Email Address:
smccread@southalabama.edu
Phone Number:
(251) 461-1456

Susan McCready

Professor, French

Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature

Education

B. A. Swarthmore College 1992
M.A. University of Pennsylvania 1995
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 1998

Research Interests

Co-Director, Center for the Study of War and Memory

Editor of Dix-Neuf

Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Twentieth-Century French Literature
French Theater
Performance Studies
Great War Literature

Publications

BOOKS

Staging France between the World Wars: Performance, Politics, and the Transformation of the Theatrical Canon, Lexington Books, 2016.
The Limits of Performance in the French Romantic Theater, Durham Modern Language Series, 2007.
Novel Stages: Drama and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France, ed. with Pratima Prasad, University of Delaware Press, 2007.

ARTICLES (recent):

"French Theater and the Memory of the Great War," Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 41: Iss. 2, Article 11, 2017.
“Du Romantisme à propos des débuts de Mlle Rachel,” Dix-neuf, vol 20, issue 2, 2016.
Sachs, L. and McCready, S., “Stages of Battle: Theater and War in the Plays of Bernhardt, Raynal and Anouilh,” The French Review, 87:4, 2014.
"The Secret Self: A Reading of Musset's André del Sarto," Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Winter 2006, volume 35 (2).
“Du Romantisme à propos des débuts de Mlle Rachel,” Dix-neuf, vol 20, issue 2, 2016.
Sachs, L. and McCready, S., “Stages of Battle: Theater and War in the Plays of Bernhardt, Raynal and Anouilh,” The French Review, 87:4, 2014.
“Revisiting Mérimée in Performance / Revising the Canon of French Romantic Theater,” Lingua Romana, volume 11, issue 1, 2013.
"From Verbal to Visual: Molière Performance Between the Wars," Contemporary French Civilization, vol. 30, no. 2, Summer/Fall 2006.
"Power and Sexual Congress in Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio," Romance Notes, vol. 44, no. 1, Fall 2003.
"The Compromise of Commemoration: The 1927 Centennial of Romanticism at the Comédie-Française," Modern Drama, vol. 46, no. 2, Summer 2003.
"Performing Time in the Revolutionary Theater," Dalhousie French Studies, vol. 55, Summer 2001.
"Sisters, Doubles, Rivals: Fairy-tale Archetypes in L'Annonce faite à Marie," Claudel Studies, Volume XXVI, Numbers 1 & 2, 1999.
"La Violence de l'amour: Le suicide et le rêve utopique dans Indiana," George Sand Studies, Vol. XVI, Nos. 1 et 2, 1997.
"Performing Stability: The Problem of Proof in Alfred de Musset's Un Caprice and La Quenouille de Barbérine," Romance Notes, volume XXXVIII, number 1, Fall 1997.

PUBLIC HUMANITIES:

Various:

Messenger, D., McCready, S. Mapping Confederate Memory in Mobile, exhibit, 2024.
McCready, S., Trout, S., Messenger, D. "Memory in the Public Square," expert panel for the Semmes Statue Committee of the Mobile History Museum, September 3, 2020.
McCready, S. and Trout, S., War and Remembrance on the Alabama Gulf Coast, 2017. Exhibit Website.
Trout, S. and McCready, S., "Harlem Hellfighter: The Story of James Reese Europe," Mobile Bay Magazine, September, 2017.
McCready, S. (Producer) War and Memory Podcast, 2016 – present. Podcast Website.
McCready, S. (Producer and host) The Commons: Podcast for the Common Read at USA, 2016-2017. Soundcloud.

Lectures:

"James Reese Europe: the Man: The Man Who Brought Jazz to France" Historic Mobile Preservation Society, Oakleigh, March, 2023.
"Harlem Hellfighter: James Reese Europe," History Museum of Mobile Lunch and Learn, May, 2021.
"Commemorative Acts: French Theater and the Great War," Alliance Française de Mobile, March 4, 2018.
"Lafayette, We are Here," Daughters of the American Revolution Alabama Day Celebration, December 9, 2017.
"The Meaning of the Poppy," Daughters of the American Revolution/Daughters of 1812, April 6, 2017.
"Introducing Homegoing: 2017-2018 Common Read Selection," Mobile Rotary Club, April 2017.
"Introducing The Complete Maus: 2016-2017 Common Read Selection," Mobile Rotary Club, April 2016.
"Enter the Doctor: The Physician in French Comedy," Mobile Medical Museum, December 2013.
"Occupation and Memory: Roslyn Bosch’s La Rafle," Mobile Jewish Film Festival, January 2012.

CHAPTERS

"Publicité et Célébrité: Les Coulisses de la rivalité de Mlle Mars et Mme Dorval," in La Critique Théâtrale au XIXe siècle, Bury and Laplace-Claverie, eds., Presses de l'Université de Paris Sorbonne, 2008.
"Michel de Ghelderode," Dictionary of Literary Biography, Twentieth-Century French Dramatists, vol. 632, Detroit: Gale Group, forthcoming.
"Jules Romains," Dictionary of Literary Biography, Twentieth-Century French Dramatists, vol. 632, Detroit: Gale Group, forthcoming.

INVITED LECTURES

"Bearing Witness: Experience, Illusion, and le paradoxe de Stendhal in Interwar Theatre" Cambridge Seminar Series in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Cambridge, UK, May, 2024.
The President, the Marquise and the Postmistress or Who Needs Literature?” College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Lecture, University of South Alabama, December 2010. The Dean’s Lecture Award is the annual prize for outstanding senior scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Évasions poétiques chez Alfred de Musset,” invited speaker for the colloquium, Musset: Poésie et vérité, Université Paris-Est, November 2010.
“Text, Authenticity and the Evolving Role of the Metteur-en-scène in Third Republic France,” William Falls Memorial Lecture, University of Maryland at College Park, April 2008.

COLLOQUIA ORGANIZED

Experiencing War Memorials: Feeling, Place, and Public Memory, University of Alabama, February 2023. Co-organized with Steven Trout (University of Alabama).
NCFS Unbound: an occasional book series. Co-organized with Masha Belenky (George Washington University) and Rachel Mesch (Yeshiva University). September 2021 – April 2022. H-France Salon, Vol 14.
NCFS in Captivity: a monthly book series. Co-organized with Masha Belenky (George Washington University) and Rachel Mesch (Yeshiva University). August 2020 – May 2021.
Published in H-France Salon, Vol 12 and Vol 13.
France and the Memory of the Great War, Center for the Study of War and Memory, University of South Alabama, March 2 and 3, 2017.
The Holocaust in History and Memory, Center for the Study of War and Memory, University of South Alabama, November 7, 2016.
Remembering America’s War in Vietnam, Center for the Study of War and Memory, University of South Alabama, September 2 and 3, 2015.
The Civil War in History and Memory, Center for the Study of War and Memory, University of South Alabama, April 6, 2015.
High/Low: Nineteenth-Century French Cultures, 33rd Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association International Colloquium, University of South Alabama, October 18-20, 2007.

GRANTS

McCready, S., Messenger, D. Alabama Humanities Alliance, "Mobile's Confederate Monuments and Memorial Spaces in Context," $5300, 2021.
McCready, S., Ard, B. “USA in Dijon: Language, Business, Culture,” French Embassy in the United States, Transatlantic Mobility Program Grant, $15,000, 2020.
Rinne, C., Gossett, N., McCready, S. "South Alabama Global Studies Expansion Initiative, Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program," US Department of Education, $467,419, 2018.
McCready, S., Alabama Humanities Foundation, “War and Memory Podcast,” $1500, 2017.
McCready, S., Meola, D., Shaw, P. Holocaust Educational Foundation, “Teaching Spiegelman’s Complete Maus,” $4500, 2016.
Aucoin, J., Trout, S., Ward, R., McCready, S. Alabama Humanities Foundation, “Journey to the Wilderness: A Documentary,”$9952.80, 2016.
McCready, S. Florence Gould Foundation, “High/Low: Nineteenth-Century French Cultures,” $5000, 2007.
McCready, S. American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, “Paris Theater between the Wars,” $4000, 2003.

Courses

Teaches all levels of French language, culture and literature classes.