Catherine Theobald

Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies

ctheobald@brandeis.edu
781-736-3212
Shiffman Humanities Center, 208

Departments/Programs

Romance Studies

Degrees

University of Colorado, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, M.A.
University of Tennessee, B.A.

Expertise

Word and Image Studies, Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century French Literature and Culture, Illustrated Books (fiction and non-fiction), Portraiture, Louis XIV and his court, Early Novels, Epistolarity, The Philosophy of Language

Profile

Catherine J. Lewis Theobald, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor (July 1) of French and Francophone Studies and the Undergraduate Advising Head. Her research has two main foci: early modern French literature and word and image studies (particularly portraiture and illustrated books). Many of her publications focus on visual imagery in early modern prose and early book engravings. In journals such as French Forum, Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, and Women in French Studies, she explores the idea that the literary portrait, despite its reputation as a mere salon game, has an evolving presence in a large body of early modern writing. Several of her publications address questions of gender, identity, viewing, and pleasure in early modern illustrated novels, and her newest projects examine print culture surrounding eighteenth-century marvels like the Montgolfier balloons, canal technology, and the role of pictures in early epistolary novels. Dr Theobald strives to enrich her teaching by bringing her research into the classroom at all levels. She has developed and taught upper-level classes in French entitled "Reading Versailles: Portrait, Space, and Spectacle under the Sun King," "La Révolution tranquille?: Québec’s Culture Wars on Stage and Screen," "Wordplay: Humor in Francophone Texts," and "Le Livre illustré," which explores illustrated texts from illuminated manuscripts to contemporary comics. She is thrilled to be a part of the Brandeis community.

Courses Taught

FREN	32a	Intermediate French: Conversation
FREN	104b	Advanced Language Skills through Culture
FREN	105a	France Today: French Conversation
FREN	106b	Writing Workshop
FREN	129a	La Révolution tranquille?: Québec's Culture Wars on Stage and Screen
FREN	146a	Picturing Versailles: Portrait, Space and Spectacle under the Sun King
FREN	149b	Le Livre Illustré: Word and Image in Francophone Texts from Bestiaries to Bandes Dessinées
FREN	159b	Wordplay: Humor in Francophone Texts

Awards and Honors

Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Lumen award: Best Annual Essay Prize (first recipient) for the article “Soaring Imaginations: The Montgolfier Balloons in Word and Image” (Vol. 39, 2020) (2019)

Theodore and Jane Norman Award for Faculty Research (2015)

PSC-CUNY research grant for work in Paris (2008 - 2010)

CUNY William Stewart Travel Award (2006)

College of Staten Island CELT grant (Departmental technology grant) (2006 - 2007)

PSC-CUNY research grant for work in Oxford and Paris (2006 - 2008)

University of Colorado: Andrée Kail Dissertation Award (2004)

Rocky Mountain MLA Graduate Student Travel Award (2003)

Beth Leapley Memorial Grant for Research at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (2002)

Gladys Manning Award for Dissertation Research (2002)

Thomas Edwin Devaney Dissertation Fellowship (2002 - 2003)

University of Colorado at Boulder: Newberry Library Research Grant (2002)

University of Colorado Graduate Student Teaching Excellence Award (2000)

University of Colorado Graduate Fellowship (1999 - 2004)

Summa Cum Laude (1992)

University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Valedictorian/ Top Graduating Senior in the College of Liberal Arts, Humanities (1992)

Scholarship

Theobald, Catherine. "Book Illustration and the Epistolary Genre: Picturing Women Writing Letters in the Eighteenth Century." Forms and Genres of Eighteenth-Century Book Illustration. Ed. Leigh H. Dillard and Christina Ionescu., 2020 (forthcoming)

Theobald, Catherine. "Book Illustration and Text-Image Studies: Erasing the Frame: Eighteenth-Century Illustrated Novels from a Word and Image Perspective." A Companion for Eighteenth-Century Literary Illustration. Ed. Christina Ionescu and Leigh G. Dillard. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2019 (forthcoming)

Theobald, Catherine. "Soaring Imaginations: The Montgolfier Balloons in Word and Image." Lumen: Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 39. (2020): 23-53.

Theobald, Catherine. "Graphic Descriptions: The Pleasures of Image and Text in _Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse_." Book Illustration in the Long Eighteenth Century: Reconfiguring the Visual Periphery of the Text. Ed. Christina Ionescu. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011. 367-98.

Theobald, Catherine. "The Many Fictions of La Rochefoucauld: Searching for Sitter, Self, and Society in ‘Portrait de M.R.D.’ and the _Maximes_." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature. (2005): 399-418. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. vol. 172 Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Detroit, New York, San Francisco, New Haven, London: Gale, 2010.

Theobald, Catherine. "The Princess and the Paradox: Irreconcilable Images in _La Princesse de Clèves_." Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature XXXVII. 72 (2010): 33-44.

Theobald, Catherine. "Shifting Pictures of Class, Gender, and Self in Mademoiselle de Montpensier's 'Portrait de Monsieur de Brais'." Women in French Studies 17. (2009): 30-53.

Theobald, Catherine. "From Portrait to Person: Discourses on Representation and Reality in Rousseau's _Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse_." The Word and Image in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. first ed. Ed. Christina Ionescu and Renata Schellenberg. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008. 210-26.

Theobald, Catherine. "Formes Brèves as Linguistic and Social Meditations in _Le Misanthrope_." French Forum 31. 2 (Spring) (2006): 15-34.

Theobald, Catherine. "The Many Fictions of La Rochefoucauld: Searching for Sitter, Self, and Society in `Portrait de M.R.D.¿ and the _Maximes_." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature XXXII. 63 (2005): 399-418.

Theobald, Catherine. "The Two Faces of Amérinthe: Literary Portraiture in Mademoiselle de Scudéry's _Clélie_." Seventeenth-Century French Studies 25. (2005): 205-18.

Theobald, Catherine. "Layers of Portraiture in _Manon Lescaut_: Changing Modes of Representation in a Changing Society." French Forum 28. 2 (Spring) (2003): 1-19.