Lifongo Vetinde, associate professor of French, joined the Lawrence faculty
in 1996. Besides French, he also teaches one of the core courses for the
ethnic studies minor. This past summer, thanks to a curricular-development
grant from Lawrence, he spent three weeks in Montréal and Toronto,
Canada, working on the production of a video that he intends to be a pedagogical
resource for the French department. The project, titled “La francophonie
africaine en Amérique du nord,” involved interviewing and videotaping
French-speaking immigrants from various African countries on an array of
topics related to the challenges of immigrant life in Canada. Along with
colleagues, he also spent part of the summer redesigning the French curriculum.
A scholar in francophone African literature and cinema, Vetinde has published
articles on the works of writers and filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembene,
Jean-Marie Adiaffi, and Amadou Seck, as well as numerous book reviews. His
review of Eugène Ebodé’s La Transmission was published
in The French Review, and he delivered “Power, Desire, and Interest
in Césaire’s La Tragédie du roi Christophe and Camus’ Caligula” at
the 57th Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. Professor Vetinde studied
in Cameroon, France, and the United States, earning an M.A. in French and
a Ph.D. in romance languages with emphasis in francophone African literature
from the University of Oregon. At right is Laurent Frecon, ’06.