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Kathleen M. Llewellyn, Ph.D.

Professor of French
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Distance Education
College of Arts and Sciences


Education

Ph.D., Washington University
M.A., Washington University
M.B.A., Binghamton University
B.S., Binghamton University

Research Interests

Dr. Llewellyn’s research focuses on didactic and satirical literature in early modern France and on women as authors and as literary figures during that era. In addition to early modern literature, Dr. Llewellyn’s teaching interests include contemporary French and Francophone media, as well as medical and scientific French.

Publications and Media Placements

Books

Book: d’Albret, Jean. Letters from the Queen of Navarre with an Ample Declaration. Ed. and Trans. Kathleen M. Llewellyn, Emily Thompson, Colette H. Winn. Toronto: Iter Academic Press, 2016.

Book: Representing Judith in Early Modern French Literature. Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT:  Ashgate, 2014.

Articles and Book Chapters

"Gossip, Commérage et Caquets: Women’s Words in Early Modern France." Subject/Object and Beyond: Women in Early Modern France. Edited by Nancy M. Frelick and Edith Benkov.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024. 213-36.

"Jeanne d'Albret (1528-1572): Reformer and Queen." Women Reformers of Early Modern Europe: Profiles, Texts, and Contexts. Edited by Kirsi I. Stjerna. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022. 177-186.

"A Fantastic Frenzy of Consumption in Early Modern France." Renaissance and Reformation.38.3 (2015) 119-140.

“Beauty and Belief: Attitudes towards Female Beauty in Early Modern French Discourse. Female Beauty Systems: Beauty as Social Capital in Western Europe and the United States, Middle Ages to the Present. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.

"Equal Opportunity Vengeance in the Heptaméron of Marguerite de Navarre." Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age.  Ed. Albrecht Classen and Connie Scarborough. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2012. 415-35.

"The Example of Judith in Early Modern French Literature."  The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies Across Disciplines. Ed. Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti, Henrike Lähnemann.  Cambridge:  Open Book Publisher, 2010. 213-225.

"At Play in the Fields and Playing the Field:  Le Débat amoureux in the Pastourelle and the Heptaméron." Parergon 27.1 (2010).  105-24.

"Acting for God: Le Mystère de Judith et Holofernés." Studies in Early Modern France. 13 (2010). 41-64.

"Death Defines Her: Representations of the Widow in Early Modern French Literature." Love, Death and Women's Lives in French and Francophone Literature.  Ed. Eilene Hoft-March and Judith Holland Sarnecki. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.  214-40.

"Passion, Prayer, and Plume: Poetic Inspiration in the Oeuvres chrétiennes of Gabrielle de Coignard." Dalhousie French Studies. 88 (Fall 2009). 77-86.

"Deadly Sex and Sexy Death in Early Modern French Literature." Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-historical and Literary Anthropological Theme.  Ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2008.  811-35.

"Afin Que Vous Connaissiez, Mesdames: The Heptameron and Conduct Literature for Women." Approaches to Teaching Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron.  MLA series:  Approaches to Teaching World Literature.  New York:  Modern Language Association of America, 2007. 52-56.

"Love, Death and the Question of Suicide in the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre. " Amour, passion, volupté, tragédie: Le sentiment amoureux dans la littérature française du Moyen Age au XXe siècle. Ed. Annye Castonguay, Jean-François Kosta-Théfaine, and Marianne Legault. Paris: Séguier, 2007. 83-97.

"Tears of Anger, Tears of Grief:  Madeleine des Roches' Poetry of Widowhood."   Allegorica. 26 (2004/2005). 18-32.

"Words to the Wise: Reappropriating the Widow in Early Modern Didactic Literature." Parergon, 21.1 (January 2004).  39-63.

"Les veuves de L’Heptaméron de Marguerite de Navarre," in Veufs, veuves et veuvage dans la France d'ancien régime, textes réunis par Nicole Pellegrin, présentés et édités par Colette H. Winn.  Paris: Champion, 2003.  159-68.

Recent Conference Presentations

"Comic Confession in Early Modern France," Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. St. Louis, MO, June 2019. 

"Funny Felons and Comic Crimes in Early Modern French Literature," Renaissance Society of America. New Orleans, LA, March 2018.

“Wise Words or Wasted Breath? Preaching to Women in Early Modern France.” SLU Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, St. Louis, MO, June 19, 2017.

"Anti-Woman Satire in Early Modern France: Complaints of le mal marié." Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference.  Bruges, Belgium, August 2016.

"L’Ame mal coiffé: Vice, vertu, et beauté féminine au début des temps modernes." Invited presentation, Université de Poitiers, Poitiers, France, October 2015.

"Reading Religieuses: Writing to and about Nuns in Renaissance France." Renaissance Society of America Conference, Berlin, Germany, March 2015.

"The Woman as Sin and as Punishment in Early Modern French Literature." Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference. New Orleans, LA, October 2014.

"Attitudes towards Female Beauty in Early Modern French Religious Discourse." Female Beauty Systems Throughout the Centuries.  The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Wassenaar, Netherlands.  November 2013.

"La Frenaizie fantastique Françoise: Passionate Consumption of Boots, Baubles, and Other Tempting Trifles in Early Modern France. "  ConsumingPassions: Economies of Desire in French Literature and Arts, 1100-1815.  Washington University, St. Louis, MO, October 4, 2013.

"The News in the Pews:  Talking in Church and other Early Modern Social Networks." Renaissance Society of America Conference. San Diego, CA, April 2013.

"Beauty School: Lessons on Female Beauty in Early Modern French Religious Discourse." Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference.  Cincinnati, OH, October 2012.

"Writing in a Voice of Gossip: Women Storytellers in Early Modern France."  Gossip…so much more than hearsay, An International, Interdisciplinary Conference.  University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, May 2012.

"Preaching to Women: Early Modern French Sermons." Renaissance Society of America Conference. Washington, D.C., March 2012.