My years of teaching French to American students initially stem from my own fascination with the United States as experienced through film and the arts. During my first year spent in Maryland as a French teaching assistant at Hood College, I was able to verify and demystify some of the topoi I had learned about American culture. Reciprocally, I relayed my vernacular culture and language to students who also shared preconceptions about France. This phenomenon sparked my appreciation for the classroom as a place of exchange. While teaching French language, literature, and film classes at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, I pursued my PhD in French and Cinema Studies. Defended in January 2023, my dissertation reflects my very interest in Franco-American cultural exchange, cinema, and migration, as I analyzed the work of French and American auteurs who traveled and made films in and about each other’s countries during the long Sixties when themes of race, gender, and queerness recurred.
I am grateful to continue my work as an educator at the University of Chicago where teaching French using a combination of pedagogies–particularly the communicative approach–will, I hope, empower the students with the tools to master the language and expand their outlook onto the immensity of the Francophone world. As my teaching is nourished with material from the Francophonie, I am also excited to be running FrancoFilms, the ciné-club for the University of Chicago’s French Language Program, showcasing films from and outside of France.
Recent Courses in RLL
- FREN 10200 Beginning Elementary French II (Winter 2024)
- FREN 10300 Beginning Elementary French III (Autumn 2023, Spring 2024)
- FREN 20100 French Language, History, and Culture I (Autumn 2023)
- FREN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II (Winter 2024)
- FREN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III (Spring 2024)