Dr J.S.T. Garfitt
Toby Garfitt, M.A., D.Phil.
University Lecturer (CUF) in French, Fellow of Magdalen College
Address: Magdalen College, High Street, Oxford, OX1 4AU
Email: toby.garfitt@magd.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 276076
Research
Toby Garfitt works mainly on French literature between the two world wars, with a special interest in Catholic writing (Mauriac, La Tour du Pin) and non-metropolitan literature. He has supervised theses on Francophone literature from Africa, the Caribbean, and Vietnam, runs a regular Francophone seminar, and has recently chaired talks by Edouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Raphael Confiant and Leila Sebbar. He has completed a biography of Jean Grenier, the philosopher and essayist who was the mentor of Albert Camus, and is now working on the contemporary novelist and essayist Sylvie Germain. Translation studies is another area of interest.
Teaching
French language and literature, especially 20th-century literature (including Francophone).
Graduate Teaching
Francophone Literature. 20th-century literature and spirituality.
Publications
Jean Grenier, un écrivain et un maître (Rennes, La Part Commune, 750 pp., 2010)
Correspondance Jean Grenier – Jean Guéhenno : édition et présentation (La Part Commune, 2011)
‘Mauriac and the Catholic novel: an état présent’, forthcoming in French Studies
‘Sylvie Germain : Fable, cri, echolalia’, in Narratives of French Modernity: Themes, Forms and Metamorphosis (Festschrift for David Gascoigne), ed. Lorna Milne and Mary Orr, Peter Lang, 2011, 279-299
‘Les figures de l’écho chez Sylvie Germain’, in La Langue de Sylvie Germain : “En mouvement d’écriture”, ed. Cécile Narjoux and Jacques Dürrenmatt, Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2011, 101-112
‘Jean Grenier entre Chestov et Jankélévitch : l’instant, la liberté, le choix, la création’, in Léon Chestov – Vladimir Jankélévitch : du tragique à l’ineffable, ed. Ramona Fotiade and Françoise Schwab, Editions Beauchesne, 2011, 199-214
‘Patrice de La Tour du Pin lecteur de Newman’, in Patrice de La Tour du Pin, un poète de notre temps, ed. Isabelle Renaud-Chamska, Lethielleux, coll. ‘Parole et silence’, 2011, 63-69
‘Un passeur de la pensée existentielle : Jean Grenier’, Europe, 972, avril 2010, 221-232
‘En dehors du jugement des yeux : Léon Chestov...’, Europe, 960, avril 2009, 173-180
‘Sylvie Germain et Emmanuel Levinas’, in L’Univers de Sylvie Germain, ed. Alain Goulet, Presses de l’Université de Caen, 2008, 79-88
'‘Situating Camus : The Formative Influences’', in The Cambridge Companion to Camus, ed. Edward Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 26-38
'‘Camus between Malraux and Grenier: Violence, Ethics and Art’', in Violent Histories, ed. David Gascoigne (New York and Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 79-91
'Deux nouvelles de 1925 : Julien Green et Jean Grenier', in Julien Green, un voyageur sur la terre, ed. Valérie Catelain and Hélène Dottin, Travaux et recherches (Lille: Université Charles-de-Gaulle-Lille 3, 2006), 109-116
Editor, with Jane Taylor, The Anatomy of Laughter (Oxford: Legenda, 2005)
'‘La Musique d’une vie: le cas de la petite pomme’', in Andreï Makine : Soil and Soul, ed. Margaret Parry and Edward Welch (Paris: Harmattan, 2005), 17-26
'“Ceci sort du cadre limité de cet essai”: Jean Grenier and the essay as art form', in The Modern Essay in French: Movement, Instability, Performance, ed. Charles Forsdick and Andrew Stafford, Modern French Identities, 41 (New York-Bern etc: Peter Lang, 2005), 166-177
Editor, Sylvie Germain: rose des vents et de l'ailleurs, Critiques littéraires (L'Harmattan, 2003)
Editor, Daniel Halévy, Henri Petit, et les Cahiers Verts, Le Romantisme et après en France (Peter Lang, 2003)
'Translating Éluard', in: Double Vision: Studies in Literary Translation (University of Durham Press, 2002), 35-51
'Patrice de La Tour du Pin', in: Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 258: Modern French Poets (Gale Group, 2002), 271-284
'Jean Grenier et le mysticisme', Rencontres avec Jean Sulivan, 13 (2002), 129-138