FRENCH STUDIES NEWSLETTER
MAY 2009
Bonjour! Greetings to all alumnae and friends of the department of French Studies! This year we continue the trend toward green by sending you this paperless newsletter. 2008‐2009 has been an active year for us. In September, the department hosted a very well attended forum on the European Union. Jonathan Gosnell introduced a panel composed of representatives from the French, German and Portuguese consulates in Boston, who brought us up‐to‐date on the successes and challenges of European co‐operation in the twenty‐first century. A French film festival at Smith and Mount Holyoke, organized by our own Anouk Alquier and funded by the French government, brought five acclaimed cinematic works to brighten five Sunday afternoons in February and March. April gave students and faculty alike the opportunity to learn about the new directions that European university curricula are taking from Professor Thanh‐Huyen Ballmer‐Cao, the short‐term exchange professor from the University of Geneva, and the opportunity to meet (or to renew acquaintance with ) Marie‐
Madeleine Charlier, the Associate Director of the Paris Junior Year Abroad Program. Professor Eric Fassin, of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, was the last of the year’s distinguished visitors. His talk on the “Sexual Boundaries of Europe” drew a large crowd of captivated listeners. The year ended on a high note, with the high jinks of the French Theatre Workshop’s production “Ça parle drôlement” on April 29. French Studies at Smith are alive and well! Three French majors graduated in January 2009; twenty‐one will receive their diplomas at Commencement in May 2009. Twenty‐eight more are in the pipeline! Twenty‐two juniors will be on the Paris Junior Year Abroad next year under the directorship of Rob Dorit (Biological Sciences). Ten students (including three guests) will be in Geneva under the supervision of Kiki Gounaridou (Theater department). Dawes House extended its hospitality to all French students and faculty at several Friday afternoon teas, thanks to the participation of Sarah Padioleau (exchange student from Paris 7), Elodie Wu (exchange student from Sciences Po) and Adeline Desbois (2008‐2009 Lecturer from the Ecole Normale Supérieure). A highlight for the residents of Dawes House was their annual trip to Montreal to sample French cuisine and bask in French culture right on the North American continent. The weekly French table continues to be a popular venue for catching up on the latest news from France, on daily life and happenings, and even on the latest French popular music via iPod. To provide a break from the pre‐exam tension, the department invited all French students to a “pause café” – complete with croissants and Nutella tartines – in December. The event turned out to be such a hit that we repeated it in May. We honored our senior majors with an elegant wine and cheese reception for them in February. And we will host a celebration party for them, their families, and returning alumnae during Commencement weekend. Please join us in the Mary Maples Dunn Room in Pierce Hall on Saturday, 16 May 2009 at 4:15. 2
A grant from the Smith College Provost allowed us to sponsor several field trips for research purposes. During the fall, students in “From Revolution to Revolution” went with their professors Jonathan Gosnell and Adeline Desbois to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown to explore its rich holdings of French art. During January, Erica Faller traveled to Belgium to research the poet and novelist Georges Rodenbach, the subject of her senior honors thesis. In the spring, members of Fabienne Bullot’s French Theatre Workshop traveled to Holyoke to see the American Premiere performance of “Irish Cream”, a triple bill of Irish contemporary dances. And Adeline Desbois’s class “A Reader’s Romance with Paris” looked at Toulouse Lautrec drawings of Paris at the Clark Art Institute. We are particularly proud of the honors that have accrued to French Studies majors this year. Erica Faller and Laura Itzkowitz wrote – and eloquently defended – honors theses. Nadia Rivera‐
Nieves, a double major in Government and French Studies who graduated in January 2009, will be next year’s Smith College fellow at the École Normale Supérieure in rue d’Ulm in Paris. She intends to take advantage of her fellowship to compare French and American feminist political theory. French and Russian Literature major Allyson Faller ’09 will teach English in Russia next year on a pending Fulbright fellowship. Junior French major Nina Schwartzman has won a Killam fellowship that will allow her to study in Canada. As the academic year draws to a close, we extend very best wishes to all who will be leaving the world of Smith: our seniors, our beloved colleague Christiane Métral, our delightful Normalienne Adeline Desbois, and our wonderful temporary administrative assistant Michaela Cahillane. And to all of you who are already out in the world beyond Smith, please keep in touch. We look forward to hearing from you! You will find a lot of pictures and more news at http://www.smith.edu/french/events.html With my best wishes for a great summer! Mary Ellen Birkett, Chair And now the best part: Alumnae News 2008 Anna Estes '08 is currently living in Denver, CO with fellow Smithie and French Studies major, Meredith Badler ‘08. She's been in the mile‐high city since September, and loves the sunny weather and beautiful mountains. Currently, she has a part‐time internship at the Denver Art Museum, and is also working part‐time at the Alliance Française de Denver! Anna’s thrilled to remain involved with the French community in her "post‐Smith" life. Kelly Johnson ’08 works as a program manager at The New Teacher Project, a nonprofit educational consulting firm, and is earning her MA in music education from New York University. 3
2007 Bibi (Olie) Gnagno ’07 is currently studying in Paris to obtain a Master’s in French Language and Civilization. She has been teaching English part‐time and translating magazines from French to English. Her Master’s thesis focuses on the importance of identity to French high school students of Algerian descent. Bibi plans to attend law school in the fall of 2009 and pursue a career in international law. Allison Schein ’07 received her M.A. in French language and civilization from NYU in September 2008. Her Master’s essay on theatrical translation centered on the translation of Tom Stoppard’s play The Coast of Utopia into French. She now works at Porterhouse Fine Arts Editions in Los Angeles, and tutors and volunteers as a dialect coach at local theaters staging plays that involve the French language. 2006 Laura Carroll ’06 works as a tour leader with Intrepid Travel, and spent the last year leading tours in Morocco (where she met up with a visiting Smith alumnae travel group accompanied by Professor Gosnell). After a break in Washington, DC, where she’s been taking photography and aerial dance classes, Laura is set to lead spring tours in Russia, Mongolia and China. Jaci Eisenberg ’06 returned to Geneva, her JYA home, right after graduation, and is now pursuing a Master in International Studies with the International History and Politics program at HEID. Jaci uses her French very actively, even for cooking, and is particularly proud of her first edition Larousse Gastronomique ! She keeps in close touch with several French studies alumnae from the class of ’06. She writes that Ashley Thornton, Kristen Sobeck, and Laura Freeman are doing well. Ashley is doing a Master at HEI as well ‐ in Political Science ‐ and works at DCAF (an NGO). Kristen spent last year in Geneva on a Fulbright and is now doing a Master (English/French) in Economics at the University of Geneva and the University of Neuchatel; she also works at the ILO. Laura worked at the ILO for a while, but this year is away in London completing a Master's degree in Archives at UCL. Since graduation, Carrie Roberts ’06 has worked at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the Furniture and Frame Conservation Department, as well as at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as a conservation intern in the objects lab. She is now pursuing graduate studies in art conservation at the Winterthur/University of Delaware art conservation program. Carrie is considering returning to France to intern at a museum. 2005 Emily Robichaux '05 works for the German Marshall Fund of the United States as the program officer for the Marshall Memorial Fellowship program. She coordinates visits of European fellows to the U.S. and of American fellows to Europe. She recently traveled to Brussels for work and took a side trip to Paris to visit her JYA host family. In Washington, DC, she is a member of the Alliance Française of Washington and recently took a class on André Gide there. Eliza Zingesser ’05 is finishing the third year of a doctoral program at Princeton and preparing a dissertation prospectus on the reception of Occitan literature (particularly lyric) in northern 4
France in the Middle Ages. Eliza’s article on the reuse of woodcuts from an edition of Aesop's Fables in an early edition of Rabelais was recently accepted by Études Rabelaisiennes. 2004 Anna Corwin ’04 is pursuing a Ph.D. in Anthropology at UCLA, working on a project on aging and prayer among Catholic nuns. She is working at convents in the US and France. Mary Kristen Kelly ’04 is in her second year at Duke University School of Law. She’ll be joining the law firm of Wilmer Hale as a summer associate in Boston this summer, before completing her final year at Duke. This past school year, she was Director of Duke Law’s Refugee Asylum Support Project, working with attorneys throughout the USA who represent clients seeking asylum. Many of their clients come from francophone African countries, and many of the documents that Mary Kristen finds in her research are in French and require translation. She notes it has kept her French current while allowing her to work on a very worthy cause. 2003 Shilah Overmyer Marks ’03 married Englishman Daniel David Marks in September 2008. The couple is expecting their first child in July 2009 and plan to welcome their baby while spending the summer in Wales, awaiting Daniel’s green card before returning to the U.S. Shilah and Daniel own a small publishing company that produces country‐specific hard cover books (they’ve published books on Jordan and Malta and are currently at work on books about Trinidad and Tobago). Shilah moved to the publishing industry after working for a research company called Oxford Business Group in Istanbul, for which she sold advertising in their economic reports in Morocco, South Africa and Turkey. 2002 Since graduating from Smith, Alyssa Merwin ’02 has worked with the Corporate Executive Board, a best‐practices research and advisory firm. She has just returned to Washington, DC after spending two years in her firm’s London‐based office, where she took advantage of fabulous travel opportunities, including trips to Sweden and South Africa. She used her French during various trips to Paris, where she’s returned at least once a year since doing her JYA there. She credits her JYA as her inspiration to work and live internationally. 2001 Jessica Brody ’01 published her debut novel The Fidelity Files in 2008, and is excited about its May 2009 French release under the title Confidentialité Assurée. The publisher, Fleuve Noir, invited Jessica to promote the book in Paris at the end of April. More information about the book, its international releases and forthcoming sequel can be found at: www.TheFidelityFiles.com. Shana Hofstetter ’01 finished her JD last year at William & Mary and is now living in London, pursuing an LLM in international commercial law at Queen Mary, University of London. Shana has enjoyed visiting Paris since her JYA days. 5
2000 Erika Knepp ’00 writes that her interest in classical French music has granted her some unique performance opportunities. In 2006, she was pianist for the Ballet Theatre of Maryland’s premiere of Stephen Greenston's Gnossienne No. 4 with music by Eric Satie. As a soprano, she enjoys exploring “melodies” and created a recital program of French Female Composers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It featured songs by Cécile Chaminade, Pauline Viardot and Lili Boulanger. Last year, she sang with the Annapolis Opera's production of Carmen at Maryland Hall. Erika has returned to Paris twice since JYA, and thoroughly enjoyed her visit in 2007, especially the new bike routes and smoke‐free restaurants! Anna Knutson ‘00 is now working in NYC as a literary scout for Maria Campbell Associates (after eight years in Paris as an editor of foreign literature for Editions Plon). She scouts French books, and recommends American titles for French clients to publish in translation. Karen Manning ’00 lived in Germany for several years after Smith graduation and worked for German foundations upon her return to the USA. She is now an attorney in Tennessee, working as a judicial clerk for an appellate judge and focusing exclusively on criminal law. Karen would welcome any tips or contacts for white‐collar defense and appellate advocacy firms in the DC Metro area. She writes that she recently visited Paris to give her rusty French a jolt of life, and just wishes she could stay there for a longer period of time. 1999 Deirdre McAnally ’99 is pursuing her doctorate in French literature at Penn State, completing a dissertation entitled, “Criminal Circulation: Articulating Gender and Mobility in Late Nineteenth‐
Century French Narrative”. She is attending her Smith class reunion in May and looks forward to reconnecting with students and professors. After several years in the translation business (including overseeing the translation of the Tiffany diamond book into French for France and French for Canada), Soojin Paik ’99 transitioned two years ago into the software industry, and is now working for Autonomy Corporation in San Francisco. 1995 Nicole Goode ’95 spent 5 years teaching high school French in Colorado and is now taking time to be a stay‐at‐home mom. Nicole lives in Corvallis, OR, tutors French, participates in a local French club, and is doing her best to raise her 2‐year‐old son in a bilingual household. 1992 Lynn Russo ’92 lives in New York with her husband and 11‐month‐old son. She juggles part‐time work marketing for a hedge fund with looking after her baby. Lynn travels abroad for work and says her somewhat rusty but passable French came in handy on recent trips to Paris and Geneva. 6
Anne Williams '92 works in marketing at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, OH. She met her husband on a French‐speaking assignment in Haiti, where she was working for an NGO providing technical assistance to health programs in the developing world. They have three children: Gustave, Trudi, and Henri. 1991 Jennifer (Frasier) Hayes ’91 remembers enjoying lots of delicious pastries (especially tartes au citron) during JYA Paris 1989‐90 with Mademoiselle Weed. She is now married with three children, Emma (8), Sean (6) and Liam (5). Jennifer works full‐time as a bankruptcy lawyer, and is very busy with the current economy! She keeps in close contact with Melissa (Jersen) Cabocel. 1989 After teaching college for several years, Christine Dunn Henderson ’89 is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. (an Indianapolis‐based educational foundation that organizes small conferences throughout the US, Latin America, and Europe). Christine coordinated Liberty’s European program for several years, and now her primary work involves developing the intellectual content for small, discussion‐based conferences. 1987 Anne Detweiler '87 is a clinical social worker, working as a psychotherapist in private practice. She’s been back to Paris once since her Junior year, but plans to take her daughter one day. 1986 Reverend Katie Griffin ’86 lives in the greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area and teaches church history at the only Protestant institute for theological education in the Spanish‐speaking Americas offering a doctoral degree in theology. Her husband and children are Argentine, so she uses Spanish at home as well. She hopes one day to facilitate theological exchanges between African and Latin American Protestants, where the French aspect of her tri‐lingual talent would be extremely helpful!