Rachel Watson
Rachel Watson is Lector in French. She holds a Ph.D. in French from New York University, an M.A. in French Cultural Studies from Columbia University, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College. Prior to Yale, Watson taught at NYU, Sarah Lawrence, and Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Watson also trained and taught as a Master Teacher at the College’s Rassias Center.
A specialist of 20th and 21st century French and Francophone theater, Watson’s pedagogical methods are rooted in her experience in theater studies, performance studies, and literary studies, as well as her training as an actor (Dartmouth College, the National Theater Institute, and the École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq). Watson’s teaching practice draws on the power of performance to activate embodied learning. Pulling from various methodologies, she designs courses that immerse students linguistically and culturally in authentic forms of communication through play and performance. In her classroom, Watson build students’ confidence and proficiency in French language, as well as skills in literary and cultural analysis.
Her research interests include second language pedagogy and 20th and 21st-century French and Francophone theater, especially representations of diaspora and forced migration, embodied memory and trauma, intermediality, and political theater. Her manuscript in progress, “(Re)Membering the Body,” investigates the performance of embodied memory in contemporary French and Francophone dramaturgies of diaspora and migration. Her writing has been published in The Drama Review, Theater, Arab Stages, and Horizons/Théâtre (Presses universitaires de Bordeaux). Her translation work figures in Béatrice Picon-Vallin’s The Théâtre du Soleil: The First Fifty-Five Years.
In her teaching, Watson brings the world of theater and performance to bear: this creates the opportunity for students to inhabit situations demanding real-world language use and allows them to discover, through French, cutting-edge artists and compelling contemporary voices.