Current French Doctoral Students, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Chandra Balkaran
B.A., French, SUNY at Stonybrook
M.A., French, SUNY at Stonybrook
Area of Specialization:

Viral Bhatt
B.A., French, Drew University
M.Phil., French, CUNY, The Graduate Center
Areas of Specialization: Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Women's Films and Filmmaking, Feminist Theory.

Viral Bhatt earned her B.A. (Hons) in French from Drew University, where she wrote her senior thesis, Une étude du passé colonial de la France à travers quelques films contemporains with a special focus and sensibility to the female director's lens. A firm believer in the value and significance of interdisciplinary studies, Viral has completed a Certificate in Women's Studies and her dissertation topic aims to explore the role of the female body in contemporary French and Francophone films of female directors. Viral has given a lecture at Drew University on the importance and relevance of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Monique Wittig to contemporary feminist and gender studies. She recently presented a paper, "Catherine Breillat and the Question of Women's Sexuality" at the Sexuality Across the Discipline Conference at The University of Binghamton. She currently teaches French at William Paterson University.

Erika Bodor
B.A., French, University of Colorado at Denver
Languages: Hungarian, French

Angèle Renard Branca

Maîtrise de Lettres Classiques, Université de Haute-Bretagne (Rennes, France, 1996)

Areas of Specialization: theatre; 17th and 18th century women actors, spectators and playwrights; gender theory; history of emotions; political theory

Languages: French and Italian

Angèle is currently working on her dissertation: “The Politics of Empathy: Women and the Staging of Pity and Sympathy in French Theatre (1598-1794)”. She published “A Woman’s Happy Tragedy: The Paternal Order in Question- Madame de Villedieu’s Manlius” (Fortune and Fatality: Performing the Tragic in Early Modern France (1553-1715), ed. Desmond Hosford, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008) and presented the following papers: “Resurrecting the Commune on Stage: Nadine (1882) by Louise Michel” (Cornell University, 2006), « XVIIth-Century Tragic Acting Techniques: the Monster and the Actor » (The Graduate Center, 2005), and “Cet Obscur Objet du Désir : Le Théâtre de Bernard-Marie Koltès” (The Graduate Center, 2004.) Angèle has also directed and acted in Bajazet by Racine, a staging with 17th-century acting techniques, The Opportunities of a Night by Crébillon fils, and Quai Ouest by Bernard-Marie Koltès.

Angèle was the project coordinator for Act French, a festival of New Works held at the Martin Segal Theatre at the Graduate Center in 2005. She also taught French at CUNY and the French Institute-Alliance Française in New York as well as literature classes (20th century Francophone novels and drama) at CUNY and at the Institute for American Universities in Avignon, France. She is currently teaching French at Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, where she is Chair of the World Language program. In her teaching, she is interested in developing differentiated instruction and assessments, student-centered activities and interdisciplinary work and seeks to develop her students’ understanding of the Francophone cultures in the world and, in particular, in New York.

Chris Brandon
B.A., French and Comparative Literature, Illinois State University
M.A., French Literature, Tulane University

Areas of Specialization: 19th and 20th Century Literatures, Cinema
Languages: French, Italian

A third year doctoral student, Chris came to New York after completing a Master's in New Orleans. His research interests include fragmentation, voicing, and witnessing in the literature, art and cinema of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has recently given conference papers titled: "Barthes, Writing and the Sign in Play," and "Hysterical Ecstasy: the Speaking Body in La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc." Chris teaches French and literature at Lehman College and at Fordham University. He looks forward to completing his examinations and continuing his exploration of New York and other east coast cities.

Christina Buehler
B.A., French, St. Anselm College
M.A., French, Middlebury College

Christina is a doctoral candidate currently writing her dissertation on Mme. d'Aulnoy and other women fairy tale writers of 17th and 18th century France. She has been teaching French and Latin at St. Anthony's High School on Long Island since 1994. In addition to teaching full time, Christina was promoted to Director of Public Relations in 2007. Aside from her academic and administrative responsibilities at St. Anthony's, Christina has been involved in numerous extracurricular activities including choreographing the spring musicals and coaching Varsity Kickline.
She has chaperoned a dozen pilgrimages to Europe for over one hundred choral and orchestra performers. She is currently the advisor for the school's yearbook. She is also serving as the Internal Coordinator for the school's Middle States Evaluation in Fall 2010.

Chadia Samadi Chambers
Licence de Lettres Modernes, Université Stendhal Grenoble III, France
Licence des Arts du Spectacle, Université Stendhal Grenoble III, France
Master's of Arts in European Comparative Literary Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K.

Currently a fifth year Ph.D. student, Chadia is working on her thesis on the emergence in contemporary texts of the Paris massacre of Algerians of October 17, 1961. Her dissertation, entitled émergences du 17 octobre 1961 dans le texte contemporain, explores the role of literary and cinematic narratives in the construction of collective memory of the massacre. She has presented several papers throughtout North America and Europe on topics such as: le héros politique dans le théatre de Kateb Yacine (at New York University); research on the use of the short story (at the 2010 NeMLA convention in Montréal); and the importance of the Singer Sewing machine (at the "Women in French" Colloquium at Wagner College). In 2011, she also presented research at the Centre d'Histoire Sociale et de l'Islam Méditerrranéen at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Deirdre Ellen Cutting
B.A., French and Psychology, St. John Fisher College
M. Phil., French, CUNY Graduate Center
Areas of Specialization: French cinema, European Union studies

Wilson Décembre
Maîtrise de philosophie, Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)

Areas of specialization: philosophy and literature, Black Francophone culture and literature, Paganism (philosophy, arts and literature).

I was born in Jacmel, Haiti. After one year studying at L'Ecole Normale Supérieure de Port-au-Prince (année préparatoire de philosophie), I went to Paris where I earned a Maîtrise in Modern Philosophy. My thesis, supervised by Professor Patrick Wotling, was entitled: "L'Aliénation chez Feuerbach et Nietzsche : Essai sur deux philosophies de l'immanence."
I have published many articles. Most of them are about (or related to) philosophical topics. My main interest is paganism. How it is (and/or can be) lived, thought, developed, constructed… through different branches of culture such as: philosophy, the arts, literature, etc. Led by this spirit, I have written Vitalité et Spiritualité : Apologie du rapport-au-monde afro-haïtien (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2009), a book in which I point out how the Afro-haitian culture whose vodou (not "voodoo") is the cornerstone shows a broad and striking sympathy with life, a Dionysian sympathy (in the Nietzschean sense of the word). This is what I analyze through different aspects: the practical, the ethical, the esthetical and the (properly speaking) philosophical aspects.
I am a 3rd year doctoral student and for my thesis I plan to analyze the pagan symbolism and "metaphorique" in Rene Depestre's literary work with the theoretical help of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Bataille, etc.
I have been teaching French as an adjunct at Pace University (New York) since 2005.

Paula S. DelBonis-Platt
B.S., Journalism, Boston University
M.A., French, University of Montana
Area of Specialization: 20th-21st Century French and Francophone Literature, Critical Theory, Feminism

Paula DelBonis-Platt is a Ph.D. candidate working on her dissertation, tentatively titled, “A Transnational View of the Francophone Second World: Voices from Central/Eastern Europe and China.” She has taught French at the University of Montana, French and English at a community college in Concord, NH, and English at the Université de Bourgogne. She developed the first online French course, using Wimba voice software, for the Community College System of New Hampshire in 2008, and will also be teaching online with the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS) beginning in 2009. She is a freelance editor and copyeditor, and spent eight years at St. Martin’s Press (SMP). She has worked on such titles as The First Vietnam War (Atwood & Lovegall, Harvard UP), Imagining the Sacred Past: Hagiography and Power in Early Normandy (Herrick, Harvard UP), Conquering the Impossible (Horn, SMP), Fear and Trembling (Nothomb, SMP), The Adversary (Carrère, Picador), The Complete Jewish Guide to France (Kamins, SMP), Eastern Europe: A Traveler’s Companion (Méras, Mariner) and Frantz Fanon (Macey, SMP). She volunteers with refugees resettled through the UN High Commissioner on Refugees and has established a service-learning program for college students to gain practical language experience by assisting Francophone refugees in ESOL classes.

Claudy Delné
B.A., Histoire, Université de Montréal
M.ED, Université de Montréal
L.L.B., Université de Moncton

Né à Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Claudy Delné a fait ses études primaires à l'École Nationale Colbert Lochard et études secondaires au Lycée Anténor Firmin. Il a commencé ses études universitaires à l'École Normale Supérieure en Haiti (1988-1990). Au Québec depuis 1990, il a obtenu tour à tour un baccalauréat en enseignement de l'histoire et une maïtrise en Éducation à l'Université de Montréal. Il a obtenu également un baccalauréat en droit (L.L.B) de l'Université de Moncton (New-Brunswick, Canada) en 2000. Il a été admis au Barreau de l'Ontario (Canada) en 2002. Il a publié son premier ouvrage sur la didactique de l'enseignement de l'histoire qui s'intitule: "L'enseignement de l'histoire nationale en Haiti: état des lieux et perspectives" aux Éditions du CIDIHCA en 2001. Cette recherche lui a valu une mention spéciale en sciences sociales et humaines au concours des jeunes chercheurs parrainé conjointement par la Faculté des Études Supérieures et de la Recherche de l'Université de Moncton et l'ACFAS-Acadie (Association canadienne française pour l'avancement de la science), Mai 2000.
Il enseigne depuis 2003 le français au secondaire à NJ et à titre d'adjunct-teacher (chargé de cours) à Kean et Montclair State University. Il est candidat au doctorat au programme d'études françaises au Graduate Centre depuis 2005. Il s'intéresse particulièrement aux questions d'altérité, de représentations, de la race en littérature. Son projet de thèse portera sur l'évolution de la représentation de la Révolution haitienne dans les textes narratifs des écrivains français du dix-neuvième siècle.

Pierre Castro Desroches
B.A., French, Brooklyn College
M.A., French, Brooklyn College
Area of Specialization:

Lauren Donaldson
B.A., French Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Area of Specialization: 20th century French literature, Food Studies

Lauren Donaldson earned her undergraduate degree in French with a minor in European Area Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is currently a 5th year student specializing in gastronomic texts of the interwar period. In addition, she is working toward her certificate in women's studies, exploring the image of women in regional culinary texts. In 2009 she presented a paper entitled "Exploring the Evolution of the Regional Culinary Discourse Through the Works of Curnonsky" at NYU and in March 2010, she presented a paper entitled "[En]gendering Chocolate Consumption: Ambivalent Effects on 17th Century Women" at Columbia. Lauren was awarded the Jeanne Marandon grant through the SPFFA during the summer of 2010 to research political and nationalistic discourses that appear in culinary writings on and by women during the interwar period in France. When Lauren is not reading about and researching food and wine, you will find her indulging in it around the city.

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Phillip Griffith
B.A., University of Georgia
M.A., Columbia University

Area of Specialization: 20th Century poetry, contemporary art

Phillip came to the CUNY Graduate Center after completing an M.A. degree in French Cultural Studies from Columbia University and a B.A. in English and French Literature from the University of Georgia. His research interests are in twentieth and twenty-first century literature, the avant garde, theory, and contemporary poetry and art. He teaches French at the City College of New York. In 2011, he worked at New York City's public arts non-profit Creative Time on the exhibition Living as Form; his texts appear as part of the website's online archive of over 350 socially engaged art and cultural projects. He has also worked at the contemporary art magazine ART PAPERS. His poems have been published in La Petite Zine.

Gorica Hadzic
B.A., French, Montclair State University
M.A., French, Montclair State University

Areas of Specialization: 19th century French literature, 19th century French avant-garde theater, les Nabis

Click here to see some of Gorica's paintings.

Gorica is currently writing her dissertation. Her main interest is in the contribution of French artists to the late 19th and early 20th century Parisian avant-garde theater. She has presented papers on Zola and Proust. Gorica also translated a website that features some of the most prominent French artists working today. (http://www.empreintes-fr.com/) . She is also the recipient of the CUNY Graduate Research Grant for 2007-2008.

Sara Hanaburgh
B.A., French, University of Massachusetts- Amherst
M. Phil., CUNY Graduate Center

Areas of Specialization: Sub-Saharan African literatures and cinemas, human rights and literature, globalization studies, constructions of racial and ethnic identities

Sara has recently completed her dissertation, titled “Global Wreckage and Consumer Illusions: Responses to the Human Effects of Economic Globalization in Sub-Saharan African Francophone Novels and Films, 1973-2005.” Her research initially led her to investigate the politics of publishing in French and indigenous languages in Senegal and Mali, and she has also travelled extensively in Morocco as well as to Tunis and Sousse, Tunisia. She has been a regular peer reviewer for African Studies Review since 2005, and she has extensive experience teaching at the university level. She was a Graduate Teaching Fellow of French at Brooklyn College from 2002-05 and has held adjunct positions in French at Hunter College, the University of Brasilia, Brazil, and Purchase College, SUNY. She has been teaching French as an adjunct at Fordham University since 2010. She was an active member of the committee of faculty and students who developed the curriculum and requirements for the Ph. D Program in French Option: International Human Rights in the French-speaking World and has co-organized conferences on human rights and literature. Her recent presentations include a paper on the representation of contemporary globalization in three African Francophone novels. She also works as an independent translator in French, Portuguese and English, and is presently translating a novel by the late Gabonese author, Angèle Rawiri, into English.

Desmond Hosford
B.M., Harpsichord Performance, Manhattan School of Music
M.Phil., Musicology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Ph.D., Musicology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Areas of specialization: 17th- and 18th-century tragedy, tragédie en musique, the Bourbon court of France, animal philosophy, and early modern gender and sexuality.

Desmond's publications include: Fortune & Fatality: Performing the Tragic in Early Modern France (1553-1715) (ed. with Charles Wrightington, 2008), French Orientalism: Culture, Politics, and the Imagined Other (ed. with Chong J. Wojtkowski, 2010), "Uneasy Anthropocentrism: Cartesianism and the Ethics of Species Differentiation in Seventeenth-Century France" (JAC, 2010), "Anthropomorphic Terror: The Bête-Machine, the Ballet de Cour, and the Tragédie en Musique" (Music and Art, 2009), "'Regnorum Ruina': Cleopatra and the Oriental Menace in Early French Tragedy" (French Orientalism, 2010), "Reigning Women, Crushed Women: Duty, Glory, and Suicide in the Tragedies of Philippe Quinault" (Formes et formations au dix-septième siècle, ed. Buford Norman, 2006), "The Queen's Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA" (Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2004), and the articles "Marie-Antoinette," "Opera," and "Queering Royalty" in The Gale Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender (ed. Fedwa Malti-Douglas, 2007). Desmond directed and performed in the American premiere of Jean Racine's Bajazet, a full production featuring 17th-century tragic gesture, staging, costume, and music. As a harpsichordist, he has directed performances of 17th- and 18th-century vocal and instrumental music with his period instruments ensemble, La Musique de la Reine, including a full production of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Armide. Desmond is an adjunct lecturer in French at Hunter College, an editor at the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, and the director of the Foundation for French and Francophone Musical Culture at the Graduate Center.

Lynn Karam
B.A., French, Montclair State University
M.A., French, Montclair State University
Languages: English, French and Arabic

Areas of Specialization: Middle Eastern Studies, Lebanese Women Writers

Lynn Karam is a 7th year doctoral student and is currently at the dissertation proposal stage in her research. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon and came to the States at the age of 12, hence her interest in Middle Eastern Literature, Music and Dance. She has completed some work in translation, which included the supervision of an Independent Study for a student completing her MA in Liberal Studies at the Graduate Center of CUNY. For this project, she edited translations from Arabic to English of a collection of poems by Saudi journalist and poet, Hani Naqshabandi. In addition, she collaborated on the translation from French to English of a collection of interviews with film director Arthur Penn for a book published in 2008 by Sticking Place Books. Lynn presented a paper on Orientalism in 17th Century French literature focusing on Madame de Villedieu’s Mémoires du Sérail sous Amurat II. This paper has been approved for publishing. Lynn is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Montclair State University. Lynn is also currently teaching French at Edison High School in Edison, NJ and completing a continuing education course to fulfill state requirements for secondary teaching certification.

Wednesday Knudsen
B.A., Drama, University of Washington

Area of Specialization:

Jacquelyn Libby
B.A., French, Sussex University, England

Area of Specialization:

Jacquelyn Libby earned her BA (Hons) degree in French and European Studies from the University of Sussex at Brighton, England. She spent the third year of her undergraduate studies working as an English language assistant near Bayonne in the Basque country. After finishing her degree, Jacquelyn moved back to France and continued her work teaching English in a variety of schools in Paris. Jacquelyn then moved south to Barcelona, where she spent four years working as a coordinator, translator and language teacher for a communications company. Jacquelyn is in the third year of her PhD at the Graduate Center and is currently teaching French at Queens College.

Rebecca M. Linz
B.A., French and English, Albion College, M.A., French, Michigan State University

Languages: English (native), French (near-native)

Areas of Specialization: Literature of Quebec, 20th-century French and Francophone Literature, Women's Studies

Rebecca Linz is currently completing her dissertation, entitled "Maternités et Identités: Motherhood and National Identities in Literary Texts of Quebec." She has taught French at Manhattan School of Music, Fordham University, Queens College and Saint John's University, and she currently holds an administrative staff position at Sarah Lawrence College. Her publications include several book reviews, an article entitled, “France Théoret’s (Wo)Manipulation of Language” in the anthology (In)Scribing Gender: International Women and the Creative Process, ed. Jen Bouchard (Diversion Press) and a translation of an article entitled, “L’imaginaire masculin dans les romans de Suzanne Jacob” by Aleksandra Grzybowska (the translation is to be published in a book of essays by Cambridge Scholars Publishing). Thanks to several different research and travel grants, she has been able to present papers on women's writing and literature at conferences in the United States, Canada, and Scotland. While pursuing her Ph.D., Rebecca also earned a Certificate in Women's Studies at the Graduate Center.

Ruth Lipman
B.A., English, SUNY at Stony Brook
M.L.S., Library Science, Pratt Institute
M.A., Education and Reading, New York University
M.Phil, French, CUNY Graduate Center

Areas of Specialization: 20th century French literature, trauma studies, memory

Ruth is a doctoral candidate. She became a full-time student at the Graduate Center when she retired from her teaching position in the New York City public school system. She taught English and reading at Park East High School in East Harlem where she also served as coordinator of the reading program and coordinator of the English department. Ruth is currently working on her dissertation. She presented a paper entitled "Voices Silenced, Voices Reclaimed" at a conference at the Graduate Center in 2010.

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Dana Loev
B.A. Psychology, Loyola University, New Orleans
M.A. French Literature, Hunter College

Area of Specialization:

Eric Lynch
B.A., French and English, Rutgers University (2005).

Areas of specialization: Contemporary French poetry, visual arts.

Eric Lynch is a doctoral candidate focusing on the relationship between text and image in contemporary French poetry and visual arts. In fall 2011, he hosted a reading and discussion with Michel Deguy at NY’s Poets House. Eric presented a paper, “‘Chose innommable et inouïe’: Synesthesia and the Evolution of Rimbaud’s Poetry”, at the 19th Century French Studies Conference in 2009. A participant in CUNY’s Paris study abroad program in 2010-2011, he also taught English in Argenteuil, France. He has taught French at Fordham University and currently teaches French and English literature courses at Brooklyn College.

Amy Martin

B.A., French, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH

M.A., French, Hunter College, New York, NY

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Areas of Specialization: 17th Century, Women's Studies, Children's Literature

Amy is a third year doctoral student interested in fairy tales and early writing for children. She presented a paper in Feb. 2011 on the female in Perrault's tales called, "The Modernist and the Misogynist: Ambiguities in the Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault." Along with positions teaching French at Brooklyn and Fordham Universities, Amy serves as a student representative on the French department's Executive Committee and as the program representative to the Doctoral Students' Council, and she works as a research assistant and copy editor for Dr. Domna Stanton.

Hiroshi Matsui
B.A., Liberal Arts, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
M.A., Comparative Culture, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan

Area of Specialization:

Marie-Jasmine Narcisse
B.A., Pharmacy, Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Certificat en Linguistique, Centre de Linguistique, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Areas of Specialization: Haitian Literature, Autobiography, Memory

Jasmine has worked as a journalist and media producer, a translator, a copywriter, and an art director... When she is asked about the unexpected path from an original diploma in Pharmacy and her steadfast career in linguistics and communication, she vigorously argues that no one (and, most of all in Haiti, where options are so scarce) should be forced to choose a career at 18. Actually, in her recent settlement in New York, she decided within many options, to finally reconcile her many "hers" by focusing on what was common in all of her activities: the text.
She is interested in the construction of the self in personal memory writing in Haitian Literature. She spends herself between her course of study, teaching French at York College (CUNY), and the promotion of the Haitian Book Centre for the diffusion of Haitian (and Francophone) literature outside Haiti.
Her publications include Mémoire de Femmes (link), Germaine ou Chercher la vie...

Laila Pedro
B.A., French, Connecticut College
Languages: Spanish and French

Laila Pedro is a 4th-year student at the Graduate Center. Her work focuses on representations of the body in image and text, particularly in Surrealist works from Paris to Havana. She is also avidly interested in translation, poetry and poetics, dance, and all manner of performance art. Laila has presented her work at "Rethinking the Mangrove: Second Symposium of Critical Practices of Caribbean Cultural Studies" at the University of Puerto Rico; "Bodies," the12th Annual Comparative Literature Conference at the University of South Carolina, Columbia; and at the Carolina Conference on Romance Literatures at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She writes regularly on the arts in New York for Idiom, an online arts magazine.

Stève Puig
B.A., English, University of Missouri
M.A., French, University of North Carolina

Stève Puig holds a Master's degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is working on Francophone Caribbean writers and urban literature. He has presented papers on Aimé Césaire, René Maran, Orientalism, littérature-monde, Louis-Philippe Dalembert and other contemporary Haitian writers. He has published articles in Formules, The Journal of Haitian Studies, the Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage and Nouvelles Francographies. He is currently writing the last chapter of his dissertation and is teaching at Hunter College in New York.

Joseph Rienti
B.A., International Political Economy and French, Fordham University
M.A., Humanities and Sciences, Fordham
University
Areas of Specialization: 19th Century Literature,
Cultural Studies, French Gastronomy

Director of International and Study Abroad Programs at Fordham University in New York, Joe studied abroad at the Université de Paris, Sorbonne for one year while pursuing his BA in International Political Economy and French from Fordham University. Upon graduating in 2002, Joe taught high school English at Lycée Charles le Chauve in Roissy-en-Brie, France as part of an Ambassade de France and Fulbright Commission partnership. He has also worked as a Financial Aid counselor at Fordham. Mr. Rienti holds an MA in Humanities and Sciences from Fordham's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and is currently pursuing a PhD in French at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has travelled throughout France and the Francophone world. Joe is also an adjunct instructor of French at Fordham University.

John Sorrentino
B.A., French Translation, Montclair State University
M.A., French Literature, Hunter College
M.Phil., French, CUNY Graduate Center

Area of Specialization: Works of André Gide, Queer Theory, 19th Century French Novel

John F. Sorrentino is a PhD Candidate in French Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. His dissertation is entitled "Gide in the First Person: The 'I' of Religion and Same-Sex Sexuality." He has taught French language courses throughout CUNY and is currently teaching French at John Jay College of Criminal Justice as well as an online French course for NHTI, Concord's Community College in New Hampshire. As a Macaulay Honors College Instructional Technolgy Fellow, John worked for three years at Brooklyn College before joining the central team in 2009.

Click here for John's site Reading Gide.

Liza Tripp
B.A., French, Barnard College
Certificate in French-English Translation, NYU.
Languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English

Website: www.lizatripp.com
Area of Specialization: Translation

Liza Tripp is currently a 4th year student at the Graduate Center. She has been a professional freelance translator of Romance Languages for over 6 years. As a freelance translator, she handles legal, financial and technical translations for use in litigation and other legal matters. Academically, she is interested in the practice of literary translation as well as translation and language theory. Recent publications include an Italian-to-English translation of Tamar Pitch’s book on gender and prevention, La società della prevenzione, and a review of Michael Cronin’s Translation Goes to the Movies for a special issue of the LSE Graduate Journal of Social Science. Liza resides in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn with her husband and their two dictionary-eating dogs.

Nicole Beth Wallenbrock
B.A., Bard College

Nicole Beth Wallenbrock received an undergraduate degree from Bard College. In December of 2011, she will defend her dissertation on recent films that take place during the Algerian war. The French Review published her article "Mon colonel : Awakening from the Algerian War" in October of 2011, and her chapter on the film Michou d'Auber will appear in the collection Lost and Othered Children in Film (Mellen Press) in December of 2011. Nicole has presented at conferences including the 2008 Women and Silent Film conference in Stockholm, Sweden and the 2010 NEMLA conference in Montreal, Canada. She teaches French and cinema courses as an adjunct throughout the CUNY system and at Manhattan School of Music.

Antoinette Williams
B.A., French, University of Houston
B.A., English and Creative Writing,
University of Houston

Areas of Specialization: Translation Studies and Francophone Identity in literature and language, specifically involving 20th century and contemporary texts from North Africa and Québéc

Antoinette Williams is a third-year French Department student whose academic interests have focused on everything from North African francophone literature and women's rights in the Franco-Arab world to Québécois Identity in literature, language and translation. She presented a paper in February 2011 for the Graduate Center Collective Identities Conference called, "A Call to Action: Algerian Women on the Verge of Autonomy in Assia Djebar's Les enfants du nouveau monde." Antoinette has served as a student representative to the French department's Executive Committee for the past two years. She also teaches French at Hunter College and spends her summers working in Paris as Assistant to the Director of an international study abroad program.

Ashley Williard
B.A., Liberal Arts, Hampshire College (2007)

Areas of Specialization: Atlantic Studies, Caribbean Poetics, Colonial History, Translation Studies

Ashley is a fourth-year student in the French Program, where her
dissertation research focuses on representations of gender in the 17th
century French Caribbean. She presented a paper on this topic at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison in April 2010, and will be presenting
at the University of California, Berkeley in November 2011. For the
2010-2011 academic year, Ashley taught English in Le Moule, Guadeloupe and conducted research in the departmental archives of Guadeloupe and Martinique. She has taught French at York College, the Graduate Center Language Reading Program, and presently, at Medgar Evers College. For 2011-2012, Ashley is working on interdisciplinary
writing pedagogy as a Writing Fellow at York College.

Tim Wilson
B.A. French, University of Vermont (2006)
B.A. Jazz, University of Vermont (2006)

Areas of Specialization: Nineteenth- and twentieth-centuy French language literature; French language cinema and television; foreign language pedagogy; disability studies; theories of globalization and creolization.

Tim Wilson

Tim is a fifth year doctoral candidate preparing a dissertation on the cultural history of children's television in France. Since 2008, he has taught numerous beginner and intermediate French courses at Hunter College as well as FREN 242, Modern French Civilization (in English). Tim is currently a Writing Fellow at LaGuardia Community College.

Patricia Winter
B.A. French and Anthropology, Hunter College

Patricia Winter is a first year doctoral student. Before earning her B.A. (Hons) degree in French and Anthropology at Hunter College, she was a dancer and choreographer performing in Europe, Asia, and North America. She lived in Paris where she became a trapezist and hung out for 11 years.