Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research focused on avant-garde poetry and translation studies. He sees himself as a generalist, with an ever-evolving set of interests across French and Francophone studies and applied linguistics. Before joining University of Chicago in 2025, he was Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Northern Illinois University where he taught a range of courses on French and Francophone culture.

An active translator, he has brought a dozen French-language works into English, spanning prose fiction, experimental poetry, and critical theory. In his teaching, he draws on ecological and sociocultural approaches to language learning and, together with his colleagues, is currently adapting and developing an open educational resource (OER) curriculum for first-year French. In all his classes he encourages experimentation, creativity, critical thinking, and student autonomy.

Selected Publications

Book Translations (Nonfiction/Critical Theory):

• Fatou Sow, Feminism in Africa: Gender, Knowledge and Resistance (Polity Press, forthcoming 2026).
• Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, African Philosophies. Translation of Philosophies Africaines  (Polity Press, 2025). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=african-philosophies--9781509558445
• Hélé Béji, We, the Decolonized. Translation of Nous, décolonisés (Polity Press, 2025).https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=we-the-decolonized--9781509562657
• Norman Ajari, Darkening Blackness. Translation of Noirceur (Polity Press, 2024). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=darkening-blackness-race-gender-class-and-pessimism-in-21st-century-black-thought--9781509554997
• Norman Ajari, Dignity or Death: Politics of Blackness and the Critique of European  Philosophy. Translation of La Dignité ou la mort (Polity Press, 2023). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=dignity-or-death-ethics-and-politics-of-race--9781509548651
• Karima Lazali, Colonial Trauma. Translation of Le Trauma coloniel (Polity Press, 2021). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=colonial-trauma-a-study-of-the-psychic-and-political-consequences-of-colonial-oppression-in-algeria--9781509541027
• Aimé Césaire, Françoise Vergès, Resolutely Black. Translation of Nègre je suis, nègre je       resterai (Polity Press, 2020). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=resolutely-black-conversations-with-francoise-verges--9781509537143

Book Translations (Poetry):                  

• Jacques Roubaud, Sleep preceded by Saying Poetry. Translation of Dors: Précédé de Dire la Poésie (La Presse, 2019).
• Frédéric Forte, Seven String Quartets. Translation of “Sept quatuors à cordes” in Discographie (La Presse, 2014). 

Book Translations (Fiction):

• Jean-Philippe Toussaint, The Truth about Marie. Translation of La Vérité sur Marie (Dalkey Archive Press, 2011).
• Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Running Away. Translation of Fuir (Dalkey Archive Press, 2009).
• Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Camera. Translation of L’Appareil-photo (Dalkey Archive Press, 2008). https://dalkeyarchive.store/products/camera?_pos=7&_sid=e37ffc2e4&_ss=r

Articles:

• “Does Rimbaud Get Ashbery? Repurposing the Equivalence Paradigm,” Romantic Review
• Vol. 115, no. 1, 2024. doi.org/10.1215/00358118-11012021
• “To France and Back: New Circuits in American Poetry.” Postmodern Culture Vol. 25 no. 3,
• 2015. https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2015.0011

Book Reviews:

• “Impostors: Literary Hoaxes and Cultural Authenticity. By Christopher L. Miller.”
• Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 57 no. 2, 2020. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/774129.
• “Rachel Gavin, News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936-1945.” SubStance, November, 2019. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sub.2019.0030.

 Interviews:

• Matthew B. Smith & Frédéric Forte, “‘Une évolution constante des dynamiques’: un entretien avec Frédéric Forte.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Vol. 25 no. 5, 2022, pp. 657-660. https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2021.2003571