Sarah-Grace Heller, Associate Professor of French, specializes in medieval French and Occitan literature, language, and material culture. Her most recent book is a cultural history of fashion in a medieval age. She describes her sources from sumptuary laws to conduct literature to poetry and beyond to host David Staley on this week’s Voices of Excellence.
Benjamin Hoffman – Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian, Director of the Center for Excellence, and novelist – researches 18th-century French literature and philosophy, transatlantic studies, contemporary French literature, and creative writing. His recent publication is The Paradoxes of Posterity, a philosophical inquiry on the concept of posterity. He discusses this, digital humanities, and more with David Staley on this week’s Voices of Excellence
Jennifer Willging, Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of French and Italian, specializes in 20th and 21st century French literature and culture. Her work explores literature that attempts to understand contemporary society and important influences, such as technology.
When Americans think of France, they often think of Paris. But many other locations and cultures thrive in France, such as the Toulousain rock band Zebda, whose activities French & Italian Professor Danielle Marx-Scouras chronicles in her book La France de Zebda. She discusses French culture and politics with David Staley on the Voices of Excellence podcast.
A sympathetic treatment of people who do horrible things seems hard to justify. So why are such depictions so common with mafia movies and tv, especially in Italy? Professor Dana Renga’s new book Watching Sympathetic Perpetrators on Italian Television: Gomorrah and Beyond offers the first comprehensive study of recent, popular Italian television.
Going through an airport security checkpoint calls for people to enact the same physical movements. The Bord(hers) improvisational dance project created by Lucille Toth, assistant professor of French at The Ohio State University Newark campus, aims to explore these motions and ask how borders impact immigrants.
“I’m fascinating with how languages change,” says French and Italian Professor Janice Aski. Join her and David Staley for a discussion of the ways that languages change and why interest in learning another language is decreasing in the United States at exactly the time it needs to be increasing.