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Elara ShermanPhD studentFrench
Biography
My research focuses on French-speaking literature from Africa (in particular Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Cameroon), Southeast Asia (notably Việt Nam) and the African and Asian diasporas. My work analyzes the violence of (neo)colonial categories of "health" and "unhealth" in postcolonial spaces, and the ways contemporary French-speaking women writers engage, resist, and refuse totalitarian ideals of the normative body which are entangled with global processes of racialization and gendering.
My dissertation is tentatively titled “Intimacy, Power, and (Dis)ability: Postcolonial Bodyminds in Contemporary African Texts,” and focuses on theorizations of sexuality, madness, and (dis)ability in the works of authors such as Ken Bugul, Calixthe Beyala, Birago Diop and Véronique Tadjo. I have recently published an article on Linda Lê's dystopian novel, Cronos, in which I argue Lê’s resistant, postcolonial writing suggests a “politics of confinement” arising from the (multiply) gendered, sickly, and violent bellies of what is arguably her most explicitly political work of fiction.
Currently in my fifth year of the PhD program in French at Emory, I am also pursuing a Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I have served as an Accessibility and Mental Health Program Assistant during the 2024 Summer in Senegal Study Abroad Program, when I also worked as a Teaching Assistant to a beginning Wolof language course under my incredible former Wolof teacher, Professor Sidy Gueye. I have taught French language courses at Emory ranging from the beginner to the high intermediate level and organized events devoted to the use of gender-inclusive language in foreign language classrooms. In addition, I have worked with the Professional and Career Development Pathways Center as a TATTO Fellow to help make the Teaching Assistant Training Program at Emory more accessible and inclusive.
I believe scholarly research MUST be interconnected and accompanied by a committment to resource-sharing across institutions, borders, and disciplines. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email (elara.sherman@emory.edu) if you’d like to connect!
Publications
Sherman, Elara. “Cronos and the Queer Belly: A Politics of Confinement in the Work of Linda Lê." Women in French Studies, vol. 2024, 2024: 128-144. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wfs.2024.a936295.
Fellowships and Grants
- Laney Graduate School Fellowship (2020-current)
- Global Travel Student Support Grant, Emory University, 2024.
- SEALC Tuition Scholarship, Southeast Asian Language Council (SEALC), Summer 2024.
- TATTO (“Teaching Assistant Training Opportunity”) Fellow, June-Aug. 2024
- Summer Perry Research Award, 2022 and 2023.
Awards
Studies in Sexualities (SiS) Graduate Student Essay Prize, Emory University, 2021.
Education & Language Study
West African Research Center (WARC). Individual Wolof Language Lessons with Prof. Sidy Gueye (30 hours). Dakar, Senegal. March-June 2024.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Southeast Asian Summer Studies Institute (SEASSI), Intensive Vietnamese Language Study (1 year equivalent), June-Aug. 2023.
MA in Philosophy, University of Memphis, 2020.
BA in French and Philosophy, Sewanee: The University of the South, 2017.
