Candace Skorupa

Biography

Candace Skorupa teaches a first-year writing-intensive seminar in the undergraduate Literature major: LITR 022, “Music and Literature.”  She is passionate about teaching and working with first-year students, to cultivate a comparative approach to literary analysis in an intermedial and cross-disciplinary setting and, simultaneously, to polish their writing skills and introduce them to the many incredible learning resources at Yale, through collaboration with the Yale University Art Gallery and the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library.

Before creating LITR 022, Skorupa was the Senior Essay Coordinator for the Literature Major from 2008 to 2019.  She loves working with Literature students through all of the stages of research and writing for a paper of any size, whether it be their first paper at Yale or their final culminating senior project.  As an alumna of Yale’s Comparative Literature department herself, she knows firsthand the importance of guidance and support in a Yale student’s literary studies, as well as the joys of integrating hands-on language work with literary and cultural pursuits. In that spirit, Skorupa has studied French, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Polish.

Skorupa received her Ph.D. (2000), M.Phil. (1996), and B.A. (1992) in Comparative Literature from Yale University.   Her doctoral dissertation, “Music and Letters: Correspondances of Notes and Narrative from Berlioz to Proust,” was directed by Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus Peter Brooks. 

Madame Skorupa is also the French Language Program Director in the Department of French, where she oversees the language curriculum and coordinates graduate student teaching in French.  She teaches all levels of French language, from FREN 110 to FREN 150.  She is the founder and faculty liaison of the Yale French Club.  As a fellow of Davenport College, she advises first-year students and hosts a weekly French Table on Fridays for the Yale community. 

She taught French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University (1999-2002) and in the Department of French at Smith College (2002-2005). She taught English at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Lyon, France, with the Fulbright program (1992-93).  In her free time, she enjoys playing the piano and flute, taking long walks, running, biking, yoga, dancing, baking French desserts, playing with her two cats, and occasionally roller skating with her daughter.

Research Interests

Nineteenth-century literature and music; Proust; Baudelaire; Berlioz; French Symbolist poetry; the art song

Publication Highlights

• Liliana Milkova and Candace Skorupa, “Active Looking in the Reinstalled Gallery of African Art,” Yale University Art Gallery Magazine, Spring 2023.
• LITR 022 featured in Sydney Skelton Simon, “Teaching Across Disciplines: Priming Students for Active Learning in the Art Museum,” in New Directions in University Museums, Rowman and Littlefield, Spring 2023.
• Christiane Métral, James Benenson, Candace Skorupa, “Echanges Synchrones Transatlantiques,” Distances et savoirs 7:2 (2009): 253-272. 
• Christiane Métral and James Benenson (with Candace Skorupa), “Cross-Cultural Connections: échanges synchrones et asynchrones transatlantiques,” The French Review 85.2 (December 2011): 261-277.
• “Challenges in Cross-Cultural Telecollaborative Exchanges,” co-author James Benenson, Computer-Mediated Intercultural Foreign Language Instruction, eds. Julie Belz and Steven L. Thorne, 2005 Volume of the AAUSC (American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators and Directors of Language Programs), State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.
• “Cross-Cultural Connections: Une salle de classe sans murs.  Webcams et visioconférences dans un projet d’échanges bilingues interculturels entre deux groupes d’élèves: ENST, Paris et Smith College, USA (janvier à mai 2004),” Proceedings from 32^e Congrés UPLEGESS 2004, Union des Professeurs de Langues des Grandes Écoles, De l’amont vers l’aval.  La pédagogie des langues dans les Grandes Écoles: rupture et continuité.  2,3, et 4 juin 2004 à Télécom Paris; 46, rue Barrault, 75013 Paris.
• “Berlioz’s Programme and Proust’s Sonate: Parallel Quests to Bridge the Gaps in Musico-Literary Expression.”  The Aesthetic Discourse of the Arts: Breaking the Barriers. Vol. LXI of Analecta Husserliana.  Ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.  251-271.