Rate My Professor Paul Scott

Paul Scott is Professor of French in the Department of French, Francophone & Italian Studies at the University of Kansas, where he has taught since 2004, first as Assistant Professor from 2004 to 2011 and then as Associate Professor from 2011 to the present. He also serves as Jeffrey B. Weinberg Honors Faculty Fellow in the University Honors Program, Undergraduate Director of French, Study Abroad Advisor, affiliate faculty member of the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and associate member of the Center for East Asian Studies. Scott received his Ph.D. in French in 2002, M.A. in Seventeenth-Century Studies with Distinction in 1997, and B.A. with Honors in Modern European Languages (French, German, Italian) in 1996, all from Durham University, UK. Earlier positions include Visiting Lecturer and Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University (2009–2010) and Visiting Tutor at the University of Kent (2002–2003).

Scott's research centers on subversion during the Ancien Régime in early modern French literature, theater, fairy tales, religion, and spirituality, as well as science fiction's radical potential, focusing on French speculative fiction and SF television series from the USA, France, and South Korea, particularly zombies. He is joint general editor of The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies (Brill) since 2016, following roles as section editor for French and Occitan. Key publications encompass the forthcoming monograph Cognitive Cadavers: The Evolution of the TV Zombie (McFarland); “From Contagion to Cogitation: The Evolving Television Zombie” (Science Fiction Studies, 2020); “Décolletage Disputes in Early Modern France” (The Seventeenth Century, 2023); critical edition of Gaspard Olivier’s Herménégilde (Garnier, 2024); edited volume Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity in the Republic of Letters: Essays in Honour of Richard G. Maber (Manchester University Press, 2010); “‘On n’est pas dans Black Mirror !’: Ambivalent Optimism in Osmosis” (French Screen Studies, 2024); and “Aliens and Alienation in Pierre Boulle’s La Planète des singes” (Romance Studies, 2020). Among his honors are Fellowships from the Royal Historical Society (2010), Chartered Institute of Linguists (2019), Royal Society of Arts (2020), and Royal Asiatic Society (2023), plus multiple University of Kansas research grants and professorships including the Jesse Marie Senor and Ann Cramer Root Professorship (2006–2008, 2021–2023).