Delbert Russell

Director and principal researcher/Distinguished Professor Emeritus (in memoriam)
Delbert Russell

Professor of French

Member of the French Studies Department and the MARGOT research group.

Teaching and research interests include medieval French, with a focus on the French of England; medieval French verse hagiography; electronic texts and critical editions; contemporary Quebec and Canadian literature.

Teaching

Courses in language and cultural studies, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, ranging from first year language courses to graduate courses on medieval French language and literature, electronic texts, and contemporary Quebec literature.

RECENT COURSES TAUGHT

Courses taught, 2007-08

  • French 203: Introduction to Phonetics of French
  • French 291: French Civilization 1
  • French 352: French Language 3: module 2 (Waterloo at Nantes)
  • French 410B: Medieval French Literature (Waterloo at Nantes)

Courses previously offered

  • French 151: Basic French 1
  • French 192A: French Language 1: module 1
  • French 192B: French Language 1: module 2
  • French 197: French Culture & Literature: Origins to 1715
  • French 203: Introduction to Phonetics of French
  • French 252: French Language 2: module 2
  • French 291: French Civilization 1
  • French 351: French Language 3: module 1
  • French 352: French Language 3: module 2
  • French 409: Medieval French Language
  • French 410: Medieval French Literature
  • French 471: French-Canadian Literature
  • French 473: Aspects of French Canada
  • French 482: Marie de France; Chrétien de Troyes
  • French 603: Du manuscrit au texte électronique: histoire de la langue française
  • French 611F: Introduction linguistique à l’ancien français
  • French 611B: Introduction à la littérature médiévale française
  • French 611C: Aspects de l’anglo-normand
  • French 611E: Chrétien de Troyes
  • French 671: Anne Hébert

Research

Research publications are in the areas of electronic publishing of Medieval and Early Modern French texts (as a founding member of the MARGOT group), translations and critical editions of Anglo-Norman hagiography, medieval multi-lingual cultural theory and practices in England, as well as earlier work in bibliography, and critical studies of modern Canadian and Quebec literature.

RESEARCH PROGRAM OVERVIEW

My current research is focused on three projects in medieval studies.

1) Electronic Campsey

The development and expansion of the electronic corpus of Anglo-Norman hagiography on the MARGOT website. This includes the editions of the following lives found as a unique collection in the Campsey manuscript (to which I am progressively adding editions of other manuscript copies of the six Campsey lives which are extant in other copies):

  • S. Elizabeth of Hungary, by Nicole Bozon (2 copies)
  • S. Panuce, by Nicole Bozon
  • S. Paul the 1st Hermit, by Nicole Bozon;
  • S. Thomas the martyr, by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence (6 copies, in progress)
  • S. Marie Magdalene, by Guillaume le clerc de Normandie (2 copies)
  • S. Edward the Confessor, by a nun of Barking (3 copies, and 1 prose remaniement, in progress)
  • S. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, by Matthew Paris
  • S. Audrée of Ely, by Marie, a nun
  • S. Osith
  • S. Fey, by Simon of Walsingham
  • S. Modwenna (2 copies)
  • S. Richard, bishop of Chichester
  • S. Catherine of Alexandria (3 copies)

In addition to the lives from the Campsey manuscript, the electronic corpus includes the 13th-century Anglo-Norman life of S. Clement, pape (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.46)

2) The French of England: vernacular literary theory and practices, 1130-1450

In collaboration with Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Thelma Fenster, I am editing to a critical anthology of some 70 textual prologues or other passages in the French of England which reflect on the nature and strategies of vernacularity. Widely representative texts from the extant corpus will be edited from the manuscript sources and translated, with introductions, notes, and extensive reference to Middle English analogues and parallels. There will be a glossary, a list of Anglo-Norman /Middle English overlaps, an appendix of Middle English translations and reworkings of Prologues. This volume is a complementary volume to the earlier critical anthology, The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English LIterary Theory, 1280-1520, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, Ruth Evans (Penn State Press, 1999).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Service

Administrative service at the University of Waterloo includes: Chair of French Studies Department, 1990-95; Faculty of Arts Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Research, 1996-2000; Resident Director, Waterloo-Trent-Toronto programme at the Université de Nantes, 1983-84, 1995-96, Fall 2002, Winter 2008.