Janice Best

Janice Best has been a member of Acadia's French department since 1984 when she obtained her doctorat de troisième cycle from l'Université de Strasbourg II. She is also an adjunct professor at Dalhousie University. She teaches courses in French language, nineteenth century French novels and theatre and literary theory. She regularly supervises students at the Honours level and occasionally works with Masters students.

        Janice is the author of three books.  The most recent one is Les monuments de Paris sous la Troisième République : Contestation et commémoration du passé.  Paris : L’Harmattan.  Coll. ‘Histoire de Paris’ (282 pages). The others are : La subversion silencieuse: censure, autocensure, et lutte pour la liberté d'expression.  Montréal: Les Éditions Balzac, 2001 (293 pages), and Adaptation et expérimentation: essai sur la méthode expérimentale d'Emile Zola. Paris: José Corti, 1986 (241 pages). Janice's second book, La subversion silencieuse was a finalist for the Raymond Klibansky Prize 2000 - 2001 of the Candian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences for the best book published in French in Canada. Click here to access a data base of censored theatre manuscripts.

          Janice's interest in nineteenth century literature has lead to three major research projects: Lieux de rencontre et d'intrigue (Places of meeting and intrigue), Moralité, politique et dialogisme (Morality, politics and dialogism), and Rebuilding Paris after 1870: Public space, history, and forgetting.  All three of these projects are funded by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Janice regularly presents papers based on these projects at the annual Nineteenth Century French Studies Colloquia.

          Janice was also a collaborator on a SSHRC Strategic Grant, "Elaborating emerging theory about ethical dilemmas in psychology" (Principal Investigator: Dr. Pat O'Neill).

          Janice recently finished a two-year term as a member-at-large of the executive committee of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, where she chaired the CAUT Equity Committee. Janice was a member, and then co-chair of the Major Collaborative Research Grants Committee of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She completed a four-year term as member and then chair of the SSHRC Occasional Conferences and Congresses Grants committee and was a member of the Aid to Scholarly Publications Committee of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada. Janice is the current Vice President of the APFUCC, (Association des Professeurs de Français des Universités et Collèges Canadiens).  

          From 1992 to 1995, Janice served as Chair of the French Department.  She has on several occasions been a member of the executive of the Acadia University Faculty Association. In 2003 – 2004, Janice was the President of the Acadia University Faculty Association.  On February 23, 2004, she led the union on its first strike in its twenty-seven year history.  The strike lasted two weeks and resulted in a new, 11th Collective Agreement that contained significant improvements in rights and working conditions.  Janice was a member of the teams that negotiated AUFA’s 12th and 13th Collective Agreements.

          Janice served as the Head of the Department of Languages and Literatures from 2003 – 2009.  She is currently serving as Past President of AUFA.

In the fall semester, Janice is teaching Français avançé 1 (2013) and Nineteenth Century French Literature (4913). In the winter semester, Janice will be teaching Français avançé 2 (2023), Introduction to French Literature (Panorama) 2123  and Modern France (3703).

Janice also likes to paint, when she has a spare moment. Click here to see some of her paintings.

Office: BAC 332

Phone: (902) 585-1487
E-mail: janice.best@acadiau.ca