Biography
Dr. Ashley Byczkowski teaches all levels of beginner, intermediate, and advanced French language courses, as well as various courses on French and Francophone cultural history, literature, and cinema at Niagara University. In Dr. Byczkowski’s classroom, students engage with materials and topics that push them to reexamine their place in the world and leave with a better understanding of their cultural identities and the role that culture biases play in their day-to-day experiences. Dr. Byczkowski is a huge advocate for studying abroad, and her courses supplement the exchange programs NU has to offer in Angers and Lille, France. Dr. Byczkowski is dedicated to helping her students realize their dreams as French teachers, translators, government officials, globalized citizens, and so much more.
Dr. Byczkowski is a native of Buffalo, NY and loves spending time with her partner, Will, and their Great Pyrenees, Clover. She is an avid knitter, baker, hiker, reader, and animal lover. Her first dog, Dauphine, is memorialized here on Girl with the Dogs!
FOCUS OF TEACHING
- French language acquisition for second language and heritage speakers
- French and Francophone literature and film
- History of the French speaking world
CURRENT RESEARCH
Dr. Byczkowski’s research focuses on 20th and 21st century francophone women’s life-writing and feminist vulnerability studies in both literature and pedagogy.
Recent publications:
- “Derridean Deconstruction and Modernist Writer-Sons,” Journal of Modern Literature, 46.1 (Fall 2022)
- “French Colonization of New France (Present-Day Canada),” Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. New York: Routledge, June 2022.
- “Lin, Lana. Freud’s Jaw and Other Lost Objects: Fractured Subjectivity in the Face of Cancer” New York: Fordham University Press.” Penumbr(a): A Journal of Psychoanalysis and Modernity, vol. 1, no. 1 (2020).
CURRENT INVOLVEMENT
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Faculty Advisor, French Program
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Faculty Liaison, NUSTEP French Program
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Committee member, Committee on College Teaching & Learning
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Committee member, Women Studies Committee
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Steering Committee member, NU Center for the Digital Humanities
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
- Ph.D. French Language and Literature, State University of New York at Buffalo
- M.A. French Language and Literature, State University of New York at Buffalo
- B.A. French, Spanish Minor, Niagara University, summa cum laude