Women’s Studies, Translation Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, South Pacific Literature in French
Office: Moore Hall 491 | Phone: (808) 956-4186
Email: nsegeral@hawaii.edu
I am Associate Professor of French studies in the Department of Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas and an Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at UH-Mānoa. My research weaves together feminism, the Holocaust, comparative genocide studies, and trauma theory. I focus on motherhood studies in the wake of trauma in contemporary French and Francophone literature (especially Tahiti, New Caledonia, and Rwanda). I also work in the field of translation theory and practice. I am the co-editor of Trauma and Motherhood in Contemporary Literature and Culture (Palgrave-McMillan, 2021) and the French translator of David Chappell’s Le Réveil kanak: la montée du nationalisme en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Madrépores and the University of New Caledonia Press, 2017).
Born in France, I moved to the United States for graduate studies. I received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies from UCLA. I have held appointments at Virginia Tech and the University of Sydney (Australia) and fellowships at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), The Olga Lengyel Institute (New York City), Royal Holloway (University of London), and Berlin (Mellon Fellowship in Holocaust Studies). I was also the recipient of a 2022 Pacific Funds (with A/Prof Michelle Royer and Dr Léa Vuong), for a project titled “Symposium on cultural expressions of climate change across the French speaking islands in the South Pacific.”
At UH-Mānoa, I teach French composition, advanced French language, French-English translation, and Francophone literature. I serve on the UH-Mānoa Faculty Senate and on the Committee for Professional Matters. I am also a book solicitation editor for H-France and an external reviewer for several journals and university presses.