Janell Watson

Janell Watson, a professor and chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, has been a member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 1999. She is the author of two books: Guattari’s Diagrammatic Thought: Writing Between Lacan and Deleuze and Literature and Material Culture from Balzac to Proust: The Collection and Consumption of Curiosities. In 2013, she co-edited The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary.

Watson is the editor of the minnesota review, a journal of creative and critical writing that launched in 1960. She serves on the editorial board of the international journal Deleuze Studies as well. She earned her doctorate in French from Duke University.

As chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, Watson is working with the faculty to expand its many study-abroad programs and helping host cultural events, film festivals, and weekly conversation tables that are open to the community at large.