Elsa Stéphan

Research Interests

Women and Gender Studies; French language pedagogy; Science and Technology Studies; Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century French literature

A native of France, Elsa Stéphan earned her Ph.D. in French Literature from Tulane University after completing a Maîtrise in English and Media Studies at La Sorbonne (CELSA) and an M.A. in Political Science from l’Institut d’Études Politiques (Sciences Po) in Strasbourg. Her doctoral dissertation, Techno-Utopias: Utopian and Virtual Spaces in the Machine Age, investigates the ideal representation of technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature.

Before joining Columbia, she served as a lecturer at several liberal arts colleges, including Bard, Smith, and Barnard, where she taught French language courses, Film and Media studies,  as well as transnational feminism. 

Stéphan’s current scholarship focuses on Women’s Studies; her forthcoming book on the history of gendered insults in the French language is scheduled for publication in November 2026.