MAT FOURNIER
Associate Professor of French
Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
404 Muller Faculty Center
Ithaca College, 953 Danby Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
mfournier@ithaca.edu, 607-592-8891
EDUCATION
Université Paris 8 - Vincennes-Saint-Denis (France)
Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, June 2014
Dissertation title: “Queer Geophilosophies: Homosexuality, Transexuality and Exile in Europe in the Interwar Years”
Dissertation committee: Marie-Dominique Garnier, Anne Berger, Anne Sauvagnargues, Pascal Aquien, Pierre Zoberman
Université Paris 7 – Denis-Diderot (France)
M.A. in French Literature, September 1994
Thesis: “La Concision romantique. Etude des formes brèves dans les textes du Romantisme français” (“Concise Forms in French Romantic Writing”)
B.A. in French Literature, June 1992
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Gender and power
- Modernist literature and its exploration of gender deviance
- Evolutionary theory and the modern gender binary
- The idea of nature and its ties to gender and biopower
- Transgender studies, queer theory, and their analyses of biopower
PUBLICATIONS
Academic Monographs:
Trans Ferality Beyond Nature: in progress.
Dysphoric Modernism: Undoing Gender in French Literature , Columbia University Press, November 2024.
Finalist, 2025 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Studies.
Reviewed in L’Esprit Créateur and CHOICE .
Edited Book
Trans Modernisms, co-edited with Chris Coffman. Proposal under review. Completion of manuscript expected in March 2027.
Non-Academic Books
Quand la nature inspire la science: Histoire des inventions imitées des animaux et des plantes (Science Inspired by Nature: History of Inventions Mimicking Animals and Plants ), Editions Plume de Carotte, 2011; Second Edition, 2016; Third Edition, 2021. [Czech translation: Priboda Nekonocna Inspirace Vedy , Rebo Productions, 2013. German translation: Bauen wie die Biene, Fliegen wie der Vogel , Haupt Verlag, 2016. Italian translation: Biomimesi. Quando la natura ispira la scienza , Edizioni LSWR, 2018. Chinese translations: Dang ziran fuyu keji linggan , Jiang xi ren min chu ban she, 2017. Fangsheng gaokeji: Yuanyu ziran de keji linggan , Feng Shu Lin Chu Ban She, 2018.]
Ma Boîte à Graines (My Box of Seeds) ,Editions Plume de Carotte, 2005.
Les Romantiques , Editions Milan, collection “Les Essentiels”, 1996.
Refeered Articles
“Darwin et les Tantes : genre, sexualité et évolution dans Sodome et Gomorrhe .” Bulletin d’informations proustiennes , vol. 54-55, forthcoming January 2026.
“Red Sun: Transecologies Beyond Nature.” Transgender Studies Quarterly Now , [Themed issue “Trans Ecologies”], January 2025.
“Trans Auntology: The Second Sex and the Ethics of Transmasculinity.” Simone de Beauvoir Studies [Special issue: “Situating Masculinities”], vol. 32, no. 2, November 2022.
“Another Map on the Wall: Deleuze, Guattari and Freeman at the Iron Curtain.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing. [Special issue “The Global Checkpoint,”], February 2014, pp. 45-55.
“Lines of Flight.” Transgender Studies Quarterly , vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 2014, pp. 121-122.
“Insurrections en territoire sexuel: Wendy Delorme's War Machines.” L'Esprit Créateur [Themed Issue “Transgender France”], vol. 53, no. 1, Spring 2013, pp. 87-100.
“Toujours dire je: la confusion des genre.” TRANS, Revue de Littérature générale et comparée vol. 3: “Marges et Déviances,” March 2012.
“Annemarie Schwarzenbach et la disruption du genre.” RAL, M (Revue d’Art et de Littérature, Musique), vol. 10, March 2009, pp. 187-210.
“Cool Technology, Homage to Eve K. Sedgwick.” Fabula , April 2009. http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article30992.php
“Les alchimies de la concision: Gaspard de la nuit d’Aloysius Bertrand.” Bagatelles pour l’Eternité, l’art du bref en littératures , eds. Philippe Baron and Anne Mantero, Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2000, pp. 223-237.
Book Chapters
“Sexing Imperialism: How French Colonialism Shaped Modernist Gender Deviance.” The Cambridge History of Queer Literature in French, edited by Todd Reeser (under contract, publication expected in Spring 2028).
“The Queer Delights of Dysphoria.” The Oxford Handbook of Queer Modernisms , edited by Hannah Freed-Thall, Octavio González, and Juno Richards, Oxford University Press (in preparation; publication expected in Spring 2026).
“Dysphoric Fertility: A Trans Reading of Marcel Proust.” Transgender Literary Theory and Criticism , edited by Douglas A. Vakoch, University of Illinois Press (in preparation; publication expected in Spring 2026).
“Dysphoric Assemblage: How the Gender Binary Was Never Supposed to Work.” Schizoanalysis of Trans Studies , edited by Ciara Cremin, Bloomsbury, March 2022.
“Gendercrossing at the Frontier: Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s Transgender Memoirs in the Albroz Mountains.” Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on the Environment, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch, Routledge, 2020.
“Just Tell Them I’m a Chipmunk: Transgender Children and the Breach in the Oedipal Gender Assemblage.” Deleuze on Children , edited by Markus Bohlmann, Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
Booklet for Art Exhibition
Transecologies . Essay for an art exhibition by Craig Calderwood, Nicki Green, and Jordan Reznick, Feb 18-March 22, 2019, San Francisco, CCA Hubbell Street Gallery.
PRESENTATIONS
Invited Presentations and Commentaries
“Refusing Despair: Building LGBTQ+ Solidarity and Resistance,” roundtable participant, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Cornell University, November 2025.
“Dysphoric Modernism,” interview for the 37th Lambda Literary Awards Ceremony, October 2025.
“The Spectral Woman,” virtual roundtable participant, Essex University, October 2025.
“Queering Modernism: An Exploration of Dysphoria and Psychoanalysis in Literature,” book talk at Buffalo Street Books, Ithaca, NY, December 2024.
“Gender, Race, and Class Dysphoria in Modernist France: The Queer Stories of Maurice Sachs,” invited speaker, Sigma Tau Delta Faculty Speakers Series, Ithaca College, March 2024.
“Sisterhood,” Post-screening discussant, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) Cinemapolis, Ithaca, April 2024.
“Framing Agnes,” Post-screening discussant, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) Cinemapolis, Ithaca, April 2023.
“Twist à Bamako,” Post-screening discussant, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) Cinemapolis, Ithaca, April 2023.
“Cruising the Capacious,” virtual conference participant, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University Long Beach, March 2022.
“The Hill Where the Lionesses Roar” Post-screening discussant, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) Cinemapolis, Ithaca, April 2022.
“Transmasculinity and Feminism,” Virtual Conversation with Dr. Abraham Weil, Faculty to Faculty Salon organized by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, December 2021.
“Queer Signs: What Proust can Teach to Trans* Studies,” invited speaker, World Gender International Research Network workshop, Cornell University, Ithaca (May 2019).
“L’invention du genre dans la littérature française de la Guerre civile européenne” (The Invention of Gender in French Literature during the European Civil War ), invited speaker, Graduate Studies Seminar in Gender Studies, LEGS, University Paris 8 (May 2018).
“Le Biomimétisme, des solutions pour l’avenir” (Biomimicry: Solutions for a Better Future ), invited speaker, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre, France (May 2018).
“Transgender Europe,” virtual roundtable participant, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh (February 2017).
Conference Presentations
“Fascist Transmasculinities: The Case of Violette Morris,” Modernist Studies Association Conference, Boston, MA (October 2025).
“Queering Dysphoria: On Writing and Reading Sideways,” Modernist Studies Association Conference, Chicago, IL (November 2024).
“Darwin et les Tantes : genre, sexualité et évolution dans Sodome et Gomorrhe .” Journée d’Etudes “Proust et les Penseurs de la nature,” Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France (November 2024).
“Transecologies Beyond Nature(s),” The Second International Trans Studies Conference, Chicago, IL (September 2024).
“Race and Gender in Modernist France,” Provost’s Colloquium, Ithaca College, November 2023.
“Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Dark Androgyny, and the Transmasculine Void,” Modernist Studies Association Conference, Brooklyn, NY (October 2023).
“André Gide and the Erotics of Misogyny,” in “1922: Long, Forgotten, Untimely” Roundtable, Modern Language Association Conference, Washington DC (January 2022).
“Masculinity undone: Gender Deviance in Genet, Proust and Gide,” Trans* Modernism Roundtable, Modernist Studies Association Conference, Toronto, ON (October 2019).
“Thresholds of Transition: From Geophilosophy to Transgender Studies,” Taking Flight, 10th International Deleuze Studies Conference, Toronto, ON (June 2017).
“Geographical Insurrections at the End of Time: A Thousand Plateaus and the Invisible Committee,” 49th Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Baltimore, MD (April 2017).
“Trans*Europe: A Literary Archive,” Trans*studies: International Transdisciplinary Conference on Gender and Sexuality, Tucson, AZ (September 2016).
“Hors la loi, hors du temps: Temporalités queers de l’Entre-Deux-Guerres,” Association Francophone pour le Savoir Convention, Montreal, QC (May 2016).
“A Transgender Reading of Interwar Literature,” Faculty Colloquium, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY (April 2016).
“Capitalism and Identity Politics: Subjectification Processes and Gender Assemblages,”
American Comparative Literature Association Conference, New York, NY (March 2014).
“Thresholds of Transition: Deleuze & Guattari and Transgender Studies,” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Toronto, ON (April 2013).
“Insurrections en territoire sexuel : Wendy Delorme's War Machines,” Modern Language Association Conference, Boston, MA (January 2013).
“Transgender France: Activism versus Etat Civil,” The Better Work Series, Graduate Proseminar, LGBT Studies Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (February 2013).
“Disseminating Thresholds in Sedgwick, Deleuze & Guattari,” 5th International Deleuze Studies Conference, New Orleans, LA (June 2012).
“De l'Oblique à la ligne de fuite : Deleuze, Guattari et la Queer Theory,” Rencontre du Groupe de Recherche des Doctorants Paris 8-CRESPPA GTM, Paris, France (December 2011).
“Another Map on the Wall: Deleuze, Guattari and Freeman at the Iron Curtain,” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Providence, RI (April 2012).
“Queering the Old World: Writing, Homosexuality and Exile in Europe in the Interwar Years,” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Vancouver, BC (April 2011).
“Le genre à l'épreuve de la guerre : la tentation du passing dans les textes d'autofiction de Christopher Isherwood et Klaus Mann,” Journée des doctorants en Etudes féminines et Etudes de genre de Paris 8, Paris (June 2010).
Session organizer/Chair
“Passing’s Promises and Dangers: Transgender, Nonbinary, and Queer Modernism,” with Chris Coffman, Modernist Studies Association Conference, Boston, MA (October 2025).
“Transing Modernism, Queering Modernism: Thinking Through Categorization,” with Chris Coffman, Modernist Studies Association Conference, Chicago, IL (November 2024).
“Modernism and Transmasculinity,” with Chris Coffman, Modernist Studies Association Conference, Brooklyn, NY (October 2023).
“Trans Modernisms: Approaches, Problems, New Directions,” with Aaron Stone, Modernist Studies Association Convention, Portland, OR (October 2022).
“Thinking Space in the Anthropocene Era: Ecocriticism and Cosmopolitics,” Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Baltimore, MD (March 2017).
“Thresholds of Transition in Deleuze and Guattari,” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Toronto, ON (April 2013).
“Disseminating Thresholds in Sedgwick, Deleuze & Guattari,” 5th International Deleuze Studies Conference, New Orleans, LA (June 2012).
HONORS, AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
- Lambda Literary (Lammy) Awards: 2025 Finalist for Dysphoric Modernism: Writing Gender in French Literature .
- Colby Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities (SIEH): 2024 Fellow.
- Center for Faculty Excellence Summer Research Grant, Ithaca College, Summer 2019.
- Center for Faculty Excellence Small Grant Award for developing new courses focusing on diversity, Ithaca College, June 2016.
- Student Scholarship 2013, awarded by Cornell University LGBT Resource Center.
- Horst Frenze Prize 2013: Nominated for the best Graduate Student Paper in 2012. American Comparative Literature Association Conference.
- Prix Nausicaa 2012: book award granted to Quand la nature inspire la science .
- Invited Visiting Scholar at Cornell University, Department of Romance Studies, 2010-2012.
- Ph. D. fellowship (Contrat Doctoral), University of Paris 8, 2009-2012.
- Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Seminar in the Humanities grant: “Theories of the Subject” (taught by Bruno Bosteels), Cornell University, May-June 2011.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
- Associate Professor of French, Ithaca College (2014 – present; tenured in 2023)
Courses taught (*in English):
Cultural Studies and Literature Courses
- French 312 (French Literature in Translation): “Love, Sex, and Romance”*
- French 312 (French Literature in Translation): “Paris on Edge”*
- French 347 (Cultural Debates): “Women in French Society”
- French 348: French Radical Feminism*
- French 355: French Translation in Practice
- French 377 (Special topics): “Queer France: Gender and Sexuality in 20th Century France”
- French 377 (Special topics): “Retour à la Terre: Environmentalism and Civil Disobedience
in Contemporary France”
- French 377 (Special topics): “Invitation au Voyage: Travel Writers, Adventurers, Explorers”
- French 377 (Special topics): “Poetry and Social Change”
- French 477 (Readings in French Literature): “Paris 2015”
Women’s and Gender Studies
- WGST 220: Intro to Queer Studies*
- WGST 301: Trans Natures: Transgender Studies and the Environmental Crisis
- French 312 (French Literature in Translation): “Love, Sex, and Romance”*
- French 312 (French Literature in Translation): “Paris on Edge”*
- French 347 (Cultural Debates): “Women in French Society”
- French 348: French Radical Feminism*
- French 377 (Special topics): “Queer France: Gender and Sexuality in 20th Century France”
- French 377 (Special topics): “Poetry and Social Change”
- French 477 (Readings in French Literature): “Paris 2015”
Language Courses
- French 101: Elementary French I
- French 102: Elementary French II
- French 200: Intermediate French
- French 201: Elementary French I
- French 202: Intermediate French II
- French 322: Advanced Grammar and Creative Writing
- Teaching Associate: Cornell University (2012-2014)
Courses taught:
French 121: Elementary French I
French 123: Continuing French
French 209: French Intermediate Composition and Conversation I
French 219: French Intermediate Composition and Conversation II
- Program Coordinator: Cornell University (2011-2013)
Program Coordinator for “The Better Work Series” (Proseminar on LGBT Studies and Queer Theory)
Graduate Student Member of the LGBT Studies Program Board Committee (2011-2013)
ACADEMIC SERVICE AT ITHACA COLLEGE
Service to Ithaca College and to the School of Humanities and Sciences
Handwerker Gallery Advisory Board (2020-2021)
All-College Core Curriculum Diversity subcommittee (2018-present)
Women’s and Gender Studies Program Steering Committee (2018-2024)
Women’s and Gender Studies Program Search Committee, Pre-Doctoral Candidate Hire (2018-2019; 2023-2024)
Faculty Council (Fall 2018-Spring 2020)
Assessment of Students’ Portfolios (Integrative Core Curriculum Humanities Designation) (2018)
Summer Advising (2015, 2016)
Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Coordinator of the French and Francophone Studies Program (2015-present)
Search Committee, Pre-Doctoral Candidate Hire (2018-present)
Outreach Committee (2018-2019)
Faculty Assessment Committee (2017-2019)
Comparative Literature Minor Committee (2017-present)
French Section Curriculum Committee (2016-present)
Diversity Committee (2016-2017)
Outstanding Student Award Committee (2016-2017)
Coordinator of the French Conversation Group (2015-2020)
Pi Delta Phi (French Honors Society) liaison (2015-present)
Honors Society Committee (2015-present)
Translation Studies Minor Committee (2015-2016)
Representative at “Ithaca Today” (2014-present)
SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION
PhD Committee (external)
Spencer Fricard, Ph.D. candidate in French, University of Pittsburgh, Department of French and Italian.
Dissertation title: “Corps Raccords: Sensing Politics of Gender Transitivity in Contemporary French Visual Culture.” Successfully defended in July 2025.
Manuscript Reviewer
University of Minnesota Press
Pluto Press
Contemporary French Civilization
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory
The Rocky Mountain Review
Transgender Studies Quarterly
MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture
PMLA
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Comparative Literature Association
Modernist Studies Association
Modern Languages Association
Laboratoire d’Etudes de Genre et de Sexualité (CNRS, Paris, France)
Association Francophone pour le Savoir (Montréal, QC)
LANGUAGES
French (native speaker)
English (near-native fluency)
German, Occitan (advanced)
Latin (reading knowledge)