Faculty Profile
Benjamin Ngong
Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies (2007)
Contact Information
on sabbatical Spring 2025
Bosler Hall Room 110
717-245-1738
Bio
His research and teaching interests include 20th-century French novel, Francophone African and Caribbean literatures, cultures, and film, colonial and postcolonial studies. His published and forthcoming articles focus on the relationship of power to social and political violence as portrayed in African and Caribbean literature and film.
Education
- Licence ès-Lettres Modernes, Université de Yaoundé, 1988
- Maitrise ès Lettres Modernes
- D.E.A., Littératures française et comparée, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens (France), 1991
- Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2007
Awards
2024-2025 Academic Year
Fall 2024
FREN 102 Elementary French
Complete first-year course. Intensive study of the fundamentals of French grammar, with special attention given to pronunciation and oral expression. Cultural readings in the context of language acquisition.Prerequisite: 101 or the equivalent.
AFST 220 Francophone Afr & Caribb Cult
Cross-listed with FREN 304-01. This course examines cultures, literatures and films of some French-speaking countries and regions, notably the French Caribbean and Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. Since dominant intellectual and cultural traditions in the US derive primarily from Europe and post-colonial North America, commonly referred to as "Western traditions," this global diversity course subsequently aims to encourage students to examine societies and cultures that have been shaped predominantly by other historical traditions to think critically about dominant Western traditions, so to engage the world more effectively. Students will learn to place each work into its cultural and historical context, and develop intelligent and informed understanding of concepts such as Negritude, Colonialism, Imperialism, Nationalism, Postcolonialism, etc. Students will watch films and read a series of original texts by French-speaking authors outside France. Emphasis will be on the initiation to analysis and close reading of texts and films during class discussions and at the end of which students will write an organized reflecting essay.
FREN 304 Francophone Afr & Caribb Cult
Cross-listed with AFST 220-04.