Jacques Ehrmann

Jacques Ehrmann
Born(1931-03-31)31 March 1931
Mulhouse, France
Died11 June 1972(1972-06-11) (aged 41)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
CitizenshipFrance
Scientific career
FieldsLiterature, Literary theory, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, Architecture
WorkplacesYale University

Jacques Ehrmann (31 March 1931 – 11 June 1972) was a French literary theorist and a faculty member of the Yale University French Department from 1961 until his death in 1972.

Biography

Jacques Ehrmann was born in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin, France) on 31 March 1931, the son of Paul Ehrmann and Henriette Weber. Born in the Alsace region by a twist of fate, as both the Ehrmann and Weber families were originally from Alsace but had left after the 1871 loss to Germany, it just happened that Mulhouse, then Strasbourg, were the first assignments of his father, an Engineering graduate from "École Polytechnique".

The family, including his older brother Jean-Daniel (JD), came back to Paris in 1939 and he graduated from the Lycée Henri IV with a Baccalauréat in 1949, then studied at the Sorbonne where he obtained a Licence-des-Lettres in 1953. In the meantime, he received a Fulbright scholarship and spent an academic year from 1951 to 1952 at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, the "City of Colleges, Cows and Contentment", a logo he loved to quote.

He was called to military service from 1953 to 1955 and served in the "Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens", and later as a translator in Germany for the US headquarters. During this time he met Pierre Riboulet who would go on to create the French architectural firm l'Atelier de Montrouge with Gérard Thurnauer (1926) and Jean-Louis Véret (1927) with whom he became lifelong friends while furthering his deep interest in Architecture.

In 1956 he married Françoise Laborie and the couple moved to Los Angeles where he attended The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and received a PhD in French Literature in 1961. There he met and befriended Raymond Federman with whom he perfected his tennis game. From 1959 to 1961 he taught at Pomona College in Claremont California while completing his doctoral dissertation.

Concurrently working as a freelance correspondent for France Presse he was offered a full-time assignment in New York City at the same time as he was invited to join the Yale University Faculty. Having to choose between journalism and academia, he chose Yale University in 1961. He lived in Hamden, Connecticut, with his wife and two sons.

As full professor he taught there in the French and Comparative Literature Departments and edited three issues of the "Yale French Studies" review which were later published as books. He was very involved in academic activities including lectures, conferences, and colloquia ... and continued to work through a long illness until his premature death on 11 June 1972.

He is survived by his son Guillaume, born February 24 1959, and six grandchildren. His son Laurent, born December 27 1961, died on February 16 2021, and his wife Françoise, born March 5 1932, died on February 28 2022.

Complete bibliography

Source:

Books:

Editor of:

Articles:

Book reviews:

Lectures and papers:

Primary sources

Secondary sources

  1. ↑ Bibliography (except for complementary "Lectures and Papers") is reproduced from In Memory of Jacques Ehrmann — Inside Play Outside Game,1979, pages 236-237.
  2. ↑ The Yale French Studies lists the title of this article as: Genet’s Dramatic Metamorphosis: From Appearance to Freedom
  3. ↑ MLA = Modern Language Association
  4. ↑ Some discrepancy exists on the title of the second article between the Yale French Studies link: "Selections from Texts I", and the printed version: "Selections from Texts II".