April Newsletter, 2004

   

Departmental News:

The Department is pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Tsien as Assistant Professor of French. Professor Tsien will begin teaching in the Fall 2004 semester.

John Lyons' new book, Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau has just been accepted by Stanford University Press. He will also be giving one of the main lectures at the 2004 NASSCFL meeting on May 5 in Portland, Oregon. The title of his lecture is "In Love with an Idea: François de Sales and the Inner Life."

Janet Horne's book has just been published in France by Editions Belin as: "Le Musée social Aux origines de l’État providence". A preface to the book was written by Pierre Rosanvallon, Professor at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales and Chair of the Modern and Contemporary History of Politics at the College de France.

Elisabeth Ladenson gave a seminar on the reception history of Madame de Sévigné's letters at Bryn Mawr college on April 1. On April 5 she gave a paper entitled "Literature and Indecency: The Case of the Evil Florist," on the judicial history of Baudelaire's poems, at an interdisciplinary conference on "Literature and Evil" at Georgetown University. On June 1 she will give a talk on Colette, Gertrude Stein and Radclyffe Hall at a symposium on gay marriage at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Amy Ogden has been selected as an Associate Fellow by the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities (IATH). Her project will create an on-line database of textual and material information about medieval French saints' narratives and the manuscripts that preserve them. She also presented a paper, "To Understand Old French Saints' Lives is to Hear Them," at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (April15-17), funded by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at UVA.

Cheryl Krueger and Roland Simon organized a workshop entitled "Le français en prise directe" for the Center for the Liberal Arts (www.virginia.edu/cla). The workshop was held from 9:10-3:00 on April 24, 2004. Speakers Cheryl Krueger, Suzanne Houyoux, Gladys Saunders, and Roland Simon explored the role of innovations "both cultural and technological" and their inevitable effect on our experience and understanding of the language and cultures of France and the Francophone.

On May 10, Paula Sato will present her paper "Orientalisme dans le roman De donde son los cantantes (Ecrit en dansant) (1967) de Severo Sarduy" in the session "L'Orient dans le roman de la Caraibe" at the 72nd Congres de l'Acfas (Association francophone pour le savoir) in Montreal, May 10-14, 2004.

Michael Meere will be speaking about the marginalization of violence on the French Classical stage at an October 2004 conference in Ireland.

Visit the following URL to view pictures from recent French Department events: http://www.virginia.edu/french/announce/041pictures.htm. Many thanks to Rebeccca Crisafulli for being our photographer this semester!

   

Undergraduate News:

Fourth-year French major, Amber Marcum, was one of three students who participated in CULTURAL LENS: Student Photography Showcase (Sponsored by the Center for Critical Human Survival Issues), on Thursday, April 8, in Newcomb. Her photography (which had as its theme : "Ma photographie des pays francophone" ) explored the colorful imagery present during her visits to and studies in Francophone countries (including La Martinique, La Corse et Lyon). Through image, Amber attempted to redefine the symbolism inherent in travel photography, and feature the powerful sense of place and time found in routine, human activities.

Congratulations to Lauren Purcell (B.A./M.A.T. Program, French/Education), who is this year's winner of the local "Concours des Alliances Françaises." Her essay will now be sent to the General Delegation of the Alliances Françaises in Washington for consideration at the national level.

Congratulations to former student Heather Thompson (class of 2001, major Eonomics, minor French, Phi Beta
Kappa; analyst at JPMorgan's Private Bank in New York since graduation) who has been awarded a scholarship from the Karla Scherer Foundation to attend the University of Chicago's Master of Arts Program in the Humanities in the Fall.

The Department congratulates the Distinguished Majors Program students of 2004. During the past year these students have been working with faculty advisors to produce their honors theses. They participated throughout the year in the Distinguished Majors Colloquium. We thank their advisors for their support and encouragement.

Distinguished Majors 2004

Cameron Felder
Directors: Professeurs Janet Horne et Majida Bargach
Title: "Les miroirs de La Haine: une construction représentative qui trace les dimensions de l'espace marginalisé."

Thomas George
Director: Professeur Gladys Saunders
Title: "Un liquide inestimable: l'impact socioculturel du vin français et l'importance de la Bourgogne viticole."

Lindsay Glaser
Director: Professeur Roland Simon
Title: "Charles de Gaulle et les effets de la défaite de 1940."

Megan McDade
Director: Professeur Kandioura Dramé
Title: "Antonine Maillet et l'expulsion des Acadiens."

Ana Oancea
Director: Professeur Elisabeth Ladenson
Title: "L'habit nécessaire de notre époque: une étude comparée du punk et du dandysme."

Joyce Wu
Director: Professeur Cheryl Krueger
Title: "Le Fond d' Un Coeur simple"

Looking ahead...

After graduating in May, Erin Bailey (Marketing/International Business/French minor) will be moving to New York City to work for UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) where she will be an Investment Banking Analyst. The program is for two years after which she hopes to work a possible third year abroad for the company, and attend business school shortly after to obtain an MBA.

Michelle Coleman (Biology/Education/French minor) will be doing her student teaching in the fall and then graduating early in December. She hopes to eventually move to Atlanta to find a job.

Amos P. Davis (Philosophical Theology-interdisciplinary/French minor) will be teaching English and coaching soccer in Thessaloniki, Greece. After that, he will either find another teaching job or go to graduate school in some capacity.

Megan Epp (BA French/Master of Teaching) will be moving to Richmond, VA after graduation. In August she will begin teaching French at the middle school and high school in King William County, VA.

Cameron Felder, having completed the Distinguished Majors program for her French major and her senior exhibition in printmaking and sculpture for her Studio Art major, is moving into an apartment in Paris this summer. She hopes to live a life that combines both fields, as well as finding a way to continue her career as a singer/songwriter.

Lindsay Glazer (French) will be moving to London this summer to work in the Capital Markets Analyst Programme for Lehman Brothers, Inc. She will be in London for two years before transferring to another European office (In Paris, she hopes!).

Jessica Hinck (French & Linguistics) will be getting married July 10, 2004 to fellow UVA student Matthew Brumbelow. Starting in August 2004 she will be teaching at "La Petite Ecole," a French immersion preschool in Charlottesville.

Genevieve LeBlanc (French/Comparative Literature) will be returning to our department as a Graduate Student this coming Fall. She has just completed her Honor Thesis entitled "Venus Envy: Bovarism à la Flaubert," which she will be expanding into a book over the summer. She is also working on a modern screenplay of Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Megan McDade has just completed the Distinguished Major for French, and is very happy with her experience with the program. Next year, she will either be teaching high school French or working in a position involving health education (she was a Peer Health Educator here at UVa). She is considering graduate school for French after a few years of working.

Stephanie Milbergs (Foreign Affairs/French) will be going to Latvia on a Fulbright scholarship after graduation. After that, she hopes to pursue a Masters degree in International Relations.

Ana Oancea (Mathematics/French) will be spending the next year in Vienna, Austria learning German at the Goethe Institute. She plans to use this knowledge and her French Distinguished Major for future profit. Before the intensive German courses, Ana will be traveling to Greece and returning to her native Romania. While abroad, she hopes to complete her graphic novel, Meat-Eating Orchids -- both of the people waiting to see it are growing impatient. Upon her return, Ana would like to pursue a graduate degree.

Lesley Suejean Park (Mathematics/French) will be moving to France at the end of the summer for a year, either through the French Embassy assistantship program or to take an internship in the music industry. After a year abroad, she hopes to attend graduate school back in the United States.

Juliana Pasqual (Psychology Major with Honors/French minor) will be in London for a week and then in Rabat, Morocco for the UVA program with Mme. Bargach. After that she will be returning home to Sao Paulo, Brazil to be with her family. Her claim to fame is that she has kept a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend for 4 years while in college. He is waiting for Juliana in Brazil, and the two plan to move in together next year.

Michelle Sassmann (French/History) will be working in the Lewis Law Firm located in Washington, DC, during the next year. She then plans to attend law school beginning in the fall of 2004, studying family law with a concentration in Muslim families.

Birgit Waidmann (French/Foreign Affairs) will be working as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense in Washington, DC beginning in late July. Prior to that, she hopes to spend some time traveling throughout Europe.

Michelle Warren (Psychology/French minor) will be working in Charlottesville this summer for a Social Services agency downtown, and is waiting to hear back from the Teaching Assistantship program run through the French Embassy. She hopes to be in Toulouse next year teaching English to French middle school children, and plans on traveling throughout Europe. She looks forward to going abroad and improving her French skills.

Joyce Wu (French/English/East Asian Studies minor) does not really know what lies beyond graduation. She may travel to Hong Kong, Toronto, or maybe even a place whose name she does not know how to pronounce. What she does know is that it is all in God's hands and hopefully what she does with her life will not deviate too far from French.

Kai-Ting Yang (English/Economics/French minor) will be staying in the area and attending Washington & Lee School of Law in the fall.

Congratulations and best wishes to all of our graduates!