Denis Provencher

Bio

Dr. Denis M. Provencher is Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Affairs and Partnerships in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journals Contemporary French Civilization (CFC) and CFC Intersections, and as the co-editor of the book series, Modern & Contemporary France, all published by Liverpool University Press. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Language and Sexuality (John Benjamins Publishing) and Contemporary French & Francophone Studies: Sites (Taylor and Francis).

Before joining NC State, Dr. Provencher worked at the University of Arizona where he served as Head of Department, French & Italian (2016-2021), as Interim Director of the Institute for LGBT Studies (2018), and as Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (2021-2022). He also held affiliate appointments in Anthropology, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Institute for LGBT Studies, Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching.

Earlier, Dr. Provencher worked as Assistant Professor (2005-2008) and Associate Professor (2008-2015) of French and Intercultural Communication at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He also directed UMBC’s MA program in Intercultural Communication (2010-2016) and held affiliate appointments in Gender and Women’s Studies and in the interdisciplinary PhD program in Language, Literacy, and Culture. Prior to UMBC, Provencher also worked at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (1998-2005).

Dr. Provencher’s academic career also includes holding visiting appointments and research affiliations with national and international universities. They include serving as a Researcher in the Francophone Mobility Chair Program (2022) at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and as Senior Research Fellow and Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow (2012-2013) at Nottingham Trent University (UK).

Dr. Provencher is a firm believer in leadership training. He is also an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as for work-life balance and mental health for faculty, staff, and students. He is a former fellow (2018-19) of the Academic Leadership Institute (ALI) at the University of Arizona. He also co-chaired (2021-22) the College of Humanities’ committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and completed (2020-21) the Inclusive Leadership Cohort Certificate (ILCC) program, for which he also served on the steering committee. He is also the 2022 recipient of the University of Arizona’s Richard Ruiz Diversity Leadership Faculty Award, which is given in recognition to a faculty member working to make the campus a more diverse and inclusive campus.

Area(s) of Expertise

Provencher’s research cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries and explores the transnational flow of languages, peoples, texts, and ideas related to gender, sexuality, class, race and religion across North America, Europe, and North Africa. His publications include two single-authored books, two co-edited volumes, and more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics. For example, Dr. Provencher is the author of Queer French: Globalization, Language, and Sexual Citizenship in France (Ashgate/Routledge, 2007) and Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations, (Liverpool UP, 2017). Queer Maghrebi French won the 2017 Ruth Benedict Book Prize, Honorable Mention, from the Association of Queer Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. With Dr. Siham Bouamer, he has co-edited the volume Abdellah Taïa's Queer Migrations: Non-Places, Affect, and Temporalities (Lexington Books, 2021).  He is currently finishing a new co-edited volume, Queer Realms of Memory: Archiving LGBTQ Sites and Symbols in the French National Narrative (Liverpool UP, under contract), with Dr. Siham Bouamer and Dr. Ryan Schroth where they build on the work of historian Pierre Nora.  Dr. Provencher is also conducting fieldwork in Ottawa and Montreal, Canada for a new monograph on Queer Quebec, which is funded in part by the Chaire Moblité Francophone Program at L’Université d’Ottawa.