Faculty Bio

Mary Anne Lewis Cusato

Assistant Professor of Modern Foreign Languages

Education

• B.B.A., University of Notre Dame
• M.A., University of Minnesota
• Ph.D., Yale University

About

Mary Anne Lewis Cusato earned her doctoral degree from the Yale University Department of French in 2013 and has worked as an Assistant Professor of Modern Foreign Languages at Ohio Wesleyan University since the fall of 2013. She teaches French language at all levels, as well as courses on the French-speaking world outside of France, with a particular emphasis on francophone North Africa. Her upper level courses include:

• "Empire, Language, and Identity: The Genesis, Uses, and Critiques of Francophonie" 
• "The Captive and Captivity in Contemporary North African Literature and Film"
• "Fourteen Kilometers: (Im)Migration Between Africa and Europe in Contemporary Francophone Literature and Film"
• "Franco-Arab Cultural Exchanges" 

In addition to teaching, Dr. Lewis Cusato has worked closely with many students through Independent Study projects on such topics as African film and criticism, and cultural representations of terrorism in France. Dr. Lewis Cusato regularly directs departmental honors thesis projects and supports advanced student work through grant development and associated experiential learning, research, and travel experiences with students. She has traveled with students to the French-speaking Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and to the African Film Festival held in New York City, thanks to Mellon Foundation supported "Theory-to-Practice" Grants. TPG and NEH grants have also facilitated her travel to, and research in, Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Marrakech, and Essaouira, as well as to the NEH Institute on Contemporary Cultural Production in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, held at Oregon State University during the summer of 2014.

Her book project, "Marketing the Maghreb", examines the relationships among marketing strategies, reading and interpretation practices, and authorial voice in an era of globalization, especially in the context of some of North Africa's most well-known cultural figures and products. Although the book is limited in scope to francophone North Africa, it has widespread implications for our thinking about how cultural phenomena and figures from the developing world are "marketed," especially to consumers in the West. 

Dr. Lewis Cusato became Assistant Director of Ohio Wesleyan University's Global Studies Institute in the fall of 2016 and serves as Acting Director during the spring of 2018. She is highly enthusiastic about supporting efforts to internationalize OWU's curriculum and student experiences.

 Areas of Interest / Expertise

Francophone literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, postcolonial theory, North Africa, Maghrebi literature and culture, culture industry

selected PUBLICATIONS

 PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

 “The Maghreb’s New Publishing House: les éditions barzakh and the Stakes of Localized Publishing,” Special issue of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, SITES, “The Contemporary Roman Maghrébin: Aesthetics, Politics, Production 2000-2015,” 20:1 (2016): 85-93.

 “Between francophonie and world literature in French: Tahar Ben Jelloun’s evolving authority,” Special issue of The Journal of North African Studies, “Maghrebi Artistic and Literary Expressions in the 21st Century,” 21:2 (2016): 301-309.

“From Tahar Djaout’s 'No' to Mustapha Benfodil’s 'Enough!':
Two Moments of Revolutionary Aesthetics in Contemporary Algerian Literature and Cultural Activism” Special issue of Expressions maghrébines, “Tahar Djaout, 25 ans après,” 17:1 (2018) (forthcoming)

 CHAPTERS

"Alien-nation and the Algerian Harraga: The Limits of Nation-Building and Cosmopolitanism as Interpretive Models for the Clandestine Immigrant." Cosmopolitanism, Ltd. Edited by Alexander Stevic and Philip Tsang. Routledge Press (2018) 

GENERAL INTEREST

 “The Worker and the Critic,” The Chronicle of Higher Education: Vitae (December 2017) (under review)

 “Teaching Statement as Self-Portrait,” The Chronicle of Higher Education: Vitae (October 2014), https://chroniclevitae.com/news/734-teaching-statement-as-self-portrait

 “ ‘This,’ I told myself, “will be the year of drafts.’ ” Gown to Town: The Official Yale Graduate Career Services News Column (February 2014),  https://gown2town.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/this-i-told-myself-will-be-the-year-of-drafts/

 BOOK REVIEWS

 Chérif, Mustapha. Rencontre avec le pape: L’Islam et le dialogue interreligieux. The Journal of North African Studies 21:1 (2016): 148-151.

SELECTED FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS & AWARDS

• Theory-to-Practice Grant awarded with Professor David Counselman and students Allie Eynon, Raissa Kanku, Paris Norman, Farida Rezk, and Caroline Shaffer for travel to, and experiential learning in, France related to the project "A Collective Study of French Imperialism: The Cultural Tools and Consequences of Colonialism as Seen in Paris and Southern France" (Summer 2018)
• Selected to participate in the American Institute of Maghrebi Studies International Conference in Djerba, Tunisia (July 2017)
• Thomas E. Wenzlau Faculty Development Award for research and course planning related to project entitled, “The Immigrants of France and the France of Immigrants: The Literature and Cinemas of 21^st Century Immigration around the French-Speaking Mediterranean” (Summer 2016)
• Theory to Practice Grant awarded with Professors Biser and Comorau for research and course planning related to project entitled, “The Literature, Cinema, and Politics of 21^st Century Mediterranean Immigration” (Spring 2016)
• Thomas E. Wenzlau Faculty Development Award for research and course planning related to project entitled, “Teaching and Researching Francophone Cultural Production through Colonial Archives, Museums, and Interviews” (Summer 2015)
• Theory to Practice Grant awarded with Professor Nancy Comorau and four students for research and course planning related to project entitled, “Contemporary Cinemas of Africa” (Spring 2015)
• Selected to Participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, coordinated by Professors Joseph Krause and Nabil Boudraa, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR: “Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia: Literature, the Arts, and Cinema since Independence” (June 23-July 11, 2014)
• Thomas E. Wenzlau Faculty Development Award for research and course planning related to project entitled, “Development of Francophone Studies Program at Ohio Wesleyan University and Research on World Literature” (Summer 2014)
• Theory to Practice Grant awarded for research and course planning related to project entitled, “Creole Cultures in the French West Indies: National Identity and Cultural Production in Martinique and Guadeloupe” (Spring 2014)
• Les Glycines centre d’études diocésain Fellow, Algiers, Algeria (Summer 2013)
• Yale University Dissertation Fellowship (Fall 2012, Spring 2013)