About

Madeline Bedecarré, Ph.D École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

Madeline Bedecarré, Visiting Lecturer of French, is a specialist of Francophone African literature and the sociology of culture. She studies the relationship between politics and literature. Her current book project, Prized Possessions: Institutional Francophonie & the Recognition of Francophone African Writers, explores the stakes of literary prizes. Her research interests include cultural diplomacy, the relationship between institutions & literature, literary prize culture, and the legacies of French colonialism.

She is a published translator and is working on a translation of the French historian Anne-Marie Thiesse’s important study, The Creation of National Identities. Her translations have been published in Research in African Literatures;  Poetics; & Sociologica.

At Bates she has offered a Community-Engaged Course with support from the Harward Center.  In partnership with the Lewiston Public Library, her students created a bilingual (French-English) conversation exchange program with local French-speaking immigrants.

As the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Francophone Studies at Bowdoin College she organized a translation workshop as well as a community-engaged course in partnership with French-speaking asylum seekers from Hope House in Portland, Maine. She has also taught in Clermont-Ferrand, Rouen & Paris, France.

Teaching

French 235 “Advanced French Language and The Rhetoric of Cinema”

French 240 “Borders and Disorders in French and Francophone Literature and Film”

French 208 “Introduction to the Francophone World”

French 201 “Elementary French I”

French 101 “Intermediate French”

Recent senior essay mentored

“Le racisme systémique dans le cinéma français contemporain” (2020)

Publications (selection)

• The Journal of World Literature, volume 5 (2020): Issue 2 (May 2020)
• “Apprendre à écrire? Des formations américaines de creative writing aux masters de création littéraire en France.” in Profession ? Écrivain, edited by Gisèle Sapiro and Cécile Rabot, p.193-210. CNRS Editions, 2017.

Conflicted writing: NGOs, African Literature and Autonomy. Review of Au-dessous du volcan

Review of Publishing Africa in French by Ruth Bush. Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature. Vol.43, Issue 1, 2018. 

On Twitter: @MBedecarre