Director of the Maison Française
sp2865@columbia.edu
Second Floor, Buell Hall
(212) 854-4482
Shanny Peer received her Ph.D. from New York University’s interdisciplinary Institute of French Studies in 1992. She taught French Studies for ten years, first at the University of Vermont and then at NYU, where she received a Golden Dozen Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In 2000, she joined the French-American Foundation as Director of Policy Programs, and she continues to serve there as a Senior Advisor. Her comparative interest in work-family policies led her to work briefly as a Senior Associate at Families and Work Institute before joining Columbia University as the Director of the Maison Française in September 2009.
Shanny Peer has written more than a dozen scholarly articles and a book, France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore in the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, which argued that France’s “traditional” heritage was refashioned in new ways in and around the fair to allow France to modernize while still retaining its distinct identity in the key decade before World War II. France on Display was awarded the Laurence Wylie Prize for Best Book in French Cultural Studies in 1999. Shanny Peer is also the author of several reports, including Equal from the Start: Promoting Educational Opportunity for All Preschool Children: Learning from the French Experience and Equality of Opportunity in Education and Employment: French and American Perspectives. While at the French-American Foundation, she directed comparative policy programs on and French and U.S. approaches to early childhood education, anti-discrimination/affirmative action policies, health care and work-family policy. She has testified before the U.S. Senate, organized conferences on a variety of topics, and conducted study tours to France for several high-level delegations that included governors, senators, state legislators, and foundation presidents. Currently, she is uncovering the rich history of Columbia University’s Maison Française and beginning to plan a series of conferences and events and undertaking a renovation to celebrate its upcoming 100-year anniversary in 2013.
Shanny Peer lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Cliff Landesman, and their two children. |
