Dr. Katherine Roseau

Dr. Katherine Roseau joined the faculty at Mercer University in 2019. She teaches all levels of French, including courses on Nazi-occupied France, transnational francophone literature, and life writing. In the classroom, Dr. Roseau emphasizes interaction, using one’s mistakes to improve, and exposure to diverse francophone accents and perspectives. She also teaches Integrative Studies 201, which includes service learning.

A former fellow of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Dr. Roseau’s scholarship continues to address the roles of life writing genres in shaping the experiences of Jews in France during the Holocaust.

Education

• Ph.D., French Literature, Purdue University
• M.A., French Civilization, Society, and Culture, Middlebury College
• B.A., French, Anderson University

Specialty

Dr. Roseau uses an interdisciplinary framework of theories in memory, genre, place, and cognitive studies to investigate the functions of life writing in war in order to understand how humans cope with acute threats to identity and stability.

Driven by a desire to show students the relevancy of the French language in the United States and to provide them with meaningful service-learning opportunities, Dr. Roseau is currently making connections with Haitian communities in Georgia and organizations who aid refugees.

From February 2024 to January 2026, she is directing — with Libertad Aranza, senior lecturer of Spanish — a National Endowment for the Humanities-Humanities Initiatives grant. The project is titled “Integrating Voices of Refugees and Immigrants: Faculty and Curriculum Development.”

Professional Interests

Dr. Roseau’s research interests include:

• Life writing (diary, autobiography, correspondence, autofiction)
• 20th century French literature, especially Nazi occupation of Paris
• Holocaust studies
• Oral history
• Cognitive approaches to literature
• Memory studies

Her teaching interests include:

• French language, all levels
• Study abroad
• Nazi-occupied France and the Holocaust
• 20th and 21st century literature, including transnational literature
• Life writing/autobiography
• War writing, including experiences of refugees

Recent Publications

• Roseau, Katherine and Kristen Bailey. “Grasping the Scope of Individual Human Devastation in War: Life Writing’s Place in Mapping in the Classroom.” a/b Auto/Biography Studies 37.3 (2022) 429-436.
• Roseau, Katherine. “Separated Families and Epistolary Assistance: The Mutual Aid That Maintained Correspondence Between Jewish Internees and Their Loved Ones During the Second World War in France.” French Historical Studies 44.s2 (2021) 325-353.
• Roseau, Katherine. “The Diary as Witness to the Holocaust: Materiality, Immediacy, and Mediated Memory.” Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History 25.4 (2019) 492-513.
• Roseau, Katherine. “A Diary Without the I: Embodiment and Self-Construction Through the Other in Felix Hartlaub’s World War II Paris Writings.” Textual Practice 34:7 (2020) 1123-1139.

Contact Dr. Katherine Roseau

(478) 301-5479
roseau_ka@mercer.edu
Office: Knight Hall, Room 202B