Laurence M PorterLaurence M. Porter is professor of French and comparative literature at Michigan State University, where he received the Distinguished Faculty Award in 1995. With Eugene F. Gray, he edited Approaches to Teaching Flaubert's Madame Bovary (MLA, 995). He has contributed essays to the Approaches to Teaching World Literature volumes on Balzac and on Goethe. His THe Crisis of French Symbolism (Cornell UP, 1990) was nominated for the James Russell Lowell Prize. His Victor Huge (Twayne) appeared in 1999. Holding an NEH Research Fellowship for University Teachers in 1998, he is completing the comparative and theoretical book "Happening, Knowing, and Telling: How Stories Work i Life and Art," Which includes examples from Jokes and popular culture. Read More Read Less