Candace Skorupa

Candace Skorupa is passionate about teaching, mentoring, and creating communities inside and outside of the classroom.  She loves teaching all levels of French language and literature, particularly the L1-L5 sequence, from beginner to advanced.  She has been a member of the Yale faculty since 2005.

As the French Language Program Director, Skorupa values collaboration and transparency above all, and oversees all aspects of the undergraduate language curriculum, including the coordination of graduate student teaching in French, curricular development, and the placement test.  She works closely with the DUS on initiatives for the major and the language certificate, to coordinate courses and resources that best suit students’ needs.    

Interdisciplinary and multisensory experiences are a central part of Skorupa’s courses, which might include having students listen to recent Francophone pop music, sing a French song, try a few steps of a French baroque dance, alongside curated visits to work with experts at the Yale Art Gallery, the music library, special collections at Yale, or the Yale Farm.

A proponent of seeking virtual cross-cultural connections long before Facetime or Zoom existed, Skorupa has incorporated telecollaborative projects with the grande école Télécom-ParisTech into her courses for almost twenty years, emphasizing the unparalleled linguistic and cultural learning that takes place in peer-to-peer virtual exchanges. 

Skorupa is the faculty founder and liaison of the Yale French Club, established in 2018 with three students from FREN 145 who wanted to create a fun setting for learners of French of all levels to practice their new language.  She has hosted a lively French Table in the Davenport College dining hall on Fridays at 12:30 since 2016.  She has been a fellow of Davenport College since 2014. 

Candace Skorupa is also a lecturer in the department of Comparative Literature, where she often teaches a first-year seminar, Literature 022, “Music and Literature.”  She was the Senior Essay Coordinator in Comparative Literature from 2008 to 2019.  Her literary interests include nineteenth-century literature and music, Proust, Baudelaire, Berlioz, Symbolist poetry, and the art song.  She loves thinking about languages and literatures in a comparative interdisciplinary context, and she has studied Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Polish.   

Skorupa received her Ph.D. (2000), M.Phil. (1996), and B.A. (1992) in Comparative Literature from Yale University.   Her dissertation, “Music and Letters: Correspondances of Notes and Narrative from Berlioz to Proust,” was directed by Sterling Professor Emeritus Peter Brooks.  She taught French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University (1999-2002) and in the Department of French at Smith College (2002-2005). She taught English at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Lyon, France, with the Fulbright Teaching Assistantship program, now TAPIF (1992-93).  In her free time, she enjoys playing the piano and flute, taking long walks, running, yoga, biking, dancing, baking French desserts, playing with her two cats, and occasionally roller skating with her daughter.

Liliana Milkova and Candace Skorupa, “Active Looking in the Reinstalled Gallery of African Art,” Yale University Art Gallery Magazine, Spring 2023.

Skorupa’s LITR 022 featured in Sydney Skelton Simon, “Teaching Across Disciplines: Priming Students for Active Learning in the Art Museum,” in New Directions in University Museums, Rowman and Littlefield, Spring 2023.

Christiane Métral, James Benenson, Candace Skorupa, “Echanges Synchrones Transatlantiques,” Distances et savoirs 7:2 (2009): 253-272. 

Christiane Métral and James Benenson (with Candace Skorupa), “Cross-Cultural Connections: échanges synchrones et asynchrones transatlantiques,” The French Review 85.2 (December 2011): 261-277.

“Challenges in Cross-Cultural Telecollaborative Exchanges,” co-author James Benenson, Computer-Mediated Intercultural Foreign Language Instruction, eds. Julie Belz and Steven L. Thorne, 2005 Volume of the AAUSC (American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators and Directors of Language Programs), State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

“Cross-Cultural Connections: Une salle de classe sans murs.  Webcams et visioconférences dans un projet d’échanges bilingues interculturels entre deux groupes d’élèves: ENST, Paris et Smith College, USA (janvier à mai 2004),” Proceedings from 32^e Congrés UPLEGESS 2004, Union des Professeurs de Langues des Grandes Écoles, De l’amont vers l’aval.  La pédagogie des langues dans les Grandes Écoles: rupture et continuité.  2,3, et 4 juin 2004 à Télécom Paris; 46, rue Barrault, 75013 Paris.

“Berlioz’s Programme and Proust’s Sonate: Parallel Quests to Bridge the Gaps in Musico-Literary Expression.”  The Aesthetic Discourse of the Arts: Breaking the Barriers. Vol. LXI of Analecta Husserliana.  Ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.  251-271.