The University of Arizona academic community is deeply saddened by the sudden, unexpected death, on January 3, 2003, of Dr. Monique Wittig, Professor of French and Women's Studies. Wittig received her Doctorate from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris after completing a dissertation on Le Chantier littéraire under the joint directorship of Gérard Genette, Louis Marin and Christian Metz. Prior to joining the University of Arizona in 1990, she held appointments at the University of California at Berkeley (1976-77 and 1987-1988), the University of Maine (1977-78), New York University (1981-82), the University of Southern California (1983-84); Duke University (1986-87); Vassar College (1988-1989).

  Monique Wittig was known internationally as a writer, poet, and social theorist. Her first novel, The Opoponax (1964), brought her major critical acclaim and the coveted Prix Medici. As a founding leader in the French feminist movement, Wittig's literary and theoretical works were recognized as essential contributions to feminist thought in Europe and the U.S. and to the emerging movement for lesbian and gay rights.

  Wittig's work has had a fundamental impact upon feminist theory and lesbian and gay theory worldwide. Her novels, including Les Guérillères (1969), The Lesbian Body (1973), Lesbian Peoples: Materials for a Dictionary (co-authored with Sande Zeig, 1975), and Virgile, non (1984, translated as Across the Acheron in 1987) combine a sensitivity to the nuances of language and style with a powerful illustration of her philosophy of lesbian materialism, a theoretical position she set forth in a series of essays collected in The Straight Mind (1992), a term she coined.

   Her work has been translated into a dozen languages, including German, Dutch, Finish, Japanese, and Spanish. Her collaboration with Zeig resulted in the imaginative staging of her play. The Constant Journey (1985) in the U.S. and in Paris, and most recently a feature film based on her short story, The Girl (2001), directed by Sande Zeig. She was currently working on a screenplay centered on life on the Mexican border. In 2001 a First International Colloquium on the work of Monique Wittig took place at Reid Hall in Paris under the auspices of CREART, a University of Paris X research center for art and philosophy. At the University of Arizona, Monique Wittig taught courses on the theory and practice of writing, LGBT literature and culture, lesbian paradigms, and graduate seminars in French literature.

" ...Une vieille soldate grisonnante sanglotait comme une enfant. Alexandra Ollontaï retenait à peine ses larmes. L'immense chant envahit la salle, creva portes et fenêtres, monta vers le ciel calme. La guerre est terminée, la guerre est terminée, dit à mes côtes une jeune ouvrière. Son visage rayonnait. Et lorsque ce fut fini et que nous restions là dans une sorte de silence embarassé, quelqu'une au fond de la salle cria, camarades, souvenons-nous de celles qui sont mortes pour la liberté. Et nous entonnâmes alors la Marche funèbre, un air lent, mélancolique et pourtant triomphant." Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères, Paris: Minuit, 1969.