Awards

Guggenheim Fellow - 1998

Fulbright Award - 1993

Senegal

About Eileen Julien

Eileen Julien is a professor of comparative literature and professor of French and Italian in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington. She earned a B.A. in French Education from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1969, a M.A. in French Literature from the University of Wisconsin in 1970, and a Ph.D. in French Literature and African Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 1978. Julien joined IU's faculty in 1992 as a visiting professor of comparative literature and was reappointed as professor in 1993. From 2002-2004, she left IU to serve as the executive director of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of African Diaspora at the University of Maryland. Julien returned to IU in 2004 as professor of comparative literature, French and Italian, and of African American and African Diaspora Studies. She also served as chair of the Department of Comparative Literature from 2007 to 2010 and previously as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at IU Bloomington.

Julien's research interests include 20th-century literature and culture, especially the novel; postcolonial theory; and the literatures of Africa, the African diaspora, and France and their relationships to one another. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1998-1999, served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Dakar, Sénégal in 1993-1994, and received a Carnegie faculty fellowship at Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College in 1985-1987. Julien is the author of two books: African Novels and the Question of Orality and her memoir, Travels With Mae: Scenes From a New Orleans Girlhood, and co-editor of The Locations and Dislocations of African Literature: A Dialogue Between Humanities and Social Science Scholars as well as numerous articles and book chapters. She also served as president of the African Literature Association from 1990 to 1991 and founding director of the West African Research Center in Dakar, Sénégal from 1993 to 1995. In 2007, she co-founded the New Orleans Afrikan Film and Arts Festival.