Modern Languages

Céline Brossillon
Céline Brossillon

Céline Brossillon

Dr. Céline Brossillon joined the Department of Modern Languages at Ursinus College as an Assistant Professor of French in 2015. She received her Ph.D. in French literature and culture from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris in 2011, and has taught French language, and Francophone culture and literature at various institutions, including Harvard University, Princeton University and Williams College. Her work focuses on the crisis of masculinity at the end of the 19th c, and the connection between solitude and madness in French and Francophone literature. She is particularly interested in deviant behaviors that result from overextended isolation. Her research engages with multiple fields such as cultural anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, and psychiatry.

She is the Coordinator of the Comparative and Global Literatures Minor.

Affiliations:

- Nineteenth Century Studies Association (Board Member)

- Nineteenth Century LLC MLA Forum (Executive Member)

- Nineteenth-Century Studies Network

- Nineteenth-Century French Studies

- Women in French

Department

Modern Languages

Degrees

Doctorate in French Literature and Culture - Université Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle

M.A. in French Literature and Culture - Université Stendhal-Grenoble III

M.A. in British, American and African-American Literature and Culture - Université François Rabelais

Teaching

  • French 101-102: Beginner French I & II

  • French 111-112: Intermediate French I & II

  • Common Intellectual experience (taught in English)

  • French 201: Communicating in French

  • French 202: Introduction to writing in French

  • French 251: Introduction to French and Francophone Literature

  • French 252: The Francophone World

  • French 317: Contemporary European Culture : France, Belgium and Switzerland

  • French 328: Grammar and Translation

  • French 440W (Capstone): French and Francophone Literature and Culture Seminar

  • IDS: Literature from the Francophone World (taught in English)

  • IDS-301-C: 19th c Female Voices (taught in English)

  • Independent Studies/Honors Theses:

    • “L’Enfer, c’est les autres”: Le Cycle de l’absurde

    • “La Maladie féminine: Le genre, l’hérédité, et le milieu dans trois romans d’Émile Zola

    • Les Réfugiés et les droits de l’homme en Europe francophone

    • Oppression ou occupation: Prostitution en France et droit international

    • La Construction littéraire du genre dans les romans féminins d’expression française au 19ème siècle: George Sand, Rachilde et Renée Vivien

Professional Experience

2024-present: Coordinator, Comparative and Global Literatures

2015-present: Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Ursinus College

2014-2015: Adjunct Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Rider University

2013-2014: Visiting Assistant Professor of French, Dickinson College

2010-2013: Visiting Assistant Professor of French, Williams College

2008-2010: Lecturer of French, Princeton University

2005-2008: French Teacher, United Nations International School

2001-2005: Lecturer of French, Harvard University

Research Interests

Nineteenth-Century French, British, American and African-American Literature and Culture

World War II in France (Shoah, GI presence in France, Franco-German relationships)

Recent Work

Recent publications:

“Solitary Confinement in Rachilde’s ‘La Tour d’amour’: Dehumanization and Madness of the Buried Alive”, in The Palgrave Handbook of Transnational Women’s Writing in the Long Nineteenth Century, Claire Emilie Martin and Clorinda Donato (eds.), Palgrave MacMillan, 2024, pp. 395-412.

L’Amour des Morts: Love with Ghosts, Vampires and Other Dead(ly) Beings in the Francophone 19th Century (ed.), FRENCH FORUM 47.1, Spring 2022. https://journals.pennpress.org/french-forum/home

Le Taureau triste: La Solitude du célibataire de Maupassant, CNRS, 2021. Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/taureau-triste-solitude-c%C3%A9libataire-Maupassant/dp/2271116791

“The figure of the ‘Horla’ in Guy de Maupassant’s short stories: from isolation and alienation to annihilation”, Dix-Neuf, Vol. 21.1, Fall 2016: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZBfpeDDRXyKH4TCjX5BW/full 

 “L’Assommoir de Zola: des bêtes humaines assommées par la solitude”, Excavatio, Vol. XXVIII: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~aizen/excavatio/journal.html