Meet Dr. Sarah Agou, Lecturer of French, and learn how her passion for languages, cross-cultural research, and decolonial approaches shape her teaching at UBC.
“Situated within the frameworks of decolonial feminism and critical race theory, my work examines how authors and filmmakers reclaim their heritage and challenge ongoing colonial narratives.”
Can you tell us about your academic area of expertise?
As a new Lecturer of French and Romance Studies at the University of British Columbia, I conceptualize my teaching practice and my research as heavily informing each other. Through my research, I work across contemporary cultural productions and texts written in French, Spanish, and occasionally in English and Portuguese. My research seeks to bridge Caribbean and Indigenous literary and cinema studies, addressing the representational distortions created by literary traditions about these communities. I aim to foster dialogues that transcend national and linguistic boundaries, opening spaces of contact that go beyond such divisions. Situated within the frameworks of decolonial feminism and critical race theory, my work examines how authors and filmmakers use poetry, novels, music, and cinema to reclaim their heritage and challenge ongoing colonial narratives.
In the classroom, I translate this research into a decolonial approach to teaching, where I encourage students to explore the vastness and diversity of the Romance languages and/or the Francophone world by including a wide variety of artists, works, cultural and geographical information, among others, in my coursework. I aim to spark students’ curiosity and push them to get a first taste of what research can look like in the vast field of Romance languages.
Can you tell us about your career and educational background?
At the university level, I have had the opportunity to teach French language, Francophone content, as well as Italian, Spanish and Hispanophone materials both in the target language and in English. I have led the Portuguese Grammar Help for a year, in which I designed teaching practices that helped students of Portuguese to learn grammar in a different and interactive way. I have taught across different levels, from beginners’ and intensive courses to more advanced ones. I have also enjoyed working with undergraduate teaching assistants and I have supported graduate students in their transition to different graduate programs.
My passion for the study of languages pushed me to study a BA and a Master’s in Classics as well as a teaching certificate in French as a Second Language from the University of Burgundy, in France. Along with Greek and Latin, I could study English, Spanish, Japanese, and other classical languages such as Sanskrit and Ancient Egyptian. I also had the opportunity to participate in study abroad programs in Iceland, Spain, and Cambodia, where I focused on the local language and cultural history. I went on with my studies in the United States of America, where I completed a Master’s in French and Italian from the University of Miami, in Ohio. I completed my PhD in Romance Languages with a focus on French and Spanish from the University of Oregon, along with a certificate in Gender Studies. My thesis explored the concept of sovereignty against enforced enclosure in contemporary literature and cinema in Cuba, Haiti, and among Indigenous peoples in Quebec.
What goals do you have in your current role as Lecturer of French?
My practice of Romance languages, including my teaching experience in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin, enables me to create bridges between different languages and theoretical practices—an experience I look forward to deepening as a Lecturer of French and Romance Studies here at UBC. My teaching experiences have led me to pay specific attention to students having difficulties, students who have never learnt another language before, and heritage speakers of any Romance language who want to build bridges between their language and the language of their study. I hope to keep rethinking the relationship between grammar and culture and to deeply relate them to my language courses, as strong grammar content needs to be studied in context, while cultural elements become clearer with a solid grammar comprehension.
I am excited about developing new courses where I can introduce students to the variety of Romance languages and their related cultures. I hope to keep guiding new undergraduate students, and new graduate students as they balance their learning and teaching activities, by encouraging them to connect all the aspects of their academic practices.
In my courses, I aim to give students an active role in their learning journey by encouraging them to ask questions, to delve into their interests, and to build connections between the different courses they are studying at the same time.
Any other comments for the FHIS community?
I love to learn about languages and to learn new languages—feel welcome to share your language-related comments and questions with me!
