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- GRADUATE PROGRAM -

PROGRAMS & REQUIREMENTS
ph.d. in french
ph.d. in french and
comparative literature

m.a. in french
studies in paris
summer program

COURSES
directory of classes
course descriptions

CURRENT STUDENTS
profiles
f.g.s.a.
representatives
constitution
calendar
salons

workshops
conferences
resources
survival guide
links
teaching
forms
downloads


Profiles of Current Ph.D. Students

The Department of French and Romance Philology has recruited graduate students with a wide range of interests, as can be seen in the current Ph.D. student profiles included below. Profiles are arranged alphabetically by last name.

  Daisy Aaronian
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  Nayana Abeysinghe
Thesis Topic:
Intergenerational memory in the work of francophone Caribbean women writers. An exploration of the expression and transmission of individual and cultural memory in the works Maryse Condé and Gisèle Pineau.
Entering Class: 1997
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), M.A. in French (Columbia), B.A in French and English (University of California at Irvine).
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  Lisa Anchin
Interests: traditional Contes de Fees & feminist alternatives, Perrault, Mme D'Aulnoy, gender and sexuality, postcolonial experience, North African literature, immigration of North African Jews in France.
Entering Class:
2007
Previous Degrees:
B.A. in French and Studio Art (Smith College)
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Tamar Blickstein
Entering Class:
2007

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  Matthew Bridge
Thesis Topic:
The global reception of the Marquis de Sade's works in the twentieth century, particularly in France, the U.S., and Japan.  Other interests include Céline and Bataille.
Grad Sudent Life:
FGSA conference co-organizer (2007).
Entering Class:
2004
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French (Columbia), B.A. in English and French (Boston University).
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  Leili Chakour
Entering Class:
2005
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  Zuowei Chang
Entering Class:
2001
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  Isabelle Coitoux
Interests:
19th century French literature; the novel; Realism and Naturalism; Flaubert; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt; Ernest Feydeau; Huysmans; Maupassant; Aesthetics; Sociological theory.
Grad Student Life:
Co-organizes the Modern Salon (2008-2009).
Entering Class:
2006
Previous Degrees: B.A. in French Literature (Hunter College).
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  Roderick Cooke
Entering Class:
2005
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  Annelle Curulla
Thesis topic:
"Forms of Enclosure: The Convent Plays of the French Revolution" examines uses of Catholicism in French Revolutionary theater.
Grad Student Life: FGSA representative (2004-2005), FGSA conference co-organizer (2006)..
Entering Class: 2001
Previous Degrees: M.Phil., French (Columbia U.); M.A., French Language & Civilization (Middlebury College); B.A., English & French (Connecticut College)
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  Estelle Depayre
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  Anne-Catherine Dutoit
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  Jason Earle
Grad Student Life:
FGSA representative (2003-2004), Modern Salon organizer (2005-2006), FGSA conference co-organizer (2005)..
Entering Class:
2002
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  Kirsten B. Ellicson
Dissertation Topic: The intersections between collecting and writing  in late nineteenth-century French literature.
Entering Class: 2002
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), Maîtrise en Lettres Modernes (Université de Versailles), M.A. in Comparative Literature (University of Washington), B.A. in Comparative Literature (Brown University).
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  Kevin Erwin
Interests:
Intersections between 19th-century literature, historiography and criticism; social theory and philosophy of history in 19th-century France; fin-de-siècle decadence and the apocalyptic; Barbey d'Aurevilly.
Grad Student Life:
FGSA representative (2004-2005, 2005-2006).
Entering Class:
2003
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), M.A. in Comparative Literature (University of Washington), D.E.A. in Literature (Paris VII), B.A. in Philosophy and Comparative Literature (Boston University).
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  Jonathan Eskew
Interests
: The Enlightenment, psychoanalysis, intersections of poetic and scientific epistemology, Gaston Bachelard, Eugène Guillevic, Pierre Reverdy, Gonçalo Tavares, Buffon, and Népomucène Lemercier.
Entering Class: 2007
Previous Degrees: B.A. in French (Reed College).
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  Mary-Alice Farina
Interests: 20th century French literary theory, linguistics, anthropology, 19th and 20th century French literature.
Entering Class: 2007
Previous Degrees: B.A. French (Vassar College).
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  Olivia Harrison
Thesis Topic:
The representation of Jews and Arabs in post-1967 Maghrebi texts written in French and Arabic, in particular with respect to French colonial minority politics on the one hand, and to the question of Palestine-Israel on the other. Other interests include postcolonial theory, translation studies, and theories and practices of comparative literature, broadly defined.
Grad Student Life:
FGSA conference co-organizer (2004), Institute for Comparative Literature conference co-organizer (2005, 2006).
Entering Class:
2003
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French and Comparative Literature (Columbia), M.A. in French (Columbia), B.Tech. in Fine Art (Chelsea School of Art and Design), B.A. in French and Linguistics (Oxford).
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  John Hodges
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  Casiana Ionita
Interests: Media theory, performance, theories of authorship.
Entering Class: 2007
Previous Degrees: B.A. in Literature (Harvard).
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  Max Kramer
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  Ana Lazic
Entering Class:
2001
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  Sarah Lazur
Interests: 20th century and contemporary literature, intellectual history, the ideological novel.
Entering Class: 2007
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French Cultural Studies (Columbia), B.A. in Comparative Literature (UCLA).
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  Mallika Lecoeur
Interests:
The cantate françoise, a poetic form established by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau in the eighteenth century. I recently presented my research at a workshop of La Compagnie Baroque in Pontoise, where I later performed the musical setting of a cantate.
Entering Class:
2003
Previous Degrees: B.A. in French Literature (Barnard), MMus in Solo Performance: Voice (University of Western Ontario).
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  Cathy Leung
Entering Class:
2000
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  Emilie Littlehales
Interests:
19th-century literature, especially the novel, Realism, and Naturalism; representations of prostitution, gender and its construction, and sexuality, particularly in male-authored works.
Grad Student Life:
FGSA Vice President (2007-2008), Co-organizes the Modern Salon (2008-2009).
Entering Class:
2006
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French Literature (University of Virginia), B.A. in French (Saint Joseph's University).
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  Mehammed Mack
Interests:
Literature and Society of North Africa and Immigration in Europe, sexual tourist writers in North Africa, sexuality and religion, progressive Islam, the literature of the Sephardic and Mizrahi Diaspora, the Arab Diaspora, metissage.
Entering Class:
2006
Previous Degrees: B.A in Philosophy and English (Berkeley).
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  David Macklovitch
Dissertation Topic:
"Theorizing the Pleasure of Reading in Eighteenth Century France", focuses on theoretical writings of the first half of the Eighteenth Century, in which reading for pleasure is conceived as an autonomous notion.
Grad Student Life:
Modern Salon organizer (2005-2006).
Entering Class:
2002
Previous Degrees: M.A.in French Literature (McGill University), B.A. in French Literatre (McGill University).
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  Séverine Martin
Dissertation Topic:
The Status of the Object in the Poetry of Stephane Mallarme
Interests: Politics and Poetics of the Avant-Garde, Critical theory and theories of Reception and Genre, Intellectual history
Grad Student Life: FGSA Financial Director (2006-2007), FGSA conference co-organizer (2007).
Entering Class: 2004
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French (Columbia); B.A. in Comparative Literature (Barnard).
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  Eric Matheis
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  Ana Oancea
Interests:
Death in 19th century French literature, Baudelaire, symbolism and decadence. I am currently working on the Baudelairean intertext in Huysmans’ A Rebours, as apparent in des Esseintes’ trip to London.
Entering Class:
2005
Previous Degrees: B.A. in French and Mathematics (UVA)
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  Aleksandra Perisic
Enter
ing Class: 2007
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  Sarah-Louise Raillard
Interests:
16th ands 18th centuries and particularly the epistolary form and "lettres de rupture" in Laclos.
Entering Class:
2004
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French (Columbia), B.A. in Liberal Arts (Sarah Lawrence College).
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  Andrea Thomas
Thesis topic:
The editions and reception of the comte de Lautréamont's works. Other interests include textual criticism, historiography, literary imposters, 19th- and 20th- century theater.
Grad Student Life:
FGSA representative (2003-2004).
Entering Class:
2001
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), B.A. in Comparative Literature (New York University).
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  Matthew Udkovich
Entering Class:
2001
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  Michelle Vilain
Interests:
19th and 20th century French literature and intellectual history, continental and Chinese philosophy.
Grad Student Life: FGSA Vice President (2006-2007).
Entering Class:
2004
Previous Degrees: M.A. in French (Columbia), B.A. in French (University of Washington).
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  Noura Wedell
Entering Class:
2000
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  Erica Weems
Interests:
The role of charity in Renaissance texts, particularly in the "Heptaméron" and the "Tiers Livre." I am interested in the interpretive issues posed by the notion of charity as well as the historical context in which charity appears.
Entering Class:
2000
Previous Degress: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), M.A. in French (Columbia), Master 2 (Paris IV), B.A. in French literature (UCSD).
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  Toby Wikström
Thesis Topic:
Property and Law in French Theatrical Representations of the Non-European World, 1598-1685.
Grad Student Life:
FGSA Financial Director (2007-2008), FGSA conference co-organizer (2006).
Entering Class:
2004
Prvious Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), M.A. in French (University of Wisconsin-Madison), B.A. in French (Carleton College).
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  Paul Wimmer
Interests: Writing as the establishment of a consciousness, especially in 19th and 20th century novels.
Entering Class: 2007
Previous Degrees: B.A. in English and French Literature (Rutgers University).
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  Bingshu Yang
Entering Class:
2001
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  Benjamin Young
Thesis Topic:
The intersection of music and text in the Early Modern period with a focus on seventeenth-century French literature and intellectual history.
Organizes: the University Seminar on Early Modern France (2003-present).
Grad Student Life: FGSA President (2006-2007, 2007-2008); FGSA conference co-organizer (2004, 2008); FGSA conference selection committee member (2006) and session Chair (2006); Graduate Student Advisory Council representative (2006-2007, 2007-2008); University Senator (2007-2008); Interschool Governing Board Vice Chair (2007-2008).
Entering Class: 2003
Previous Degrees: M.Phil. in French (Columbia), M.A. in Comparative Literature (UCLA), B.A. in Comparative Literature (UCLA), Niveau Fin d'Etudes in Piano and Music Theory (Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris), Baccalauréat in Literature and Languages (with Honors, Paris Academy).
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