Kaufman Hall 228
Profile
I received my Ph.D. in French from Johns Hopkins University. I joined MLLL in 2018, first as Lecturer in French and, starting in 2021, as an Assistant Professor of French. Prior to teaching at OU, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor of French at the University of California, Irvine and an ACLS New Faculty Fellow at Harvard University.
I am a scholar of late-medieval French literature with particular research interests in the field of witchcraft studies and the history of emotions. My first book, Demonic Possession, Vulnerability, and Performance in Medieval French Drama (New York: Peter Lang, 2018) advocates for an affective and ethical framework of reading the vocabularies of demonic possession through the lenses of late medieval French theater. As a form of narrativized poetics, theater allows us to understand demonic possession as a series of bodily narratives of pain, healing, witnessing, and, ultimately, vulnerability. I am also the co-editor of Affective and Emotional Economies in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and guest editor of a special issue titled “Medieval Vulnerabilities” for the journal Digital Philology 9 (1): 2020. My work has been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Medieval Academy of America, and American Philosophical Society. I have published articles in Critique, Mediaevalia, Renaissance and Reformation, Literature Compass, Studies in Early Modern France and also incollected volumes on the interconnection between medieval theater and the larger fields of medieval demonology (witchcraft, magic, demonic possession) and emotions. I am currently working on two book projects focused on witchcraft narratives in late medieval literature and, respectively, on representations of happiness in late-medieval France. Additionally, I am editing a special journal issue entitled “The Witch in pre-Modern Literature” for Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes and co-editing a collection of essays entitled “Emotions in World Literature” commissioned for the series Options for Teaching edited by the Modern Language Association (MLA).
At OU I teach a variety of classes within the French program, from 2nd-semester French to the Capstone seminar.
Selected Publications
Demonic Possession, Vulnerability, and Performance in Medieval French Drama (New York: Peter Lang, 2018 Medieval Interventions. New Light on Traditional Thinking).
“Medieval Vulnerabilities.” Special Issue of Digital Philology, Spring 2020, vol. 9 (1).
Affective and Emotional Economies in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe, co-edited with Charles-Louis Morand Métivier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
“Introduction,” in “Medieval Vulnerabilities.” Special Issue of Digital Philology, Spring 2020, vol. 9 (1), pp. 1-7.
“Narrating Pain and Healing in Andrieu de la Vigne, Mystère de saint Martin (1496)” in Lived Religion and Everyday Life in Early Modern Hagiographic Material, ed. Jeni Kuuliala, Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, Rose-Marie Peake (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 215-233.
“Playing with Witches: Theology, History, and Performance in Jean Michel’s Mystère de la Passion,” The Devil in Society in Pre-Modern Europe, ed. Richard Raiswell and Peter Dendle (Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2012), pp. 27-47.
“Le Rire médiéval,” Critique 716-717 (2007), pp. 70-79.
Education
Ph.D. in French. The Johns Hopkins University. 2011
M.Phil. in Medieval Studies. Utrecht University. 2005
M.A. in Medieval Studies. Central European University. 2003
B.A. Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. 2000
Teaching Schedule for Fall 2023
FR 2113-001 Intermediate French, BRUT-208, M/W/F 11:30-12:20
FR 2113-003 Intermediate French, BRUT-208, M/W/F 10:30-11:20
FR 2223-002 Intermediate French-Continued, BRUT-119, M/W/F 12:30-13:20
