Olivia Choplin

Associate Professor of French in the Department of World Languages & Cultures

Department: World Languages and Cultures

Carlton Building, Office 105 2125 Campus Box Elon, NC 27244

Brief Biography

Olivia Choplin received her Ph.D. in French Literature with a Minor in Psychoanalytic Studies from Emory University in 2009 and joined Elon's faculty that same year. Her teaching and research interests include foreign language pedagogy, French theater (from the farces of the Middle Ages to the post-dramatic theater of contemporary France), psychoanalytic theory, contemporary Québécois literature, and literature of the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. She loves bringing theater into the foreign language classroom. Her favorite city in France is Nantes, where she taught and studied for three years after her undergraduate studies and met her husband. Some of her favorite aspects of French and Francophone culture include smelly cheese, crêpes, bilingual puns and play with words, and the belief that governments have a responsibility to support and cultivate the arts.

News & Notes

Education

Ph.D. in French Literature (Minor in Psychoanalytic Studies), Emory University 2009.

Dissertation: “Staging the Psyche: Representing the “Other Scene” in the Theater of Michel Tremblay, Marie NDiaye, and Wajdi Mouawad”

Diplôme d’Études Approfondies in Identités Linguistiques, Images Nationales et Transferts Culturels. Université de Nantes, 2003.

Thesis : « Silence : Le mot, le concept, et la mise en scène dans le théâtre de Tennessee Williams et de Michel Tremblay »

Maîtrise de Lettres Modernes, Université de Nantes, 2002

Thesis : « Du Refus global au réalisme magique :« PLACE A LA MAGIE ! » dans les Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal de Michel Tremblay », mention très bien

B.A. in French and English, summa cum laude, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, 2000.

Research

Professor Choplin's research interests include contemporary French and Francophone theater, literature and psychoanalysis, Québécois literature (particularly immigrant literature of Québec), Francophone Caribbean literature, second-language acquisition pedagogy, and the use of theater in the second-language classroom. She has published articles on Québécois playwrights Michel Tremblay and Wajdi Mouawad, and is currently working on a book project related to the representation of traumatic memory in Haitian-Québécois literature.

Publications

“Remembering and Forgetting the Duvaliers,” Journal of Haitian Studies (Spring 2019).

“Traces of Trauma in Wajdi Mouawad’s Forêts.” The French Review. Volume 91, No. 4, 2018.

“French Theater in Production: Lessons from an Intensive Course.” The French Review, Volume 88, No.2, December 2014.

“Staging the Structure of Traumatic Experience in Michel Tremblay’s A toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou.” American Review of Canadian Studies, Volume 44, Issue 1, 2014.

“Où placer les bombes ? Art and Violence in Wajdi Mouawad’s Le sang des promesses” Québec Studies Volume 54, Fall 2012/Winter 2013.

“The Playwright’s Autre Scène in Michel Tremblay’s Le vrai monde?” French Forum, Volume 34, No.2 (2009).

Presentations

Selected recent presentations include:

“‘La littérature québécoise voyage’: the World in Contemporary Québécois Texts.” American Council for Québec Studies Biennial Colloquium. New Orleans, LA. November 2018.

“History, Her Stories: Uncovering Women’s History in the Works of Marie-Célie Agnant and Jan J. Dominique.” AATF Annual Convention. July 18-22. Trois Îlets, Martinique.

“Enigmatic and Impossible Returns in Haitian-Québécois Literature.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Atlanta, GA. November 2017.

“Haiti-Québec Connections in an Intermediate French Course.” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Biennial Conference. Las Vegas, NV. October 2017.

“Teaching Students to See Their Own Culture in World Language Courses” with Ketevan Kupatadze and Kristina Meinking. (Re)imagining Humanities Teaching: Innovations in Course Design. Kansas City, MO. June 8-10, 2017.

“Historian-Witness and Journalist Commentator: The Narrative Voices of Marie-Célie Agnant and Dany Laferrière.” American Council for Quebec Studies Biennial Colloquium. Portland, ME. November 2016.

“Using Student Reflection to Achieve Deeper and More Visible Learning.” International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference. Los Angeles, CA. October 2016.

“Coding Student Learning in the Humanities: “Close Reading” for Teaching and Learning.” 13th Annual Teaching and Learning Conference. Elon, NC. August 2016.

“Living With(in) Madness in the Works of Abla Farhoud.” 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium. St. Louis, MO. March 2016.