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Memoir
L. Ross Chambers
Regents' Proceedings 365
Regents' Proceedings 365
L. Ross Chambers, Ph.D., Marvin Felheim Distinguished University Professor of French and Comparative Literature and professor of French and comparative literature in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, retired from active faculty status on May 31, 2002.
A native of Australia, Professor Chambers received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Sydney in 1952 and 1959, respectively. In 1967, he earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Grenoble in France with a prize-winning dissertation on Gerard Nerval. Professor Chambers held faculty positions at the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales, and the University of Sydney before joining the University of Michigan faculty in 1975 as professor of romance languages and literatures. In 1985, Professor Chambers was named the Marvin Felheim Distinguished University Professor of French and Comparative Literature.
Professor Chambers is an internationally recognized authority in the fields of French literature, comparative literature, literary criticism, and literary theory. He authored eleven books and numerous articles on nineteenth and twentieth century French writers and on a variety of approaches to literature, including the ideological dimensions of poetic discourse and narrative and narrative theory, with emphasis on narrative oppositionality. His most recent work has dealt with AIDS diaries, the poetics of digression and digressivity, and the rhetoric of witness writing.
An excellent teacher, Professor Chambers is one of those rare instructors who, for many students, indeed "make a difference." The number of distinguished scholars who were his students at the University of Michigan reflects his success as a mentor of graduate students in his receiving the John H. D’Arms Award for Distinguished Graduate Mentoring in the Humanities and. Professor Chambers has received numerous awards and distinguished visiting professorships both here and abroad. The University has recognized him with the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award and the Warner G. Rice Humanities Award.
The Regents salute this distinguished scholar by naming L. Ross Chambers the Marvin Felheim Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of French and Comparative Literature and professor emeritus of French and comparative literature.