Julia Spiegelman
Part-Time Instructor
Julia Donnelly Spiegelman is a part-time instructor of second language acquisition in the Language & Literacy Education program at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her research and activism focus on the intersection of power, identity, and ideology in K–16 world language classrooms, seeking to document, understand, and oppose the workings of racism and transphobia within these contexts. Ms. Spiegelman’s current project investigates the contexts, agency, and investment of gender-nonbinary adolescent learners navigating cisnormativity and binary grammatical gender in their French and Spanish classrooms. She is also a PhD candidate in applied linguistics at University of Massachusetts Boston.
Ms. Spiegelman’s work has been published in Applied Linguistics, The French Review, and L2 Journal, with forthcoming articles in Critical Multilingualism Studies and International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. She has taught French and Applied Linguistics at Brown University, UMass Boston, and in K–12 settings, and currently teaches at Longy School of Music at Bard College.
Ms. Spiegelman has given lectures and workshops on trans-inclusive language teaching by institutions and organizations in the US and Canada, including the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MAFLA), the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and the Institut de Français UBC à Québec. She is a faculty member at the Multicultural Teaching Institute, where she works with K–12 teachers to develop awareness of their own identities and engage anti-bias pedagogies in their classrooms.
Pronouns: she/her
Education
MA, French Linguistics and Pedagogy, Middlebury College
BA, Music, Bryn Mawr College
Courses
LS658: Second Language Acquisition
Selected Publications
Spiegelman, J. D. (2022). “You used ‘elle,’ so now you’re a girl”: Discursive possibilities for a non-binary teenager in French class. L2 Journal, 14(3), 1-24. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/40s623wv
Spiegelman, J. D. (2022). Un regard critique sur le traitement de la francophonie dans deux manuels de français langue étrangère (FLE). The French Review, 95(4).
Spiegelman, J. D. (2022). Racism, colonialism, and the limits of diversity: Analyzing the francophone “Other” in French foreign language textbooks. In S. Bouamer & L. Bourdeau (Eds.), Diversity and decolonization in French Studies: New approaches to teaching (pp. 51-64). Palgrave.
Selected Presentations
Spiegelman, J. (2023). Grappling with cisgender positionality in applied linguistics research with trans participants. Invited Colloquium. AAAL Annual Conference. Portland, OR.
Spiegelman, J. & Kolodney, A. (2022). Building gender-inclusive world language classrooms beyond the binary: What can we learn from students? ACTFL Annual Convention. Boston, MA.
Spiegelman, J. Discursive strategies of non-binary learners of French and Spanish in U.S. high schools. Lavender Language and Linguistics Conference. Catania, Italy. (2022).
Spiegelman, J. (2022). Covert acts of resistance in French class by a non-binary student of color. Diversity, Decolonization, and the French Curriculum (DDFC). Online Conference.
Spiegelman, J. (2021). Fighting white supremacy in the French classroom. Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL). Online Conference.