![\"Lisa](\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/04\/Lisa-Connell-212x300.jpg\")
For me, Qu\u00e9bec has been more than a focus of study for the students in my classes. As an area of research, Qu\u00e9bec offers a rich array of authors that bear on questions of post-colonial identity and the province\u2019s complex place within the field of post-colonial studies.<\/p>\n
Since arriving at the University of West Georgia in 2010, I have had the good fortune to work with dedicated colleagues as well as bright and engaged students. A regional college located less than an hour from Atlanta, the University of West Georgia hosts a diverse community of international students, many of whom have ties to Qu\u00e9bec. In the French-language classroom, this Qu\u00e9bec-Georgia connection not only gives American students an international learning environment, but also reminds them of the deep roots French has as a North American language.<\/p>\n
My upper-level literature and culture classes integrate Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois literature, culture, and politics as a way to contextualize the vast differences within French-language communities. Most recently, my class on revolt, revolution, and rebellion in the French-speaking world used Qu\u00e9bec as a case-study of a contemporary independence movement as a way to not only familiarize students with the political currents of their northern neighbors, but also as a way to think through American issues of immigration, language, and cultural identity.<\/p>\n
For me, Qu\u00e9bec has been more than a focus of study for the students in my classes. As an area of research, Qu\u00e9bec offers a rich array of authors that bear on questions of post-colonial identity and the province\u2019s complex place within the field of post-colonial studies. Currently, I am researching Haitian-Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise author, Marie-C\u00e9lie Agnant, and how her texts provide insight into Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s linguistic policies and recent debates on the politics of\u00a0la francophonie<\/i>. I am particularly looking forward to presenting some of this research at this year\u2019s American Council for Qu\u00e9bec Studies conference in Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
Throughout these past four years, the example of interdisciplinary work provided by the Canadian Studies Center has been a crucial touchstone for my teaching and research interests and methods. Be it from the summer course on contemporary Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois culture I took at the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al in 2005 to the advanced conversation class centered on Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois literature, culture, and politics I taught my last semester at UW, the Canadian Studies Center has been an invaluable part of my academic path. When I walked through the Center\u2019s doors my first semester at UW in 2003, I had no idea that I would become part of such an enthusiastic community, and it is this same enthusiasm and sense of opportunity that I hope to pass on to the students in my classes.<\/p>\n
Lisa Connell is currently the Assistant Professor of French at the University of West Georgia. Lisa Connell successfully defended her thesis, \u201cPedagogically Speaking: Francophone Women’s Autobiography and the Learning Subject,\u201d in July 2010. Richard Watts served as her chair. She earned her Ph.D. in French Studies in 2010 from the University of Washington.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For me, Qu\u00e9bec has been more than a focus of study for the students in my classes. As an area of research, Qu\u00e9bec offers a rich array of authors that bear on questions of post-colonial identity and the province\u2019s complex place within the field of post-colonial studies. Since arriving at the University of West Georgia<\/p>\n