Bio

Élise Lepage - picture

Élise Lepage

Associate Professor - French Studies
Office: ML 330
p: 519-888-4567 x33593

 

Biography

My interest for different regions, landscapes, and remoteness is deeply rooted in the various locations where I have resided. I grew up in the beautiful French Alps where I completed my undergraduate studies and undertook my first research project in comparative literature. Initially, I came to Canada as an exchange student at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario). Through this experience, I discovered Québec literature and developed a passion for it. I returned to France, in Lyon this time, to undertake a Master thesis on the construction of identity and otherness in marginal areas, the settings of most of Louis Hamelin’s early novels. I then moved to Vancouver to complete a PhD in contemporary Québec literature. My doctoral thesis addressed questions more broadly linked to the representation of marginal sites in novels, poems, and essays by the authors Pierre Morency, Pierre Nepveu, and Louis Hamelin. My first position as Assistant Professor was at Université Saint-Boniface, in the French community of Winnipeg. Over the course of this one-year position, my interest for the francophone minorities in Canada started to translate in research publications. I came to the University of Waterloo as a Lecturer in 2010 and was appointed as a Faculty member in 2011. My teaching and research focuses mainly on the two fields of Québec and francophone minorities studies. Some of the key concepts that I reflect on are the transformation of landscapes, regional dynamics, conservation and sustainability, tourism, migrations, memory, and power relations imposed on various minorities or marginalized groups. I am also actively involved as a professional and community member by volunteering and holding positions on executive boards and associations. Last but not least, I am the proud mother of three children.

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