work intersects with the classroom particularly in courses on Quebec literature, courses on Francophone literatures and cultures, and 19^th Century France courses.  He finds that students are fascinated to discover that the cultural hybridity of North America includes a culturally distinct population of francophones living to the north—one whose historical, social, and political identity is equally distinct from other francophone groups around the world. Jay draws from this enthusiasm to find ways to create co-curricular events for students, examples of which include arranging classroom and campus visits by notable authors Dany Laferrière and Carole David, leading student travel to Québec, and organizing film showings. He sees literary studies in the French and Francophone traditions as offering students an opening onto the richness of the human experience and its enduring questions as expressed in other times, places, and cultures, informing their view of the present long after university. Jay believes a French major or minor can be well articulated with other courses of study, providing students with linguistic skills and cultural understanding that prepares them for a range of future pursuits, undertaken through the perspective of working across boundaries in an increasingly transnational world.