Assistant Professor of French
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University Hall
(205) 934-4652

Research and Teaching Interests: Marcel Proust, Nineteenth-Century French Literature, Cognitive Literary Studies, Visual Art and Art History, Ecocriticism, The Arabian Nights in French and Francophone literature, Media Studies, Science Fiction

Office Hours: By appointment

• B.A., Seattle University, English and French
• M.A., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, French
• Ph.D. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, French

I hold a Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I have taught French language and literature at UNC-Chapel Hill and at Vanderbilt University, and English literature and culture at Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France. Before beginning graduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill, I earned a B.A. from Seattle University, taught elementary school EFL in France through TAPIF, and worked at a French immersion summer camp in Minnesota. These experiences have given me a deep appreciation for the ways in which language learning can increase students' creativity, give them new perspectives on the world, and help them take risks and grow.

My book manuscript, Seeing Impossible Things: Proust at the Edge of the Reader’s Imagination, explores how Proust’s images in À la recherche du temps perdu push readers to expand their understanding of the conceptual categories of matter, space, energy, and time that structure our everyday experience. My current research projects focus on evocations of vertigo in nineteenth-century French literature about science and technology, and the influence of Proust on contemporary science fiction.