Julia Frengs

Julia L. Frengs, Associate Professor (Ph.D. University of Maryland, College Park, Modern French Studies 2013) specializes in literatures of French expression from outside of France. She focuses principally on women’s writing, representations of the body, indigenous emancipatory discourse, and environmental engagement in the literatures of New Caledonia and French Polynesia. She also enjoys teaching courses on the literatures and cultures of the French-speaking Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Canada. Dr. Frengs has taught courses in French language and French and francophone cultures at Quest University Canada, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Oklahoma.

For more information about Dr. Frengs' academic career, download her CV.

Publications

• “Anticipatory Testimonies: Environmental Disaster in Claudine Jacques’s Fictional Prophecies.” In Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, 39.2, Article 5, September 2015.
• “’Comment te dire la dualité entre l’une et l’autre moi-même’: The Double ‘je’ of Chantal T. Spitz’s Elles, Terre d’Enfance, Roman à deux encres.” In Protean Selves: First Person Narrators in Twenty-First-Century French and Francophone Fiction. Eds. Adrienne Angelo and Erika Fülöp. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. 115 – 127.
• “Narrating the Unspeakable in New Caledonia: Sexual Violence, Narration, and Truth in the Works of Claudine Jacques.” In The Unspeakable: Representations of Trauma in Francophone Literature and Art. Eds. Amy Hubbell and Névine El-Nossery. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. 231 – 248.
• “Barbarie incestueuse: étude du déterminisme héréditaire dans L’espérance macadam de Gisèle Pineau.” In sans papier, online journal of Cornell French Studies Program. Web. Aug. 2010. (published under maiden name) (12 pages).

Manuscripts in Submission

• “Institutionalized Bodies and ‘Emerging’ Literatures: Reconfiguring Confinement in the Works of Déwé Gorodé and Claudine Jacques.” Romance Notes. (accepted and forthcoming 2016)
• “’Ton corps est ton pays’: Corporeality, Narration, and [Imagi]Nation in Ari’irau Richard’s Matamimi, ou La vie nous attend.” (submitted to French Forum)

Works in Progress

• “Une écocritique océanienne? Des réponses aux injustices environnementales dans la littérature de l’Océanie francophone.” Interculturel Francophonies (2017).
• Corporeal Archipelagos: Writing the Body in Kanaky-New Caledonia and Te Ao Mā’ohi (French Polynesia).
• • “Literature, or the Traveling Tattoo: Stéphanie Ari’irau Richard and Déwé Gorodé’s Mobile Manuscripts.” Francosphères 2017.

Research Conference Presentations

• “Teaching in the Interstices: Investigating Gendered Violence in Women’s Literature of French Expression.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, January 2017.
• “An Oceanic Ecofeminism? Environmental Engagement in Claudine Jacques’s L’Âge du perroquet-banane, Parabole païenne.” 70th Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 2016.
• “Une vie avortée, une mère manquée? Abortion, Motherhood, and Identity in Ari’irau Richard’s Je reviendrai à Tahiti and Matamimi, ou La vie nous attend.” 8th Annual International Women in French Conference, Gettysburg College, June 2016.
• “Corporeal Confrontations: Encountering the Oceanic Body in the Writings of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Nicolas Bricaire de la Dixmerie, and Denis Diderot.” 2016 Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference. University of California, Riverside, February 2016.
• “’Ton corps est ton pays’: Corporeality and Country in Ari’irau’s Matamimi, ou La vie nous attend” on the Women in French panel “Narrating Corporeality in Francophone Literature and Film.” 69th Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 2015.
• “Des féminismes océaniens?” on the panel “Ecriture au féminin.” 28e Congrès du Conseil International d’Études Francophones. Winnipeg, Canada, June 2015.
• “‘Quand l’oral confronte enfin l’écrit’ ou quand la littérature fait savoir en Océanie.” 2015 International Colloquium on Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries French and Francophone Studies. Baton Rouge, LA, February 2015.
• “‘Amazones de la parole’: Journal Writing, the Epistolary Genre, and la parole in Déwé Gorodé’s Graines de pin colonnaire” on the Women in French panel “Repenser ‘l’épistolarité.’” 68th Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. Boise, ID, October 2014.
• “La construction des voix féminines océaniennes dans les oeuvres de Déwé Gorodé et Chantal T. Spitz” on the panel “Transformations et constructions au féminin dans le roman d’expression française.” 27e Congrès du Conseil International d’Études Francophones. San Francisco, CA, July 2014.
• “Institutionalized Bodies: Confinement in the Works of Déwé Gorodé and Claudine Jacques.” Hawai‘i University International Conferences: Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences Conference. Honolulu, HI, January 2013.
• “Sexual Violence and the Female Oceanic Body: A Study of Déwé Gorodé’s L’Épave and Claudine Jacques’s Nouméa Mangrove” in the Women in French panel “Performing Gender.” 66th Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. Boulder, CO, October 2012.
• “Rupturing Silence in the Works of Chantal T. Spitz.” 47th Annual Comparative Literature Conference, California State University. Long Beach, CA, March 2012.
• “Manifestation d’une crise identitaire: l’alcool et la folie dans deux oeuvres antillaises.” 24e Congrès du Conseil International d’Etudes Francophones. Montréal, Québec, July 2010.
• “Barbarie incestueuse: étude du déterminisme héréditaire dans L’espérance-macadam de Gisèle Pineau.” University of Santa Barbara Graduate Student Conference “Hasard et Destin.” Santa Barbara, CA, May 2010.
• “Discursive Space and the Antillean Identity Quest in Two Novels by Simone Schwarz-Bart.” University of Maryland Graduate Student Conference, “Space and Transculturality.” College Park, MD, April 2010.