I am a Ph.D. candidate in French with a designated emphasis in Film and Media. My research interests lie in representations of post-colonial experiences in France, especially of the North African diaspora, through aesthetics of belonging and attention to spatial paradigms and movement in French and Francophone contemporary narratives across media, with an emphasis on the nascent serialized narratives on streaming platforms.
At the intersection of French and Francophone Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Film and New Media Studies and Cultural Studies, my dissertation aims at re-articulating ideas of belonging for descendants of immigrants (DOI) in contemporary France. This project foregrounds autobiographical and fictional narratives of DOI and the way they navigate their double culture in the French republic with the intent to destabilize the banlieue as the most common locus of analysis for postcolonial identities. This exploration of belonging journeys draws from a multi-media corpus made of works of literature, cinema, television, and new media, and proposes a focus on space and movement as an analytical framework to explore the self-making practices of DOI in their aspiration to social belonging. As a third generation North African immigrant myself, my hope is that by the end of this dissertation, readers will have arrived at a widened conception of what it means to be French and a DOI in France, as well as possess a deeper understanding of the role various media have in expanding the possibilities of these narratives of be.longing and in intervening in the politics they challenge.
Before coming to Berkeley, I earned a BA and MA in English literature and media from the University of Tours (France), where I wrote a thesis on The Representations of Black Masculinities in American television series from 2014 onwards. This thesis allowed me to focus on subjects that became central to my research interests — namely, cultural studies, media studies, and gender and sexuality studies— all through an intersectional analytical framework. A one-year student exchange in the French department at the University of Colorado Boulder helped rekindle my interest in French literature and media and led me to graduate from CU Boulder with an MA in French and Francophone literature.
When I am not obsessively reading about banlieue cinema, I am binge-watching television series (for research of course), spending time at a local theater or exploring nature in the Bay!
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Feel free to contact me for any questions (teaching, research, tutoring) by email.
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- “Halqa performance and the fourth stage in Kateb Yacine’s Le cadavre encerclé.” Revue Internationale des Inventions Théâtrales Africaines, vol. 1 no. 1, 2026, DOI: https://doi.org/10.33011/rita.v1i1.4093.
Book Chapters (editor-reviewed)
- “When the Banlieue Meets the Third Arrondissement: Education, Hip Hop, and Emancipation in Allons Enfants (2022).” Education in Contemporary French and Francophone Film, edited by Rhiannon Harries and John Marks. Forthcoming Spring 2027.
- “Gender Dynamics and Spatiality in Banlieue Education Films”. Gender in French Banlieue Cinema: Intersectional Perspectives, edited by Marzia Caporale, Claire Mouflard, & Habib Zanzana, Lexington Book Publishing, August 2024, pp. 97-113.
- Co-authored with Pr. Georges-Claude Guilbert. “Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood as Queer Utopian Uchronia.” Ryan Murphy's Queer America, edited by Brenda R. Weber & David Greven, Routledge, 2022, pp. 105-118.
- “‘Black, Gay, and Old? I'm Not Even Going to Know What Box to Check on the Hate Crime Form’: Titus Andromedon’s Intersectional Identity in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-2020).” Intersectionality in Anglophone Television Series and Cinema, edited by Kévin Drif & Georges-Claude Guilbert, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020, pp. 36-47.
Edited Volume
- Co-edited with Pr. Georges-Claude Guilbert. Intersectionality in Anglophone Television Series and Cinema. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, December 2020.
Book Reviews (editor-reviewed)
- Review of Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes US by Karen Tongson. Continuum, 28 Feb. 2024, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2024.2325097.
20th and 21st century French and Francophone literature and culture; North African diaspora and migration narratives; French children of immigrants identities via film and media studies, television studies, post-colonial studies.
