Monika Giacoppe

Associate Professor of Comparative World Literature

Educational background: B.A. in French from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with an additional certification in Latin American Studies; M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Pennsylvania State University.

Arrived at Ramapo College : 2000

Areas of specialization: Literatures of the Americas ; International Women's Writing; Francophone Literature; Translation Theory and Practice

Courses regularly taught: College English; Readings in the Humanities; Introduction to Literature; Survey of the English Novel; Literatures of the Americas; African American Women Writers; Survey of European Literature; Literature Seminar: Fictional Histories in the Americas.

Teaching Interests:Literatures of the Americas; International Women’s Writing; Francophone Literature; Translation Theory and Practice

Research Interests: Literatures of the Americas; Louisiana Literature & Culture; Francophone Literature; Translation Theory and Practice

Scholarship: I have just finished translating a collection of short fiction by the Swiss-French writer S. Corinna Bille, done in conjunction with Professor Christiane Makward of Penn State. The Transparent Girl and Other Stories was pbulished by Lexington Books in 2006. I have also published a number of articles, including one comparing Bille's work with that of Québécois author Anne Hébert. My interest in translation and translation studies resulted in essay exploring the depiction of translation in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Nicole Brossard's Mauve Desert , due to appear soon in a special issue of the Bucknell Review . I am currently at work on other projects related to the study of the Literatures of the Americas.

Recent Publications:
“‘Lucky to be so bilingual’:  Québécois and Chicano/a Literatures in a Comparative
Context.”  Reprinted in Canada and Its Americas, ed. Sarah Casteel and Winfried Siemerling.  Forthcoming from McGill University Press, 2009.

“‘The Task of the Translator’ in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mauve Desert.”
            (Special issue of Bucknell Review).  Ed. Katherine Faull.  Lewisburg, PA: 
            Bucknell U.P., 2004:  124-38.

The Transparent Girl and Other Stories.  A translation of selected short works by Swiss
writer S. Corinna Bille, done with Christiane Makward.  Lanham, MD:  Lexington Books, 2006.

Points of interest: Although my background is in the Literatures of the Americas , I have great affection for the nineteenth-century English novel, and enjoy teaching our English novel course on a regular basis. I remain active in the field of women's writing by occasionally teaching a course on international feminist theories, and Major Authors courses on writers including Charlotte Brontë and Margaret Atwood. I am also interested in writing about landscape/place, and, when I'm not reading or writing, I'm likely to be outdoors.