Emma Rossby
(She/her)
Faculty Fellow in French and Francophone Studies
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Olin 326
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509-527-4942
Emma Rossby is an interdisciplinary scholar of comics-, media-, and museum studies, particularly as they intersect with critical race and queer theories. With a focus on print and digital bande dessinée, her research examines how forms of multisensory and transmedia storytelling are used as vectors for public pedagogy in contemporary Belgium. She has taught courses on topics including Francophone visual cultures, transmedia storytelling, museology and public pedagogies, and French cultural history. Prior to coming to Whitman College, she earned a dual-title Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies and Visual Studies at the Pennsylvania State University.
Ph.D. French and Francophone Studies and Visual Studies
The Pennsylvania State University
2025
M.A. French and Francophone Studies
The Pennsylvania State University
2019
B.A. French and Francophone Studies and International Relations
Carleton College
2016
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“‘Comme si quelqu’un écrivait à ma place’: Materiality and Interactivity in Exaheva’s Digital Comics.” The French Review, vol. 98, no. 2, Dec. 2024, pp. 49-68.
Web Publication
“Interview: Exaheva Talks Interactive Storytelling and Queerness in Still Heroes.” Women Write About Comics (WWAC), March 8, 2023. https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2023/03/interview-exaheva-talks-interactive-storytelling-and-queerness-in-still-heroes/
Select Presentations
“(Don’t) Touch the Art: Multisensorial Encounters and Informal Learning in ‘Musée Comme Chez Soi/Museum Aan Huis.’” The 20th and 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, Greensboro, NC. March 27-29, 2025.
“‘The City is our Playground’: Co-Creating Visual Identities through Participatory Art in Brussels.” The 20th and 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, Philadelphia, PA. February 22-24, 2024.
“Still Heroes, Moving Parts. Interactivity Redefined in Exaheva’s 2021 Digital Comic Installation.” Women in French Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher International Symposium, Virtual Event. January 12-14, 2022.
“Enseigner l’histoire et l’historiographie par la BD fictionnelle. Une approche visual culture studies.” Groupe de Recherche Intermédialités et Roman Graphique, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, December 17, 2021.
Department of French and Francophone Studies Teaching Excellence Award, The Pennsylvania State University, 2025
Predoctoral Fellowship for Dissertation Writing, Penn State Center for Humanities and Information, 2023-2024
Doctoral Research Fellowship in Brussels, Belgian American Educational Foundation, 2021-2022
Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award, The Penn State Graduate School and the Office of the President and Dean for Undergraduate Education, 2021
Marian Trygve Freed Graduate Research Award, Penn State Department of French and Francophone Studies, 2021
Digital Humanities Training Grant for CU Denver Digital Pedagogy Lab, Penn State Center for Humanities and Information, 2021