Fabien Siles

Credentials: PhD Candidate in French

Email: fsiles@wisc.edu

Fall 2025 Office Hours
Mondays and Wednesdays 3:30-4:30 pm, and by appointment

Education

  • Master recherche ECMA spécialisation linguistique – Aix-en-Provence (France)
  • Licence LLCER – Aix-en-Provence (France)
  • Baccalauréat général

Research Interests

I mainly focus on contemporary literature. I look at the way authors interact with the spaces they inhabit. More specifically, I am interested in the concept of “territoire” and how these authors express a certain discomfort regarding the state policies of space-planning (aménagement du territoire) whether it be gentrification of city centers, desertification of rural regions, etc. Some of the authors I study are Michel Houellebecq, Sylvain Tesson, Hadrien Bels, Marie Darrieussecq, and Annie Ernaux.

Dissertation Title

Le mal de territoire en littérature contemporaine

Courses Taught

  • French 101: First Semester French (Taught and Head TA)
  • French 102: Second Semester French
  • French 204: Fourth Semester French
  • French 228: Intermediate Language and Culture
  • French 271: Literature, Comics and Film in French

Conference Presentations

  • La désertification progressive de l’agentivité humaine dans Notre vie dans les Forêts (2017) April 2023, 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquim, Tuscon, AZ.
  • Healing in liminality: Sylvain Tesson’s “On the Wandering Paths”. March 2025, GAFIS Symposium, Madison WI

Awards and Achievements

  • 2024 Lorin A. Uffenbeck Summer Dissertation Scholarship in the French and Italian Department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison
  • 2021 & 2022 Alfred Glauser Scholarship in the French and Italian Department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison