Department of French, University of Virginia
April Newsletter, 2005

Departmental News | Undergraduate News | Study Abroad News | Newsletter Archives

Departmental News:

Amy Ogden has received a two-year fellowship from UVA's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) to construct Lives of the Saints: the Medieval French Hagiography Project. In its initial phase, the project will present material, textual, and historical information about the Lives written between 880 and 1500 as well as about the manuscripts that contain these texts. In a second phase, the project will grow to include images and transcriptions of the full manuscripts of selected Lives. Users will be able to read and compare copies, and search for thematic, linguistic and rhetorical elements.

Cheryl Krueger has been awarded a Teaching and Technology Initiative Grant for 2005-2006 for "The Language of Cinema: An Interactive Student Project and Archive." She will redesign her Introduction to French Cinema (FREN 344 and FRTR 244), to provide interactive involvement of students, particularly in the demonstration and presentation of film techniques. Students will work in teams to research a given technique (montage, camera angle, camera movement, etc.), to find examples from French and Francophone films, and to film their own demonstrations of the techniques. Students will present their digital films in class, then upload them to a web-based course archive. These materials (students’ films, clips from feature films, and interactive activities) may be used in any course devoted to film study, and in any course (history, anthropology, psychology, etc.) that relies on film to present cultural phenomena, the representation of personal or historical events, or the study of narrative or aesthetic form and theory. In short: the archive may be useful wherever “the language of cinema” is spoken.

Kandioura Dramé was appointed Associate Editor of The Journal of the African Literature Association, April 9, 2005. On April 7, he chaired a panel on "Senegal: Literature and Culture". Presenters were Nicole Zehfuss (Ph.D. 2000), Pascal Brousseau (Ph.D. 2004), Natasha Copeland and K. Dramé.

Elisabeth Ladenson delivered a talk on "Colette and Willy" at an April 18th conference at Berkeley on "Creative Partnerships." While in the Bay Area she saw David Hult, who sends his regards. On April 21 she was part of a UVA panel discussion on comparative literature organized by Comparative Literature Program director Rita Felski.

John Lyons will present a paper at the conference "Le Classicisme des Modernes: Représentations de l'âge classique au XXe siècle" that will be held at Paris and Versailles, May 20-21. His paper will be "Le mythe du héros cornélien". John Lyons has also just joined the organizing committee for the 2006 meeting of the Mouvement Corneille, which will celebrate the playwright's 400th birthday in Rouen.

On April 1 Stephanie Hopwood presented her paper entitled "Defining Marvelous Realism in Alexis's Compère Général Soleil." at the Twentieth Century French and Francophone Studies Colloquium in Gainesville, Florida.

Pierre Dairon published an article last month in "Les Territoires de l'identite - Perspectives acadiennes et francaises, XVIIe-XXe siecles", edited by Maurice Basque and Jacques-Paul Couturier. Moncton : Mouvange, 2005. The title of the article is : "L'Acadie des annees 1970 dessinee a travers le prisme de 'L'Opinion du lecteur' de L'Evangeline." He will also be assisting Majida Bargach with the 2005 Summer Program in Rabat, Morocco.

Kelly Peebles presented a paper at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (April 21-23) entitled "Meridienne's 'Regard Ruynant' and Medusa's Deadly Gaze: Confronting Reflections in Jeanne Flore's Contes amoureux."
George Hoffmann and Jeff Persels (Ph.D. 1991) organized and chaired several sixteenth-century panels at the conference. Nicolas Russell (Ph.D. 2003) presented a paper entitled "Ronsard, Lethe, and the Styx."

On April 22, Jacqueline Couti presented a paper entitled " The Space between us : Skin as a Space of Conflict in Jean Rhys's Wide Sagarsso Sea and A. Cesaire's A Tempest" at the English Department's conference titled "Out of Bounds: Space, Play and Borders."

 We warmly congratulate all of our graduate students for their many achievements this year!
This month, we celebrate the following good news:

Stephanie Hopwood has been selected as the recipient of the 2005-2006 French Department Dissertation Fellowship award.

Michael Meere has been awarded a Chateaubriand Fellowship to pursue work on his doctoral dissertation in Paris during the academic year 2005-06. Michael was one of three students nationally to receive this award for dissertation research in French Literature.

Cara Welch has been selected as the UVA graduate student to participate in our university-wide exchange program with the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris for the academic year 2005-06.

Kelly Peebles has accepted a position as Lecturer of French in the Department of Languages at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. On a more personal note, Kelly adds: "It's less than 10 miles from my husband's hometown, so we're very excited about the move. Now there will be a UVA Renaissance person at both universities in the state." (The other, being, of course, Jeff Persels, at the University of South Carolina.)

Maggie McColley has accepted a position as "Visiting Instructor" at The College of William & Mary. Upon defending her dissertation (scheduled for August), her title will change to "Visiting Professor". This one-year position may be extended and lead to some very exciting possibilities. In the fall, Maggie will be teaching "Topics in 19th century French Literature and Culture" as well as two languages classes.

 In the Fall of 2005, we look forward to welcoming ten new graduate students to our department! They are:

   

Undergraduate News:

2004 Distinguished Honors Major Ana Oancea has just accepted a multi-year fellowship to pursue graduate studies in French at Columbia University.

The Department congratulates the Distinguished Majors Program students of 2005. During the past year these students have been working with faculty advisors to produce their honors theses. We thank their advisors for their support and encouragement.

 Distinguished Majors 2005

Bonny Lauren Moore
Director, Professor Gladys Saunders
Thesis Title: "Le rôle de la langue française dans le développement de la France, de la Belgique et du Canada ."

Meghan Rae Thompson
Director, Professor Roland Simon
Thesis Title: "Assurance Maladie : Santé à la France ."

 Winners of the 2005 Maas Memorial Prize in French

This year, the prize was split 3 ways equally between the following students:

Lee Whitworth Martin
Essay Title: "Le Rôle de la Religion dans la Vie Publique"

Clare Howard McGovern
Essay Title: "La Loi du Talion"

Lauren Grey Tipton
Essay Title: "De la vieille Europe, du vieille Rumsfeld, et de la nouvelle Rice: Les Changements dans les relations franco-américaines"

The Maas Prize Committee wishes to thank all participants in this year's competition for their thoughtful essays on the Franco-American cultural exchange.

 Winners of the 2005 T. Braxton Woody Award

Kelly Mayer

Edgar Radjabli

Kelly and Edgar were presented the awards at the Jefferson Society Banquet, held in the Rotunda, on April 16th.

 Looking Ahead

After graduating in May, Sylvia Alford (French/Foreign Affairs) will be moving to Atlanta, Georgia. She will be attending Emory University's School of Public Health to do a two-year Master's Degree program in Global Health with a concentration in Infectious Diseases. She looks forward to using her French in a global health context.

Abiol Lual Deng (French major) will be moving to Paris in the fall to begin teaching English to Secondary School students in the Academie de Paris. She then hopes to continue on with graduate studies abroad.

Kristen Evans (English and Drama majors, French minor) will be moving to Washington, DC after graduation. There, she will work in the Press Office of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with plans to attend graduate school in the near future.

Virginia Jones, (History major with Honors, French minor) plans to attend medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was recently elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Allison Moorman (French/Biology major) will be attending UVA Medical School this fall. She is currently interested in pursuing Pediatrics with a specialization in Neonatology. She is excited to receive her M.D. which will serve the two-fold purpose of both allowing her to practice medicine as well as making most Parisian price tags disappear. She was recently elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Melissa Navratil (BA French/Master of Teaching) will be moving to the Richmond area after graduation. In August, she will begin teaching first grade or second grade in Hanover County.

Kerry O'Brien (Foreign Affairs/French) will be joining IBM as a Public Sector Consultant in Washington D.C. after graduation. She is especially interested in working on national security issues relating to Francophone nations in North and Central Africa.

Alexandra Roosenburg (BA French/Master of Teaching) will be moving to Lugano, Switzerland to be one of 3 teachers in the brand new TASIS Elementary School. The middle and high school of TASIS are amongst the oldest in Europe, but Swiss law previously prevented the school from being able to admit elementary age students. She will be teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th grade there, being a dorm parent, and coaching 2 seasons of sports.

Alice Anne Stephens (Foreign Affairs/French) will be working for Kissinger McLarty Associates in DC for a year while deferring from Stanford law school where she will be in the class of 2009. She was recently elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Jaime Wisegarver (Foreign Affairs major, French minor) will be working in Charlottesville for the summer, then moving to Arlington, VA to work as a financial analyst for CACI.

Congratulations and best wishes to all of our graduates!

   

Study Abroad News:

The Lyon Program

The Lyon program is going full steam ahead! Thirteen students will be studying at Lyon 2 in the Fall, many of whom will be staying for the full academic year.

Thirty-one students will be heading to Lyon this summer to study Modern Literature and Society, Renaissance Lyon, Contemporary France, and to perfect their spoken and written skills in French. This year we are delighted to welcome Professor Matthew Affron to the program. He is offering a course on Modern French Art and hopes to develop closer ties between our University museum and Lyon's Musée des Beaux Arts.

For the third consecutive year, we will also be offering a 6-week intensive session of FREN 201-202, overseen by our own Stephanie Hopwood! Stephanie will also be serving as the Resident Coordinator for the program. Our good friends, and former graduate exchange students, Aurore Portet and Isabelle Gandy will also be teaching in the program.

Special events this summer will include a visit to the exhibit on Impressionism and the Rise of Cinema currently at the Musée des Beaux Arts and trips to Besançon, Beaune and Annecy.

The Rabat Program

Fifteen students will be studying in Morocco this summer. During their six weeks in Rabat the students will earn 9 UVa credits. The program, entirely designed and taught in French, will give them a deep understanding of Moroccan society with its literature, culture, politics, religion, cuisine and traditional arts.

Eleven days of trips will take them this year to the Sahara's dunes as well as the major cities of the Kingdom.

The students (with CHANCE) will be offering about 50 computers to a Moroccan-French Non-Profit Organization "Reseau Maillage" and be offered opportunities for volunteer work.

Non credit additional Modern standard Arabic and colloquial Arabic courses will be taken.

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