Sally Kessler

she/elle

[email protected]

French & Italian

403 Folwell Hall

9 Pleasant St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Curriculum Vitae

Collegiate Affiliation

French & Italian

Sally Kessler (she/elle) investigates moments of respite from inequitable demands of productivity that sustain our necropolitical society. She investigates the representation of disabled figures, narratives and aesthetics in Third Republic French Metropolitan texts. Her archive is multimodal, including: visual arts, postcards, short stories, poems and songs. Through analyzing these texts, she explores quiet moments shared in community and among treasured objects. The close relationship between human figures and their objects becomes problematic when their signification is elided and both become synecdochal for low value. At the same time, in these quiet narratives, characters pursue rest and even joy through the use of their objects, such as prosthetics. This intimacy reveals fragments of relief from commodified time, space, people and objects, allowing us to attune to the inherent value in humanity.

Educational Background & Specialties

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Educational Background

Masters: French, Chemistry, University of Minnesota
Master of Arts in Teaching: French, chemistry, physics, English Language Learning, University of Iowa

Specialties

Third Republic French literature
Multimodality, ephemera
Critical disability studies

Publications

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Publications

Kessler, Sally. "Book Review, Adina Balint and Sara Buekens’s Les Ambiances Dans les Littératures de Langue Française du XIXe Siècle à Nos Jours (2024)." The French Review pending .
Kessler, Sally. "Book Review, Max McGuiness’s Hustlers in the Ivory Tower: Press and Modernism from Mallarmé to Proust (2024)." The French Review 98:3 : 139-140.
Kessler, Sally. "Joseph Anténor Firmin: Racial Equality, Solidarity, and the Sovereign Body Politic." Journal of Critical Race Inquiry 11:1 (2024): 37-56.
Kessler, Sally. "“Resilience and Magic: A Critical Disability Studies Reading of Patrick Chamoiseau’s L’Esclave vieil homme et le molosse." French Studies Bulletin 43:163 (Autumn 2022): 26–31.
Kessler, Sally. "Book Review, Henri-Jacques Stiker’s La condition handicapée." L’Esprit créateur Winter 2021 .

Activities

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Activities

Professional

College of Liberal Arts Policy Equity Consultative Committee: The committee is charged with consulting on policies from units in the college, with regard to possible inequities that may arise.. 2023-present
President, Association of Graduate Students, French and Italian Department: Sally helped to organize weekly group meetings for the department, including workshopping conference papers, pedagogy workshops and writing hunkers. . Fall 2022-Fall 2023
Grant Reviewer, Council of Graduate Students Grant Review Committee: Sally reviewed grant applications according to set criteria to rate them and advocate for equitable distribution of grant money.. Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
Co-Facilitator “Critical Race and Disability” Reading Group, through “Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Sexuality and Gender” Program and Critical Disability Studies Collective: Sally co-facilitated a reading group, privileging new research from disabled, queer scholars of color. With her co-facilitator, she applied for funding, ran meetings, and held an end-of-the-year event.. Spring 2024

Research

Research Assistant, Critical Disability Studies Collective: Sally provided tech support, organization and research to assist in events and push critical disability studies at the university.. Spring 2021-Summer 2024

Courses

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