School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 81-100 of 323 Results
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Vera Geranpayeh
Ph.D. Student in German Studies, admitted Autumn 2024
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality StudiesCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsVera Geranpayeh is a PhD candidate in German Studies. Her dissertation investigates how Vera Geranpayeh is a PhD Student in German Studies and PhD Minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stanford University. Her dissertation investigates how gender structures narrative movement in medieval German romance, focusing on minor female figures who remain structurally marginal yet narratively indispensable. She develops a framework for understanding how these figures catalyze plot progression through epistemic authority, mediation, and mobility, while remaining excluded from patriarchal mechanisms of narrative closure, such as minne and marriage.
In addition to her dissertation, she is developing a critical edition and English translation of a vernacular 1593 Franconian aristocratic household cookbook Ein koch büchlein vonn allerley speiß wie man sie kochen soll (1593). This project examines domestic authorship, women’s custodianship of culinary and medical knowledge, and the transmission of embodied expertise across generations.
Her research is further informed by training in Yiddish and a focused interest in early modern Yiddish texts, particularly domestic and practical writing, charms and magical materials, and the Yiddish Epic tradition.
She is also the student initiator of SCRIPTA, an interdisciplinary research group on gender, knowledge, and agency in premodern manuscript cultures, which combines theoretical discussion with hands-on archival work in Stanford’s Special Collections and hosts workshops with invited scholars.
She is the recipient of the Clayman Institute’s 2025 Marilyn Yalom Research Prize.
Her broader research spans queer survival, female bonds, and desire in nineteenth-century and fin-de-siècle German literature. She is the recipient of the Clayman Institute’s 2025 Marilyn Yalom Research Prize. -
Kioumars Ghereghlou
Curator for Middle East Collections, Humanities Resource Group
Current Role at StanfordCurator for Middle East Collections
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Cynthia Laura Vialle-Giancotti
Affiliate, French and Italian
BioCynthia is a Lecturer for the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education Program in Undergraduate Education.
Her research encompasses 17th and 18th century French literary forms, with a focus on novels, literary portraits, gendered and ageist representations.
Her dissertation titled: "Framing Portraits in 18th-Century French Novels" focuses on the portrayal of the body in French fiction of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its principal aim is to show the import of 17th century female authors in shaping 18th century descriptive practices. It also reveals the functions that descriptions of the body serve in the 18th century: instructing and guiding the reader, as well as entertaining her. Lastly, it underlines how descriptive practices offered a medium for female authors to assert their cultural primacy, against male narrative traditions.
Teaching is my greatest passion. At Stanford I have taught and TA'd classes on various subjects (French language, European History, Italian literature, German Culture, English Gothic Novels, Autobiographies and History of Revolutions) using innovative methods and assignments. My whole teaching approach is oriented toward one goal: to make students perceive the real-life impact of literary studies in particular and the humanities more in general. I am committed to rendering the study of the humanities and the apprenticeship of languages accessible to our diverse community. Having been a FLI (First Generation College) student I understand the difficulties that students from this community encounter and I am happy to support them in their learning needs.
Research Interests: the novel and novel theory, gender studies, life-writing genres, the body and issues of corporality (death, sickness, aging), supernatural genres, violence against women, history and art history.
