
Caroline Godard
Graduate Student Instructor
Research Areas
Renaissance literature, history of the book, histories and theories of authorship, feminist historiography, theories of the contemporary
Biography
I’m a fourth-year PhD student in French with a Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (REMS). My dissertation research traces a theory of the contemporary throughout sixteenth century French literature. I also have a secondary field of interest in feminist theories of authorship. For this research, I study how women like Annie Ernaux, Céline Sciamma, and Elena Ferrante explore the possibilities of collective authorship in their work.
Before coming to Berkeley, I graduated from Miami University with a BA in French and English Literature and an MA in French. I then read for an MSt in Modern Languages at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. I finished my Oxford degree with a Distinction, having also won the faculty's Gerard Davis Prize for the best MSt dissertation on a topic in French literary studies. I was subsequently recognized at Oxford's Encaenia ceremony as one of the university's eight highest achieving students from 2020.
I am a recipient of the Berkeley Fellowship and, as of 2023, I'm the REMS Graduate Representative. Outside of school, I like to play tennis, climb, hike, and watch rom coms.
Selected Publications
Peer-reviewed
"Being 'time-bound': Montaigne on touch, contagion, and the contemporary." Early Modern French Studies.
Public writing
"Compulsory heterosexuality, past and present: Adrienne Rich and the Lesbian Masterdoc." The Heteropessimism Cluster, edited by Annabel Barry, Caroline Godard, and Jane Ward. Post45: Contemporaries. July 13, 2023.
"Introduction" (with Annabel Barry and Jane Ward). The Heteropessimism Cluster, edited by Annabel Barry, Caroline Godard, and Jane Ward. Post45: Contemporaries. July 13, 2023.
"Happening captures the horrifying everydayness of illegal abortion." LitHub. May 4, 2022.
"Residual time." Diacritics blog. August 5, 2020.