معرفی
Sylvie Durmelat is an Associate Professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Georgetown University, within the College. Her research bridges postcolonial studies, food studies, and diaspora cinema, focusing on colonial legacies, immigration narratives in France, and culinary practices as sites of cultural identity. She is particularly renowned for her work on Algerian cinema, the Algerian War of Independence, and the cultural politics of food in Maghrebi-French contexts. Current projects include a book titled Grains of Empire: Making Couscous French, exploring culinary citizenship and postcolonial identity through the lens of couscous.
Publications include Fictions de l’intégration (2008) and Screening Integration (2011, co-edited), alongside articles in French Cultural Studies and Contemporary French Civilization. She has guest-edited a special issue on Food and the French Empire (2015) and teaches courses on immigration, class, and global Algerian cinema at Georgetown.
Her work critically analyzes how foodways, cinema, and literary narratives negotiate colonial histories and contemporary multicultural challenges in France. Recent scholarship examines the symbolic role of couscous in redefining national identity post-decolonization, blending cultural theory with empirical case studies.
