CJ received both a BA in French literature and a BM in piano performance at the University of Delaware. He continued at UD to receive an MA in Modern French Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park in Modern French Studies.

CJ's main area of research is sexuality and gender in 19th and 21st century French and Francophone cultural studies. He is also pursuing research in broader areas including gender studies, LGBTQ studies, feminisms, queer linguistics, the intersections of literature, culture and sexuality, transgender studies and literature. His current book project entitled Queer TechnoKinships: Nomenclature, Universalism, and Identity in Contemporary France examines the links between naming, universalism, and identity in contemporary France. The monograph includes chapters on naming queerness through transpédégouine, naming violence through the anti-feminicide campaign known as the colleuses movement, naming censorship on social media platforms, and the "beyond naming" ideologies of transfeminist activists Paul Preciado and Sam Bourcier. His second book project ,Biotechsex: (Sexual) Citizenship, Pharmacoporn Power, and Contemporary France examines the saturation of the French marketplace with biomedical and pornographic protocols as a productive site for the restaging of bodies and subjectivities in contemporary French discourse, but as also allowing for new interrogations into old battleground binaries between what constitutes queer and non-queer identities, normal and pathological sexual subjectivities, good and bad (sexual) citizenship models.

Sample Courses Taught

• GFS101/102: Elementary French I/II
• GFS201: Immigration through the Eyes of Children
• GFS202: Sex, Gender, and Identity in Contemporary France
• GFS206/WGSS290C/WLIT215A: Rage Against the Machine: Radical Voices in Contemporary France (W) (taught in English)
• GFS303: Queer Francophone Identities
• GFS305: Phonetics and Conversation
• GFS306: Radical and Rebellious Voices in Contemporary France
• GFS306: Digital France
• GFS306: Contemporary French Feminisms
• GFS327: Introduction to Literature in French
• GFS327: La voix de l'autre dans la littérature en français
• GFS316: Power, Privilege, and Diversity from the Renaissance to the Liberation of Algeria
• GFS420: Sex, Gender, and Identity from 19th century to Cinema
• GFS420: Les raté.e.s de la Répbulique: assimilation, intégration et identité dans la France contemporaine
• WGSS370: Introduction to Transgender Studies (taught in English)