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Department of Modern Languages

Dr. Melinda A. Cro

Associate Dean of Student Success & Engagement, ProfessorPhoto of Dr. Cro

Contact Information & Office
Research & Teaching Interests 

Early modern French and Italian literature; the pastoral; ecocriticism; digital humanities; aesthetics; second language and digital pedagogy.

Education
  • PhD, Romance Languages (French & Italian), The University of Georgia, 2010
  • MA, Romance Languages (French & Italian), The University of Georgia, 2006
  • BA, French & Theater, King University, 2004
Recently Offered Courses
  • 500-level Courses: Business French; Intro to French Literature (Medieval-18th C); Intro to Children's Literature in French; The French Revolution.
  • Advanced Seminars: Nature & the Natural in 17th C Literature and Culture; Mapping the Francophone World in the 17th C; Women Writers and Representations of Women in 17th & 18th C France; Encountering the 'Other': Notions of Alterity, Self and Nation in 18th C France; Translating the 'Freedom Papers': Charles de Gaulle & WWII Correspondence; Honoré d'Urfé and the Rise of the Pastoral in French Literature; Teaching Literature and Culture in Second Language Acquisition Contexts; Paris and the Urban Landscape in Literature
Publications (Selected)
Books

Integrating the Digital Humanities into the Second Language Classroom, Georgetown UP, 2020, http://press.georgetown.edu/book/languages/integrating-digital-humanities-second-language-classroom

Armas y Letras: la Conquista de Italia (1405-1625) (trans. by A. Culbertson Beck in Spanish from Arms & Letters: The Conquest of Italy, 1405-1625). Fundación Universitaria Española, 2012.

Current Scholarly Projects

Pastoral Sites of Memory: Reading, Response, and Nostalgia in Early Modern France.  (Manuscript in preparation)

Selling the Pastoral: Eco-pastoral Engagement in French and Francophone Literature and Culture. (Co-Author Rachel Paparone, Manuscript in preparation)

Paris et sa représentation dans les arts (textbook, 3rd edition in process to move to openly accessible format)

Editorial Work

Contributing Editor for French Studies: Seventeenth Century to the Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies (Brill), 2018-present.

Guest editor, special focus section of Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature (STTCL), “Engaging the Pastoral: Social, Environmental, and Artistic Critique in Contemporary Pastoral Literature.” Co-edited with Rachel Paparone. Vol. 43, no. 1, December 2018. https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol43/iss1/

Advisory Board Member for Representations of Female Identity in Italy. From Neoclassicism to the 21st Century. Eds. Silvia Giovanardi Byer & Fabiana Cecchini. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017

Editorial Advisor, “Jacopo Sannazaro,” in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 (LC14-18), Gale Literary Criticism Series. Vol. 254 (2016).

Editorial Board Member, Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-first Century Literature,  2011-Present; Book Review Editor (French & Spanish), 2011-12.

Peer-Reviewed Articles, Book Chapters, and Artifacts
  1. “French Studies: Seventeenth-Century,” Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, vol. 82 (Survey Year 2020, published 2022).
  2. “French Studies: Seventeenth-Century,” Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, vol. 81 (Survey Year 2019, published 2021).
  3. “Developing a Process-Oriented, Inclusive Pedagogy: At the Intersection of Digital Humanities, Second Language Acquisition, and New Literacies.” Co-authored with Sara K. Kearns. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 14.1, 2020. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/14/1/000443/000443.html.
  4. “D’Urfé, lecteur de Castiglione : Le rôle du mensonge dans l’honnêteté pastorale.” L’honnêteté au Grand Siècle : belles manières et Belles Lettres, ed. Marcella Leopizzi en collaboration avec Giovanni Dotoli, Christine McCall Probes, Rainer Zaiser, Biblio 17 (Narr Francke Attempto), vol. 221, 2020, pp. 303-316.
  5. “Comparative Textual Analysis Using Juxta Commons,” Digital Texts and Textual Data: A Pedagogical Anthology. Eds. Lauren Coats & Emily McGinn, 2019, pp. 37-54. Anthology: https://dsl.lsu.edu/nehtextualdata/pedagogical-anthology/; Artifact: http://dhlvideo.libs.uga.edu/neh_PDFs/Cro.pdf
  6. “French Studies: Seventeenth-Century,” Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, vol. 80 (Survey Year 2018, published 2020).
  7. “Mapping the Astrée: Character, Geography, and Myth.” Co-authored with Kiara O’Dea. The 2018 European Studies Conference Selected Proceedings, 2019, https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/european-studies-conference/esc-proceedings/index.php#zeroeighteen. Digital Project Site: https://mappingastree.weebly.com/
  8. “Conceptualizing an Engaged Pastoral in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature” Introduction. Co-authored with Rachel Paparone. Engaging the Pastoral: Social, Environmental, and Artistic Critique in Contemporary Pastoral Literature, special focus section of Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature, edited by Melinda A. Cro & Rachel Paparone, vol. 43, no. 1, 2018, article 4. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.2058
  9. “Collaborative Perspectives on Translation and the Digital Humanities in the Advanced French Classroom.” Co-authored with Kathleen Antonioli. The French Review, vol 91, no 4, May 2018, pp. 130-145.
  10. “Myth, Dialogue and Cooperation in the ‘French Freedom Papers’: De Gaulle and Anglo-French Correspondence (1941-1944).” Co-authored with Kathleen Antonioli. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, vol. 72, no 1, January 2018, pp. 35-52. https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knx233
  11. “‘Fanciulla tanto sciocca quanto bella’: Women in Early Modern Italian Pastoral.” Representations of Female Identity in Italy. From Neoclassicism to the 21st Century, edited by Silvia Giovanardi Byer and Fabiana Cecchini. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, pp. 8-26.
  12. “Antiroman ou métaroman ? Extravagance, fragmentation et metafiction dans l’histoire comique.” Œuvres et critiques, vol XLI, no 2, 2016, pp. 21-32.
  13. “Onomastic Deviations and Metaliterary Consequences in the Gascon extravagant.”  Romance Notes, vol 56, no 2, 2016, pp. 269-280.
  14. “Pastoral Geography and Utopistic Considerations in Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée.” Moreana, vol 51, nos 195-196, 2014, pp. 1-15.
  15. “Montaigne’s Italian Voyage: Alterity and Linguistic Appropriation in the Journal de Voyage.” South Atlantic Review¸ vol 78, nos 3-4, Summer 2013, pp. 150-166. Special Issue: “Text as Memoir.”
  16. “Folly’s Tyranny: Theatricality in Erasmus’s and Labé’s Portraits of Folly.” Moreana, vol 49, nos 189-190, 2012, pp. 1-16.
  17. “Ekphrasis and the Feminine in Sannazaro’s Arcadia.” Romance Notes, vol 52, no 1, 2012, pp. 71-78.