Faculty Profiles

Dr. Abel teaches French language and literature. Her current research focuses on the use of expressive arts in the foreign language classroom, creating activities that allow students to engage with literature in an experiential way, and learning about trauma theory and its intersection with literature.

 

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Tulane University
Ph.D., French, 2003

University of New Orleans
M.A., Romance Languages (French), 1998

Millersville University
B.S., Secondary Education, French, 1987

Université de Lausanne
Certificat de Français, 1984

• Foreign Language Pedagogy
• Maghreb Literature
• French Louisiana Literature
• Francophone Studies

• American Association of Teachers of French
• American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
• Christian Association of World Languages
• South Central Modern Language Association
• Women in French

Witnessing, Engaging, Opening to Hope: Using the Creative Arts in Literature Courses
CAWL Annual Conference, April 2023

Using the Expressive Arts in the Foreign Language Classroom: Embodying Biblical Ways of Being & Cross-Cultural Dispositions
CAWL Annual Conference, April 2021

Glimpses into the Untold Story of Louisa Lamotte, Free Woman of Color
Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Historical Association, Shreveport, LA, March 2013

Louisa Lamotte: Creole Woman of Color, Educator, Directress, Grand-daughter of a French Privateer
SCMLA Annual Conference, Augusta, GA, October 2011

Charles Testut’s, Le Vieux Salomon : Influences of the Circum-Caribbean
American Society for Ethnohistory Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, September 2009

Narrating Hope at the Crossroads: The Search for Wholeness & Belonging in the Work of Leila Sebbar
NACFLA Annual Conference, March 2008

Inch'Allah Dimanche: a Story of Foreignness, Isolation, Hope, and Welcome
NACFLA Annual Conference, March 2007

Language, h/History and Memory in Leïla Sebbar's :, Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père
PAMLA Annual Conference, November 2006

Preparing Faithful Teachers & Scholars
NACFLA Annual Conference, March 2006

Le Vieux Salomon: A Southern Antislavery Novel Transcends its Northern Forerunner
PAMLA Annual Conference, November 2005

"The Stupid Aristocracy of Skin - Speaking out against the status quo." Presented at the NACFLA Annual Conference, March 2005

"Southern Literature: Its French Undercurrent." Presented at SCMLA Annual Conference, 2004.

"Answering the Call to Love the Stranger: Using French Films to Engage Students in Meaningful Cross-Cultural Viewing." Presented at the NACFLA Annual Conference, Northwestern College, March 2004.

"Melancholia: An Internalized Act of Violence." Presented at PAMLA Annual Conference, 2000.

"Réflexions sur la vie intérieure chez Mme d'Epinay et Mme de Puisieux dans Conversations d'Emilie er Consiels à une amie." Presented at conference Femmes Ecrivains sous l'Ancien Régine, IV, 1999.

• French 103: Accelerated Elementary French
• French 201: Intermediate French
• French 331: French Conversation
• French 334: French Louisiana
• French 335: French Culture & Civilization (in France)
• French 338: Advanced French (in France)
• French 347: Francophone Literature
• French 347: French Literature 1800-1945
• French 371: Methods of Teaching Foreign Language
• French 432: Franco-Maghrebian Relations
• French 439: Survey of French Women Writers
• French 439: French Popular Culture
• French 494: Senior Seminar

• French Louisiana Literature
• Interdisciplinary French Studies
• Francophone Studies
• Nineteenth and Twentieth Century French Literature
• Women's Writing in French from the Middles Ages to the present
• Pedagogy

• Faculty Personnel Committee (2017-2020)
• Faculty Fulbright Committee (2015-2017)
• General Education, Core Committee Working Group (2014-2015)
• Chair, Modern and Classical Language Department (2012-2015)
• General Education Sub-Committee (2011-2015)
• Student Teaching College Supervisor (French) (2005-present)
• Methods Practicum College Supervisor (French) (2005-present)
• Discipline Coordinator: Secondary Education Committee (2004-2015)
• Advisor, French Majors & Minors (2004-present)
• Chair, Secondary Education Committee (2008-2009)
• Section Chair - French (2004-2005)
• Participant, Facilitator, Diversity / Unity Discussion Group (2005)

"Fighting for Women's Autonomy: The Unorthodox Advocacy of Louisa Lamotte." French Review 92.4 (2019): 77-89.

"Intuitive Art as a Spiritual Practice", Conversations Journal 14.2 (2016). 42-44.

"Conceiving New Orleans: A Francophone Expression," The French Review, 2007
Louisiana, and more specifically New Orleans, with its linguistic, cultural, and ethnic confluences, has often been a favorite backdrop for authors writing about the South. Though George Washington Cable, an Anglophone, is "credited with 'discovering' New Orleans as a literary subject in the 1870's," the Francophone literary community in New Orleans has been capturing in its unique writings...
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"The Stupid Aristocracy of Skin: The Black Persona in Charles Testut's, Le Vieux Salomon", New Zealand Journal of French Studies, Fall 2006

• Charles Testut's Le Vieux Salomon: Race, Religion, Socialism, and Freemasonry Maryland: Lexington Books, 2009.