Skip to main content

Department of
French and Italian

Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller

Associate Professor of French and Jewish Studies

Specializations

  • Contemporary Theater (France, Maghreb and the Middle East)
  • Arab-Jewish Relations
  • Immigration and Minorities in France
  • The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • Gender Studies and Feminisms

Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller’s research focuses on 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone literature, with particular emphasis on North African and Middle Eastern Arab-Muslim and Jewish writers. Central to her scholarship is the study of contemporary theater as a site of critical engagement, where literary and performance practices address pressing issues such as religious extremism, antisemitism, racism, and social division. Her work highlights how theater fosters dialogue across communities and challenges dominant cultural and political narratives.

Drawing on feminist theory and Jewish Studies, she also examines how literature and performance illuminate the complex relationships between Jews and Arab-Muslims in France, particularly in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She further explores the formation of minority and gender identities in contemporary French and Francophone contexts, with attention to the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, and the tensions these reveal within the universalist model of the French Republic.

Her research is closely integrated with her teaching, for which she received the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University.


Representative Publications

Books

              Ed. Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller, New York: Routledge, 2010.

              Les éditions du Cerf, Paris: June 2007.

Articles

  • “L’acteur : paradoxe de ‘l’intrus.’” Présence d’Albert Camus, Société des Etudes Camusiennes Press (Paris), 18, (Septembre 2026).
  •  “Envols contre les murs du clan : Tous des oiseaux de Wajdi Mouawad.” Symposium : A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, Syracuse University Press (Routledge), 79 (4), (Winter 2025): 493–508.
  • “Ode à l’ennemi par temps de catastrophe.” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Ed. Minard (Paris), “Posterity of Albert Camus.” Numéro 26 Série Albert Camus, (Winter 2024): 261-275.
  • “Franchir les obstacles murés dans Le Quatrième mur de Chalandon.” Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature, 47 (4), (Winter 2023): 29-40.
  • “Équivoques de l’oubli après Vichy.” French Politics, Culture & Society (NYU), 41 (2), (Summer 2023): 48-70.
  • “‘Tumor of Memory’ in Fabrice Humbert’s The Origin of Violence.” In Emerging Trends in Third-Generation Holocaust Literature. Eds. Alan Berger and Lucas Wilson. Lexington: Lexington Books, Lexington Studies in Jewish Literature Series, 2023.
  • “Chahdortt Djavann et la honte sexuelle du “surmusulman.” L’Esprit créateur : The International Quarterly of French and Francophone Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press, 59 (3), (Fall 2019): 99-113.
  • “Mémoires d’outre-tombe de Philippe Grimbert.” Sigila: Revue Transdisciplinaire Franco-Portugaise, Edition Gris-France et CNL (Spring-Summer 2018): 47-56.
  • “Jabès’s Poetic Theogony and Levinas’s Receptivity.” Journal of Jewish Identities, Johns Hopkins University Press, (July 2016): 119-138.
  • “‘Neither Victims nor Executioners’ in Hubert Haddad’s Palestine.” South Central Review, Johns Hopkins University Press, 32 (2) (Summer 2015): 67-92.
  • “Bernard Lazare: du franco-judaïsme au prophétisme romantique.” French Historical Studies, Duke University Press, 37 (1) (Winter 2014): 89-116.
  • Mohamed Kacimi’s Holy Land and the Banality of Terror.” MLN (Modern Language Notes), Johns Hopkins University Press. 128 (Fall 2013): 848-67.
  • “Parcours historique des féminismes intellectuels français depuis Beauvoir.” Contemporary French Civilization, Liverpool University Press, 38 (1) (Spring 2013): 23-46.
  • “Proust et Levinas: La fatigue de la nuit.” In Lecteurs de Proust au XXème siècle. Ed. Joseph Brami. Paris : Editions Minard, (December 2010): 151-172.
  • “France and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” In Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Francophone World. Ed. Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller. New York: Routledge, 2010.
  • “Le ‘malgérien’ d’Hélène Cixous.” MLN (Modern Language Notes), Johns Hopkins University Press, 124 (4) (September 2009): 848-867.
  • “Crypts of Hélène Cixous’ Past.” Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature, 33 (1) (Winter 2009): 28-46.
  • “Hélène Cixous, la passante de l’histoire.” Dalhousie French Studies, 84 (October 2008): 89-99.
  • “L’amour transi de Simone de Beauvoir.” In Simone de Beauvoir à Cent Ans de sa Naissance. Ed. Thomas Stauder. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen: collection “Edition Lendemains” (December 2008): 141-159.
  • “L’Oeil de Dieu: Levinas lisant Jabès.” In Edmond Jabès: L’éclosion des énigmes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes (December 2007): 117-132.
  • “Hélène Cixous: A Sojourn without Place.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies/Sites, 11 (2) (April 2007): 253-264.
  • “La ‘Conscience d’un cri’ dans la poétique de Jabès.” French Forum, University of Pennsylvania Press, 30 (2) (2005): 97-119.
  • “L’Infidèle chez Edmond Jabès.” Plurielles, Paris X-Nanterre and Ed. du Manuscrit, 12 (December 2005): 135-150.
  • “The Tree of Consciousness: The Shekhinah in Edmond Jabès’s Yaël.” Literature & Theology, Oxford University Press, 17 (4) (2003): 388-406.
  • “Au carrefour de la négritude et du judaïsme: Moi, Tituba Sorcière. . . Noire de Salem de Maryse Condé.” Romanic Review, Columbia University Press, 90 (2) (1999): 223-233.