Eloise Briére
Associate Professor of French Studies

Background

I obtained my University training both in the United States (University of Massachusetts, Middlebury College) and abroad (Sorbonne, University Cheikh Anta Diop, University of Bordeaux, University of Toronto). My training has been in contemporary francophone literatures with an emphasis on West Africa (Ph.D).

Teaching

My courses focus on the colonial and post-colonial literature written in French from Africa, the Caribbean and West Africa; they also include the literature of Quebec. I approach francophone cultures through a comparative literary study of colonization and the post-colonial world. I recently created two new courses: Haiti at the Crossroads which examines the dynamic forces that have shaped Haitian culture and society and, In Their Own Words, which examines themes in literature and films that connect the works of women from West Africa, the Caribbean and the US.

A number of francophone writers have participated in my courses: Calixthe Beyala, Antonine Maillet, Sony Labou Tansi, Gérard Etienne, Gerty Dambury. Since 1992 Fullbright professors from Cameroon have been associated with the Department and have actively participated in maintaining its francophone dimension.

Publications

I am co-author of one of the earliest textbooks on La Francophonie Rendez-vous: La France et la Francophonie (N.Y.: Random House, 1982)

Thesis Direction
I have directed a thesis on Quebec (1997) and on the image of women in Haitian literature (1998) and am currently directing one on the Acadian woman writer Antonine Maillet.

Research

Initial research in Cameroon on the emergence of literary voice during the colonial period (the shift from orature to literature) led to a second phase of research on the post-colonial emergence of women’s voices. Both aspects of this research are reflected in Le Roman Camerounais et ses discours (Paris: Nouvelle Editions du Sud, 1993), and in a number of published articles in the special issue of Notre Librairie: Les Nouvelles Ecritures Féminines, on new women’s writing from Africa, the Maghreb and the Caribbean which I co-edited with Rangira Gallimore. Another research interest concerns the New World francophone communities in Canada and the Caribbean and the relationship between literary expression and the creation of identity. My published work on Antonine Maillet, Simone Schwarz-Bart and Emile Ollivier reflect the fundamental New World concern with “l’inquiétude généalogique".

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