Rachel Gabara teaches literature and film in French. The author of From Split to Screened Selves: French and Francophone Autobiography in the Third Person (Stanford, 2006), she has published essays on African film in Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema (Wayne State, 2007), Global Art Cinema: New Theories And Histories (Oxford, 2010), and The Global Auteur: Politics and Philosophy in 21st Century Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2016). Her second book, "Reclaiming Realism: From Documentary Film in Africa to African Documentary Film," under contract with Indiana University Press, is based on research supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Fulbright Scholar Program. Gabara's recent articles on this topic 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” (forthcoming in French Screen Studies).
Research
Twentieth and twenty-first century literature, film, and theory in French; African cinema; documentary film; postcolonial studies.
- 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
- From Split to Screened Selves: French and Francophone Autobiography in the Third Person. Stanford University Press, 2006.
- “Complex Realism: Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and the Emergence of West African Documentary Film.” Black Camera 11.2 (Spring 2020): 32-59.
- “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.
- “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.
