https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/about daily 0.75 2026-01-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1625887828178-1ALNX2WL9FB85GRDKCCS/3CD714DC-7B35-4B1A-8BBB-A5DD548A22A6_1_201_a.jpg Contact - Kathryn (Kat) Haklin is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research bridges the medical humanities, literature, cinema, and visual culture. Dr. Haklin holds a Ph.D. in French Language and Literature from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently a Lecturer in French at Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures. At WashU, she serves on the Medical Humanities executive and curriculum committees and directs the WashU Healthcare in France study abroad program in Nice, which recently was awarded a $35,000 Global Pillars Grant from IES Abroad. A scholar of French & Francophone Studies working at the intersection of the medical humanities, literature, cinema, and visual culture studies, Dr. Haklin’s book project, Writing Claustrophobia: Enclosure and the Emergence of Medicalized Anxiety in France, examines the unexplored proliferation of enclosed spaces in literature just prior to the first definition of “claustrophobia” at the Faculté de Médecine de Paris. https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/about-1 daily 0.75 2021-07-10 https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/contact daily 0.75 2025-12-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627258993511-6OCL93604NH1E0TM3BC8/387807D8-1044-490E-A0FC-5D00EF79326F.jpeg Contact - Contact WashU Healthcare in France Medical Humanities at WashU Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Washington University Arts & Sciences MSC 1077-146-310 One Brookings Drive Saint Louis, MO 63130 LinkedIn Academia.edu https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/home daily 1.0 2026-02-10 https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/home/5past-watches-h7nl6 monthly 0.5 2026-01-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627246519594-3C5Y1YWT65MF9VP3T076/Le+chole%CC%81ra.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627246733885-X0T4X6PPVOZZJ5YMU7U6/AMBOSTONIG_10313626858.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627253750662-D64V7VJ01J5G6UDASAFJ/ARMNIG_10313257875%2B%25281%2529.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1629140565589-1BM7JJC36IV90KLMWIB8/mat-napo-6dEyX6VzrnM-unsplash.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1629140978097-LCUQ56TBLLX8S8CKZQRR/reuben-mcfeeters-u0Bfur4ZNzU-unsplash.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1629141637623-7HBOPSR61DX5D042MV0P/charles-loyer-roY_YyANh00-unsplash.jpg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1629227598706-SNKZSNWVFAFQJ6GDRZOZ/Copy+of+Fashion+victim+ad2+copy.pdf.png Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/f61dcb0f-0968-43b3-8bfb-2cdc13e9a7c2/Copy+of+Feminist+Filmmaking+flyer.png Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/d389ad85-dfff-4f58-abf0-fc31e3893bfb/Le_Malade_imaginaire.jpeg Home - Teaching https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/02ff70c3-fb4e-4a3f-9538-211f01f221db/Screening+Health.png Home - Teaching https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/home/clay-ceramics-mf6ct monthly 0.5 2026-01-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1628543056416-J6FF1P0QSEWVPE6TWY1J/image_marville_charles_charles-francois_bossu_dit_passage_de_lopera_vue_prise_de_la_rue_lepeletier_9eme_ar_416933.jpg Home - Book Projects - Writing Claustrophobia Enclosure and the Emergence of Medicalized Anxiety in France by Kathryn A. Haklin Before “claustrophobia” entered medical vocabulary, French writers were already crafting vivid narratives of enclosure and confinement. In Baudelaire’s poetry, the shifting urban landscape of mid-century Paris takes on a suffocating cast, its sky closing over the city like the lid of a coffin. Hugo’s Les Misérables and The Toilers of the Sea, the natural world itself becomes a trap, ensnaring protagonists in deaths by quicksand and drowning. Verne’s extraordinary voyages turn vehicles of exploration into chambers of confinement, whether soaring through outer space or traversing ten thousand leagues beneath the sea. Zola, in turn, cages his characters within the suffocating confines of spaces that define modern life itself: the glittering department store, the rumbling locomotive, and the depths of a coal mine. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1628971611424-A96E5WDTJAZ0IJN6857C/L%27embrasement+de+la+tour+Eiffel+PD+Paris+Muse%CC%81es.jpg Home - Book Projects - Spatial Imagination and Modernity in European Francophone Culture during the Long Nineteenth Century Critical Interiority Eds. Dominique Bauer, Jill Cornish, Alexandre Dubois, and Kathryn A. Haklin https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/home/specialists-mgzaa monthly 0.5 2026-01-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/c6d20fb3-03cd-453e-b086-87d56456dc64/VCT+image.png Home - Publications & Presentations - La claustrophobie et la perte de sens dans Voyage au centre de la Terre de Jules Verne Voyage au centre de la Terre dépeint l’expérience psychologique de l’enfermement en détaillant les effets mentaux subis dans un environnement confiné, lorsque le protagoniste perd connaissance en même temps qu’il perd son chemin. Ce chapitre analyse la représentation de l’enfermement spatial et mental, tant sur le plan formel que descriptif, dans l’œuvre. Ainsi, ce roman de Verne illustre des épisodes que l’on pourrait qualifier de « claustrophobes » bien avant l’apparition du terme médical. Chapter in Écrire le huis clos au XIXe siècle, edited by Céline Brossillon and Emma Burston, pp. 97-110. Classiques Garnier, 2024. Image courtesy of Gallica (BnF), Public Domain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/0311d314-f797-4a7b-9daa-49caf8ebb233/Arbre_genealogique_des_Rougon-Macquart_annote%CC%81.jpeg Home - Publications & Presentations - Character Ecologies in Zola’s Rougon-Macquart: Beyond Heredity, Beyond Metaphor This article reframes Zola’s character networks in the Rougon-Macquart as ecologies. By comparing episodes of transgression in La Curée and La Faute de l’abbé Mouret, I demonstrate how characters become fused with plants and gardens in each novel, forming a singular, merged entity. Consequently, I argue that narrative setting serves not merely as a location in which a story unfolds, but rather is endowed with a human-like agency. The alliance between character and environment therefore urges a reexamination of the writer’s conception of milieu, which expands to include an ecological dimension, alongside the social and hereditary. Article in special issue of L’Esprit Créateur “Connecting Characters in Modern & Contemporary French-language Fiction,” edited by Rebecca Grenouilleau-Loescher and Kathryn A. Haklin (Fall 2023). Vol. 63, No. 3, pp. 37-51. Image courtesy of Gallica (BnF), Public Domain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1626025214566-H388WZ68F8UX8723B4XF/Les_Fleurs_du_mal___%5B...%5DBaudelaire_Charles_btv1b86108314_23.jpeg Home - Publications & Presentations - Enclosure for Escape: Baudelaire’s Claustrophilia in “La chevelure” This article offers a close reading of Charles Baudelaire’s poem “La chevelure” (Les Fleurs du Mal) through the lens of spatial enclosure. I contend that claustrophilia—that is, a desire for confinement—finds expression in “La chevelure” due to a constellation of structural, thematic, and phonetic elements, which subsequently forge a generative space for poetic creation. The operation of claustrophilia in this example reveals that, paradoxically, it is through captivity that escape becomes possible. This finding illuminates the spatial dimension of Baudelaire’s poetry, a compelling aspect that has been obscured by a scholarly preoccupation with time in his œuvre. Article in Festschrift special issue of Modern Language Notes “The Poetry of Life, the Life of Poetry: Essays in Honor of Jacques Neefs,” edited by Kathryn A. Haklin and Abigail RayAlexander (September 2021). Vol. 136, No. 4, pp. S-69–S-89. Image courtesy of Gallica (BnF), Public Domain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1626020347766-P0C0BYKSHYO19V5B2SJP/Escalier+1900.jpg Home - Publications & Presentations - Enclosed Exhibitions: Claustrophobia, Balloons, and the Department Store in Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames This chapter examines spatial confinement in the eponymous department store of Émile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames (1883). A close reading of one of the novel’s sale chapters reveals that the store director mobilizes several strategies to engender a suffocating atmosphere at the temporary exhibition. Linking literary space and publicity, I argue that the store’s promotional balloons act as ephemeral, yet dynamic advertisements that dismantle the concepts of interior and exterior space. Moreover, the balloons instantiate the ephemeral quality of the sales since, in spite of their brief duration, they produce a lasting visual effect that problematizes a spatial framework opposing inside and outside. This reading suggests that publicity contributes to the claustrophobia of commerce in Zola’s fictional ephemeral exhibitions. Chapter in Ephemeral Spectacles, Exhibition Spaces and Museums 1750-1918, edited by Dominique Bauer and Camilla Murgia, pp. 55–77. Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collections, Public Domain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1626027130729-DRYYFPAKR2C7WZCVB1XQ/Figure+4.jpg Home - Publications & Presentations - Obscure Visions: The 1867 Aquarium and Its Literary Legacy The aquarium constructed for the 1867 Exposition Universelle captivated nineteenth-century attendees through its unprecedented design uniting two spatial imaginaries exploited by writers and explorers alike: the underground and the underwater. This article considers the legacy of the 1867 aquarium through a dual approach. First, I demonstrate how this unconventional space introduced new modes of vision by creating an immersive experience of the underwater world. In a second step, I analyze excerpts from Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866) and Jules Verne’s Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1870) to elucidate the aquarium’s connection to novelistic representations of underwater space. The essay argues that Hugo’s sea epic initiated a new visual paradigm relying on spatial enclosure, a perception that finds an echo in the spectatorial perspective generated by the 1867 aquarium. In tracing out the interrelations between the hybrid space of the aquarium and literature of the era, this article foregrounds the reciprocal impact of public spectacle and literary description, in addition to the intricate ways in which exhibitions at the 1867 Exposition joined entertainment and technology, science, and architecture. Article in special issue of Dix-Neuf: Journal of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes on the Paris Universal Expositions (2020), edited by Anne O’Neil-Henry. Vol. 2, no. 2–3, pp. 179–202. Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collections, Public Domain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1626026835618-D5E13LGNI0I8LYWQH8FP/628px-In_the_Conservatory_-_edited.jpeg Home - Publications & Presentations - Disenchanting Enchantments: Zola, Manet, and the Erotics of the Conservatory This essay examines the entanglement of gender, enclosed space, and (dis)enchantment in two emblematic works featuring a conservatory as a central location: Zola’s La Curée (1871–72) and Manet’s Dans la serre (1877–1879). Whereas critics have typically viewed Dans la serre as a conventional bourgeois genre painting, I argue that reading the canvas against its cultural and literary backdrop—furnished most notably by La Curée—foregrounds its hitherto little commented erotic dimension. Drawing on a symbolic field connecting text to image, close readings highlight the unique ambiguity of the conservatory as a simultaneously enchanting and disenchanting space by focusing on spatial enclosure. In turn, this argument demonstrates that enchantment and disenchantment are not dichotomous categories. Rather, novelistic and pictorial representations of the quintessentially modern space of the conservatory ultimately challenge the tidy division between enchantment and disenchantment by exposing the coexistence of these two ostensible opposites. This finding underscores the entwining of literary and artistic worlds at a time when developing architectural forms reflected and expressed changing industrial trends and evolving social values. Chapter in Spatial Imagination and Modernity in European Francophone Culture during the Long Nineteenth Century: Critical Interiority (Eds. Dominique Bauer, Jill Cornish, Alexandre Dubois, Kathryn A. Haklin). Forthcoming in 2026 with Routledge. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain https://www.kathrynhaklin.com/home/studio-vega-c88ab monthly 0.5 2026-02-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/a355d085-677b-4fcf-9c8d-eefaed275fa6/Copy+of+WashU+Healthcare+in+France+2026+Flyer.png Home - Program Leadership & Study Abroad - WashU Healthcare in France Since 2023, I have served as Faculty Director of WashU Healthcare in France, an interdisciplinary study abroad program that brings pre-health students to Nice each summer for a five-week immersion in French language, culture, and clinical observation. Students complete a 125-hour shadowing internship at Hôpital Pasteur and enroll in my advanced-level course The Art of Health in Nice, which explores the cultural history of Nice through the lens of health and includes academic excursions to gardens, markets, museums, and villas. My leadership has included curricular redesigns to better integrate Medical Humanities frameworks, partnerships with hospital staff and local institutions, and the reopening of the program to national applicants. The program reflects my commitment to experiential, cross-cultural learning and to cultivating humanistic insight at the intersection of medicine, language, and lived experience. Click here for more info on the WashU Healthcare in France program This unique program was recently featured in Washington Magazine (October 2024). From immersive internships at Hôpital Pasteur to exploring French culture on the Mediterranean coast, discover how our students blend language skills with real-world healthcare experience. Read more: Learning the French Way to Better Health https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627333356233-6YAKC510JRDGCLKFFDRZ/janko-ferlic-sfL_QOnmy00-unsplash.jpg Home - Program Leadership & Study Abroad - Mellon Humanities Collaboratory As Postdoctoral Fellow for the Mellon-funded Humanities Collaboratory Program at Johns Hopkins, I taught and mentored undergraduate students from the Community College of Baltimore County and several HBCUs. This summer program aims to lend transparency to the research process for students in an experimental, Digital Humanities “(col)laboratory” workspace. By modeling search techniques and demystifying scholarly protocol, I guided students through the organizational and analytical obstacles of intensive research in the humanities. The program culminated with student presentations at the annual Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Hartford, Connecticut. Click here for more info on the Mellon Humanities Collaboratory https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627334267335-3R2TE4BDVIG12B6G28HQ/tristan-colangelo-WKFxRhgAKOI-unsplash.jpg Home - Program Leadership & Study Abroad - Embracing Science & the Humanities in Paris This Johns Hopkins Intersession course, to be taught on-site in Paris, was designed to unite students and scholars from the humanities and the sciences, with readings centered around concepts conducive to interdisciplinary dialogue: curiosity, harmony, wonder, individuality, and creativity. As program assistant to Dr. Kristin Cook-Gailloud, I helped organize our itinerary in France and led discussions as a guest lecturer. Regrettably, the trip to Paris was canceled due to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, necessitating that we re-situate the course around site visits in Baltimore and New York City. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1627332805719-OM6KNPVIBJJEE3QDX3W6/Logo_france_terre_d%27asile.jpeg Home - Program Leadership & Study Abroad - France Terre d’Asile Internship Sponsored by Florida State’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, my primary task as a summer intern was to teach basic French-language classes to asylum seekers and refugees in Saint-Denis for the French NGO France terre d’asile. I also provided translation and interpretation services (French-English), conducted research on human trafficking in France, and prepared legal documents for use at the French National Court of the Right to Asylum. Through this experience, I witnessed first-hand how language learning remains intimately connected to human rights, migration, and social justice. Click here for more info on the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60e9036828ed8477599f10f8/1629144827061-K7LSHAT40BYC91D13KAQ/arton3991.png Home - Program Leadership & Study Abroad - Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) From 2008-2010, I was an English-language instructor and teaching assistant for the TAPIF program sponsored by the French Ministry of Education. As an assistante de langue, I taught and assisted teachers in English-language classes for French schoolchildren (CE1–CM2) at the école primaire level in 4 local schools in Bar-le-Duc, France (Académie de Nancy-Metz). During this two-year stint in Lorraine, I also lived with two different French families as an au pair.