Nancy Gillespie Brinning Professor in French Undergraduate Coordinator Rachel Gabara teaches global film, literature, and cultures in French, with a particular focus on nonfiction and historical fiction from Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Her students work to improve their spoken and written French while studying how and why French is used around the world, developing skills relevant to a wide range of international careers. . . . . The author of From Split to Screened Selves: French and Francophone Autobiography in the Third Person (Stanford University Press, 2006), Gabara has published essays on African film in Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema (Wayne State UP, 2007), Global Art Cinema: New Theories And Histories (Oxford UP, 2010), and The Global Auteur: Politics and Philosophy in 21st Century Cinema (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016). Her new book, Documentary Objectives: Filming Africa from Colonialism to Independence (Indiana UP, 2026), is based on research supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Fulbright Scholar Program. Related articles include "From Ethnography to Essay: Realism, Reflexivity, and African Documentary Film" (A Companion to African Cinema, Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), “Complex Realism: Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and the Emergence of West African Documentary Film” (Black Camera 11.2, 2020), and “Hunting Images: Sub-Saharan Africa in Early French Cinema” (French Screen Studies, 2023). Gabara's “Restituer: sharing colonial films” (Contemporary French Civilization 48.1, 2023) addresses contemporary debates about restitution and archives, and “Cinephobia/Cinephilia: Modernism and Sub-Saharan African Film” (Modernism/modernity Print plus, 2024) explores the notion of modernist cinephilia with respect to early West and Central African films. Research Research Areas: Francophone Studies Media, Visual Culture, & Performance Studies Transatlantic & Diaspora Studies Research Interests: Twentieth and twenty-first century literature, film, and theory in French; African cinema; documentary film; postcolonial studies. Grants: Albertine Foundation and French Embassy in the U.S. French in Higher Education Grant (with Jonathan Haddad), August 2024-July 2026. National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, July 2020-June 2021. UGA Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Faculty Research Grant in Humanities and Arts, Fall 2018. National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, June-July 2018. American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, June-July 2018. UGA Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Research Fellowship, 2013-14. Princeton University Christian Gauss Fund University Preceptorship, 2003-05. Fulbright Scholar Program Africa Regional Research Grant, January-May 2003. Selected Publications Selected Publications: Books Documentary Objectives: Filming Africa from Colonialism to Independence. Indiana University Press, 2026. From Split to Screened Selves: French and Francophone Autobiography in the Third Person. Stanford University Press, 2006. Articles “African Film Criticism in the Colonial Capital, 1957-1967.” In Global Movie Magazine Networks. Eds. Kelley Conway and Eric Hoyt. University of California Press, 2025. 184-201. https://www.luminosoa.org/site/chapters/e/10.1525/luminos.212.k/ “Cinephobia/Cinephilia: Modernism and Sub-Saharan African Film.” Modernism/ modernity Print Plus (2024). https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0287. “Restituer: sharing colonial films.” Contemporary French Civilization 48.1 (2023): 7-26. https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2023.2. “Hunting Images: Sub-Saharan Africa in Early French Cinema.” French Screen Studies 23.4 (2023): 249-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2095725. Winner, British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Best Journal Article Award, 2023. “Complex Realism: Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and the Emergence of West African Documentary Film.” Black Camera 11.2 (Spring 2020): 32-59. https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0287. “From Ethnography to Essay: Realism, Reflexivity, and African Documentary Film.” A Companion to African Cinema. Eds. Kenneth Harrow and Carmela Garritano. Wiley-Blackwell, 2018. 358-378. “Abderrahmane Sissako: On the Politics of African Auteurs.” The Global Auteur: Politics and Philosophy in 21st Century Cinema. Eds. Jeremi Szaniawski and Seung-hoon Jeong. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. 43-60. “Mixing Impossible Genres: David Achkar and African AutoBiographical Documentary.” Revised reprint. The Documentary Film Reader. Ed. Jonathan Kahana. Oxford University Press, 2016. 924-937. “War by Documentary.” Romance Notes 55.3 (2015): 409-423. 10.1353/rmc.2015.0059. “Interrogating Images: Lumumba: Death of the Prophet as Reflexive AutoBiographical Documentary.” Raoul Peck: Power, Politics, and the Cinematic Imagination. Eds. Toni Pressley-Sanon and Sophie Saint-Just. Lexington Books, 2015. 153-170. “Abderrahmane Sissako: Second and Third Cinema in the First Person.” Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories. Eds. Karl Schoonover and Rosalind Galt. Oxford University Press, 2010. 320-333. “‘A Poetics of Refusals’: Neorealism from Italy to Africa.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 23.3 (2006): 201-215. “Screening Autobiography: Cyril Collard’s Nuits Fauves.” French Cultural Studies 16.1 (2005): 55-72. “Mixing Impossible Genres: David Achkar and African AutoBiographical Documentary.” New Literary History 34.2 (2003): 331-352.
