Dr. Mary Poteau-Tralie

Professor of French and Chairperson Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

• Email Address: poteautralie@rider.edu
• Phone: (609) 895-5591
• Fax: (609) 896-5393
• Office: Fine Arts 364
• View My Office Hours
• Mailing Address: 2083 Lawrenceville Rd, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648

Mary Poteau-Tralie received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University.  Dr. Poteau-Tralie’s research includes 19th century Realist/Naturalist prose fiction, specifically the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.  More recently, she has presented papers and published on francophone literature and the works of Maryse Condé.  In addition to courses in French language, literature, composition and translation, business, and culture, Dr. Poteau-Tralie teaches in the Baccalaureate Honors Program.  She is co-Director of the Central Jersey-Penn Foreign Language Academic Alliance, the International Week Committee, and is faculty advisor for the French Club and Pi Delta Phi, the National French Honor Society.  She has also presented workshops on Foreign Language Pedagogy.
 

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

• 1991 Ph.D., French, Princeton University
• 1985 B.A., French, Temple University, Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
   

ADMINISTRATIVE BACKGROUND: Rider University

• 1991-present  Co-Director, Central Jersey-Penn Foreign Language Academic Alliance
• 2000-present  Co-Director, International Week Committee
• 1992-present  Faculty Advisor,  French Club and Pi Delta Phi
   

TEACHING

• French:
        Beginning and Intermediate French
        French Composition and Translation
        French for Business and the Professions
        Introduction to French Literature
        Mask and Reality in French Theater
        The Self in French Prose and Poetry
        The Hero in French Fiction
        French Culture through Television and Film
• Baccalaureate Honors Program:
        Great Ideas 150
   

MONOGRAPHS/ARTICLES

• “Landscape, Identity, and Sexuality:  Tituba as Candide in Maryse Condé’s Moi, Tituba, sorcière. . . Noire de Salem.” in Land and Landscape in Francophone Literature.  Eds. Magali Compan and Kashia Pieprzak.  London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.
• “Moving Beyond the Real:  Maupassant’s Aborted Flight to Mars.”  The French Review 2004 Feb; 77 (3): 538-47.
• Voices of Authority:  The Criminal Obsession in Guy de Maupassant’s Short Works.  NY:  Peter Lang, 1994.
   

PUBLISHED REVIEWS

• Guenther, Beatrice Martina.  The Poetics of Death:  The Short Prose of Kleist and Balzac. In Nineteenth Century French Studies 1997-1998 Fall-Winter; 26 (1-2), 222-224.
• Giacchetti, Claudine.  Maupassant:  Espaces du roman. The South Atlantic Review May 1994.
   

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (Literature)

• “Landscape, Identity, and Sexuality:  Tituba as Candide in Maryse Condé’s Moi, Tituba, sorcière. . . Noire de Salem.” NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association), March 2006.
• “Negating the Interpretive Project:  Philosophers and Theorists on Trial in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem and Voltaire’s Candide.” Narrative:  The Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, April 2004.
• “Science, Science Fiction, and Pseudoscience:  Extraterrestrial Encounters in Maupassant and Flammarion,” Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 2001.
• “Framing Women:  The Case of Maupassant’s ‘Nos Lettres.’” NEMLA, April 1998.
• “The Paradox of Pleasure:  Maupassant Peddles Pedestrian Plots.”  NEMLA, April 1997.
• “Ghosts, Martians, and the Question of Realism in Maupassant’s ‘L’Homme de Mars’ and ‘Le Horla.’” NEMLA, April 1996.
• “Moving Beyond the Real:  Maupassant’s Aborted Flight to Mars.”  Colloquium in 19th Century French Studies, October 1995.
• “Infanticide in 19th Century France:  The Case of Guy de Maupassant” lecture presented at Second Annual Baccalaureate Honors Program Myrna Zwillenberg Memorial Lecture,  Rider, Spring 1994.
• "Do The Ends Justify The Means:  A Study of  Maupassant's Art in 'La Confession'" presented at special Maupassant Centenary session of Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures, April 1993.
• Chaired session on Guy de Maupassant's work at the Colloquium on 19th Century French Literature at the University of Kansas, October 1993.
   

CONFERENCE/WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS (Language and Pedagogy)

• “Culture Cards in the Foreign Language Classroom.” BRIDGE (Bridging Research, Instruction, and Discipline-Grounded Epistemologies) through the Rider Scholarship of Teaching and Learning program, April 2006.
• “POWERing up your Literature Classes:  Using PowerPoint to Meld Literature and the Visual Arts”, Central Jersey-Penn Foreign Language Academic Alliance, February 2006.
• “Helping Students make the Language/Culture Connection:  Culture Cards in World Languages”.  Central Jersey-Penn Foreign Language Academic Alliance, April 2005.
• “Web Treasure Hunts in the Foreign Language Classroom”:  Bucks County Foreign Language Inservice Day, Neshaminy High School, October 2004.
• “Grading Compositions in World Language Classes”:  World Languages and Communications Conference:  Pennsville School District, October 2001.
• “A Workshop on Grading Foreign Language Compositions”:  Central Jersey-Penn Foreign Language Academic Alliance, April 2000.