Francoise Lionnet

Françoise Lionnet is a professor at UCLA in Comparative Literature, French and Francophone Studies, and Gender Studies, as well as the current director of the African Studies Center and Program Co-Director of UCLA's Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities: Cultures in Transnational Perspective. She is a leading scholar in Francophone and comparative literary studies, and has published groundbreaking work in the fields of feminist literature, postcolonial studies, autobiography, and African, African-American, Caribbean and Mascarene Island studies. She is the former president of the ACLA.

Early life

Lionnet was born in Mauritius, to a Franco-Mauritian and Seychellois family. She grew up speaking French and Creole, and learned English at the age of 4. This, in addition to the island's multicultural society and her diverse educational experience, has informed her research interests and comparatist approach throughout her career. Educated in Mauritius, Reunion Island, France, England, Germany, and the US, she received her PhD from the University of Michigan and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Society for the Humanities.

Career

Prior to joining UCLA, Françoise Lionnet held the Pierce Miller Professorship in Literary Studies at Northwestern University until 1998. She also held visiting and special professorships at Duke University, University of Nottingham, UK, and the EHESS in Paris.

Françoise Lionnet is currently a professor at UCLA in Comparative Literature, French and Francophone Studies, and Gender Studies, as well as the director of the African Studies Center and Program Co-Director of UCLA's Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities: Cultures in Transnational Perspective.

She has edited and co-edited volumes for literary journals including Yale French Studies, Signs, L'Esprit créateur, Comparative Literary Studies, MLN, and International Journal of Francophone Studies. In addition to editing, Lionnet has been a regular contributor to these and many other scholarly journals throughout her career.

Her most recent books, Ecriture féminines et dialogues critiques. Subjectivité, genre et ironie (Mauritius; l'Ateiier d'écriture, 2012) and Le su et l'incertain: Cosmopolitiques créoles de l'océan Indien (Mauritius: L'Atelier d'écriture, 2012), have been recognized in an article on UCLA Today.

Works

• Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture (Cornell, 1989)
• Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity (Cornell, 1995)
• Minor Transnationalism, co-edited with Shu-mei Shih, (Duke, 2005)
• The Creolization of Theory, co-edited with Shu-mei Shih, (Duke, Spring 2011)
• Ecriture féminines et dialogues critiques. Subjectivité, genre et ironie (Mauritius; l'Ateiier d'écriture, 2012)
• Le su et l'incertain: Cosmopolitiques créoles de l'océan Indien (Mauritius: L'Atelier d'écriture, 2012)

Awards

• Principal Co-PI, Mellon Foundation grant for the "Cultures in Transnational Perspective" Postdoc Program (2005-14)
• French Gov. Award: Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 2004
• June 2003, residency fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Center
• 2002 Best Mentor Award from Women in French (WIF)
• Professor Lionnet has held fellowships and grants from the Cornell Society for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Fulbright Foundation, the SSRC, the United Nations Fund (UNFPA), the UCHRI, the Humanities Research Institute at the University of California-Irvine, the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota, and the NEH.
• Director NEH/Northwestern Summer Institute in French Cultural Studies, 1995.

References

For more detailed information on Professor Françoise Lionnet, please see the following:

• Director of African Studies Center
• UCLA Department of Comparative Literature
• UCLA French and Francophone Studies Faculty
• Co-Director UCLA's Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities
• Francoise Lionnet Biography PSU