We congratulate Julia Praud, who graduated from Ohio State with a PhD in French and Francophone Studies in 2005, with her recent promotion to Associate Professor of French at The United States Military Academy at West Point!
Praud joined West Point in 2010. She teaches beginner and intermediate French as needed, a bridge course called “Reading and Writing though the Media,” and a general literature course on “Medieval through 18th Century French Literature.” Every other year she offers a course with a Francophone topic.
In additional to teaching French language, literature, and culture, Praud has served as the French Program Director since 2016 and has been a member of the Admissions Committee since 2017. As program director, she oversees faculty hiring, curriculum, recruitment, and study abroad programs.
Praud is in charge of hiring both civilian and military faculty. “We have seven faculty in French. In addition to myself, we have two other civilians, one permanent military, and typically three military rotators,” she explains. The military rotators are usually Captains or Majors, and they must have a master’s degree to teach. If they do not have master’s yet, the academy pays for them to obtain it, after which it is their job to teach French for 2-3 years.
Like any caring instructor, Praud loves to inspire her students and to see them succeed. “In 2010 when I joined the program, there were two students who started beginner French with me, who are now both captains. Now they have both started graduate school and are coming back to teach for me in 2023. I’m so excited!” says Praud.
West Point has about 4,400 students, all undergraduate. The academy offers eight languages and has a two-semester requirement of a language, of which students cannot test out. “One really liberating thing is that it is easier to encourage students to become French majors at West Point,” explains Praud, “When they graduate, they will be commissioned as officers, so they don’t need to worry about whether French on its own is marketable.”
Another part of Praud’s job is selecting students who will go abroad. Though she doesn’t run study abroad programs, she has met all their site coordinators and has been on site. The program offers study abroad programs in both military and civilian school across France, with a new military program starting soon in Belgium.
Praud is originally from Toledo, Ohio, and she received her Bachelor’s in French at Ohio State. She completed a Master’s in French at Bowling Green state University and returned to pursue her PhD at Ohio State. She spent a year abroad at the Université Lumière Lyon II as an undergrad, and returned to France for the first year of her master’s program to study at the Université François Rabelais in Tours, France.
“Tours was where I became very interested in Francophone literature,” says Praud, who feels lucky to have studied with the program’s faculty director, who was an amazing mentor and happened to be from Burkina Faso. She carried that interest though her PhD studies and defended a dissertation on “Nationalism's discontents: postcolonial contestations in the writings of Mariama Ba, Assia Djebar, Henri Lopes, and Ousmane Sembene.”
Praud has since published several articles on Assia Djebar, two of which are expansions of parts of her dissertation. Most recently, she had an article published in L'Esprit Créateur on Franco-Rwandan writer and rapper Gaël Faye, titled, “Gaël Faye: Intermediality and Creolization from Pili pili to Petit Pays.”
Praud leads an impressive professional and academic career, but her first priority has always been to her family. “Many people are surprised to learn that I have four kids,” she explains. Praud’s oldest is 19 and just started college, the second one is finishing high school, the younger two are in 1st and 3rd grades.
Praud shared that her oldest daughter was born 10 weeks early, while Praud and her husband were enjoying spring break in San Francisco. She was working on her PhD at the time and was scheduled to teach a course at Ohio State during spring quarter, right after spring break. Instead, she had to stay in San Francisco for another 6 weeks. When she finally got back, the department threw a huge baby shower. “It was so sweet, I felt really supported,” says Praud.
Earlier this year, Praud posted on Facebook that they had just dropped their daughter off at college. Diane Birckbichler, who was FRIT’s department chair during Praud’s studies, commented, “Already?”
Praud underscores that she feels very lucky for the many things that have gone right in her career. She feels lucky to have had opportunities to study abroad and to work with inspiring scholars; lucky to have her current position; and lucky to have had the support of mentors and colleagues, especially when things did not go as planned. “We need to give a little grace to students who don’t have a traditional trajectory,” she says, “Life happens. I have had so many roadblocks, and I know how lucky I am.”
