Colten Hallam
Areas of Study: Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Contact: Email Interests:
Montaigne studies; religion and ecology; environmental humanities; poetry; the essay; religion, literature, and visual culture; nature writing
Colten holds two Honors B.A.s from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied both English and French and Francophone Studies. He wrote two honors theses, both approaching early modern poetry, nature writing, and agricultural texts through the lens of ecology and aesthetics. In his French thesis, he demonstrates how agricultural and literary works came together to “cultivate” French geographical and literary identity.
More recently, Colten has deepened his interest in natural theology and Christianity in French literature, focusing primarily on the relationship between creation, faith, and the role of the writer, literary engagement with eschatology and religious movements.
Colten is also a member of the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization (CEGU) and the Environmental Arts + Humanities Lab (EAH Lab). In May 2026, he spearheaded a pop-up exposition entitled “Moving + Holding Flow: An Exposition on Water Ecologies” with the EAH Lab, CEGU, and the Department of English.