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Overview

Dr. Katherine Stephenson is Associate Professor of French, Liberal Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. In her nearly 30 years at UNC Charlotte she has taught all the core courses in French and developed French for Reading Knowledge and French Women Writers in Translation. She co-developed the Limoges Study Abroad Program in French. She has been a leader in integrating technology into the curriculum and all her courses are now hybrid courses. She helped establish the Language Resource Center in 1990 and is regularly on the departmental LRC advisory committees.  She is a founding member of the Master’s in Liberal Studies program, in which she still teaches Language, Gender and Power, the inaugural course in the program. In the WGST and MALS programs she regularly teaches Queer Theory, Theoretical Approaches to Sexuality, and Language, Gender and Power. She was the Graduate Coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies from 2010 to 2015. She has published on feminist theory, French women writers, and language and gender. She worked on the international research project “Différence sexuelle et communication(s)” (Sexual Difference and Communication) directed by French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray and has co-translated Irigaray’s Sexes et genres à travers les langues (Sexes and Genders across Languages with Gail Schwab (Hofstra). Dit de femmes: entretiens d’écrivaines françaises (Women’s Words: Interviews with French Women Writers), the anthology of interviews with contemporary French women writers she conducted along with Michèle Magill (NCSU), was published in 2003 by Summa Publications.

Education

  • Ph.D. 1985, French, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • M.A. 1980, French, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • B.A. summa cum laude 1976, French, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth

Research Interests

  • Feminist theory
  • French feminist philosophy
  • Language and gender
  • Contemporary French women novelists
  • Queer Theory

Teaching Interests

  • French language and literature
  • Language and gender
  • Contemporary women novelists
  • Feminist theory
  • Queer Theory

Select Coursess

  • FREN 2200 French for Reading Knowledge
  • FREN 4050/WGST 4228 French Women Writers in Translation
  • WGST 4170/5050 Queer Theory
  • WGST 6601 Theoretical Approaches to Sexuality
  • WGST 6603 Language, Gender and Power

Honors & Awards

  • Honoree, first UNC Charlotte International Women’s Day Celebration, 2006
  •  NationsBank Award for Excellence in Teaching Finalist, 1996
  • International research project “Différence sexuelle et communication(s),” 1991‑1994, directed by Luce Irigaray. Co-directed English section with Dr. Gail Schwab, Hofstra University

Select Professional Affiliations

  • Women in French
  • Modern Languages Association
  • Southeastern Women’s Studies Association

Selected Publications

  • “A Dialogics and Ethics of Love: Luce Ireigaray’s The Way of Love.” Women in French Studies Special Issue (2008).
  • “Plugging the Hole in Cognitive Theory: Irigaray’s Ethical Solution for Gender Blindness.” Ecriture Courante:  Critical Perspectives on French and Francophone Women.  Ed. Mary Rice-DeFosse and Cathy Yandell.  Women in French Studies Special Issue (2005): 136-44.
  • Dit de femmes: entretiens d’écrivaines françaises. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications. Dec. 2003. With Michèle Magill (NCSU).
  • “Marie Chaix,” “Essentialism,” “Jocelyne François,” “Materialism,” “Postmodernism,” and “Poststructuralism.” The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature. Ed. Eva Sartori, et al. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999. 81- 2, 186-87, 217-18, 351-52, 428-29, 429-30.
  • “The Possessive, Gender, and Subjectivity.” Untying the Tongue: Gender, Power and the Word. Ed. Linda Longmire and Lisa Merrill. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. 25-32.
  • “Mapping Matters: Corporeal Feminism’s Materialization of Sexed Subjectivity.” Semiotics 1996, Proc. of 21st Annual Meeting of the Semiotic Society of America. Oct. 1996. Ed. C.W. Spinks. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. 43-49.

Selected Conference Presentations

  • “Sex, Gender and Language,” 2014 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, UNC Wilmington, Mar. 27-29, 2014.
  • “Language and Gender: Thinking Difference, Thinking Differently,” LGBT & Allies Diversity Summit, Charlotte Convention Center, June 6, 2013.
  • “Irigaray’s New Critique of Language Through Elaborating the Practice of Love,” 2013 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, UNC Greensboro, Apr. 18-20, 2013.
  • “Irigaray’s Revis(ion)ing of Culture Through the Cultivation of Sexual Difference,” 2012 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, Fairfax, VA, March 29-31, 2012.
  • “Cultivating Difference through Relational Being in Irigaray,” Sixth Women in French International Conference, Tempe AZ, Feb. 23-26, 2012.
  • “From Sexual Difference to Relational Being in Irigaray’s Later Works,” 2011 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 24-26, 2011.
  • “Queering the Conversation: Strategies, Possibilities, Future Directions,” Roundtable discussion, 2011 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 24-26, 2011.
  • “Love as Mediation in the Oeuvre of Irigaray,” Fourth Women in French International Conference, Fort Worth/Dallas, April 10-12, 2008.
  • “Teaching Summer: The View From the Trenches,” with Tink Moore, Kim Harris, and Nishi Bryska, 2007 Southern  Regional Conference on Summer Sessions, Charlotte, NC, March 25-27, 2007.
  • “Leveraging Technology in Foreign Language Instruction,” with Robert Hambrick and Carolyn Quarterman, 2007 UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference, Raleigh, NC, March 21-23, 2007.
  • “Using Technology in Foreign Language and Culture Instruction,” with Mary Frances Castro, Martha Miller, and Heather McCullough, 2007 UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference, Raleigh, NC,  March 21-23, 2007.
  • “Feminist Philosophy–What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Third Women in French International Conference, Durham, NH, April 6-8, 2006.