Collette Winn teaches French language, culture, and literature with an emphasis on the early modern period.
Winn's research and teaching interests concern women and gender in sixteenth-century France, specifically women's writing. Since first coming to Washington University she has been involved with study abroad, and developed the popular France for the Premed program.
One of her long-term goals has been to make available texts by early modern women. She has published various critical editions of early modern women writers including Madeleine de L’Aubespine, Mlle de Beaulieu, Louise Boursier, Charlotte de Brachart, Marguerite de Cambis, Gabrielle de Coignard, les dames du Verger, Marie Le Gendre, Jacqueline de Miremont, Suzanne de Nervèse, etc. In the course of her career, she has coordinated and produced numerous collections of essays among which The Dialogue in Early Modern France (1993), Ronsard, figure de la variété (2002), Veufs, veuves et veuvage dans la France d’Ancien Régime (2003), Vieillir à la Renaissance (2009, with C. Yandell); as well as special issues on biblical exegesis in the XVIth century, the education of women in Old Regime France, and memory in early modern times. She has also published on early modern medicine, in particular the “books of secrets,” midwifery, and pediatrics. Her critical edition of Simon de Vallambert’s De la maniere de nourrir et gouverner les enfans dès leur naissance appeared in 2005.
She is currently preparing a volume on Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation for the MLA Teaching Option series, which follows her recently published volume on Teaching Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron.