Education
- PhD, Cornell University, 2004
- AB, Bryn Mawr College, 1993
Biography
I came to Oberlin right after completing my PhD in Romance Studies at Cornell University, where I specialized in 20th century French visual studies. My dissertation, Par-asian Technologies: French Cinematic, Artistic, and Literary Encounters with East Asia since 1945, was published in a series of articles, focusing on the films of French filmmakers Olivier Assayas, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alain Resnais.
That dissertation paved the way for an advanced French seminar titled La Chine et le Japon dans l’imaginaire français, as well as advanced courses on French Documentary and the Essay Film; Cinema and 1968; The French New Wave; Stardom, Sexuality and Art. It also informs the introductory course on French cinema taught every fall, where students understand French cinema as a national cinema in a global film market, particularly from our standpoint in the “post-national” 21st century.
Currently, I am working on a book titled Disobedient Muse: Delphine Seyrig, Feminism, and The Cinema, which tells the story of French actress-agitator Delphine Seyrig, a passionate and committed artist who used her cultural capital, tremendous talent, and grit to respond to the movements of change in France of the late 1960s and 1970s. Disobedient Muse presents a cultural history of women’s filmmaking of the 1960s and 1970s from the point of view of a versatile actress, and its intersections with the women’s movements of the period.
My dissertation also gave way to reflections on the internationalism of the “new wave” in global cinema. William Patrick Day and I are collaborating on a book project: Cinema, Cinema Studies, and The New: Disciplining Film in the Age of the French New Wave and the American New Hollywood. We're interested in the two mentioned movements as models of progress for the cinema, and in turn their impact on the development of cinema studies as an academic discipline.
I love teaching my interests in courses such as Stars, Actors, and the World Stage, which explores stardom as a public platform for responding to one’s times, while searching for a more suitable place for film actors in film history, which has prioritized the film director above all. Or 1968: révolutions politiques, artistiques et culturelles, which I was honored to teach at the Institut d’études françaises d’Avignon under the auspices of Bryn Mawr College. I also enjoy learning from students who contribute tremendous insight, passion, and imagination to these intellectual adventures. In fact, my work has benefitted from the assistance of key undergraduate research assistants who have helped develop bibliographies, detect trends, serve as editorial assistants, and even transcribe television interviews by French actors at France’s national television and radio archive in Paris.