Francophone literature and cultures are among Brigitte Hamon-Porter’s particular interests. Her recent research and writing focus on literature that has emerged during political upheaval in French-speaking nations in north Africa.

She teaches courses in French language, history and culture, and the senior seminar The Francophone Experience, which focuses in different years on various French-speaking regions and nations, such as the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, Lebanon, Vietnam or the Caribbean, and explores cultural issues such as decolonization, the changing role of women and issues of identity. She has taught First Year Seminars on Africa and the Arab Spring, and team-taught in the Phelps Scholars Program.

Dr. Hamon-Porter joined the Hope College faculty in 1994, and chaired the Department of Modern and Classical Languages from 2015 to 2019.

Education

• Ph.D., French literature, Indiana University, 1996
• M.A., French literature, Indiana University, 1992
• Maîtrise d’Histoire, Université de Nantes, 1987

Areas of Expertise

• French-speaking literature and culture
• North African cultures and literatures
• Contemporary Pacific cultures and literatures
• Seventeenth-century novelists

Grants, Honors and Awards

• “The Literature of Overseas Territories,” Great Lakes Colleges Association New Directions Initiative grant for research at the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, 2011
• “French Novelists of the Seventeenth Century” Hope College summer research grant, 2003

Selected Publications and Presentations

• “Rewriting the Past and Molding the Future in the Children’s Books of Veronique Tadjo” presentation at the NeMLA annual conference in Boston, 2020
• “Mapping the Tunisian Uprising in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Par le feuand Leyla Bouzid’s À peine j’ouvre les yeux,” The French Review, 2019 
• “Yasmina Khadra’s Roman Noirand The Algerian Civil War,” presentation at Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) annual conference in Washington, D.C., 2019
• “The Tunisian Revolution through Eyes Wide Open,” presentation at NeMLA annual conference in Pittsburgh, 2018
• “Les Années de plomben Algérie: Témoignages et Rédemption,” presentation at NeMLA annual conference in Baltimore, 2017
• “From Lost Eden to Changed World: The Land Migrants Left Behind in Sembene’s and Sissako's Films,” presentation at NeMLA annual conference, 2016
• “Les Aventures de Dassoucy: défense et nouvelle illustration de la langue burlesque,” Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 2005

Outside the College

In her free time, Dr. Hamon-Porter likes to travel with her husband and two sons (recent Hope graduates), brush up on her German and Spanish, learn new languages, read, walk, bike and swim.