Summer 2019 Faculty
Fredrik Rönnbäck - Paris Reflections and French 10![]()
Fredrik Rönnbäck received his Ph.D. in French literature from New York University with a dissertation on the poetics of mourning in the works of Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris and Maurice Blanchot. He also holds an M.A. in literature from Uppsala Universitet. He teaches literature and the history of ideas at multiple campuses in Paris. His current research focuses on the importance of forgery in postwar French politics and aesthetics. He has translated several works by Georges Perec into Swedish and his co-translation, with Matthew Amos, of Pascal Quignard's The Hatred of Music was recently published by Yale University Press. In 2015 he contributed to the exhibition catalogue for Leiris & Co. at Centre Pompidou Metz. He frequently writes about literature for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
Cynthia Tolentino – The Cultural Politics of Food in Paris
Cynthia Tolentino taught courses on culture for almost fifteen years at universities in the United States (Columbia University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Oregon). She holds a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University. Her publications include a book, America's Experts: Race and the Fictions of Sociology, and several articles in literary and postcolonial studies journals. In France full time since 2012, she teaches at Sciences Po and is conducting research on narratives of study abroad.
Christina von Koehler – Paris as Palimpsest
The recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for Research in France on the Paris Opera, she holds an M.A. in Political Economy from Columbia University’s School of International Affairs and an M.Phil in Modern European History from the City University of New York. A former dancer and arts administrator, she has curated and written the catalogues for several exhibitions, including “La Fontaine: The Power of Fables” at the New York Public Library. She has taught history and civilization courses at Baruch College and John Jay College in New York, at the UC Paris Center program, at New York University in Paris, and at the Paris campus of D.C.’s American University. She also lectures on opera and ballet for Stanford University in Paris.
Carole Viers-Andronico – French 12 AB
Carole Viers-Andronico received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008 with a dissertation applying methodologies from translation studies and philosophies of aesthetics to texts produced by members of the Parisian literary group OULIPO. She is currently Academic Coordinator for the UC Paris Center programs in French Language and Culture and French and European Studies and has taught French language and literature courses at the UC Paris Center program, Comparative Literature courses at the University of California, Los Angeles and California State University, Long Beach, as well as French and Italian language and literature courses at Tulane University. She is also a literary translator.
Léa Scattolin - French 23 AB
Léa Scattolin has taught French language courses at the UC Paris Center program since 2007. She holds both an M.A. in French as a Second Language and an M.A. in Communication & Publishing, which she combined with a third degree in Applied Foreign Languages (German, English and Polish), from the University of Paris Sorbonne. She has taught French language and civilization courses to international students from around the world, including American students from Columbia University at Reid Hall, New York University in France, Carleton College and Center for University Programs Abroad.
Sabrina Petitjean – French 34 AB
Sabrina Petitjean received her M.A. in applied linguistics and phonetics from the University of Paris Sorbonne in 2004. She followed this degree with a year of specialization in didactics in languages and cultures. Since 2004, she has taught French language and civilization, as well as phonetics, in many international academic programs. She has had the opportunity to teach students from many American universities such as UC, Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown. She is also a trainer in argumentative techniques and teaches writing to advanced students, studying at French universities. Since 2006, she teaches French for specific purposes (business, diplomacy, media and culture) to international business schools such as H.E.C. In 2008 she joined the teaching staff of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris and is now a member of the jury's assessment of French language exams, such as TEF.
Claudia Fontu- French 45 AB
Claudia Fontu received her M.A. in French Literature and her M.A. in American Literature from the University of Paris Sorbonne III in 2006. Her PhD at the University of Paris Sorbonne III is in progress. She has taught French language and civilisation classes at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and has taught French language classes at the UC Paris Center program, at Franklin and Marshall College in Paris, at University of Florida in Paris, as well as French literature classes at the University of Southern California in Paris. Since 2010 she has also taught French language courses and is a teacher trainer at the Department of French Language Didactics at the Institute of Linguistics, Paris. A former journalist, she translated three books of Romanian poetry into French. She is also a painter.
Caroline Laurent – French 56 AB
Caroline D. Laurent received her BA from The American University of Paris and her MPhil from the University of Cambridge, Christ’s College. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Romance Languages and Literatures department at Harvard University. Her dissertation examines the representation of genocide, more specifically the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, in recent French and Francophone literature by non-witnesses. She is doing research in Paris through an exchange program with the Ecole Normale Supérieure. She has taught various language and literature classes at Harvard, as well as a history of psychiatry course.
Pierre Bras–French 60/101 and Pre-ILP Practicum
After earning a Ph.D in Law from the Université de Montpellier, Dr. Pierre Bras went to study in the United States, where he received a Ph.D in French from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has taught French language and civilization classes at the UC Paris French and European Studies program, as well as French literature and French language classes at all undergraduate levels at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Centre College (Kentucky), where he worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor. His dissertation, entitled Law and its Diversions in Modern and Contemporary French Literature, addresses the works of Honoré de Balzac, Marcel Proust, and Albert Cohen. Dr. Bras is also interested in the works of Simone de Beauvoir. In 2011, he edited the proceedings of the International Conference on “Simone de Beauvoir et la psychanalyse” which was held in Paris in March 2010. More recently, he has developed his passion for contemporary art by collaborating with the Spanish artist Pilar Albarracin, with whom he published a catalogue, Le Duende Volé [The Purloined Duende], in 2012.