Cranston, Mechthild

Since her graduate student days, Dr. Mechthild Cranston (Professor Emerita of Languages) has been an active professional, enjoying teaching and/or studying at universities here and abroad (Marburg, Germany; Paris, France, and Perugia, Italy).  She has received NEH and/or ACLS grants to Yale, Stanford and Paris and was awarded a knighthood by the Prime Minister of France via the French Ministry of Education (Chevalier des Palmes Academiques). At Clemson, she was honored with a Provost Medal for Scholarly Achievement, the Class of 1940 D. W. Bradbury Award for Outstanding Service to the Honors College and two Board of Trustees Awards for Faculty Excellence.

Her many articles have appeared in journals like PMLA (New York),  FMLS (England), RLMC (Italy),  MLR (England), Les Lettres Francaises (Paris), Dalhousie French Studies (Canada), and Theoria (South Africa). Her major focus has been on modern French poetry (Apollinaire, Char, St John Perse) and the works of Marguerite Duras, reviewed in, e.g., The French Review, World  Literature Today, Romanische Forschungen (Germany), and the Carnet critique  (Paris). She has worked on literature and painting as well as poetry and music.

Her own poetry has received recognition from the American Poetry Association.

Dr. Cranston has been a frequent reviewer for  World Literature Today and participated in many professional meetings as organizer, chair, discussant, or speaker. For nine years, she was editor of The Comparatist, award winning journal of the  Southern Comparative Literature Association.

Since her retirement in 2004, Dr. Cranston has enjoyed reading and writing in Menton, France, attending concerts in Berlin, Germany, and restoring her mother’s home and garden in Berkeley, California. Springs and autumns, she writes, are most impressive in the Carolinas.