Pierre Aubéry, a Guggenheim Fellow and scholar of French Literature and Society, was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan, Seine Maritime, France, in 1920. Aubéry was raised in a family of modest means and came of age in post-World War I France. He held various full-time jobs as a teenager and young adult including as a teacher. He lived through the German occupation during the Second World War and worked as an interpreter for the United States Navy, a position that led to his first book, Les Américains au Havre, published in 1948. This experience established his interest in the political process at an early age. Aubéry then went on to report for Le Havre-Eclair, a daily paper, and Le Havre-Libre, a paper for which he was the Paris correspondent.

Pierre Aubéry’s formal education began at the Lycée de Havre where he earned a Baccalaureate in Philosophy in 1940. This was followed by four years at Toulouse University where Aubéry studied English and French Literature, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. Aubéry received a Fulbright Travel Grant and graduated from Duke University with a Master’s degree in French Literature and Political Science. He completed his Ph.D. with highest honors in 20th Century French Literature from the University of Paris in 1955.

Aubéry moved to the United States to teach at Duke University where he was an instructor in French (1953-1957). He took the position of Assistant Professor of French Literature at Mount Holyoke College (1957-1961), followed by the position of Assistant Professor of French Literature at the University of Alberta, Canada, before moving to Buffalo, New York. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, Aubéry held the appointment of Associate Professor of French Literature (1967-1967) and Professor of French Literature (1967-1985). Aubéry was also a Research Associate at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the University at Buffalo, Aubéry taught 20th century French Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. As a researcher, Aubéry spent much of his career studying the social significance of French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was the foremost authority on the writings of the anarchist, Mécislas Golberg, a Polish ex-patriot writing in Paris at the turn of the century. The monograph, Mécislas Golberg: anarchiste et décadent, 1868-1907: biographie intellectuelle, suivie de fragments inedits de son journal was published in 1978. Aubéry was instrumental in bringing many distinguished French scholars to the university, including Michel Foucault from 1970-1972. His research interests extended to Canadian Studies, particularly Québécois identity, the Quebec sovereignty movement, and the traditional French perception of Canada, on which he lectured and wrote extensively.

Pierre Aubéry was honored with many awards and fellowships including multiple research fellowships through the University at Buffalo and the SUNY Research Foundation, status of Professor Emeritus upon his retirement from the State University of New York (1985-2009), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1964), Canada Council Fellowship (1962), and Reçu Docteur de l’Université de Paris, Mention très honorable (1955), and the Fulbright Travel Grant (1952-1954). Aubéry published four books and numerous articles and book reviews during his lifetime.