Dr. Dean de la Motte

Areas of Expertise

• French language, literature and culture (all levels), 19th-century France (especially Paris, 1830-1870), France under German occupation, contemporary/multicultural France, Francophone literature (especially African and Caribbean), utopias and dystopias, 19th-century European narrative, the Brontës, Newport in the Gilded Age, creative writing

Education

• B.A. in comparative literature, University of California, Santa Barbara (1983)
• M.A. in comparative literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1985)
• Ph.D. in comparative literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990)

View My CV

What's My Why?

I've always loved literature and languages, and studying in France as an undergraduate was decisive in charting my future life as a professor. Throughout my teaching career, I have especially enjoyed sharing my passion for great works of literature as well as French language and culture. My broad background in comparative literature allows me to come in contact with a wide range of students at Salve in a variety of classes in English, in addition to my courses in French. Recently, I've been excited to enter the creative of the literary endeavor, publishing my first novel and teaching Introduction to Creative Writing. 

Professional Experience

In addition to my current teaching of French, beginning German, literature, humanities and creative writing, I have worked extensively in university administration. From 2000-2014 I served as a chief academic officer, including the last eight of those as the provost of Salve. In the fall of 2021, I was a visiting scholar at the Université Catholique de Lyon. In 2022, I published my first novel, and am currently researching a second one.

Selected Publications

Oblivion: The Lost Diaries of Branwell Brontë. Valley Press (UK), 2022. Paperback edition, 2025.

Editor, with Jeannene Przyblyski, Making the News: Modernity and the Mass Press in Nineteenth-Century France. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.

Editor, with Stirling Haig, Approaches to Teaching Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. New York: MLA, 1999.