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Assistant Professor of French This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
University Hall
(205) 934-4652

Research and Teaching Interests: Marcel Proust, Nineteenth-century French literature, Cognitive literary studies, Visual art and art history, Ecocriticism, The Arabian Nights in French and Francophone literature, Media studies, Science fiction

Office Hours: By appointment

Education:

  • BA, Seattle University, English and French
  • MA, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, French
  • PhD, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, French

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I hold a PhD from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I have taught French language and literature at UNC-Chapel Hill and at Vanderbilt University, and English literature and culture at Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France. Before beginning graduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill, I earned a BA from Seattle University, taught elementary school EFL in France through TAPIF, and worked at a French immersion summer camp in Minnesota. These experiences have given me a deep appreciation for the ways in which language learning can increase students' creativity, give them new perspectives on the world, and help them take risks and grow.

My book manuscript, Seeing Impossible Things: Proust at the Edge of the Reader’s Imagination, explores how Proust’s images in À la recherche du temps perdu push readers to expand their understanding of the conceptual categories of matter, space, energy, and time that structure our everyday experience. My current research projects focus on evocations of vertigo in nineteenth-century French literature about science and technology, and the influence of Proust on contemporary science fiction.

  • Recent Courses
    • FR 101: Introductory French I
    • FR 230/330: Intermediate and Advanced French Conversation
    • FR 410/510: The Arabian Nights in French and Francophone Literature
  • Select Publications
    • “Le Temps returné: Temporal Distortion in À la recherche du temps perdu and Twin Peaks: The Return.” L’Esprit Créateur, vol. 62, no. 3, Winter 2022.
    • “The Guermantes’s Elstirs and Proust as Virtual Museum.” H-France Salon, vol. 13, no. 13, Spring 2021.
    • “The Body of the Courtesan, the Body of the Novel: Characterizing À la recherche du temps perdu and La Dame aux camélias through Odette Swann and Marguerite Gautier.” Dalhousie French Studies, vol. 118, Spring 2021.
    • “Runaway Narratives: Structural Experimentation in Leïla Sebbar's Shérazade.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 47, no. 4, Winter 2016.
  • Academic Distinctions and Professional Societies
    • Shortlist for the Society for French Studies 2022 Malcolm Bowie Prize for the best article by an early career researcher
    • Professional Development Grant, awarded by the College of Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University (2022)
    • Jacques Hardré Award for Excellence in Teaching French, awarded by the Department of Romance Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2021)
    • Jacques Hardré Summer Research Fellowship, awarded by the Department of Romance Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2021)
    • Research Travel Grant, awarded by the Library and Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2020)
    • Diane Roth Leonard Summer Research Fellowship, awarded by the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2018)
    • Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association
    • Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts

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