Renée Altergott

Assistant Professor
French and Francophone Studies
252-328-6539 (phone)
altergottr24@ecu.edu
Bate 3312 (office)
Dept. Foreign Languages & Literatures
East Carolina University Mailstop #556
Greenville, NC 27858-4353

Background

Renée Altergott joined ECU as Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies in 2024. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research examines the intersection between the French colonial empire, sound studies, and the cultural history of the Black Atlantic. Dr. Altergott also serves as an affiliated faculty member for the African and African American Studies (AAAS) program.

Dr. Altergott has spent nearly 7 years living abroad in France. She first studied abroad as an undergrad through IES Nantes; after college, she taught English through TAPIF in Strasbourg and later at a top business school in Paris (ESCP). Through her position at the NYU Paris study abroad center, she led several student trips across France, from Marseille to the Châteaux de la Loire, Lyon, Nantes, and Normandy. While at NYU Paris, she also completed a Masters (“M2 Recherche”) in the Parisian university system on Gustave Flaubert, sound, and genetic criticism. Her door is always open to students who wish to explore study abroad opportunities.

From 2022-2024, she served as Visiting Assistant Professor of French at Wabash College, where she taught courses on sound studies, colonial history, film, and literature. There, she worked with students and faculty to produce her first academic sound sculpture piece, “Against the Grain of the Voice,” which brought Gustave Flaubert’s manuscripts of Madame Bovary back to life in seven sound compositions. She also accompanied an undergraduate immersion trip to Paris and Normandy (Spring 2023), where students got to put their language skills to the test and give presentations on monuments they had researched.

Education

  • Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies, Princeton University (2022)
  • M.A. in French Language, Arts, and Contemporary Theory, Université de Paris VII (Diderot), Paris (2013)
  • M.A. in French Language and Civilization, NYU Paris (2011)
  • B.A. in French and Music Composition, Northwestern University (20

Areas of Interest

  • Afro-Caribbean literature and culture;
  • Colonial and postcolonial studies;
  • Music and sound studies;
  • Media history and film;
  • Archive studies;
  • 19th-century novel;
  • Horror, fantastic, and sci fi

Recent Talks

  • “Maroon Acousmatics: Writing Listening as a Liberating Practice.” 20th- & 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies Conference, Justice, UNC Greensboro, NC, 27-29 March 2025.
  • “Tintin au Congo and the imperialist acousmatic.” Comics and Graphic Albums University Seminar, Columbia University, New York, NY, 7 Feb. 2025.
  • “Learning to Listen: Producing Reproductive Sound Fidelity in Paris in 1878.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies Conference, Production and Reception, Duke University, Durham, NC, 19-21 Sep. 2024.
  • “ ‘Listen to the Voice of Liberty’: Sounding the Haitian Revolution.” 20th- & 21st-Century French and Francophone Studies Conference, Independence, Philadelphia, PA, 22-25 Feb. 2024.
  • “Reading Against the Grain of the Voice: Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.” Keynote Lecture, Inaugural Undergraduate Research Symposium, “Voice +: Locating the Human Voice in a Technology-Driven World,” Georgia Technological Institute, Atlanta, GA, 15 Nov. 2023.

Selected Publications

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3034-8614

  • “‘Elles n’ont pas la voix blanche’: Colorblind Listening and the French Podcast.” Special issue of Contemporary French Civilization Intersections, “Podcasting Disruptive Voices: New Narratives of Race, Gender & Sexuality,” co-edited by Thomas Muzart and Audrey Brunetaux, 2023, pp. 45-61. DOI: 10.3828/cfci.2023.4
  • “Samori Touré and the Portable God: Imagining the Phonographic Conquest of West Africa.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 50, nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer 2022, pp. 151-69. DOI: 10.1353/ncf.2022.0008
  • “Une Machine à gloire? Legacies of the French Inventor(s) of Sound Recording Through the Ages.” French Forum, vol. 46.1, Spring 2021, pp. 19-35. DOI: 10.1353/frf.2021.0001

Courses Taught

  • FREN 2003, Intermediate French Language
  • AAAS 2500, Introduction to Theory and Methods – Sonic Cultures of the Francophone Caribbean