Jane Kaplan

Jane Kaplan is a professor of French language, literature, and culture in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. She received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and undertook her doctoral studies at Louisiana State University. In 1971, Kaplan and her family moved to Ithaca, where her husband at the time was hired at Cornell, and she joined the modern languages department at Ithaca College to teach French. She has spent nearly every day since “being in the classroom, sharing knowledge about French and France from every conceivable angle.”

In addition to working closely with students, Kaplan has published original research on 18th-century French literature and is in the process of translating a 200-year-old manuscript used to teach the French illiterate how to read. She received a Technology and the Humanities grant several years ago, which allowed her to develop several online technology French projects, including a French grammar manual and “A Stroll through Paris,” a narrated slideshow. “I love French,” Kaplan says fondly. “I love my students. I love teaching.”