Molly Enz earned her Ph.D. in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Associate Professor of French at South Dakota State University. Her teaching and research have focused on issues of gender, race, identity, and social change in contemporary Francophone literature and cinema. She has led summer study abroad programs to Senegal for students from her university in collaboration with the West African Research Center. Molly was awarded a 2016-2017 Fulbright Core Scholar grant through the Africa Regional Research Program to conduct research in Dakar on Senegalese cinema, examining in particular how filmmakers reshape urban landscapes by shedding light on social issues that often impact marginalized populations. This research resulted in a co-edited collection of essays, “Forging a New Path: Plurality, Social Change, and Innovation in Contemporary Senegalese Cinema,” published in the spring 2018 issue of Black Camera: An International Film Journal. Her work has also appeared in scholarly journals such as African Studies Quarterly, Journal of the African Literature Association, Nineteenth-Century French Studies and The French Review. Molly is currently working on a book manuscript titled Rising Up: Intersections of Cultural Production, Political Engagement, and Social Change in Contemporary Senegal.
