{"id":4813,"date":"2026-04-03T18:25:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/language-culture-studies\/?page_id=4813"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:25:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:25:31","slug":"faculty-faculty-spotlight-blase-provitola","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/language-culture-studies\/french-studies\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty-faculty-spotlight-blase-provitola\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Spotlight – Blase Provitola"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Blase Provitola – Assistant Professor of Language & Culture Studies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feminist, Lesbian, and Queer Postcolonial Studies in the Francophone World<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a faculty member with a joint appointment between Language and Culture Studies and the Program in Women, Gender and Sexuality, I draw on francophone literature and activism to question assumptions that result from the anglophone focus of much queer and feminist studies scholarship. At the same time, I also look to francophone voices outside of the typical canon of French literature and culture, such as racialized and\/or queer women and other gender minorities.<\/p>\n

My current book project draws on a diverse corpus of cultural production authored by and representing women in France\u2019s North African diasporas to complicate well-known French theories of sexuality (such as Monique Wittig\u2019s critique of heterosexuality and Michel Foucault\u2019s repressive hypothesis). One aim of this project is to assert the relevance of political lesbianism as a theoretical framework in transnational sexuality studies. During my 2024\u201325 sabbatical, I was able to write and workshop materials related to this book as a research associate with the Five College Women\u2019s Studies Research Center, housed at Hampshire College. In March 2025, I was also invited to discuss that research as part of the event \u201cTransnational Circuits of Intimacy\u201d at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College.<\/p>\n

More recently, in December 2025, a conference presentation related to my book was expanded and published in the journal Contemporary French Civilization <\/em>as the 13th Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award-Winning Essay, with the title \u201cThe right to feel bad: ambivalence as resistance in Fatima Daas\u2019s La Petite Derni\u00e8re<\/em> (The Last One<\/em>).\u201d This article uses affect theory to analyze Daas\u2019s The Last One, <\/em>the first novel published by an openly lesbian Franco-Algerian Muslim author. I read Daas\u2019s representation of ambivalence as a form of resistance to the pressure\u2013\u2013faced by many queer racialized authors\u2013\u2013to publish liberatory narratives with tidy resolutions. I am grateful to students in my course WMGS\/LACS 221: Afro-European Feminisms over the past few years, who helped shape my thinking on the novel.<\/p>\n

\"\"Alongside that work, I have also contributed to an emergent body of francophone transgender studies scholarship. I contributed a chapter to the volume Queer Realms of Memory <\/em>(Liverpool University Press, 2025), in which I draw on an extensive personal interview with activist Giovanna Rincon to foreground transgender migrants\u2019 place in the French (queer) national narrative. In September 2025, I had the pleasure of presenting that volume, along with some other contributors, at a conference celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the journal Contemporary French Civilization <\/em>in Raleigh, NC. I am excited to continue bringing this body of research to bear on my 2026\u201327 classes, such as FREN 355: Intersectional French Feminisms and WMGS\/LACS 324: Transgender Migrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feminist, Lesbian, and Queer Postcolonial Studies in the Francophone World As a faculty member with a joint appointment between Language and Culture Studies and the Program in Women, Gender and Sexuality, I draw on francophone literature and activism to question assumptions that result from the anglophone focus of much queer and feminist studies scholarship. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":0,"parent":223,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4813","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFaculty Spotlight - Blase Provitola - Language and Culture Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/language-culture-studies\/french-studies\/faculty-and-staff\/faculty-faculty-spotlight-blase-provitola\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Faculty Spotlight - Blase Provitola\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Feminist, Lesbian, and Queer Postcolonial Studies in the Francophone World As a faculty member with a joint appointment between Language and Culture Studies and the Program in Women, Gender and Sexuality, I draw on francophone literature and activism to question assumptions that result from the anglophone focus of much queer and feminist studies scholarship. 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