Margaret Keneman, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of French

Margaret L. Keneman is an Assistant Professor of French and Applied Linguistics. Her research centers on classroom-based language learning, with particular attention to French language education, multilingual literacy development, and translanguaging pedagogy. Drawing on qualitative and ethnographic methods, her work examines how learners develop symbolic competence and meaning-making practices across linguistic and cultural boundaries. She has also contributed to curricular design and programmatic coordination in university language programs.

A complementary strand of her research addresses issues of linguistic justice in educational contexts shaped by colonial histories and structural inequality. This work examines how language ideologies, listening practices, and pedagogical norms affect access, legitimacy, and participation in Francophone and Creole-speaking contexts, including Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire. Across this work, she theorizes multilingual communication as a form of symbolic reciprocity in which meaning and legitimacy are co-produced through shared interpretive effort.

Her interdisciplinary, arts-based research examines embodiment, well-being, and learning in educational contexts. Drawing on collaborative research in dance pedagogy, this work investigates how different forms of feedback—particularly visual and embodied feedback—shape learning processes, attention, and learner well-being in the classroom. This research provides a conceptual lens for thinking about expertise, normativity, and embodied knowledge questions that also animate her work in language education.

Education

Ph.D., French and Educational Studies, Emory University, 2013

B.A., English and French, Clemson University, 2006

Selected Publications

Keneman, Margaret L. (2024). “Post-pandemic reflections of a virtual exchange.” Connections: A Journal for Foreign Language Educators, 12, 34–62.

Keneman, Margaret L. (2017). “Le pouvoir du théâtre: Foreign languages, higher education, and capturing the notion of symbolic competence.” L2 Journal, 9(2), 84–106.

Keneman, Margaret L. (2016). “Empowering the collegiate foreign language learner through critical literacies development.” Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 12(2), 84–99.

Keneman, Margaret L. (2015). “Finding a voice in the foreign language classroom: Reading, writing, and performing slam poetry to develop critical literacies.” In L. Parkes & C. Ryan (Eds.), Integrating the Arts: Creative Thinking about FL Curricula and Language Program Direction (pp. 108–130). Boston: Cengage.

Thomsen, J., & Keneman, M. (2018). “Exploring how medical voluntourism contributes to health and wellbeing in Haiti.” In I. Asara, E. Michopoulou, F. Niccolini, D. Taff, & A. Clarke (Eds.), Tourism, Health and Wellbeing in Protected Areas (pp. 95–107). Wallingford, UK: CABI International.

Radell, S., Keneman, M., Mandradjieff, M., Adame, D., & Cole, S. (2017). “Comparison of body image satisfaction between beginning- and advanced-level female ballet students.” Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, 21(4), 135–143.

Radell, S., Keneman, M., Adame, D., & Cole, S. (2014). “My body and its reflection: A case study of eight dance students and the mirror in the ballet classroom.” Research in Dance Education, 15(2), 161–178.

Pedagogical Projects in French Language Education, https://sites.google.com/view/pedagogical-projects/home