Alice de Galzain

Thesis title: Rewriting the Life of an “Ultra-Radical”: Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852)

Biography

Background

Alice de Galzain is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Brought up in a bilingual environment in Europe, she has studied and lived in many different countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States – which has played a defining role in her transnational approach to literary works. In 2017, she graduated with distinction from the University of Edinburgh, where she completed a Master of Science in United States literature (her master's dissertation focused on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle’s epistolary friendship and their differences over the abolition of slavery). Alice is now focusing her research on the relationship between Emerson and Margaret Fuller. In particular, she plans to explore explore how both Emerson’s and Fuller’s Transcendentalist reimagining of the role and status of American women led to a redefinition of the American nation.

Qualifications

Sept. 2018 – 2023: PhD Candidate, The University of Edinburgh

Sept. 2016 – Aug. 2017: MSc in United States Literature: Cultural Values from Revolution to Empire, The University of Edinburgh

Aug. 2015 – June 2016: English and American Literature (Auditor), Rhodes College (Memphis, Tennessee)

Sept. 2014 – July 2015:  English and American Studies (Erasmus), Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Sept. 2011 – June 2014: BA (Hons) in Languages, Literatures and Foreign Civilizations (English), Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle

Sept. 2011 – June 2014: Classe Préparatoire Aux Grandes Écoles, Lycée Victor Duruy (Paris)

Undergraduate teaching

January – April 2021: English Literature 2 Semester 2, The University of Edinburgh.

September – December 2021: English Literature 2 Semester 1, The University of Edinburgh.

January – April 2022: English Literature 2 Semester 2, The University of Edinburgh.

 

August 2015 – May 2016:  Teaching Assistant (French 306-1 and French 306-2). Rhodes College. Memphis, Tennessee.

Postgraduate teaching

January 2018 – September 2022: Teaching Fellow of French. Centre for Open Learning, The University of Edinburgh.

Current research interests

American Literature; Transcendentalism; Women’s Studies; Gender Studies; Literary Abolitionism; Nineteenth-Century Literature; Victorian Transatlanticism; Feminist Theory; English Literature; Irish Literature; French Literature; Italian literature.

Current project grants

Barbara L. Packer Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2023-2024

IASA Emerging Scholars Fellowship, International American Studies Association, 2023-2024

Organiser

Co-convener:

  • Nineteenth Century Research Seminars, The University of Edinburgh. 2020.
  • English Literature Work in Progress Seminars, The University of Edinburgh.  2019-2020. 
  • LLC Blethers, The University of Edinburgh. February 2019.

Papers delivered

• “Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson on ‘Dæmonology’: Of Bodily Functions and Biographical Misrepresentations.” British Association for American Studies Conference, Keele University, United Kingdom, 12-14 April 2023.

• "'Woman [and] Artist': Margaret Fuller on Bettine Brentano-von Arnim and Friendship." Thoreau Society Annual Gathering. Concord, MA, 6-11 July 2022. 

• "Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller: Idealism and Women's Rights." Emerson and Perfectionism Today. Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 13-14 May 2022.

• “Transcendentalist Women in Conversation: Margaret Fuller, Sophia Ripley, and ‘Woman’.” A19 Seminar. Online, Friday 21 January 2022. https://a19.hypotheses.org/416

• “‘More Radical Than Ever’: Fuller’s Voyage to Italy and the Transformative Experience of Love.” American Literature Association Annual Conference. Online, 10 July 2021.

• “Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and the Body in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852).” Thoreau Society Annual Gathering. Online, 9 July 2021.

• "Transcendentalist Women Circles: Margaret Fuller, Sophia Ripley, and 'Woman' (1841)." Scottish Association for the Study of America Annual Conference. Online, 6 March 2021.

• “From Memorial to Myth: William Henry Channing’s Rewriting of Margaret Fuller’s Marriage in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852).” Scottish Association for the Study of America Annual Conference. University of Dundee, 29 February 2020.

• “Rewriting the Life of an ‘Ultra-Radical’: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Margaret Fuller in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852).” Thoreau Society Annual Gathering. Concord, MA, 12 July 2019. 

• “Rewriting the Life of an ‘Ultra-Radical’: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Margaret Fuller in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852).” British Association for American Studies Conference. University of Sussex, 27 April 2019.

• “Paris in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.” MSc United States Literature Conference, sponsored by the Department of English Literature. The University of Edinburgh, June 2017.

Assistant Editor – The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies

Associate Editor – Margaret Fuller, Periodical and Other Writings, 1834-1844, The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Writings of Margaret Fuller

Course Coordinator – Speak Out Languages

Insights Programme Facilitator – Widening Participation Programme, Careers Service at The University of Edinburgh (Insights November 2021, Insights February 2022)

• Peer-Reviewed Article: "Transcendentalist Women in Conversation: Margaret Fuller, Sophia Ripley, and 'Woman.'" Transatlantica, no. 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.19508

• Book review of Margaret Fuller and Her Circles, Bailey, Brigitte, eds, 2013. Emerson Society Papers, n. 2, 2021. 

• “The Proustian Experience of Wine Tasting.” Inciting Sparks, 6 March 2017, www.incitingsparks.org.

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