BACKGROUND

B.A. French and International Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
M.A. Modern Greek Literature, Ohio State University
Ph.D. French Literature, Ohio State University

AREAS OF INTEREST

Marylaura Papalas received her BA at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in French and International Studies. She then moved to Greece and spent two years studying the Greek language in Athens in order to enter the graduate program in Modern Greek Literature at the Ohio State University, where she received her Master's in 2002. Her thesis, which deals with Surrealism and how it developed in Greece, inspired her to pursue her doctorate in French focusing on Surrealism and other avant-garde movements, particularly Futurism, Situationism, and the literary journal Tel Quel. She analyzed these groups in her doctoral dissertation, entitled "A Changing of the Guard: the Evolution of the Twentieth Century Avant-Garde," which she completed in 2008. Her dissertation examines how the ideas of the French avant-garde undermine literary and social norms and how they evolved over the course of the last century. Dr. Papalas is currently working on the Surrealist poet Joyce Mansour as well as exploring different notions of the avant-garde in the postmodern age.

PUBLICATIONS

"Nicolas Calas' Surrealism: Liberating the National Greek Identity" in Modernity and Modernism in the Mediterranean World. Ed. Domenico Pietropaolo, Luca Somigli, Dario Brancato. Brooklyn, NY: Legas, 2006. 103-114