DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN

Thaïs Autin is a Ph.D. student in the department of French and Italian.

Her research interests include 20^th and 21^st century North and West African francophone literature, as well as 19^th and 21^st century French literature. She mainly works on migration, diaspora, exile, gender, language, nation, and national myths.

Thaïs received her Licence L.L.C.E.R. Anglais (Rennes 2) and her Licence in Philosophie (Rennes 1) after two years of “prépa” in Gabriel Guisth’au, Nantes. She also holds a Master L.C.E.R. Anglais (R2) with an enunciative and contrastive linguistics concentration, however she realized that her true calling was in fact literature. She thus graduated with a M.A. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her Master’s thesis focuses on the following topic: “What is a Nation? Colonial Legacies, Identity, and Reclaiming in Métisse Autobiographical Narratives – A Comparative Study of Sugar and Slate and Garçon manqué”.

In addition to her academic work, Thaïs particularly enjoys teaching. She was an Instructor of French, and president of the French Club during her years at UNM.