Graduate Student in French
Eleonora Mancuso is a 6th-year PhD Candidate in French Literature at Boston University, where she studies under the direction of Professor Rachel Mesch. Her research interests include nineteenth-century French literature, disability studies, visual culture, gender studies, and medical humanities.
Through an interdisciplinary approach, Eleonora examines the intersections of disability, medicine, and spectacle in French Realism and Naturalism. Her dissertation investigates how nineteenth-century writers such as Claire de Duras, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola, and Rachilde represented disability as both a narrative strategy (narrative prosthesis) and a form of visual spectacle, situating literary texts within the broader culture of nineteenth-century Paris.
Before joining Boston University, Eleonora earned her B.A. in English, French and Spanish Language, Literature and Culture from the Università di Catania (Italy). She also holds an M.A. in French Literature and Language, with a minor in Spanish Literature and Language, from the University of Delaware.
She has completed Boston University’s Graduate Certificates in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and in Teaching Language, Literature and Film.