Bill Beachamp, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies and French Area Chair 

 

Contact: Clements Hall 130  214-768-2218 bbeaucha@smu.edu

 
Mail:
Southern Methodist University Foreign Languages and Literatures
309 Clements Hall
3200 Dyer Street
Dallas, TX 75275

  
Degrees:
Ph.D., Columbia University
M.A., Middlebury College               
B.A., St. Louis University                                                       

Bio: Educated by the Jesuits at St. Louis University (Missouri), where he earned a B.A. degree, Beauchamp took his M.A.  from Middlebury College (Vermont), doing most of his work at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) while on a Fulbright fellowship.  After doctoral studies at both Princeton and Yale,  he finished the Ph.D at Columbia University,  where he also taught before coming to SMU in 1974.  

Teaching Interests: Beauchamp teaches courses in French Stylistics and French & Francophone literature of the 19th and 20th centuries.  He also teaches regularly in the General Education program, most notably Cultural Formations and Perspectives courses in media literacy, cultural studies, and semiotics. In 1993 he received the Laurence Perrine Prize for Teaching and Scholarship, awarded by the SMU chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.  In the wider community, Beauchamp has for many years taught summer workshops for secondary school teachers of AP French.  In 2006, he was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at SMU's Center for Teaching Excellence.

Publications & Service: Beauchamp has published on 19th century French poets (Nerval, Hugo) and on literary theory (structuralism, semiotics). He served as chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures from 1995 to 2000 and is currently area chair for French.

He has also published articles, on a variety of topics including education and the study of  foreign languages,  in general publications such as The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, and The Dallas Morning News.