Research
Research excellence defines the faculty of the Department of French and Italian. Our scholars are nationally and internationally recognized for their contributions to literature and culture from the Middle Ages through the twenty-first century, including visual culture and film. Their work combines intellectual rigor with theoretical innovation, drawing on frameworks such as psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, cultural and intellectual history, postcolonial and narrative theory, feminist theory, and the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Agamben, and others to explore cultural, aesthetic, political, and historical phenomena. Many faculty members have been recognized for their contributions through appointments at the Northwestern Kaplan Center for the Humanities, prestigious national awards such as Modern Language Association book prizes, National Endowment for the Humanities and Mellon New Directions fellowships, and residential fellowships at leading institutions including the National Humanities Center, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, and Princeton’s Davis Center for Historical Studies.
Interdisciplinarity drives our approach. Faculty collaborate with programs including African Studies, Comparative Literary Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and Screen Culture, bringing multiple perspectives to their research. These connections foster scholarship that crosses traditional boundaries and encourages innovative inquiry across fields.
Global engagement shapes our research horizons. Our faculty’s interests extend far beyond France and Italy to span Francophone literatures of the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, and Southeast Asia, alongside comparative studies in England, Germany, China, and Japan. This expansive reach reflects the department’s commitment to broadening scholarly perspectives and engaging multiple cultural and intellectual traditions.