Dr. Laura Ceia

Laura Ceia

Department Chair

Associate Professor of International Studies and French

Email: Laura.Ceia@csulb.edu

Biography

Dr. Laura Ceia earned her Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of California, Davis, and her Maîtrise in French and Romanian Literature from the University of Timisoara, Romania. Dr. Ceia is an ancienne pensionnaire of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ulm, in Paris, and a graduate of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. Dr. Ceia specializes primarily in post-war and postcolonial French and Francophone cinema, as well as turn-of-the-twentieth-century French Literature and History of Ideas. Trained as comparatist, her research interests also include Eastern-European literature and cinema, and contemporary European trans-national cinemas. Her work places a particular emphasis on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, and the role of cultural artifacts (such as literature and cinema) in informing, reshaping or distorting cultural perceptions of citizenship, nationality and identity. Dr. Ceia is currently working on a book-length project concerning the memory of communism in Romania, viewed through a feminist lens. Before joining CSULB, Dr. Ceia has taught courses in French and Film Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University.

Dr. Ceia’s most recent article, “White women in racialised spaces, or Claire Denis’s double vision of ‘Africa'” is available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26438941.2023.2208900

Courses taught

I/ST 300 (Global Visual Cultures: The Power of Images in the Digital Age), I/ST 200 (Introduction to International Studies), I/ST 100 (Global Citizenship), I/ST 490 (Senior Seminar), I/ST 491 (Intercultural Comprehension), FREN/FEA 456 (French Cinema), RGR 346 (European Cinema of Fascism, Communism and Resistance), RGR 315 (Contemporary Europe), etc.