Arden Ericson

Focus: 

- 20th and 21st century African Francophone literature; Black feminist, postcolonial, and literary theories; Ethnographic studies; Caribbean studies; Autofiction

Degrees:

- M.A., Littératures, discours, francophonies, Université Paris-Est Créteil, 2026.

- M.A., History and Literature, Columbia University, 2025. 

- B.A., French and Francophone Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 2023.

Synopsis:

- Arden Ericson is a PhD student in French and Black Studies and a graduate fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM). Her research focuses on Black Francophone and Anglophone women’s literature, the role of la rêverie (daydreaming) in autofiction, and the intellectual exchanges between African American and Francophone Black women writers. Her master’s thesis examined Martinican intellectual Paulette Nardal’s 1929 essays as an early, though obscure, articulation of feminist discourse, while her second thesis traced the evolution of l’Antillaise across other texts, including Mayotte Capécia’s Je suis Martiniquaise, arguing that these works anticipate later ethnographic approaches to documenting the experiences of Antillean women.

Prior to Yale, Arden lived in Paris for three years, where she taught English while completing her master’s degrees. She is originally from Connecticut.

Combined department:

- Combined Ph.D. with Yale Department of French