Laurence Denie-Higney is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles, where she teaches language, civilization and literature courses. She holds a 'doctorat' from l'universite de Nantes in International relations and a PhD from The Catholic University of America in Francophone literature. Her interests include content-based instruction, second language acquisition and French for Specific Purposes. Her research concentrates on the Algerian writer Mohammed Dib and second language acquisition. She has presented papers at major conferences and has articles published on Mohammed Dib's works. She is the recipient of les Palmes academiques.