Faculty Profile
Hanna Roman
Associate Professor of French (2018)
Contact Information
Bosler Hall
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Bio
Hanna Roman came to Dickinson College in 2018. She received her doctorate in French Literature from the Johns Hopkins University in 2013 and has held faculty positions at Vanderbilt University and the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa, in Honolulu. Her recent book, "The Language of Nature in Buffon’s Histoire naturelle" (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment/Voltaire Foundation, October 2018) examines the relationship between language and the natural sciences during the French Enlightenment. Professor Roman's current research focuses on the influences of religious and mythological discourses on the scientific disciplines of geology, geography, and natural history in the French Enlightenment. Her teaching and research ask how the past and present of the Earth —and the impact of human activity upon it— were studied in the eighteenth century and how these ways of thinking continue to influence environmental thought today.
Education
- B.A., Grinnell College, 2006
- Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, 2013
2025-2026 Academic Year
Fall 2025
FREN 201 Intermediate French
Intensive second-year study of French, with attention to grammar review, conversation, reading in a cultural context and some writing.
Prerequisite: 102 or the equivalent. This course fulfills the language graduation requirement.
Spring 2026
FREN 202 Living in Francophone World
This course explores the contemporary Francophone world using regional case studies. Students will learn about life in diverse francophone locations through the study of language, culture, geography, history, art and politics. The regions under study reflect faculty strengths and experience as well as Dickinson’s global partners (Toulouse, Rabat, Yaoundé). Students will continue to develop all five communicative competencies (speaking, reading, writing, listening, and intercultural). Assignments and activities harness current technology including social media and audiovisual tools to learn about the lived experiences of francophones across the globe. Experiential learning components will introduce students to local and global francophone communities and study away opportunities. This is the gateway course to the major and minor in French and Francophone Studies. Students who complete FREN 202 or equivalent are eligible to study in Toulouse, France.Prerquisite: FREN 201 or equivalent.
FREN 307 French Ecological Literature
This course will explore the history and literature of ecological thought in France, through the assumption that the human relationship to environment and the crises that arise from it are not new phenomena and not simply the result of present-day climate change. Rather, these stories have shaped and have been shaped by French culture through the centuries, from the early-modern period to the current era. Instead of approaching the course material chronologically, the class will group novels, short stories, graphic novels, films, and documentaries by theme, putting similar mentalities and imaginaries of nature from different historical periods into dialogue. Themes will be based on natural and human-made places: forest, sea, desert, islands, cities, gardens, colonies, post-apocalyptic landscapes/dystopias, utopias. Through readings and creative, thought-provoking assignments, students will reflect on the importance of fiction and literature in understanding and interacting with nature and in imagining futures in the face of real climate change concerns. Prerequisites: French 231 or French 232.