Bénédicte Monicat

Bénédicte Monicat

Professor of French and Women's Studies
437 Burrowes Building
Bénédicte Monicat

Fields

Nineteenth-Century Women Writers, Travel Narratives, Children's Literature, Scientific vulgarization, Feminist Theory

Education

Ph.D., University of Maryland, 1990
M.A., University of Maryland, 1986
B.A., License ès Lettres, Université Sorbonne-Paris IV, 1984

Professional Bio

Professor Monicat’s research focuses on women's writings in Nineteenth-Century France, with an emphasis on the questions that arise when examining gender through the lens of literary genres. Her readings of travel narratives, children's literature, and instructional books combine literary history and genre analysis to think through patterns of gender constraints and disruptions in women's writings. Through extensive bibliographical work, she also aims to illuminate the rich creative and intellectual areas women legitimately did make theirs. This wide-ranging exploration of women's active participation in the literary and intellectual life of the nation wants to account for and provide an analysis of women's relation to creativity and knowledge production in contexts that prove critical not only to our understanding of women's writings throughout the period, but also to contemporary theoretical reflections (feminist theories more particularly). Her publications include Itinéraires de l’écriture au féminin: voyageuses du 19e siècle (Rodopi, 1996) and Devoirs d’écriture : modèles d’histoires pour filles et littérature féminine au XIXsiècle (Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2006).

Current and recent Courses

  • FR 566: Women Writers in Nineteenth-Century France
  • FR 564: Figures of Alterity in Nineteenth-Century French Literature
  • FR 597: Éduquer et instruire: Histoires de femmes, histoire des femmes
  • FR 475: Women’s History in Post-revolutionary France
  • FR 452Y: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
  • FR430: Contemporary France
  • FR 202: Grammar and Composition
  • FR 201: Oral Communication and Reading Comprehension
  • WMNST 003: Introduction to Women, the Humanities, and the Arts
  • WMNST 400: Feminist Theory