Spring 2020 Graduate Degrees

Jocelyn Franklin
  PhD

My dissertation, "From Cultural Memory to Lived Reality: Layered Trauma in 20th and 21st Century Haitian Literature”, addresses the following overarching question: how do transgenerational traumas, those that inform cultural identity, how do they interact with or impact lived traumas, ones that we've experienced in our own lifetimes? More specifically, I am interested in how the formative cultural memory of early moments of colonial oppression —the middle passage, chattel slavery, as well as more recent iterations of neocolonialism such as the U.S. occupation of Haiti in the early 20th century— impact the representation of contemporary traumas in Haiti. I examine representations of episodes such as the Duvalier dictatorship, the 2010 earthquake, the cholera epidemic, and the overwhelming influx of NGOs following those events. I found that 20th and 21st-century Haitian authors represent trauma as cumulative, mutually referential, layered. I argue that such a perspective challenges the way that we, in academia, have tended to place trauma on a pedestal, exemplified by the Holocaust. It has been a true pleasure to spend the last few years deep in these books, in these beautiful prose.

Keenan Brown
  Master of Arts, French Literature

I would like to thank all my classmates, the faculty and staff for a great experience. I would also like to thank Sandrine Vandermarlière for all her hard work and improvements to the program.

Marie Gaudreault
  Master of Arts, French Literature

The people are definitely what made it worthwhile. The professors and students in the French Department are all insanely smart and motivated and it definitely helped me get through the program.

Ashton Nicewonger
  Master of Arts, French Literature

I am eternally grateful for my time here!

Marketa Raevsky
  Master of Arts, French Literature

I would really like to thank our faculty for sharing their profound knowledge and passion for different periods of French literature with me. Furthermore, I am incredibly grateful for having the chance to learn and work alongside Sandrine Vandermarlière. Language teaching belongs to my primary professional interests and Sandrine's support for us graduate teaching assistants and her commitment to implementing research-based and communicative language teaching approaches in her classrooms are truly inspirational.