Curriculum Vitae

Bonnie Griffin Curriculum Vitae

CURRICULUM VITAE

EDUCATION

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

PhD in French Literature, in progress (ABD)

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

MA in French Literature, 2015-2017

Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington, 2011-2015

BA with Honors, French and Global Studies

DISSERTATION

Dissertation: Voyages Towards Utopia: Mapping Utopian Spaces in Early-Modern French Prose

This dissertation analyzes prominent works of seventeenth and eighteenth-century prose featuring imaginary voyages to utopias. Such works were consulted in the Vanderbilt Wachs Collection and the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, among others. These journeys possess both a physical component (to a place) and an allegorical component (to an ideal). Just as the voyage to the utopia features an arduous adventure littered with obstacles, the attainment of a gendered or sexual ideal entails a similarly dynamic process. The gendered ideals articulated in these works alternately upheld, complicated, and subverted societal expectations of the period governing both gender and sexuality.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Gabriel Foigny’s La Terre Australe Connue (1676) and the Destabilization of Gender in the Voyage Imaginaire,” at University of Kentucky, Lexington’s Languages, Literatures and Cultures Conference, French and Francophone Studies, April 11-13th, 2019

“Over the Moon: How Cyrano de Bergerac’s États et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil (1657) Infuses Science Fiction with Queer Utopia,” at University of North Carolina’s Carolina Conference on Romance Studies, Visions and Revisions: Romance Utopias and Dystopias, April 5-7, 2018

“Jef Geeraerts and the Contamination of Identity: Writing and Righting Colony and Criminality” at Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio Mar 31st- Apr 1st, 2017

Everything but the Words: Introducing Students to Old Books” at the Tennessee Foreign Language Teaching Association Conference in Franklin, Tennessee Nov 4-5, 2016.

“From Fear, to Anger, to Rebirth: Reading Kincaid as a Response to Sartre” at the University of California at Los Angeles’ 21st Annual French & Francophone Studies Graduate Student Conference: Fear. Oct 20- 21, 2016

“Shock, Subversion and the Belgian Congo: Jef Geeraerts as a Queer Colonial Anti-Hero?” at the University of Georgia’s Crossroads: Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, Feb 5-6, 2016

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Vanderbilt University, Department of French and Italian

  • Co-Teacher — teaching assistant, syllabus and lesson plan design collaborator, assistant with designing exams and grading
    • “Age of Louis XIV,” Literature and History, Spring 2019
  • Instructor of Record – sole instructor, responsible for teaching, assigning grades
    • Accelerated Introductory French, Fall 2018
    • Beginner French, Semester 2, Spring 2018
    • Beginner French, Semester 1, Fall 2017
    • Beginner French, Semester 2, Spring 2017
    • Beginner French, Semester 1, Fall 2016
  • Teaching Assistant Apprenticeship – assistant with designing exams, grading essays, guest lecturer
  • Texts and Contexts: Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, Fall 2017
  • Teaching Assistant- designing quizzes, grading papers
  • Accelerated Introductory French, Fall 2015

Vanderbilt University, Program for Talented Youth, Vanderbilt Summer Academy

  • Course designer- planning syllabi and lesson plans for proposed class
  • “Mapping Mentalities: From Idyllic Paradises to Monstrous Creatures,” Summer 2019
  • “Le Voyage Imaginaire: Voyage Accounts, French History, Critical Enquiry,” Summer 2019

Vanderbilt University, Department of Economics

  • Course Assistant – interpreter while in Normandy, assistant to professor, guest lecturer
  • “Maymester”, “War, Plunder, and Pillage, and Other Economic Conflicts” with Dr. Driskill (London and Normandy), May 2018
  • “Maymester, “War, Plunder, and Pillage, and Other Economic Conflicts” with Dr. Driskill (London and Normandy), May 2017

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Government Documents Student Assistant, Vanderbilt Central Library, Summer 2019

  • Processing and organizing of government documents, including books, maps, microfilm, microfiche, and special materials

Graduate Student Assistant at the Vanderbilt Center for Second Language Studies, Fall 2017- Fall 2019

  • Directing the “Active Pedagogy” working group Fall 2018
  • Organizing “Yoga in French” sessions (Spring 2017)
  • Contributions to Language Panda online teaching resource
  • Organizing weekly “Café Français” conversation table and weekly tutoring

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities Graduate Student Fellowship, 2019-2020
  • Vanderbilt University, Department of French Italian Travel Grant to Present Research, 2019
  • Vanderbilt University, University Graduate Fellowship 2015- present
  • Pichois Summer Awards for Travel and Research, 2017
  • Vanderbilt Graduate School Travel Grant to Present Research, 2016, 2017, 2018

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Invited speaker at the Gender-Sexuality Alliance at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, TN 10/30/2018

Volunteer with Trans Buddy (Vanderbilt), Fall 2018- present

Introducing film “Tomboy” at the Vanderbilt French Film Festival (2018)

TRANSLATION

Translation and research for article by Ingrid Wuerth, “Immunity from Execution of Central Bank Assets” The Cambridge Handbook of Immunities and International Law (Tom Ruys, Nicolas Angelet, Luca Ferro, eds.) (2018 Forthcoming)

CURATORIAL PROJECT

Curator and Presenter in “Sensuality and Textuality: Experiencing the 18th Century book” as a part of the library exhibition, “The Campus Curates: Illumination, Enlightenment and Discovery,” at Vanderbilt Central Library for 18th-Century Literature: Rethinking the Enlightenment Novel with Dr. Roman

OTHER EXPERIENCE

Formatting and editing for Dr. Miller project on Haiti, “Voyage dans le Nord d’Hayti, ou Révélation des Lieux et des Monuments Historiques” by Hérard-Dumesle (2016)

Transcribed interviews for Dr. Barsky from dialogue with organization Avukah (2016)