Germaine de Staël and Women’s Expatriation

Abstract
Germaine de Staël’s life and travels are often reflected in the lives of her fictional characters. This paper examines the concept of national identity that Staël formulated while traveling outside of France and shows how this concept plays out in in her narrative work, Corinne ou l’Italie, through the gendered representations of individuals from specific European countries.  
Presenter Biography
Karen Nehlsen Manna is an Assistant Professor of French at the University of Central Oklahoma where she teaches courses on the French eighteenth-century through the lenses of gender studies and cultural studies. Dr. Manna has published on theatrical representations of the concept of "Enlightenment virtue" through the economics of gender, as well as the narrativized depiction of national identity in the works of Germaine de Staël.  Dr. Manna is currently writing a book on the role of the libertine in old regime comic theater.