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Biography

Angeline Nies-Berger specializes in early modern French literature and culture, in particular women’s writings. Her current research examines Madeleine de Scudéry’s Les Femmes illustres, ou les Harangues héroïques (1642), a powerful yet little-known collection of fictive orations that simultaneously reasserts women’s political influence and denounces the misogynistic values underlying their traditional representations. She argues that Scudéry’s rhetorical approach to renewing women’s presence in literature enlightens our current critical understanding of the “male gaze” and its overturning. She will present her work on Les Femmes illustres’s ironic polyphony and intertextuality at the SE17 (Société d’Études du 17ème siècle) this Fall. She is also working on the first complete critical edition of Les Femmes illustres (volume 1).

In her teaching, she is passionate about inspiring in all students the love of literature (old and new), through interdisciplinary and creative approaches to texts. She is especially well-versed in using film in the classroom, as informed by her studies in film editing (Movie Editing and Film Studies Certificate, Strasbourg, France, 2012). She is also dedicated to helping students strengthen their critical thinking through engagements with literary texts.

Courses Offered (subject to change)

• FREN 200:  Advanced French
• FREN 204:  Contemporary French Culture

Selected Publications

• “Mariamne l’Hasmonéenne selon Madeleine de Scudéry : réécriture philogyne d’une effrontée” (A Philogynistic Rewriting of Insolence: Mariamne the Hasmonean according to Madeleine de Scudéry), Études Épistémè : Revue de littérature et de civilisation (XVIe – XVIIIe siècles) 45 (2024):
• Book review, “Pour une interprétation épistémologique des littératures féministes,” Acta fabula 25.5 (2024) :
• “Mourir au monde : le pouvoir libérateur de la négation dans les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire de Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” The French Review 96.1 (2022): 159-172.

Fellowships and Awards

• SPFFA Jeanne Marandon Fellowship, Rutgers University, 2023-2024
• Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender travel grant, October 2023
• Rutgers Lockwood Prize for Distinguished Accomplishments in Teaching, April 2022