June 25, 2009

William Carter.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees appointed retired University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Professor of French William C. Carter, Ph.D., as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at its June 19 meeting.

Carter began his career at UAB in 1975 as an assistant professor of French in the UAB Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. He was chairman of the department from 1979 to 1990.

A renowned expert on French writer Marcel Proust, Carter was a founder of the Proust collection at the UAB Mervyn H. Sterne Library, which became the third largest Proust collection in the world.

Carter co-produced the award-winning documentary "Marcel Proust: A Writer's Life," which aired on PBS in 1993. Carter's book Marcel Proust: A Life, published in 2000 by Yale University Press, was the first comprehensive English language biography about Proust. The book received critical acclaim and was listed as a Notable Book of 2000 by The New York Times and as one of the Best Biographies of 2000 by The Sunday Times in London.

Carter was appointed as a Distinguished Professor of French at UAB in 2004. He retired from UAB in 2008.

About the UAB Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

The UAB Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures offers a full range of language, culture, literature and civilization courses that are designed to meet the diverse global challenges facing today's students.