A doctoral candidate in the Department of French and Italian, Mary Mba has been named a KU Woman of Distinction for 2009-2010.

The award recognizes women who have made outstanding achievements and contributions to KU and/or the community.

In addition to this honor, Mary was also named Outstanding International Woman Student, University of Kansas, Spring 2009.

To learn more about Mary's studies and her inspiration, visit the KU Women of Distinction website.

Alain-Phillipe Durand
(M.A., University of Kansas, 1994)

Alain-Philippe Durand (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999) is Honors Professor of French, Film Media, and Comparative Literature, and Head of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Rhode Island. His interests include the contemporary novel (Americas and Europe), French Cinema, Hip-Hop Culture, and Cultural and Literary Theory and Criticism. He is the author of four books: Black, Blanc, Beur. Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World (Scarecrow Press, 2002), Un Monde Techno. Nouveaux espaces électroniques dans le roman français des années 1980 et 1990 (Weidler, 2004), Novels of the Contemporary Extreme (Continuum, 2006) co-edited with Naomi Mandel, and Frédéric Beigbeder et ses doubles (Rodopi, 2008, in press). In addition to entries in the Dictionary of Literary Biography and the Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, he has published articles on nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century French and Luso-Brazilian literature and culture in journals such as PMLA (forthcoming), The French Review, L'Esprit créateur, L’Atelier du Roman, Etudes Francophones, Contemporary French Civilization, Romance Notes, and Romance Quarterly. He evaluates articles for College Literature and for Social Identities. Journal for the Study of Race, Nation, and Culture.