Diversity and Inclusion Statement

As someone whose work focuses on marginalized experiences, my scholarly practice is intimately connected to my commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. This commitment translates concretely into my research and into my past and present social engagement, as attested by my experience working for an NGO in rural India or serving as a Representative for International Students at Brown for two years. I am currently still running a student group, Brown War Watch, dedicated to the double purpose of opening a scholarly and critical dialogue about American militarism at Brown and of supporting members of our community whose lives have been affected by war and hostile foreign policies. In the classroom, I strive to create a dynamic and inclusive community in which all – especially minority, low income and first generation students – feel empowered to discuss and learn as a group, through writing, dialogue and collaboration.

 

To guarantee that all students benefit equally from the class and from assignments, regardless of their linguistic or academic background, I embrace an individualized and progressive approach to assessment and reward self-improvement alongside overall performance. I make sure that students receive abundant and actionable feedback from their peers and from me. In my language courses, I practice a double-grading policy for all essays, which allows students to revise and resubmit their work after I have corrected it a first time. In more advanced courses, I have students participate to an online class blog where they exchange their reactions to the material without my intervention. I have found that this practice makes them more receptive during class and creative in their written responses. At the end of the semester, students are then invited to review their journal entries and compile them in a final portfolio to be submitted alongside their final project, giving them a concrete way of measuring their own progress.

​

To further develop students’ writing skills, I similarly encourage them to engage with modes of expression they might find more familiar or comfortable (like journal writing, performance, or visual arts). In an advanced undergraduate course on Faulkner, this included adapting the final assignment for a first-generation student who struggled with essay writing. In the end, the student produced a series of remarkable pastel paintings inspired by the novels we had read during the semester and wrote a shorter essay describing his work in connection to the class. He felt more confident and his writing had improved significantly.

​

I strive to give my research and publications the utmost social relevance. I am particularly attentive to denounce the permanence of socio-cultural mechanisms of exclusion and oppression throughout history and to highlight the political potential of alternative epistemologies and modes of resistance, like in the works of Jewish, Amazigh and Arab women I explore in my dissertation. As a professor, I hope to establish a sustained transdisciplinary collaboration to develop courses and initiatives that strengthen the necessary link between the Humanities and social justice. I am particularly excited about developing interdisciplinary courses that situate Francophone studies within a global framework, at the intersection of postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality studies, and ethnicity and race studies.