Leslie Kealhofer (PhD 2011)

After completing my Masters in French with a concentration in Francophone Studies at Florida State in 2008, I was awarded my Ph.D. in 2011 and am now Visiting Assistant Professor of French at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. I chose to pursue my graduate studies in French at FSU because of my strong interest in Francophone literature and film and the excellent reputation of FSU’s Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. I took a wide range of courses during my time at Florida State, each of which challenged me to improve my writing and analytical skills and helped prepare me to write my dissertation, “Cinematic Voices of Maghrebi Migrant Women in France.” I feel very fortunate to have been able to choose a dissertation topic that was interdisciplinary, spanning Francophone studies, gender studies, and film studies, and I benefited immensely from the guidance and mentoring of my dissertation director, Dr. Alec G. Hargreaves.

Graduate students in French at FSU have the unique chance to meet and interact with world-renowned scholars working in the fields of French and Francophone studies as well as French-speaking authors, filmmakers, and artists, as the Winthrop-King Institute organizes frequent international conferences and speaker visits. Graduate students are highly encouraged to participate in the conferences, notably by acting as panel chairs, and are invited to attend lunches and dinners with invited guests. A meeting with filmmaker Chantal Briet at a Winthrop-King event in 2006 led to my participation in a subsequent film project; Briet invited me to create English subtitles for her documentary film, J'habite le français (I live in French).

I was also very fortunate to complete two internships in France during my years at FSU. In the summer of 2007, I worked as an intern at France Terre d'Asile, a humanitarian organization that gives assistance to asylum-seekers and refugees. I returned to France in the 2008 to work as intern with the Parisian publishing house Éditions Verdier, which specializes in works promoting international dialogue and understanding. Being able to use French on a daily basis in a professional environment was invaluable, as was the opportunity to work with my colleagues at FTDA and Verdier. The internships were supported by Florida State University’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and Claude Pepper Center, respectively.

Thanks to the generous support of the Winthrop-King Institute, I presented my own research at conferences in both France and the United States and in so doing was able to meet other scholars working in my field. In addition, I had the opportunity to spend over six months in Paris conducting research for my dissertation, during which time I interviewed several filmmakers, including Yamina Benguigui, Mehdi Charef, and Rachida Krim.

While working on the dissertation, I was encouraged not only to present my work at national and international conferences, but also to submit articles for publication, and I received very helpful guidance from the faculty in the department during this process. Having learned a great deal about how to select journals for potential publications and how the publication process works, I went on the job market with articles accepted for publication in The French Review and Studies in French Cinema. The intellectual and professional expertise of FSU faculty members was immensely valuable in helping me to successfully navigate my way through a highly competitive job market.