Ioanna Chatzidimitriou
Education
- BA in French Language and Literature, University of Athens, Greece
- MA in Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill
- PhD in Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill
Teaching Interests
I teach French language, literature, and culture because, in an uncertain and rapidly changing world, students need more than technical skills — they need the ability to adapt quickly, think critically, and remain open to unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable situations.
My courses develop advanced linguistic proficiency alongside close engagement with literary and cultural texts from across the francophone world, including North Africa the French Caribbean. Through sustained attention to language, history, and cultural difference, students learn to navigate complexity, ambiguity, and multiple perspectives.
I integrate literary texts, performance, and cultural production to encourage intellectual flexibility and interdisciplinary thinking, helping students understand how language shapes identity, power, and belonging. Across my teaching, I aim to cultivate curiosity, resilience, and the confidence to engage thoughtfully with a diverse and interconnected world.
Research and Scholarship
My research explores how literature from the French Caribbean imagines space, time, and connection in ways that challenge familiar, linear views of history and place. My current book project, The Estuarine Archipelago, examines poetry, theatre, and novels to show how Caribbean writers portray the region not as isolated islands but as a dynamic network shaped by movement, exchange, and historical depth. Drawing on both well-known and lesser-studied texts, I argue that these works present the Caribbean as a place where roots and routes, borders and openness, past and present are constantly in tension. Rather than seeing time as a straight line of progress, French-Caribbean literature often depicts time as layered, cyclical, and tidal, shaped by the lasting effects of colonization, slavery, and migration. By focusing on how writers imagine space and time from historically marginalized locations, my research contributes to broader conversations in Caribbean studies and literary theory about how people understand place, history, and relation in an interconnected world.
- Comp. Literary Studies Ind Study/Research: Grace: N.A. and F.E. Lit
- Dana Forum
- Dana Scholars Directed Studies: Event Statistician
- Dana Scholars Internship - Dana Scholars Program
- FYS: When Gods Roamed the Earth
- Intermediate French I
- Intermediate French II
- Special Topic: Advanced French Language
I hold the John and Fannie Saeger Chair in Comparative literature.
Forthcoming Book:
- Time, Space, and Relation in French-Caribbean Literature: The Estuarine Archipelago. Liverpool University Press, under contract (forthcoming 2027).
Forthcoming Articles:
- “Le futur simple, un véhicule du désir dans le roman alexakien.” RLM-Minard, Classiques Garnier, special issue.
- “Diglossie et politique dans l’œuvre alexakienne.” Cahiers Vassilis Alexakis, vol. 7.
- “Ladjablès, femme sauvage : langue créole et nouvelles temporalités caribéennes.” In Écrire en français langue autre au XXIe siècle (edited volume).
- “Estuarine Archipelagos: Reflections on Daniely Francisque’s Theater.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, special issue on Justice.
- “Shakespeare, Césaire, and Colonial Thingification.” Shakespeare Survey, vol. 79.
Books and Edited Volumes:
- Translingual Writing in French. Special issue of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: Sites, 28.2 (2024). Editor and author of the introduction.
- Vassilis Alexakis : Chemins croisés. Co-edited with Marianne Bessy. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2023. Co-author of the introduction.
- Translingual Francophonie and the Limits of Translation. Routledge Studies in Comparative Literature. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Recent Articles:
- “Alexakis’s ‘Late Style’ in L’enfant grec and La clarinette.” Σύγκριση / Comparaison / Comparison, special issue on Vassilis Alexakis, vol. 33 (2024): 105–119.
- “Vassilis Alexakis et la quête du politique.” Cahiers Vassilis Alexakis, vol. 5 (2020): 201–210.
French and Francophone Studies
Languages, Literatures & Cultures
Contact: ichatzidimitriou@muhlenberg.