French Faculty

Sarah Hurlburt
Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures
hurlbuse@whitman.edu
Olin Hall 325
(509) 527-5202

Professor Hurlburt's primary research interests address the reception of the 16th century in 19th century French literature, in particular as it is articulated through the eloquence competitions of the Académie française and the 18th-century tradition of the "culte des grands hommes." She has published articles on Nathalie Sarraute's theater and Montaigne's reception in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues to work on the reception of Montaigne in the early 19th century. Other research interests include travel literature and the films of Jean Renoir. Professor Hurlburt graduated from Whitman College in 1991. She holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago and a D.E.A from the Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2003.

Jack Iverson
Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures
iversojr@whitman.edu
Olin Hall 328
(509) 526-4750

Professor Iverson’s research focuses on Voltaire and on notions of glory, emulation, and bienfaisance in eighteenth-century France. He has published articles on Voltaire, Du Châtelet, and the origins of literary commemoration in France, as well as an edition of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary for the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading. Professor Iverson majored in French and German at Saint Olaf College in Minnesota before completing doctoral studies in French literature at the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Missouri-Columbia for six years prior to arriving at Whitman College in 2004. In addition to his French duties, he is an active member of the Canadian Studies Group.

Mary Anne O'Neil
Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures
oneilma@whitman.edu
Olin Hall 333
(509) 527-5502

Professor O'Neil has been teaching at Whitman College since 1976 and has taught courses in French and Spanish, English composition, world literature and general studies. In 2004, she published La France et la Francophonie, a textbook for the study of French culture and conversation, and edited a volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biographies on twentieth-century French dramatists. Her current interests include translation and contemporary French Canadian poetry. She has also published articles on Spanish literature, twentieth-century French religious poetry, Chateaubriand, and Victor Hugo. Professor O'Neil holds a B.A. in French from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966, an M.A. in French from the Middlebury College French School in Paris in 1968, an elementary and secondary teaching credential in English, French and Spanish at the University of Houston, Texas, in 1972, and a Ph.D. in Romance languages (French, Spanish) from the University of Oregon in 1979.

Nicole Simek
Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures
simeknj@whitman.edu
Olin Hall 326
(509) 527-5054

Specializing in French Caribbean literature, Professor Simek is the author of Eating Well, Reading Well: Maryse Condé and the Ethics of Interpretation. She has published articles on Baudelaire's figuration of the reader, female friendship in French literature, Caribbean women's autobiography, parody in French Caribbean novels, and trauma theory, and has co-edited volumes devoted to literary cannibalism (Feasting on Words: Maryse Condé, Cannibalism, and the Caribbean Text, Princeton: PLAS, 2006) and representations of trauma in French and Francophone literature (Dalhousie French Studies, Winter 2007). She is currently working on the deployment of humor in the Antillean novel.  Her wider research interests include the intersection of politics and literature in Caribbean fiction, trauma theory, and sociological approaches to literature. Professor Simek holds a B.A. and an M.A. in French from Case Western Reserve University, and received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2005. 

Zahi Zalloua
Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures
zallouz@whitman.edu
Olin Hall 306
(509) 527-5254

Professor Zalloua has been teaching Medieval and Renaissance French literature at Whitman since 2003. His book Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism (Rookwood Press, 2005) focuses on ethics in the work of sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne. He has also edited an issue of L'Esprit Créateur (Spring 2006) entitled Montaigne and the Question of Ethics, and co-edited, with Nicole Simek, a special issue of Dalhousie French Studies on representations of trauma in French and Francophone literature (2007). Previous publications address questions of literary theory, interdisciplinary approaches to philosophy and literature, experimental fiction, and gender studies in a range of articles on early modern and modern authors, including Louise Labé, Agrippa D'Aubigné, Pierre de Ronsard, Denis Diderot, Stendhal, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Marguerite Duras.  He is currently writing a study on unruly fictions in modern French texts. Professor Zalloua holds an M.A. in Philosophy (1996) and an M.A. in French (1998) from San Diego State University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2003. More information can be found in Professor Zalloua's Curriculum Vitæ [pdf].

Kit Maestretti teaches second year French. (maestrk@whitman.edu)

Morgane Hamel comes to us from the University of Nantes. She is a teacher of Français Langue Etrangère (hamelm@whitman.edu )