Dr. Renée Altergott

Professional headshot of Dr. Renée Altergott smiling at the camera in front of a blurred natural background

Assistant Professor of Black French Thought

Ph.D. in French and Francophone Literature, Princeton University

Biography

Renée Altergott is Assistant Professor of Black French Thought in the Department of French Studies at Louisiana State University. Dr. Altergott is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research examines the intersections between French imperialism, media history, sound studies, and the cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Her recent articles on voice, technology, and listening have appeared in Le Temps des Médias, Contemporary French Civilization Intersections, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, and French Forum. Dr. Altergott is co-editing a special issue of Modern & Contemporary France on sound studies and ecocriticism, forthcoming 2027.

Selected Publications

“‘De la terre inconnue’: le rôle subversif des chants de guerre des colonisés dans la propagande sonore de l’Exposition Coloniale de 1931.” Le Temps des Médias, 2025, n° 44, “Phonographies politiques,” edited by Jonathan Thomas, Jedediah Sklower, and Alexandre Borrel, pp. 85-98. DOI: 10.3917/tdm.044.0085

“‘Elles n’ont pas la voix blanche’: Colorblind Listening and the French Podcast.” Special issue of Contemporary French Civilization Intersections, “Podcasting Disruptive Voices: New Narratives of Race, Gender & Sexuality,” co-edited by Thomas Muzart and Audrey Brunetaux, 2023, pp. 45-61. DOI: 10.3828/cfci.2023.4

“Samori Touré and the Portable God: Imagining the Phonographic Conquest of West Africa.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 50, nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer 2022, pp. 151-69. DOI: 10.1353/ncf.2022.0008

“Mediated Martyrdom in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” Comics & Intermediality, edited by Fabrice Leroy, Jan Baetens, and Hugo Frey, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2022, pp. 147-171.

“Une Machine à gloire? Legacies of the French Inventor(s) of Sound Recording Through the Ages.” French Forum, vol. 46.1, Spring 2021, pp. 19-35. DOI: 10.1353/frf.2021.0001

“Parasitic Reproduction: Recording the Female in the Early Works of Patrick Chamoiseau.” Women in French Studies, 2019, pp. 203-13.

Areas of Interest

Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African literatures and cultures

Colonial and Postcolonial studies

Music and Sound Studies

Media History and Film

Archive Studies

19th-century novel