Lynn Tarte Ramey

Associate Professor of French,

Affiliate of the Program in Film Studies

Department of French and Italian

Box 6312, Station B

Vanderbilt University

Nashville, TN  37235

phone: (615) 322-6904; fax (615) 343-6909

lynn.ramey@vanderbilt.edu

 


Education

1991-1997:  Harvard University, Romance Languages and Literatures, Ph.D.

1989-1991:  Indiana University - Bloomington, French, M.A.

1982-1986:  University of Pennsylvania, French Language and Culture, B.A.

1982-1986:  University of Pennsylvania, Applied Science - Computer Science, B.A.S.

 

Academic Employment

2006-           Associate Professor of French, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

2001-2006:  Assistant Professor of French, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

1999-2001:  Assistant Professor of French, University of Montevallo, AL

1998-1999:  Lecturer, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

1997-1998:  Visiting Assistant Professor, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN

1995-1996:  Lectrice, École Normale Supérieure, Fontenay aux Roses, France

 

Publications

books and edited volumes

Christian, Saracen and Genre in Medieval French Literature.  Studies in Medieval History and Culture Series.  (New York: Routledge, 2001). This book explores how interethnic relationships between Christians and Muslims both reflect and inform hegemonic culture in France from 1100 to 1500, claiming that generic forms evolve as adaptations to shifting cultural paradigms.

Reviews in:

Speculum 78.4 (2003): 1381-3

Medieval Encounters 9.1 (2003): 186-189

The Medieval Review  03.03.13 (2003): online at www.hti.umich.edu/t/tmr/

Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema.  Editors Lynn Ramey and Tison Pugh. The New Middle Ages Series. (New York: Palgrave, 2007).  An edited collection of essays that explores why and how directors intentionally insert modern preoccupations with race, class, and gender into a setting that would normally be considered incompatible with these concepts.

La Mort le Roi Artu: From the Illustrated Lancelot Prose of Yale 229.  Series editor, Elizabeth Willingham. Editors Nancy Black, Walter Blue, Nina Dulin-Mallory, Virginie Greene, Stacy Hahn, Kathy Krause, Joan McRae, Lynn Ramey. (Turnhout: Brepols, under contract, forthcoming 2007).

La Queste del Saint Graal: From the Illustrated Lancelot Prose of Yale 229.  Series editor, Elizabeth Willingham.  Editors Walter Blue, Nina Dulin-Mallory, Virginie Greene, Stacy Hahn, Lynn Ramey. (Turnhout: Brepols, under contract, forthcoming 2008).


journal articles    

“Monstrous Alterity in Early Modern Travel Accounts: Lessons from the Ambiguous Medieval Discourse on Humanness,” Esprit Créateur, 48.1 (2008): 81-95.

“Laughter and Manhood in Jehan de Saintré (1456).” Fifteenth Century Studies, 31 (2006):164-73.

“Androgynous Power and the Maternal Body in Marguerite de Navarre’s Les Prisons,” Dalhousie French Studies, 71 (2005): 31-38.

“Unauthorized Preaching: the sermon in Jean Bodel’s Jeu de Saint Nicolas.Disputatio, 6 (2005): 221-34.

“Jean Bodel’s Jeu de Saint Nicolas: a Call for Non-violent Crusade.” French Forum, 27.3 (2002): 1-14.

“Role Models? Saracen Women in Medieval French Epic.” Romance Notes, 41.2 (2001): 131-41.

“Representations of Women in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide: Courtly literature or misogyny?” Romanic Review, 84.4 (1993): 377-86.

 

book chapters

“Images of Rebellion: the Social and Political Context of Yale ms 229 La Mort le Roy Artus.” In Essays on the Illustrated Lancelot Prose of Yale 229. Ed. Beth Willingham. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007: 7-12.

“In Praise of Troubadourism: Creating Community in Occupied France, 1942-43” In Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema. Eds. Lynn Ramey and Tison Pugh.  New York: Palgrave, 2007: 139-153.

“Introduction: Filming the ‘Other’ Middle Ages” with Tison Pugh. In Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema. Eds. Lynn Ramey and Tison Pugh.  New York: Palgrave, 2007: 1-12.

“The Death of Aude and the Conversion of Bramimonde: Border Pedagogy and Medieval Feminist Criticism.” In Approaches to Teaching the Song of Roland. Eds. William Kibler and Leslie Zarker Morgan. NY: MLA, 2006: 232-237.

“La perception du sarrasin XIe-XIVe siècles: l’image du musulman dans la littérature française” In Histoire de l’islam et des musulmans en France, du Moyen Age à nos jours, aspects religieux, politiques et culturels. Eds. Mohammed Arkoun and Jean Mouttapa.  Paris: Albin Michel, 2006: 194-203.

“Patriarchy and Monarchy: François de Billon, the Querelles des femmes, and the Rise of French Absolutism.”  In The World and Its Rival: Essays on Literary Imagination in Honor of Per Nykrog.  Eds. Kathryn Karczewska and Tom Conley.  Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999: 161-70.

“Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).”  In Epics for Students.  Ed. Marie Lazzarie.  Detroit: Gale, 1997: 83-106.

“Sundiata (Soundjata).”  In Epics for Students.  Ed. Marie Lazzarie.  Detroit: Gale, 1997: 398-416.

 

encyclopedia articles

“Eleanor of Aquitaine” and “Reynard Literature.” In Facts on File Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry.  Ed. Michelle M. Sauer.  NY: Facts on File, forthcoming.

“Georges Chastelain” and “Antoine de La Sale.” In The Late Medieval Age of Crisis and Renewal: 1300-1500.  Ed. Clayton J. Drees.  Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2001: 97-99 and 282-83.

“Minstrels and Other Itinerant Performers as Travelers.” In Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: an Encyclopedia.  Eds. John B. Friedman and Kristen M. Figg.  NY: Garland Publishing, 2000: 401-02.

 

conference proceedings

“Voyage en Orient: réalité et imagination dans la géographie du roman médiéval.” In La Géographie dans les textes narratifs médiévaux.  Ed. Danielle Buschinger.  Greifswald, Germany: Reineke-Verlag, WODAN series 62, 1996: 129-38.

“A Crisis of Category: Transvestism and Narration in Two Eighteenth-Century Novels.” In Proceedings of the 4th Annual Graduate Student Conference in French and Comparative Literatures, Columbia University, March 4-5, 1994.  NY: Columbia University, 1995: 72-77.

 

book reviews      

Postcolonial Fictions in the Roman de Perceforest by Sylvia Huot. Arthuriana, forthcoming.

Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture by E. Jane Burns and The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing, and Identity During the Hundred Years War by Susan Crane.  Arthuriana 13.2 (2003): 104-7.

Christine de Pizan and Medieval French Lyric edited by Earl Jeffrey Richards.  The Medieval Review. Online.  4 August 2001.  Available http://www.hti.umich.edu/t/tmr

Sheba’s Daughters: Whitening and Demonizing the Saracen Woman in Medieval French Literature by Jacqueline de Weever.  The Medieval Review. Online.  2 January 1999. Available http://www.hti.umich.edu/t/tmr

Clothes Make the Man by Valerie Hotchkiss.  The Medieval Review. Online. 1 October 1997.  Available http://www.hti.umich.edu/t/tmr

The Fall of Kings and Princes by M. Victoria Guerin.  Arthuriana 6.2 (1996): 95-97.

 

Invited lectures

Panelist, “Lessons for Modern Men and Women from Medieval Spain,” Austin Peay State University Asanbe Lecture Series, April 4, 2007.

“Courtly Love and Heresy in Medieval Provence,” Vanderbilt Alumni College Abroad program in Aix-en-Provence, France, June 18, 2004.

“Islam and Immigration in France: Today and Yesterday,” Vanderbilt Alumni College Abroad program in Aix-en-Provence, France, June 21, 2004.

 

Conference papers and panels

“Fact and Fiction: Encounters with Monstrosity in Textual Travels.” Invited paper by Medieval Romance Society.  43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI.  May, 2008.

“Parodic Monstrosity and the New World Body.” Renaissance Society of America annual meeting. Chicago, April 3-5, 2008.

“History and Genre in Cassenti’s  Chanson de Roland.” Modern Language Association.  Chicago, IL. December 27-30, 2007.

“’Nigra sum’: Blackness and Miscegenation in Patristical Commentaries on the Song of Songs.” Southeastern Medieval Association. Spartanburg, SC. October 4-6, 2007.

“Are Pygmies Men? Medieval Monstrosity in Travel Accounts.” 3rd Annual Symposium of the International Medieval Society. Paris, France. June 29-July 1, 2006.

“Mapping the New World Body: Early Transpositions of Medieval Monstrosity.” 9th Annual International Congress of the Mediterranean Studies Association. Genoa, Italy. May 24-27, 2006.

“Locating Iberia within European Medieval Studies: A Panel Discussion.” 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 2-7, 2006

“Violence, Conversion, and the Limits of Rationality in Medieval French Literature.” Modern Language Association. Washington, DC. December 27-30, 2005.

“Miscegenation in the William Cycle.” Modern Language Association. Washington, DC. December 27-30, 2005.

“The Relevance of Medieval Spain: a roundtable discussion.” 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 5-8, 2005.

“(Re)making the Middle Ages: Viollet-le-Duc’s Architectural Bodies.” Southeastern Medieval Association. Charleston, SC.  October 14-16, 2004.

“Race and Courtly Film: Martin Lawrence Meets Morgan Freeman.” 11th Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society.  Madison, WI.  July 29 – August 4, 2004.

“Washington Irving at the Alhambra: Dreaming of the Moor in Nineteenth-Century Spain.” 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 6-9, 2004.

Panel Chair, “Medieval Perceptions of Women and Womanhood.”  Sewanee Medieval Colloquium.  Sewanee, TN.  April 16-17, 2004.

“Medieval Western Views of Conception and Literary Miscegenation.” Medieval Academy.  Seattle, WA.  April 1-3, 2004.

“The Conquered Poet: Charles d’Orléans and the Aftermath of Agincourt.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Atlanta, GA. November 14-16, 2003.

“Medieval Western Views of Conception and Literary Miscegenation.” Southeastern Medieval Association. Fayetteville, AR.  October 23-25, 2003.

“Troubadour Peire Cardenal and the Rise of the Individual.”  38th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 7-10, 2003.

“Laughter and Manhood in Jehan de Saintré.” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference.  Lexington, KY.  April 24-27, 2003.

“Kidnapped!  Forced Border Crossing in Medieval French Literature.” Southeastern Medieval Association.  Tallahassee, FL.  September 26-28, 2002.

“Gender, Ethnicity, and Captivity in Medieval French Epic.”  37th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 2002.

“Gender and Captivity in Marguerite de Navarre’s Prisons.  Kentucky Foreign Language Conference.  Lexington, KY.  April 18-20, 2002.

“Pre-Raphaelites and the Medieval Aesthetic: Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.  Sewanee Medieval Colloquium.  Sewanee, TN.  April 12-13, 2002.

Organizer and chair, special SEMA session, “Deviance and Disobedience in the Middle Ages.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association.  New Orleans, LA.  November 11, 2001.

Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas: Saracens and Dramatic Genre.”  Southeastern Medieval Association.  New Orleans, LA.  October 18-20, 2001.

“Model Books and Religious Iconography in La Mort le Roy Artus.”  36th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 2001.

“The Imaginary and Symbolic Saracen.” Modern Language Association.  Washington, DC.  December 27-30, 2000.

“Images of Rebellion: The Social and Political Context of the Images of Yale 229.”  Southeastern Medieval Association. Asheville, NC.  September 28-30, 2000.

“Converting the Beast: Cultural Encounters and Rational Argument in Twelfth-Century France.”  Medieval Academy.  Austin, TX.  April 13-15, 2000.

“Female Rule and Universal History in Christine de Pizan and Boccaccio.” Southeastern Medieval Association.  Knoxville, TN.  October 15-17, 1999.

Organizer, “Liminal Learning: Teaching and Culture in the Middle Ages.” Modern Language Association.  San Francisco, CA.  December 27-30, 1998.

“The Ambiguous Lesson of Experiential Learning in the Legends of Charlemagne.” Modern Language Association.  San Francisco, CA.  December 27-30, 1998.

“Distance Learning and Video-Conferencing: Windows to New Opportunities.” with Paul Crapo, Karen Sorenson and David Jaymes.  Tennessee Foreign Language Teachers’ Association.  Nashville, TN.  November 6-7, 1998.

“Saracen Women in Medieval French Epic.” Southeastern Medieval Association.  Nashville, TN.  October 24-26, 1997.

“Cross(dress)ing Boundaries: Gender, Ethnicity and Transvestism in Medieval French Romance.”  31st International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 1996.

“Imagining the Route: Getting to the Orient in Medieval Romances.” La Géographie dans les romans médiévaux.  Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, France.  March 28-31, 1996.

“The Ball and Chain: Interracial Marriage and Slavery in Medieval French Romance and Chansons de Geste.” 30th International Congress on Medieval Studies.  Kalamazoo, MI.  May 1995.

“A Crisis of Category: Transvestism and Narration in Two Eighteenth-Century Novels.”  Graduate Student Conference in French and Comparative Literatures.  Columbia University, NY, NY.  March 4-5, 1994.

“The Anglo-Norman Jeu d’Adam and the Twelfth-Century Discourse of Female Power.”  Boston College, Boston, MA.  April 1992.

 

Work in progress

books          

“Race” and the European Middle Ages.  A study of the development of racial consciousness in medieval European literature and the importance of the Middle Ages to modern notions of race.

L’Agrauains: From the Illustrated Lancelot Prose of Yale 229. Series editor, Elizabeth Willingham.  Editors Walter Blue, Nina Dulin-Mallory, Virginie Greene, Stacy Hahn, Lynn Ramey.

 

articles     

“Epic Movie: Cassenti’s Song of Roland and the problems of generic representation”

 

grant

Applying to co-direct NEH summer institute grant, “The Middle Ages in the Modern Imagination” with Tison Pugh.

 

Grants, Fellowships and Awards

Fellow, “Pre-Modern Others: Race and Sexuality,” Robert Penn Warren Humanities Center, Vanderbilt University, 2005-2006

NEH Summer Institute, “Travel Writing, Skepticism, and Religious Belief in Renaissance France.” Directors, Carla Zecher and George Hoffmann.  Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, July 11 to August 5, 2005.

Vanderbilt University Research Scholar grant, spring 2004.

Vanderbilt University nominee (one of two) NEH summer stipend 2003

Vanderbilt University grant for Initiative on Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum, summer 2002

NEH Summer Seminar, “The Arthurian Illuminated Manuscript and the Culture of the High Middle Ages.”  Director, R. Howard Bloch.  Yale University, New Haven, CT, July 3 to August 11, 2000

Outstanding Foreign Language Professor, Austin Peay State University, 1997-98

Lurcy Fellowship for dissertation research in France, 1995-96

Derek Bok Award for teaching excellence, spring 1994 and fall 1995

Jens Aubrey Westengard award, Harvard University, 1994-95

Harvard Graduate Society Fellowship for summer travel, 1994

Harvard Romance Languages and Literatures Travel Grant, 1993

Fellowship, Institut d’études françaises, Avignon, France, 1993

Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship in Arabic, 1992-93

 

Thesis Committees

Director

Chad E. Simpson (French; BA honors thesis director), 2008.

Amy C. Leone (French; BA honors thesis director), 2008.

Megan Russell (French; BA honors thesis director), “La folie dans la littérature du moyen âge,” 2006.

Christin Harper (European Studies and French; BA thesis director), “Feminism and Nouvelle Vague Cinema,” 2003.

Reader

Susan Crisafulli (English; PhD dissertation committee), “’Wommen, of kynde’: the Construction of the ‘Natural’ and the Natural World in Medieval Courtly,” 2006.

Jennifer Montesi (French; BA honors thesis committee), “Entre la passion et la raison: une réflexion sur l’espace créative ouverte en dialogue avec Mikhaïl Bakhtine et Michel Meyer,” 2005.

Shirin Edwin (French; PhD dissertation committee), “Négocier pour (sur)vivre: la représentation de l’Islam dans les productions romanesque francophones de l’Afrique de l’Ouest,” 2005.

Heather J. Garrett (French; PhD dissertation committee), “Nothing to Say: Disclosures of Silence in the Narratives of Louis-René Des Forêts, Julien Gracq, Margeurite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Fritz Lang,” 2004.

Bérénice Le Marchand (French; PhD dissertation committee), “Mise en scène du miroir: Le spectaculaire dans les blasons et emblèmes de la Renaissance et les contes de fées du dix-septième siècle en France,” 2004.

Alistaire Tallent (French; PhD dissertation committee), “Defying Domesticity: Prostitute Heroines of Eighteenth-Century French Fiction in Their Own Words,” 2005.

 

Service     

Delegate Assembly, Modern Language Association, 2008-2010.

Executive board, Southeastern Medieval Association, 2003-2006.

Editorial board, The Medieval Review, 2004-2005.

External reviewer for articles submitted to Exemplaria, Olifant, and Medieval Perspectives

Evaluator for Canadian Research council grant application, 2002.

Evaluator for Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences grant application, 2008.

 

Vanderbilt University

Acting Director of the Program in Film Studies, 2007-2008

Arts and Sciences Graduate Delegate Assembly, 2007-2008

Arts and Sciences Faculty Council, 2006-2008

Arts and Sciences Panel Discussant, tenure file program for junior faculty, February 2008

Arts and Sciences Committee on Academic Standards and Procedures, 2006-2007

Director of Undergraduate Studies in French, 2002-2003, 2004-2006

Steering Committee, Program in Film Studies, 2005-2007

Undergraduate Admissions Committee interviews for honors scholars, 2005

Faculty advisor, graduate conference “Race, Identity, and Nationality,” February 25-26, 2005

Pre-major advisor, 2004-2006

Graduate Faculty Delegate Assembly, 2004-2005

Executive Committee for the Center for European Studies, 2004-2005

Second Language Acquisition Committee, 2004-present

Organizing committee, The World Awaits, a series of four colloquia on career opportunities for foreign language majors, 2002-2003.

Department web coordinator, 2001-2003

Department committee for revision of undergraduate curriculum, 2001-2002

Organizing committee, Tennessee & France: The Economic and Cultural Connections, 2001-2002

 

 Community

“Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, TN, March 16, 2008.

Discussion leader, The Red Balloon and White Mane, Belcourt Theater, December 16, 2007.

“Godard’s Breathless,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, September 9, 2007.

“François Truffaut and 400 Blows,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, TN, February 23, 2007.

“Alain Resnais’s Mouchette: Past and Present Controversies,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, TN, December 13, 2005.

Le Tango des Rachevski and Judaism in France,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, TN, November 10, 2005.

“Godard’s Masculin/Féminin and 1960’s New Wave Cinema,” Belcourt Theater, Nashville, TN, April 30, 2005.

 

Professional Affiliations

Medieval Academy of America

Southeastern Medieval Association

Modern Language Association

International Courtly Literature Society

Société Rencesvals

Fifteenth-Century Studies Society

 

Languages

near-native ability in French

proficient in reading Latin

intermediate level in reading classical Arabic

beginning Spanish