Beckett, Sandra L. 1953–

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Beckett, Sandra L. 1953–

PERSONAL: Born February 4, 1953, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Grant (in business) and Ethel (a nurse; maiden name, McDougall) McEwen; married Paul Beckett (a sales manager), September 3, 1977; children: Jason, Jeremy, Jordan. Education: Wilfrid Laurier University, B.A. (with honors), 1975; University of Manitoba, M.A., 1978, Ph.D., 1984.

ADDRESSES: Home—278 Riverview Blvd., St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2T 2N4. Office—Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1; fax: 905-687-7315. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Redeemer College, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada, assistant professor, 1984–89, associate professor of French, 1989–90; Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, associate professor, 1990–94, professor of French, 1994–, head of department of French, Italian, and Spanish, 1992–94, holder of chancellor's chair, 2001–04, coordinator of Learneds Society, 1996. Canadian Federation of the Humanities, English-speaking representative to Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 1994–96; Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, French representative on Aid to Scholarly Publications Committee, 1999–2002. Member of editorial board, Literary Research/Recherche Litteraire, 1994–99, Cahiers Robinson, 1998–, Anuario e Investigación en Literatura Infantil y Juvenil, 2001–, and Bookbird, 2004–.

MEMBER: Fédération Internationale de Langues et Littératures Modernes, International Comparative Literature Association, International Research Society for Children's Literature (vice president, 1993–95), International Society for the Study of European Ideas, Conseil International d'Etudes Francophones (member of administrative council, 1995–2000), Société Internationale d'Etudes Yourcenariennes, Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Society for the Study of European Ideas (vice president, 1999–), Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Association des Professeurs de Français des Universités et Collèges Canadiens (member of administrative council, 1993–94), Children's Literature Association, Modern Language Association of America (chair of executive committee, Division on Children's Literature, 1998–99), American Association of Teachers of French, American Comparative Literature Association, Women in French, Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, Amitié Henri Bosco (member of administrative council, 1998–), Association des Amis de Jean Giono, Association des Amis de Lourmarin, Association des Membres de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Association des Auteures et Auteurs de l'Ontario Français.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prizes from Association des Professeurs de Français des Universités et Colleges Canadiens, 1990, for the article "La Voix/La Voie du Narrateur Bosquien," and 1998, for De grands romanciers écrivent pour les enfants; grants from Humanities Federation of Canada, 1993 and 1995; decorated chevalier, l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 1994; fellow at International Youth Library, Munich, Germany, 1996 and 1997; decorated chevalier, l'Ordre de la Pléiade, 2001; grants from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and External Affairs and International Trade Canada.

WRITINGS:

La Quête spirituelle chez Henri Bosco, José Corti (Paris, France), 1988.

Les reflets, les échos, et les ombres Chez Henri Bosco: une étude du double obscur, Les Presses Mellen du Monde Francophone (Lewiston, NY), 1993.

(Editor, with Leslie Boldt-Irons and Alain Baudot, and contributor) Exilés, marginaux, et parias dans les littératures Francophones, Éditions du GREF (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

Voies et voix narratives dans l'œuvre Romanesque de Henri Bosco, Éditions du GREF (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

(Editor) Reflections of Change: The Last Fifty Years of Children's Literature, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1997.

De grands romanciers écrivent pour les enfants, PUM (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1997.

(Editor and contributor) Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1999.

Recycling Red Riding Hood, Routledge (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Leslie Boldt-Irons, and contributor) La Présence de l'Autre, Éditions du GREF (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), in press.

(Editor, with Rose-Marie Kuhn, and contributor) Le Désert dans les littératures Francophones, Éditions du GREF (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), in press.

Contributor of articles and reviews to academic journals, including Children's Literature, Bookbird, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Cahiers Robinson, Toward New Paradigms, Dalhousie French Studies, Studies in Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, Revue Francophone, Cahiers Henri Bosco, Diogenes, Lion and the Unicorn, and French Review. Guest coeditor, Signal, 1998.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A book on the art of retelling stories in contemporary children's literature.

SIDELIGHTS: Sandra L. Beckett once told CA: "I do much of my writing in Provence, where I spend the summer with my three sons. I fell in love with Provence as an undergraduate student and later devoted my doctoral dissertation to the Provençal novelist Henri Bosco. I have since published three books on Bosco and have written on other authors from the south of France, including J.M.G. Le Clezio and Jean Giono."

"In recent years, much of my research has been devoted to children's literature. Fascinated by the question of borders between children's and adult fiction, I have published extensively on authors who write for both readerships and, in particular, crossover literature for a dual audience of children and adults. I have also been examining intertextuality in children's literature and am preparing a book on the art of retelling stories in contemporary children's literature. My research in children's literature and my own children have recently inspired me to try my hand at writing for children."