Karen Santos Da Silva received her BA in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in French Literature from New York University. Her research focuses on the rise of proto-historical characteristics in the 17th-century novel and the accompanying emergence of character interiority as a new fictional space, with particular emphasis on the uses of the female body within these texts. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College for two years before joining the Department of French at Barnard College where she has been teaching advanced grammar and literature classes since 2010. She is currently also teaching a course on censorship in art as part of Barnard's First Year Seminar requirement. She has taught on the Columbia Summer in Paris: French and Francophone Studies program for two summers.