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Academics - Modern Languages Faculty & Staff

Academics - Modern Languages Faculty & Staff

Renee Altergott

Visiting Assistant Professor of French

CONTACT:

Detchon Center 228
765-361-6465
altergor@wabash.edu

Picture of Altergott, Renee

Dr. Altergott’s research interests lie at the intersection of French colonial history, media, and sound studies. She studies the expansion of the French empire throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how technologies like the phonograph and the later gramophone were used to colonize territory and promote the controversial “mission civilisatrice” abroad. She has presented her work at conferences in Weimar (Germany), Cambridge (UK), Helsinki (Finland), Montréal (Canada), and Rennes (France). She loves teaching interdisciplinary courses that explore French language and literature, music, and history through questions about voice, technology, and media. In Spring 2022, she taught a cross-listed course that focused on the “archive” as a site of knowledge production, and how various postcolonial Francophone authors and artists challenge this through creative expressions of history.


(Photo: Dr. Altergott and FRE 102 students after pétanque)

Dr. Altergott had the incredible experience of accompanying Dr. Quandt’s immersion trip to Paris and Normandy (Spring 2023), where students got to put their language skills to the test and give presentations on monuments they had researched. Having spent nearly 7 years living abroad through IES Nantes, teaching English through TAPIF in Strasbourg and later at a top business school in Paris (ESCP), and studying in the Parisian university system, Dr. Altergott is an advocate for study abroad and would be thrilled to discuss opportunities with anyone who is interested.


(Photo: Dr. Altergott, Dr. Gorey, and students at the Archives Nationales north of Paris)

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies, Princeton University (2022)
M.A. in French Language, Arts, and Contemporary Theory, Université de Paris VII (Diderot), Paris (2013)
M.A. in French Language and Civilization, NYU Paris (2011)
B.A. in French and Music Composition, Northwestern University (2008)

RECENT COURSE OFFERINGS

Prof. Altergott teaches courses at every level of French, including FRE 101, FRE 102, FRE 201, and FRE 301.

Special topics courses have included:
Sound and Literature in French (FRE 277 / MUS 140)
French Colonial History and Media (FRE 277 / HIS 230 / BLS 270)

RECENT PRESENTATIONS

“Sand/Soundwaves: Literary Echoes of the Sahara.” 20th- & 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies Conference, Deserts, Tucson, AZ, 13-15 April 2023.

“A Sonic Atlas of the French Colonial Empire.” FREN-UA 865 Topics in French and Francophone Literature and Culture: “Hearing France: Soundscapes of French Literature, Music, and History.” Dr. Terry Cullen, New York University, 29 March 2023 (virtual).

“Blasphemous Transmissions: The Self-Proclaimed French Prophet of the Edison Phonograph.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Transatlantics, New York, NY, 3-5 Nov. 2022.

“Margins of Audibility: Zoé Besmond de Senneville’s Journal de mes oreilles (2021) and Adèle Rosenfeld’s Les méduses n’ont pas d’oreilles (2022).” Women in French, Voix/Voies des Marges, May 2022 (virtual).

“The End of Empire? Departmentalization in the French Caribbean.” Guest lecture, AAS313 Modern Caribbean History, Princeton University, 4 April 2022.

“Cannibal Listening: Kanak Forms of Sound Media.” 20th- & 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies Conference, Mediums/Médias, March 2022.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

“Margins of Audibility: Hearing Loss and Deaf Gain in Zoé Besmond de Senneville’s Journal de mes oreilles (2021) and Adèle Rosenfeld’s Les méduses n’ont pas d’oreilles (2022).” In press. Forthcoming in Women in French Studies, “Voix et voies des marges.” (2023)

“‘Elles n’ont pas la voix blanche’: Colorblind Listening and the French Podcast.” In press. Forthcoming in special issue of Contemporary French Civilization Intersections, “Podcasting Disruptive Voices: New Narratives of Race, Gender & Sexuality,” co-edited by Thomas Muzart and Audrey Brunetaux. (2023)

“Samori Touré and the Portable God: Imagining the Phonographic Conquest of West Africa.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 50, nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer, pp. 151-69. (2022). DOI: 10.1353/ncf.2022.0008

“Une Machine à gloire? Legacies of the French Inventor(s) of Sound Recording Through the Ages.” French Forum, vol. 46.1, Spring, pp. 19-35. (2021) DOI: 10.1353/frf.2021.0001

INTERVIEWS, FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

Jason Camlot, “Phonographic Imaginaries: A Conversation with Renée Altergott,” SpokenWeb, May 2021. https://spokenweb.ca/phonographic-imaginaries-a-conversation-with-renee-altergott/

Coss Faculty Development Grant, 20th & 21st-Century French Conference (2023)
PALSave Course Redesign Grant, Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (2022)
Dean of the College Professional Travel Grant, NCFS Conference, Wabash (2022)
Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) Fellowship (2020-2021)
Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Honorific Fellowship, Princeton (2019-2020)

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