Degrees: PHD, 1985, Univ Pennsylvania; MA, 1978, Pennsylvania St Univ Univ Park; BA, 1973, West Virginia Univ

Bio:

Dr. Powell developed an interest in France and the French language in junior high school. He completed a bachelor's degree in French and earned teacher certification. He taught French in an American junior high school for one semester; he then taught English in a French junior high school for two years. Upon his return to the United States, he determined to do graduate studies in French. During the course of his graduate work, he taught for one year at the Université de Strasbourg and for two years at the Université de Paris X (Nanterre).

Powell's doctoral dissertation was on the 19th-century French author George Sand. He quickly rose to become a member of the Editorial Board and then co-president of the American George Sand society (the George Sand Association). His George Sand, a volume in the Twayne World Author Series, was published in 1990. He has presented and directed conferences in both the US and France and has participated in Sand conferences in the US, Canada, France, Hungry, Ireland, and Italy. His articles on Sand have appeared in various journals and he has published a monograph: 'While the Music Lasts': The Representation of Music in the Works of George Sand (Bucknell University Press, 2001).

Recently Powell has turned his scholarly attention to the poetry of Paul Verlaine. He has published on the poet in the Revue verlainienne and the Revue des Sciences Humaines. He has presented several conference papers on Verlaine's papers and has been invited to participate in a seminar at the Université de Paris 4 (Sorbonne). He is currently working on a monograph on the musical settings of some of Verlaine's poems.

Diverting radically from his professional training, Powell has become deeply involved in queer theory. He spearheaded and saw to successful completion the formation of the LGBT Studies Program at Hofstra University. He taught the first introductory course followed by another course on "Gender and Dance" and another on "French Gay Film." He continues to advise and direct the program. In addition the administrative and teaching work involved in the LGBT Studies Program, Powell has also directed two symposia: "What Does Gay Mean Today? Labels, Meaning, and Self-Identification at the Start of the New Millennium" (October 2006), and "Queer Exoticism" (October 2007). A third symposium is already in the planning stages for October 2008: "Queer Iconography." Information on the program and the symposia can be found at www.hofstra.edu/lgbt . In this area, he has published on Michel Tremblay and Paul Verlaine and is currently working on an article about homosexual tendencies in the male characters of Laure Conan.

Apart from scholarly and professional interests, Dr. Powell is also an amateur of good cooking and fine wines, classical music, theater and dance, and travel. He is also a devoted adoptive parent of greyhounds.