There is life after academia -- Nelly Furman crafts renewed career at MLA

Furman

By Franklin Crawford

Nelly Furman didn't retire -- she switched careers.

Last semester Furman, a Cornell professor emeritus of French, was contemplating a phased retirement after 32 very fruitful years with the Department of Romance Studies. In May, she learned of a job opening at the Modern Language Association (MLA) in New York. By mid-June, Furman was the new director of the MLA's office of foreign language programs as well as director of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL). Furman officially retired July 1, sold her four-bedroom home in Ithaca and moved to Manhattan -- her old stomping grounds as a City College undergraduate (B.A., 1963) and later, as a doctoral student at Columbia University (Ph.D., 1972).

By academic standards, the change occurred faster than ... well, a New York minute.

"I'm still in a state of shock," Furman said, far more mirthful than shaken. "Once I made the decision it all happened rather quickly."

Indeed. Furman hardly had time to catch her breath before delving into the job at hand.

The MLA, established in 1883 and one of the largest and oldest American learned societies in the humanities, promotes the advancement of literary and linguistic studies. The 30,000 members of the association come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as from Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Furman's task is to initiate, develop and coordinate new and continuing foreign language programs, edit the ADFL Bulletin, organize annual ADFL summer seminars, co-direct the MLA's Job Information Service and work closely with other organizations and with college and university foreign language departments on issues affecting the study and teaching of foreign languages.

"We are delighted to have Nelly Furman join us after many distinguished years at Cornell," said Rosemary Feal, MLA executive director. "It's a wonderful next step in her career, and we feel very fortunate to have her expertise on behalf of the wide profession."

Furman joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor in Romance studies in 1972 and played a major role in the establishment of the Women's Studies Program (now Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, or FGSS) at Cornell, one of the earliest programs of its kind in the country.

"That was an exhilarating time, intellectually and personally," said Furman of the process of fashioning a wholly fresh area of scholarship. The principal players in the creation of the interdisciplinary Cornell program "were a very supportive group who worked closely with each other in our different areas of research and scholarly efforts," she said.

Furman is a leading voice in textual and psychoanalytic criticism. Her area of expertise is in French literature of the 19th and 20th century, prose fiction, history of criticism, history of the press, French feminist theory, literature and opera, and Holocaust studies.

"Nelly Furman joined Romance studies at a time when French theory was reinvigorating literary studies and interdisciplinary work in the humanities," said Philip Lewis, French studies director, professor of Romance studies and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "In her teaching in French and in Women's Studies and via the advocacy she brought to her various administrative roles, she became the authoritative voice of French feminism at Cornell. Nelly is a born teacher. Through the ambassadorial work of her enthusiastic students, her views and insights came to have a wide influence in both of her scholarly fields in the 1980s. Her compass broadened in the 1990s, when she was recognized as a key leader in the field of French cultural studies."

Furman received the Clark Distinguished Teaching Award at Cornell and was named Chevalière dans L'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French government, among other honors. Furman is author of La Revue des Deux Mondes et le Romantisme (1831-1848) and co-editor of Women and Language in Literature and Society (with Sally McConnell-Ginet, Cornell professor of linguistics and the late Ruth Borker, Cornell anthropologist), both important early works in her field.

"Nelly was one of the lifelines of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Program," said Amy Villarejo, FGSS program director. "She's a rare combination: a serious and generous scholar who helped to expand the program from its origins in Women's Studies to its latest incarnation. We'll miss her contagious laugh, and we wish her well at the MLA."

"Over the course of three decades, Nelly Furman contributed to this university in countless ways," said Provost Biddy Martin. "She was an award-winning teacher of undergraduates and a dedicated mentor of graduate students in her fields of expertise. Her passion for research and teaching, her warmth and her sense of humor are legendary, and we will miss her tremendously. It can only benefit the humanities here and across the country that Nelly has agreed to assume this new position in the MLA."

As for the future of the humanities at both research universities and at smaller colleges, Furman is bullish. Economic necessity and technology will be the twin engines of invention in the liberal arts of the 21st century, she said. "In view of global political and economic changes, the study of languages and literatures other than English is going to become essential for Americans," Furman said. "In addition, we have not yet completely understood the impact of technology on academic fields of knowledge and especially its articulations with the humanities. I think the possibilities for the humanities in the future are enormous."

She also has a message for her colleagues and graduate students: There is life after academia.

"It's nice, I think, for people who are very advanced in their careers, to know that they can look forward to a change," she said, laughing. "Also, graduate students need to know that there are many opportunities other than straight academia, that degrees and careers do not necessarily mean the same thing."