M.A. Essay

M.A. Essay

The Master’s essay, written in English, consists of a minimum of 50 pages, a bibliography and notes.

The Director of Studies meets with students individually throughout the year and, with support of Visiting Columbia Faculty, helps them to define their objectives and to plan their research activities. M.A. students are paired with an advisor specializing in the field from a leading French graduate school, with whom they meet regularly.

Stipends are offered by Columbia to allow students to conduct independent research- for example, at the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (Colonial archives) in Aix-en Provence or the Archives at the British Library in London- or to attend international conferences closely related to their subject.

M.A. Essay Picture

M.A. Calendar

September-October:  Regular meetings and intensive readings. 

End of October: Written proposal of subjects (Max 500 words)
1- Summarize what brought you to this subject and the evolution of your work to its current state
2- Present a working hypothesis and methodology, taking into account if possible research you have done illustrating what has been written on the subject. Do not hesitate to discuss your alternative perspectives.
3- Present your corpus of documents (the types of work with which you are working) as precisely as possible.
4- Bibliography (primary and secondary sources)

Early November: Student oral presentations before audience.
The audience will consist of Columbia, EHESS, and ENS professors who will all have around 15 minutes to ask questions and offer suggestions.

End of November :  Final version of the topic.

Mid December - End of January: Meeting with a potential thesis advisor. At the end of January, all students will have an advisor.

Mid January- End of April: Research Seminar 

Mid-June:  Oral presentation « work in progress »
 with all students, thesis advisors, teachers who taught in the program, Thomas Dodman, Faculty Director of the program, Keithley Woolward, Associate Director of Studies and Judith Lyon-Caen, Professor at EHESS.

End of August:   
Thesis deadline.

Example Essays

Angela Black “Harnessing the Dionysian, Digesting the Godlessness: Nietzschean Echoes in Francis Bacon’s Crucifixions, 1944-1965” under the direction of Hugo Daniel (Ecole des modernités/ Fondation Giacometti)

Shelby CallLes Anecdotes de Florence: Literature, Rhetoric and Politics of ‘Secret History’ in Seventeenth-century France” under the direction of Karine Abiven (Sorbonne Université)

Radiante de Beaulieu “The Kingdom of Momeralia, or A Noble Girl’s Hobbesian Leviathan in 20th Century Mallorca” under the direction of Jordi Canal (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Suhail Gharaibeh “From ‘vieux Paris’ to ‘ville juive’? Paris & the Construction of Antisemitic Ideology (1864-1902)” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Noe Ishibashi Horiwaki “‘The Futures is Now,’ Exploring the Unique Value of Anime Through MAPPA Studio’s Inuyashiki: Last Hero” under the direction of Julien Bouvard (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3)

Emily Jin “Scenes of Café: Heterotopia of Everyday Life – A History of French Cinema” under the direction of Fabien Delmas (Université Gustave Eiffel)

Marie-Line Lochard “Raymond Aron’s Relevance in the Post-Cold-War Era: The Fragility of Peace in the 21st Century’s Bipolar and Multipolar World through a Study of Aron’s Paix et Guerre entre les Nations (1962) and the Mechanisms of Paix de Terreur” under the direction of Perrine Simon-Nahum (Ecole normale supérieure)

David V. Markey “The United States Army and the French Forces of the Interior in Brittany: Between Discipline, Cooperation, and Autonomy” under the direction of Julien Blanc (Ecole des haute études en sciences sociales) 

Audrey Ngo “‘Reclaimed from Oblivion’: A Visual Analysis of Dave Heath’s A Dialogue with Solitude” under the direction of Géraldine Chouard-Veron (Université Paris-Dauphine) 

Ruby Schiller “Presumed Artist Maudit: An Intellectual Study of Chaim Soutine and His Reception” under the direction of Cécile Bargues (Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art)

Alexandra Vasquez “Visions of Difference: State Narratives of Antillean Adaptation to Metropolitan France (1963-1981)” under the direction of Audrey Célestine (Université de Lille/New York University)

Aidan Walker “How to Read a Meme: Context, Agency, and Knowledge in Distracted Boyfriend” under the direction of Yves Cohen (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)


 

Niko Angell-Gargiulo “Words and Aromas, Clair et Obscur: The Aesthetics and Poetics of Scent in Robert de Montesquiou’s Le Chef des odeurs suaves” under the direction of Érika Wicky (Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes)

Raphaël Angoulvant “‘Midway between the Real and Unusual’: World-building the Orient in Edgar P. Jacobs’s Blake and Mortimer, 1946-1952” under the direction of Laurent Martin (Sorbonne nouvelle)

Alex Barnett “Ghostwriting: On the Image of Death and Spectral Apparitions in Genet and Cocteau” under the direction of Jean-Louis Jeannelle (Sorbonne Université)  

Bart Wilson Bolander “‘crudel fortuna a me ben vieta’: Transformative Failure in 19th Century Monologic Depictions of Torquato Tasso” under the direction of Catherine König-Pralong (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Emma Getz “‘Quelle honte pourrait m’apporter l’écriture’: Writing Shame in the Works of Annie Ernaux” under the direction of Tiphaine Samoyault (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Deirdre Klena “‘That you also may bring yourselves to imitate him’: Affective Exemplarity in Hieronymus Bosch and Matthias Grünewald’s Sixteenth Century Artistic Depictions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony” under the direction of Étienne Anheim (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Tatiana Valeska Köhler “Living with the Dead: The Uses of Literature for Preserving Memory and Making Kin in Robert Bolaño’s 2666 and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s La plus secrète mémoire des hommes” under the direction of Cyril Vettorato (Paris Cité)

Wilson Korges “A Very Private Audience: Theater and Kingship without Statecraft under the reign of Ludwig II of Bavaria” under the direction of Sebastien Schick (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Sophia Lynch “‘Le bal’ as Literary Microcosm in the Earlier Works of Marguerite Duras (1955-1966): Writing the Ball in the Age of its Disappearance” under the direction of Déborah Lévy-Bertherat (Ecole normale superiéure) 

Parker Matias “The Emergence of the Auto-Historical in the Work of Alain Corbin” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Zachary McRae “‘We’re just a pack of off the wall weirdos with fringe leanings’: Claude Bessy and the Question of Identity and Inclusion in L.A. Punk, 1977-1981” under the direction of Solveig Serre (CNRS)

Julia Orr “Dance Like Nobody’s Watching: The correlation between hysterical and stage performance at the turn of the 20th century through the life of Jane Avril” under the direction of Christelle Taraud 

Sherry Sun “‘Like Bluebottles to a Dead Cat’: The Reception and Political Legacy of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier” under the direction of Marion Fontaine (Sciences Po)

Sophie Vernon “Breath in Texaco” under the direction of Dominique Combe (Ecole Normale Supérieure)

John Williams “The Paris Host Desecration Story: A Battleground of Anti-Jewish Narrative and Images in the High Middle Ages” under the direction of Jean Claude Schmitt (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

  • David Bordelon “History as Gesture: Gestural Interpretation and Interruption in Walter Benjamin” under the direction of Florent Jakob.
     
  • Julia Cullen “A Perfect Match in Paris Match: Women and Tobacco Advertising at the end of the 1960s in France” under the direction of Myriam Tsikounas ( Université Panthéon-Sorbonne).
     
  • Fiona Doxas “Mrs. Shelley’s Parergon”, under the direction of Frédéric Regard (Sorbonne Université).
     
  • Hannah GerstenFaire le Roman: George Sand, Alfred de Musset, and the Literary Legacy of the Venice Affair” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
     
  • Christa Graf “Reading Averroës at the Colonial Library: Borges, Renan and Rushdie on Ibn Rushd” under the direction of Catherine König-Pralong (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
     
  • Zhiyue Guang “The French Influence on The New Culture Movement” under the direction of Silvia Sebastiani et Pablo Blitstein (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
     
  • Cassandra Kessler “Chanter la Révolution, Chanter l’Amour: Jean Sénac, Poet of the Algerian Revolution” under the direction of Christelle Taraud.
     
  • Sephora Leon “Behind the scenes : the French theater of Hamburg’s paradoxical promotion of commerce and culture” under the direction of Rahul Markovits (Ecole normale supérieure).
     
  • Jasmine Mortazavi “Rewriting Experiences with Anorexia: an Analysis of Contemporary French Women’s Autobiographical Narratives” under the direction of Déborah Lévy-Bertherat (Ecole normale supérieure).
     
  • Hannah Peterson “Figures of the Author: Representations of Conversation and Community in 17th Century French Literary Fairy Tales” under the direction of Jean-Paul Sermain (Sorbonne nouvelle).
     
  • Shirley Reynozo “Maryse Condé’s post-colonial afro-feminism” under the direction of Pap Ndiyae (Institut d’études politiques de Paris).
     
  • Samantha Seto “The Female Role in 19th century Fiction: French Stories by Guy de Maupassant and a British-American Novella by Henry James” under the direction of Déborah Lévy-Bertherat (Ecole normale supérieure)
     
  • Samantha Slusher “A Tale of Man and God : George Washington’s Myth of Morality and Americaness in Visual Arts (1772-1865)” under the direction of Julien Blanc (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
     
  • Kenny Wong  “Negating Finitude in Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet” under the direction of Regis Salado (Université Paris-Denis Diderot).
  • Leah Barrier, “The ‘Carte blanche’ at the Bon Marché: from a commercial event to a cultural manifestation. An analysis drawn upon Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames,” under the direction of Cécile Bargues (Sciences Po Paris)
  • Jessica Becker, “Sister Churches: Representation of Feminine Figures in the Emblem Poetry of 1630’s England,” under the direction of Ladan Niayesh (Université Paris Diderot)
  • Asha Culhane-Husain, “Icebergs: Discovering What is Beneath Acting,” under the direction of Cécile Falcon (Conservatoire national d’art dramatique)
  • Pedro Duarte Blanco, “Looking for the Lyre of the Land: Adolphe van Bever’s ‘Poètes du Terroir,’” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
  • Sloane Nilsen, “Ordinary Death in Nazi-Occupied Paris: The Case of Père-Lachaise,” under the direction of Henry Rousso (CNRS et Institut du temps présent)
  • Vivian Panah-Izadi, “Finding One’s Inner Voice in 1950’s Iran, Forough Farrokhzad,” under the direction of Leili Anvar (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales)
  • Anna Parkhurst, “Three Times Upon a Time in Hollywood: Paradoxes of Self-Reference in the Ciné-System of David Lynch,” under the direction of Fabien Delmas (Université Est Marne-la-Vallée)
  • Bradford Pelletier, “Soldiers, Madness, and Psychiatry from Napoleon to Louis Philippe (1801-1838),” under the direction of Jean-Luc Chappey (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
  • Cat Wallace, “The Transatlantic Tragic Mulatto: the Louisiana Race Reveal Plot in French nineteenth-century Fiction,” under the direction of Laurence Cossu-Beaumont (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)
  • Jihan Xu, “The Imagined Urban and Rural Spaces, a case study of three Chinese films supported by CNC,” under the direction of Antoine de Baecque (École Normale Supérieure)
  • Tyler Allen: “ ‘All the Children Come Without Their Fathers and Mothers’: a Case Study Comparison of Website of NGOs, Kids in Need of Defense (US) and Safe Passage (UK), 2014-2016”, under the direction of Nancy Green (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
  • Sarah Anjum Bari: “The Making of a Classic: a Publishing History of The Great Gatsby in the United Kingdom, 1926-1977”, under the direction of Claire Parfait (Université Paris 13)
  • Terri-Lee Bixby: “A Library at the Frontier: Innerpeffray in the Scottish Context, 1680-1800”, under the direction of Silvia Sebastiani (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
  • Susan Chavez: “Shadowshaping Bone Street: Authorial Identification in the Race War”, under the direction Claire Joubert (Université Paris 8)
  • Erin Mayo: “The Narratology of Class-Reconciliation in Gaskell’s Condition-of-England Novels”, under the direction of Benjamine Toussaint (Sorbonne-Université)
  • Briana Vessells: “ ‘From Vassals to Men’: African American leaders, Black Nationalism, and Emigration to Liberia and Haiti, 1840-1863”, under the direction of Adrien Delmas (Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud)
  • Nadine Briar   “The Authority of Influence: Edmund Burke and the Political Man of Letters (1759-1797) under the direction of  Alexis Tadié (Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • Emily Chao   ““Bête de somme”: Reconfiguring Interwar Masculinity in Jean Renoir’s Toni (1935)”  under the direction of Christelle Taraud.
  • Valorie Clark   “A Study in Subtext: Homoeroticism and the Sherlock Holmes Stories”  under the direction of Jean-Pierre Naugrette (Université Sorbonne- Nouvelle).
  • Chloe-Rose Crabtree “Crafting the American Home: an Analysis of the Evolution of Domestic Guides and Their Impact on Cultural Education (1830-1900)  under the direction of  Hélène LeDantec-Lowry (Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle).
  • Jackson Guiricih “Intersecting idolatries: Proust’s Ruskinian Legacy” under the direction of  Christophe Pradeau (Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • Thomas Jolley  “A Victorian Anti-Imperialist & Islamic Modernist: the Travels of Wilfried Scawen Blunt” under the direction of Daniel Foliard ( Université Paris-Ouest)
  • Hagop Mouradian “Ourika : a 19th Century Literary Event” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (Ecole de hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Fiona Mustard  “Justice, Served Cold: How Monte-Cristo’s Hero Became Gankutsuo’s Villain” under the direction of Martine Lavaud (Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • Anna Rindfleisch “Haunting the Bereaved: The Role of 1930s Theater in Mourning the Lost Soldiers of the Great War” under the direction of Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien (Ecole de hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Elizabeth Turner “Jour du Seigneur”:  Implementation and Retention of Religious Programming on Publically Supported Television” under the direction of Florian Michel (Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne).
  • Luz Colpa: “Tumultous Times, Common Ground: An Oral History of the N’Diaye Marriage” under the direction of Christelle Taraud (Columbia University Paris).
  • Ethan Darden: “Contesting Roland: The Quests for National Identity in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century France and Spain” under the direction of Patrick Henriet (École Pratique des Hautes Études).
  • Gerald Devotta: “Reframing the Visual or the Examination of Amorous Images in French Contemporary Cinema” under the direction of Fabien Delmas (Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée).
  • Kate Frenz: “Evaluating Language Policy on Behalf of Morocco’s Imazighen” under the direction of Pierre Vermeren ( Université Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne).
  • Robert Fyke: “Historical facts and historical processes in cognitive science texts” under the direction of Florent Jakob (Columbia University Paris).
  • Serge Ngwanza: “Violence in North Kivu Province: A Collusion of Grievances, Alliances, and Cleavages ” under the direction of Remy Bazenguissa-Ganga (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales).
  • Ani Ohanian: “Napoleon and his Mameluk: Unvieling the Orient” under the direction of Jean-Luc Chappey (Université de Paris 1- Panthéon-Sorbonne).
  • Monique Rubins: “1959: A Year to Remember” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
  • Anna Salzman: “Travel Impressions: Scaling Barriers of Genre in the 19th Century French Alps” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
  • Jilene Chua : “The Business of Black Paris: Josephine Baker’s cosmetics, 1926-1940” under the direction of Christelle Taraud (Centre d’histoire du XIXème siècle).
  • Mary-Lucia Darst : “Between Heaven and Hell: Philosophy, Culture, and Richard Strauss’ Salome” under the direction of Danielle Cohen-Levinas (Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • Eva-Maria Ghelardi : “The Origins Of  International Embassies: How The Individualism of A French King and a Milanese Duke Altered Modern Diplomacy” under the direction of Patrick Boucheron (Université Paris1-Pantheon Sorbonne/ Collège de France).
  • Laura Lopez : “Writing, Gender and Authority in Nineteenth Century Colombia, the Example of Soledad Acosta” under the direction of Anne Tomiche ( Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • James Nash : “Engagé à la dérive : A Poetics of Interruption in Georges Bataille’s Le Bleu du ciel ” under the direction of Professor Laurent Zimmermann (Université Paris-Denis Diderot)
  • Evelyn Pappas : “Athens:Raising The (Un)Dead” under the direction of Marie-Elisaberth Mitsou (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Sydney Sawyier : “The “Words of the Future”: Independence, the Trusteeship System and the Discourse of Decolonization1945-1955” under the direction of Catarina Madeira-Santos (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Katherine Sinclair : “From the Petit Parisien to the Journal officiel: Albert Londres, Au bagne, and the Interwar Discourse of Prison Reform” under the direction of Dominique Kalifa (Université Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne).
  • Clare Tonks : “Assistance From An Adversary: The French Émigré Experience In England According To Charlotte Smith” under the direction of Alexis Tadié (Université Paris Sorbonne).
  • Ghita Wahdani : “Architecture of the Revolution: Ledoux’s La Saline Royale of Chaux” under the direction of Linnea Tilly-Rollenhagen (AUSer-Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Belleville).
  • Elizabeth Albes: “Drawn to Disaster : The Aesthetic Appeal of the Ruins of Post-Commune Paris” under the direction of Martine Lavaud (Université Paris-Sorbonne).
  • Kimberly Coates: “Experimental Ground for Moral Situations : La Nausée de J-P. Sartre, L’Elégance du hérisson de Muriel Barbery, Les Belles mages de Simone de Beauvoir.” under the direction of Françoise Gaillard (Université Paris-Denis Diderot).
  • Lucile Culver: “From Architecture to Architext : The Urban Construction of Intimacy in Georges Perec’s La Vie mode d’emploi and Julio Cortazar’s Rayuela” under the direction of Dominique Rabaté (Université Paris-Denis Diderot).
  • Rebecca Dehner : “Translation or Re-Creation : The Masochistic Self-Translator and the Search for the Third Tongue”under the direction of Stephanie Schwerter (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • John Finkelberg : “The Chambige Affair”under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Caio Ferreira : “Magnificent Achievements and Noble Endurances : On Exemplarity and the Usefulness of  History from Polybius to Voltaire”under the direction of Bertrand Binoche (University Paris1–Pantheon Sorbonne).
  • Mengqing Han : “The Bayeux Tapestry as a Tragedy”under the direction of Olivier de La Borderie (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Thomas Hedges : “Abandoning the Banlieue : 1970-1998” under the direction of Cédric Moreau de Bellaing (Ecole normale supérieure).
  • Alexa Hight : “The Estate Not Gained : The Rôle of the Country Estate in Three Works by Jane Austen Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Sanditon” under the direction of Marc Porée (Ecole normale supérieure).
  • Lauren Jannette : “Mata Hari in the Eyes of French Journalists”under the direction of Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Jiyae Hwang : “A Man’s story, a woman’s story : interracial relations in colonial Vietnam in French Literature  and Vietnamese Francophone Literature” under the direction of Claire Tran Thi Lien (Universite  Paris 7-Denis Diderot / INALCO).
  • Inyoung Kang : “La Vie Privée by Vivette Perret : Witnessing of an Era” under the direction of Patrick Eveno (Université Paris1-Pantheon Sorbonne).
  • Rosemarie Reyes : “The Character of Landscapes in Aymé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal » under the direction of Jean-Marc Moura ( Universite de Paris-Ouest Nanterre).
  • Amy Vidor : “Irène Némirovsky’s Suite française : Historical Document and Harrowing Portrait of French Mentalites During the Early Years of Nazi Occupation” under the direction of Anny Dayan Rosenman (Universite  Paris Denis Diderot).
  • Ashley Hamill : “Diverging Disciples : Tolstoy and the Normaliens” under the direction of Deborah Levy-Bertherat (Ecole normale supérieure).
  • Michaela Kleber : “Writing to Speak: Early Nineteenth-Century Women Authors in Great Britain, France, and America ( Jane Austen, Claire de Duras, Maria Sedwick)” under the direction of Judith Lyon-Caen  (Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)
  • Celine Kodia : “Gendering Empowerment : A French Training Program for African Women Entrepreneurs (2010-2012)” under the direction of Pascale Barthélémy (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon).
  • Nicole Mahoney : “Transatlantic Narratives of National Identity and Sentimental Rhetoric : Uncle Tom’Cabin in France, (1852-1900)” under the direction of Nelly Schmidt (Centre national de la recherche scientifique).
  • Alejandra Ott : “Defamiliarization of Perception as an Aesthetic Program” under the direction of Dominique Combe (Ecole Normale Supérieure).
  • Nana Quarshie : “A Multi-Spatial Critique of Rural Tradition and Urban Modernity”under the direction of René Collignon (Université Paris-Ouest).
  • John Raimo : “Defining Revolution, Defining Politics: Reinhart Koselleck, François Furet, and the Postwar Lexicon” under the direction of Michael Werner (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales).
  • Bahij Tamer : “Once Upon a Time, There Was Luxury...” under the direction of Jean-Paul Sermain (Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle).
  • Jessica Biddlestone : “Literature, General Culture, and Pedagogical Reforms: Colonial Humanism at the Ecole Coloniale (1926-1945)”, under the direction of Blaise Wilfert-Portal (Ecole normale supérieure).
  • Kelsey Bladh : “The Realization of a Fictionalized Courtesan : History’s Role in Emile Zola’s Nana”, under the direction of Christelle Taraud (Centre d’histoire du XIXème siècle).
  • Danielle Calleja : “La Puissance de la possibilité: l'énergie du système stendhalien” under the direction of Marc Escola (Université de Lausanne).
  • Marla Epp : “Édith Thomas et la mise en récit de la Libération de Paris” under the direction of Antoine Sabbagh (Université de Paris-Sorbonne Nouvelle).
  • Haley Temple : “Representations of the Maternal Body from Jules Michelet's La Femme and Emile Zola 's Fécondité” under the direction of Anne Berger (Université de Paris 8-Saint-Denis).