Northern Illinois University
World Languages and Cultures
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Research Interests

My teaching and research interests include translation studies and practice, contemporary French and Francophone culture, comparative poetics, world literature, film studies and food studies. I am also a literary translator.

In addition to teaching a variety of courses on French and Francophone culture, translation and French language and conversation, I am also co-directing a summer study abroad program in Aix-en-Provence, France with my colleague Shannon Becker (sbecker@niu.edu). Please email one of us or the Study Abroad Office (niuabroad@niu.edu) for more information.

Selected Publications

Book Translations (Prose Fiction, Poetry and Critical Theory)

• Dignity or Death: Politics of Blackness and the Critique of European Philosophy, Norman Ajari (Polity Press, Forthcoming)
• Colonial Trauma, Karima Lazuli (Polity Press, 2021).
• Resolutely Black: Conversations with Françoise Vergès, Aimé Césaire (Polity Press, 2020).
• Saying Poetry & Sleep, Jacques Roubaud (La Presse, 2019).
• Seven String Quartets, Frédéric Forte (La Presse, 2014).
• The Truth about Marie, Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Champaign. IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2011).
• Running Away, Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Champaign. IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2009).
• Camera, Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Champaign. IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008).

* Reviews of these translations have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The London Review of Books, The Guardian, Bookforum and Chicago Review, among others.

Articles

• "Does Rimbaud Get Ashbery? Repurposing Equivalency in Translation," Romanic Review, Forthcoming, 2022.
• "To France and Back: New Circuits in American Poetry." Postmodern Culture (May 2015).

Reviews

• “Impostors: Literary Hoaxes and Cultural Authenticity. By Christopher L. Miller.” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 57 no. 2, 2020.
• "Rachel Gavin, News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936-1945." SubStance, Forthcoming, November, 2019.

Education

• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, French
• M.A., University of California, Berkeley, French
• B.A., University of California, Santa Barbara, French and Comparative Literature