French @ UH Mānoa
Who We Are
Meet the Faculty of the UH French & Italian Division
Professors
Louis Bousquet
Department Chair
Louis Bousquet, a French native, received an MA in History and Geography from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis followed by an MA in French Literature from Rutgers University and a PhD from UC Santa Barbara. Before coming to Hawai’i he traveled the world and the seven seas (everybody's looking for something), and lived in the Middle-East and Africa. He teaches language, civilization, cinema and literature courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. His research focuses on the art of love from medieval to contemporary societies, disenchantment and the modern homunculi: he specializes in Michel Houellebecq’s opus. He is the Chair of the division of French and Italian at UH Mãnoa and co-leads the French-Speaking Oceania and Asia Initiative (FSOAI) and the Oceania Ensemble series.
Marie-Christine Garneau
Marie-Christine Garneau is an island person: She lived many years in the French West Indies, loves the Greek Islands, was offered twice a position in New Caledonia, and was initially attracted to Oahu precisely because it is an island. She specializes in 19th-century French literature, in particular the works of François-René de Chateaubriand, on whom she continues to publish numerous articles. She also teaches Renaissance Literature for the challenge and Modern Greek for the pleasure. At UH Manoa, she worked many years with the Study Abroad Council and the Center For Biographical Research, and has directed many graduate thesis projects. She enjoys going to conferences in Europe every year during the summer and coming back to Hawaii, which is, according to her, the best place on earth to go back to work!
Nathalie Ségeral
Graduate Advisor
Nathalie Ségeral (Ph.D., UCLA, 2012) joined the LLEA faculty in 2013. She grew up in France, where she received a Licence in philosophy and English, a Maîtrise in American literature, as well as a professional Master’s degree in biomedical translation. She then taught French for a year in two high schools in New Zealand, before moving to the U.S. for an M.A. in Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests focus on the articulation of gender, memory, and trauma in 20 th and 21 st -century genocide and madness narratives in the Francophone world, and on translation (theory and practice). She teaches courses in French composition, translation, literature, and conversation.
Instructors
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Joan Debrah
1st & 2nd yr Coordinator
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Joan grew up in Tennessee, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Guam before moving to Hawaii in 1977. She double-majored in French and Spanish, earned her secondary teaching credentials, then graduated with an M.A. in French from UH Manoa. She teaches and coordinates first- and second-year French, as well as upper-level courses in conversation and composition. She has served as study abroad resident director numerous times in Angers and Annecy, France. She is active in HALT, AATF, and is the Pi Delta Phi advisor. Extra-curricular interests include kempo karate, yoga, running, and biking; she also teaches Sunday School to 2nd and 3rd graders, and loves to walk her dog, read, cook, sew, and travel. Her love of language learning dates from first learning to count in Japanese at age 3 from her dad, coming home from elementary school to teach her little brother colors in Spanish, continuing with Spanish and then Latin in high school, and then adding French and Japanese as a freshman at the University of Guam
Jacob Huss
Undergraduate Advisor
Jacob got his M.A. in French at UH Manoa. After that, he did several Stages de Professeurs at the CIDEF in Angers. He has been a Resident Director several times in the Angers and Annecy study abroad programs and has recently taught French for Reading (FR 302),Structure of French (FR 306), Business French (FR 309). He enjoys hiking with the French Club: Balade baleine, Phoque balade, Balade jambe cassée as well as leading several cooking demonstrations with a wok: Fondue Savoyarde, Soupe à l’oignon, Coq au vin, Couscous, Ratatouille. He has sold our French t-shirts to the masses: J’adore, La vie est belle, C’est la vie, Pain Perdu. And of course he loves singing songs he has written for his supper: Quel bordel, Sur le campus, Merde, Il s’appelle Jacobo.