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French and Italian

Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller

Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller
Associate Professor of French and Jewish Studies

20th-21st Century Francophone Literature and Culture

Feminist Theory

n.debrau@vanderbilt.edu

 

Education

Ph.D., Emory University
D.E.A., University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
Maîtrise, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
Licence, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
D.E.A. certificates, Program of Judaic Studies, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
Maîtrise certificate, Program of Judaic Studies, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France

Research Interests

My research focuses on 20th & 21st French and Francophone Literature (North African Arab-Muslim and Jewish writers), feminism, and Jewish studies: especially the relationship between Jews and Arab-Muslims in France and the way it reflects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More recently I have been working on the representations of terrorism in Francophone literature.

The common denominator in my research is the interrogation of minority and gender identities in the French context. Since the French Revolution, the republican model based on a “universalist” system has been considered the guarantor of identity, and micro-identitarian racial, ethnic, religious or gender categories fall beyond the umbrella of “citizen” and are regarded with suspicion. This republican rhetoric starts to fall into crisis since the fifth republic and even more so since the 1990s. Racial and ethnic issues have increasingly occupied center stage since then, as have questions of gender and sexuality. They are part of the same movement–the double figure of a gendered and “racialized” republic.

The dual concern of my research, then, is to gauge these identities while at the same time exploring the conditions of this rift in French society between the republican model and the politics of micro-identities. Therefore my work on 20th & 21st French and Francophone contributes to the ongoing interpretation of this crisis of the French republican model in a pluralistic society that includes the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe.

Teaching

I have taught numerous courses at the University of Maryland, Emory University, North Carolina State University and at Duke University. Here at Vanderbilt, I teach the following courses:

  • Minority Issues & Immigration in France
  • French Feminisms from de Beauvoir to the Present
  • Jewish Intellectuals in Post-Dreyfus France
  • Jews and Arab-Muslims in France
  • Struggle of Encounter: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Francophone Literature
  • Les Vicissitudes des intellectuels juifs en France (XIXème et XXème)
  • “Question” d’Edmond Jabès (Levinas, Blanchot, Derrida)
  • Héritage dispersé de la littérature française du XIX et XXème siècle
  • Introduction to French Literature
  • French Feminist Thought: Literary and Critical
  • Textes & Contextes: From the Revolution to the Present
  • Textes & Contextes: From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

In September of 2008 I was honored to receive “The Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the Humanities” by the College of Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University.

Representative Publications

Books

“Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Francophone World”
Ed. Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller, New York: Routledge, 2010.

 

 

 

 

“Envisager Dieu avec Edmond Jabès”
Les éditions du Cerf, Paris: June 2007.

 

 

 

 

Articles

“Ode à l’ennemi par temps de catastrophe.” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Ed. Minard (Paris), “Posterity of Albert Camus.” Numéro 26 Série Albert Camus. Forthcoming in 2024.

“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.