Associate Professor French and Francophone Studies

vitiello@macalester.edu

Joëlle Vitiello, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, her Diplôme d’études universitaires supérieures (D.E.U.G.) and License from Paris XIII in France. She chaired the department of French and Francophone Studies between 2000-2003 and 2006-2012. She started the French Lectures Series for the department in fall 1999.

The courses she has developed include 20th and 21st century French literature, Contemporary French Culture, Haitian Literature and Culture, Caribbean Literature, Literature and Cinema of Immigration, North Africa/France: Representations on Both Sides of the Mediterranean, African and French Cinema, French Intellectuals In/And the World, Culture and identity Through Francophone Cinema, French Feminist Theory; Haiti: Culture, Human Rights and Humanitarianism, and French at all levels. She participates in the programs of African Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and Islamic Civilization, and Human Rights and Humanitarianism.

Her specialization is in representations of relationships (love, motherhood, friendship, and transmission of knowledge) in contemporary literature, especially by women from France and the Francophone world. Her current research includes Haitian literature and culture, North African Cinema and literature, and representations of systemic violence. She is also working on representations of friendship in anthropology, philosophy, literature, and cinema.

She co-organized the 2008 American Institute for Maghrebi Studies Conference on North African Cinema in Tunis, May 2008, and co-hosted at Macalester College the first international Women In French Conference with Dana Strand from Carleton College in 2000.

Her book publications include Elles écrivent des Antilles (Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique) (L’Harmattan, 1997), a co-edited special issue of Women In French Studies: Women at the Threshold of the XXIst Century: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2003) and a co-authored book on La vie et les valeurs aux U.S.A with Claire Nacher (Paris: Editions Solar, Presses de la Cité, 1991.)

She has also authored many articles, chapters, prefaces, and essays in peer-reviewed journals and collective books on Haitian writers from Haiti and its diaspora, including work on post-duvalierist literature (Dany Laferrière, Kettly Mars, Jean Price-Mars, René Depestre, Emile Ollivier, Yanick Lahens, Yanick Jean, Lyonel Trouillot, Joël Des Rosiers, Gérard Etienne), Caribbean literature, West African Literature, North African literature, Lebanese-Egyptian writer Andrée Chedid, as well as theoretical essays on exile, nomadism and diaspora, and theoretical and literary articles on feminist epistemology, gift, and friendship. Peer-reviewed journals include Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Women In French Studies, Cultures Sud, Etudes littéraire, Présence francophone, LittéRéalités, La Revue Générale, Symposium, Notre Librairie, among others. Recent publications include "Port-au-Prince: Images littéraires des quartiers-bidonvilles et de leurs habitants," Ponti/Ponts (2011); "The Human Comedy in Paulette Poujol Oriol's Novels and Short Stories," The Journal of Haitian Studies 17, 1, 2011; and the Introduction to Comment Ecrire/ Mo Pou 12 Janvye? How to Write an Earthquake?  91st Meridian and University of Iowa International Writing Program, 2011.

She contributes entries to the site dedicated to island literatures île en île (http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ile.en.ile/) and to various dictionaries and encyclopedias. She has published translations of short texts (literary and scholarly) into French, has edited several professional organizations newsletter and a directory.

Recent guest lectures include a presentation on the fiction and essays of Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop at Northwestern University, Colloquium on Diop, May 2011 and a five-lecture seminar on “The Legacy of the Algerian War: Confronting the Past to Better Understand the Present,” at the Summer Institute of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in January 2011.

Recent papers presented at professional conferences include work on Cinema Représentations of the Algerian Wars Waged in France (The Legacy of the Algerian War: Between History and Memory, (2012); Gérald Bloncourt, René Depestre, Gérard Chenet: From the 1946 Revolution to Post-Earthquake Solidarity," Haitian Studies Association, 2011; "Gender, Writing and Reconstruction in Haiti (Haitian Studies Association, November 2010), on Literacy, Orality, and Culture in Haiti (Atlantic World Literacies: Before and After Contact, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, October 2010), Cinema, History and Literature (Sousse, Tunisia, April 2010).

Recent community and outreach engagement includes several community lectures on Earthquake and Post-Earthquake Haiti, interviews and short reflexion essays about the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti (local AATF Newsletter, University of Minnesota paper, Macalester podcast, Saint-Catherine classroom, Roundtable at the university of Minnesota, Resource Center for the Americas, radio interviews on WCOO-AM and KFAI); Participation in Roundtable about Senegalese Filmmaker Sembene Ousmane, as well as introducing and leading discussion about two films by Sembene Ousmane at the Walker Art Center, November 2010.

Recent professional engagement includes serving as MN-AATF President (starting Fall 2012), co-editor for the book review section of Women In French Studies (from Spring 2012), as nationally elected member of the Executive Committee of the MLA Francophone Literature Division (2008-2012),  and various manuscript, grant, proposals and file evaluating responsibilities for professional journals, as well as national and. international institutions.

Courses taught in 2012-2013 include French 203, French 306 (introduction to Literary Analysis), French 408 (French Intellectuals in/and the World: Literature, Critical Tools, and Engagement),  and French 407 (North Africa/France: On Both Sides of the Mediterranean).