French Faculty

Carolyn Durham - Inez K. Gaylord Professor of French Language and Literature
(330) 263-2401 / cdurham@wooster.edu

B.A. Wellesley 1969; M.A., Ph.D. Chicago 1972, 1976.

Carolyn A. Durham is the Inez K. Gaylord Professor of French Language and Literature, and a professor of film studies and comparative literature at The College of Wooster. A member of the faculty since 1976, Durham has chaired the comparative literature program, the French department, and the film studies program.

A specialist in the 20th century novel, film studies, and literary theory and criticism, her most recent work centers on the cross-cultural comparison of contemporary France and the United States, both in fiction and film. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College (1969), and then earned her M.A. (1972) and her Ph.D. (1976) from the University of Chicago.

Durham is the author of L’Art Romanesque de Raymond Roussel, The Contexture of Feminism:  Marie Cardinal and Multicultural Literacy, Double Takes: Culture and Gender in French Films and their American Remakes, and Literary Globalism: Anglo-American Fiction Set in France. Her essays on American and French literature and film have appeared in a number of edited collections and professional journals.

A former Fulbright Scholar and Camargo Foundation Fellow, Durham has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The School of Criticism and Theory. Her professional memberships include the Modern Language Association, the American Association of Teachers of French, and the Association française d’études culturelles.

Harry Gamble - Assistant Professor of French
(330) 263-2400 / hgamble@wooster.edu

B.A. Wake Forest 1989; M.A., Ph.D. New York 1996, 2002.

Harry Gamble, assistant professor of French and a member of Wooster’s faculty since 2002, specializes in the history, cultures, and literature of Francophone Africa. His current research focuses on educational and cultural controversies that marked the late colonial period (1930-1960), as colonial authorities and African elites developed competing visions of modernization. Although his research centers on sub-Saharan Africa, Gamble maintains a secondary interest in the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).

In addition to his courses on the French language and on Francophone Africa, Gamble also teaches on such subjects as education and youth in contemporary France and the French economy.

Gamble earned his B.A. at Wake Forest University (1989). After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa, from 1992 to 1994, he completed his M.A. (1996) and Ph.D. (2002) in French Studies at New York University. With the support of a Chateaubriand Grant from the French government, Gamble spent a year in Paris and Dakar (1998-1999), conducting research for his dissertation, titled “Developing Cultures: Debates over Education in French West Africa, 1930-1950.”

Jennifer L. Puckett - Visiting Assistant Professor of French
(330) 263-2292 / jpuckett@wooster.edu

B.A. Ohio State 1999; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 2006.

Jennifer Puckett is a visiting assistant professor of French at the College of Wooster and a member of the faculty since 2007.  Her areas of academic interest include Arthurian romance, the poetry of the troubadours and trobairitz, and contemporary spoken French.  Puckett received her B.A. in French, Russian, Chinese, and Medieval Studies from Ohio State University (1999) and her Ph.D. in Medieval French and Occitan literature from Johns Hopkins University (2006).

She has presented papers on the mise en manuscrit of debate songs composed by troubadours and trobairitz and on the use of the topos of the hortus conclusus in the first romance of Chretien de Troyes, and has published an article on the crusade songs of the troubadours.

Sharon L. Shelly - Associate Professor of French
(330) 263-2562 / sshelly@wooster.edu

B.A. Case Western Reserve 1979; M.A. North Carolina (Chapel Hill) 1981; Ph.D. Harvard 1989.

An associate professor of French at The College of Wooster and a member of the faculty since 1992, Sharon L. Shelly specializes in the structure and history of the French language; French and Francophone language policy; and foreign language pedagogy.

Shelly received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Case Western Reserve University (1979). She earned her M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1981) and her Ph.D. in Romance linguistics from Harvard University (1989). While working on her doctorate, she was a teaching fellow in the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at Harvard. Subsequently, she spent three years at the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor of French and linguistics.

Shelly has published a translation of L’Homme de Paroles by French linguist Claude Hagège and several articles in the French Review, where she served as managing editor from 2003-2007. Her essay, “Une certaine idée du français: the Dilemma for French Language Policy in the 21st Century” appeared in Language and Communication in 1999.