Sylvie Laurent

Sylvie LAURENT wrote her dissertation in American literature at Paris IV on “the poor white man in the American novel”, under the supervision of Pierre-Yves Pétillon. She holds a doctorate in English studies and is a lecturer at Sciences-Po Paris, where she teaches the political and literary history of African Americans. Fulbright fellow at Harvard University in 2005-2006, she worked on the Graduate Seminar in the Department of African and African-American Studies under the direction of Werner Sollors and Henry Louis Gates Jr. In autumn 2009-2010, she was invited to join Harvard’s African-American Studies and Research Laboratory, the WEB Du Bois Institute, where she is now a non-resident fellow until 2012. Holder of an agrégation in history, a master’s degree in modern literature and a DEA in English studies, she taught for five years in a lycée in a sensitive urban zone in the Oise region.

She published Homérique Amérique, with Editions du Seuil in 2008, and in December 2011, Poor White Trash, la pauvreté odieuse du Blanc Américain with Presses de la Sorbonne. Excerpts are available at:
http://www.sylvielaurent.com/

– Her page at WEB Du Bois Institute

– Her video series on Obamerica