Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Cultural memory, Culture, Education, History, Language and Literature (French), Modern History , Photography

Research keywords:

Languages, France, Education, Visual Cultures

Regions:

England, Europe, Scotland, United Kingdom, Wales

Summary of research interests and expertise:

I research narratives and memories of the Second World War, primarily in France. I am interested in how visual forms of representation, such as photography and comics, shape the ways in which French writers, photographers and artists transmit war stories. I have published three monographs and four edited collections of essays on French memory cultures of the Second World War.

Alongside my research on the Second World War, I lead projects that support language learning in compulsory education in the UK. I work with secondary schools, teacher-practitioners, policy-makers and third-sector organisations to increase the uptake of languages in schools in the UK through mentoring. My advocacy roles have led to partnership working with the Welsh and UK Governments, the British Academy, the British Council Wales, the University Council For Languages and partner organisations and universities in Spain and New Zealand.

Languages:

	Spoken	Written
French	Fluent	Fluent
Italian	Good	Good

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
16-Feb-2026	Incendiary Women: Edith Thomas, the Second World War and Writing Women into History Articles French Cultural Studies, 37/2
30-May-2025	Languages Connect Us: An Investigation into Learner Perspectives on International Languages in Secondary Schools in Wales’ Articles Wales Journal of Education, 27/1: 4-49, co-authored with Elin Arfon, Lucy Jenkins and Glesni Owen
04-Nov-2024	Tracing War: Transmitting Stories of the Holocaust in 21st Century Comics for Younger Readers Chapters Hermeneutics, Ethics,Trauma: Essays in Honour of Colin Davis, eds. H. Duffy and A. Tynan (Oxford: Legenda, 2024), pp.99-113
02-Jul-2024	Memory Unboxed: Reckoning with German Memories of the Second World War in Nora Krug’s Heimat: A German Family Album (2018) Chapters Mediating Historical Responsibility: Memories of Difficult Pasts in European Culture, eds. G. Bartolini and J. Ford (De Gruyter, 2024), pp. 236-254.
15-May-2022	Domestic Archives of Empire: Photographing Burma and Reconstructing British Imperialism for the Postwar Moment Articles Journal of War and Culture Studies, 15/2: 233-259, co-authored with Tom Allbeson
15-May-2022	Visual Histories of Postwar Reconstruction, 1944-50’ Edited Book Journal of War and Culture Studies, 15/2: 233-259. A suite of 5 articles on photography and reconstruction following the Second World War in a global frame
09-Nov-2021	What is a Language Activist? Advocacy and Education Chapters Language Debates: Theory and Reality in Language Learning, Teaching and Research, eds. D. Kelly and A. de Medeiros (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2021), pp. 132-144
25-Jan-2020	Recrafting the Past: Graphic Novels, the Third Generation and 21st Century Representations of the Holocaust Chapters Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture, eds. P. Lassner and V. Aarons (Basingstoke: Palgrave./Macmillan, 2020), pp. 575-592
17-Dec-2019	Multilingual Perspectives: Preparing for Language Learning in the New Curriculum for Wales Articles Curriculum Journal, 31/1: 244-257, co-authored with Lucy Jenkins, Eira Jepson and Tallulah Llewelyn Machin
14-May-2019	Legacies of War: Remembering the Prisoner of War Experience in French Comics about the Second World War Chapters Contexts of Violence in Comics, eds. N. Mickwitz, I. Hague and I. Horton (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 49-63
21-Feb-2019	Evaluating Student Mentoring as an Intervention to Support Modern Foreign Language Learning in Secondary Schools in Wales Articles Wales Journal of Education, 21/1: 24-45, co-authored with Sally Blake
28-Oct-2018	Fashion and the Femmes Tondues: Lee Miller, Vogue and Representing Liberation France Articles French Cultural Studies, 29/4: 330-344
01-Mar-2018	Black October: Comics, Memory and Cultural Representations of 17 October 1961 Articles French Politics, Culture and Society, 36/1: 128-147
02-Jan-2018	Not Seeing Auschwitz: Memory, Generation and Representations of the Holocaust in Twenty-First Century French Comics Articles Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 17/1: 111-126
20-Oct-2017	Speaking from Wales: Building a Modern Languages Community in the Era of Brexit Chapters Languages After Brexit: How the UK Speaks to the World, ed. M. H. Kelly (Basingstoke: Macmillan/Palgrave, 2017), pp. 149-158
07-Apr-2016	What the Liberator Saw: British Army Photography, Picture Post and the Normandy Campaign Articles Journal of War and Culture Studies, 9/4: 303-318
03-Sep-2012	French Crime Fiction and the Second World War: Past Crimes, Present Memories Monographs Manchester University Press
02-Sep-2009	French Crime Fiction Edited Book University of Wales Press:
03-Sep-2003	France since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts Edited Book Co-edited with Rachael Langford. Edward Arnold
02-Sep-2003	The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture: Dark Fictions Monographs Oxford University Press
01-Sep-1999	European Memories of the Second World War Edited Book Co-edited with Helmut Peitsch and Charles Burdett. Berghahn
02-Sep-1998	Women's Representations of the Occupation in Post-1968 France Monographs Palgrave/Macmillan

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date

Details

Feb-2026

Incendiary Women: Edith Thomas, the Second World War and Writing Women into History PeerReviewed This article examines the wartime writing of French resister and historian Edith Thomas. It argues that Thomas’s collection of fictional clandestine short stories, Contes d’Auxois (1943), provides an early social history of the French Resistance. It interprets such wartime writing as offering contemporary insights into women’s contributions to the Resistance, key aspects of which would be taken up by later generations of historians. The article then examines how Thomas’s personal experiences of the Resistance impacted her post-war work as a social and cultural historian. It reads her choice to write women back into history as one inflected by her resistance activism. The article ends by reading Thomas’s Les Pétroleuses (1963) as a collective feminist biography that creates transhistorical connections between the ‘incendiary women’ of the Paris Commune and women’s wartime resistance. In so doing, Thomas coopts the maligned women communards of 1870 to a Republican tradition of popular revolt in an act of feminist recuperation and celebration across centuries.

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
French Women Writers and Histories of the Resistance during the Second World War This project explores the work of French women writers and historians who were active in the French Resistance. It traces their post-war trajectories as intellectuals, writers and activists. The first phase explores the work of Edith Thomas, archivist, historian and novelist and has resulted in an article in the journal French Cultural Studies (37/2, 2026).
Transforming Cultures of Language Learning (TransCOLL): AHRC Standard Grant (£1.4M): Co-Investigator Led by Professor Fiona Barclay (Stirling University), this project aims to intervene in the sustained decline in language learning in schools in 3 of the 4 Celtic jurisdictions (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) in contrast to the Republic of Ireland. It will do so by analysing the factors that sustain healthy cultures of language learning in schools, universities and the wider educational landscape. Recognising language learning as a socially-embedded practice, the project conceives of language-learning as a life cycle shaped by interconnecting cultural, social, economic and political factors. Building on Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of learning (1998), the project interrogates 3 critical stages in a language learner's life cycle: learner school experiences (microsystem); the drivers of decisions to become (or not) a languages teachers (mesosystem) and the influence of policy-makers, careers advisors, employers snd other societal messaging on broader attitudes to language learning (macrosystem). Across 4 work packages, project objectives are: - to collect and analyse new comparative data across the 4 Celtic jurisdictions on the bioecological conditions supporting or discouraging language learning - to investigate the impact of digital technologies on learner motivation and teacher confidence - to understand the factors influencing choices to train as a languages teacher. The project will create a cross-jurisdictional mentoring programme to support newly qualified languages teachers - to mobilise project findings to improve advocacy for language learning with communities who can shape attitudes to language learning The overall aim of the project is to have a transformative impact on Celtic and other Anglophone cultures of language learning at a time of rapid change for languages in education in the UK.

Past PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: 07-Sep-2020 Until: 01-Oct-2025	Engaging with community languages: visibility and practice in the voluntary sector in Devon (UK) Co-supervised with Eliana Maestri (University of Exeter), AHRC South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
From: Until: 2003	Myths and Oppression of Gendered and Racialised Subjects in the Prose Fiction of Rosario Castellanos Cardiff University
From: Until: 2004	Representations of Travel and Memory in 1960s and 1970s French- and German-Language Literature Cardiff University, AHRC DTC
From: Until: 2006	Comparative Perspective on the Poetic Course of Arthur Rimbaud, William Blake and Sohrab Sepehri Cardiff University (Visiting Scholar)
From: Until: 2012	Constructions of the Algerian War Appelés in French Cultural Memory Cardiff University, AHRC DTC
From: Until: 2012	Cultural Representations of Italians in Wales (1920s-2010s) Cardiff University
From: Until: 2015	A Study of Scanlation and Japanese Manga Cardiff University
From: Until: 2018	The Orphan Story of British Women in Occupied France: History, Memory, Legacy Cardiff University with Bath University, AHRC DTP
From: Until: 2020	The Western in French Comics: Translation, Adaptation and Localisation Cardiff University
From: Until: 2020	Translating French Memories of the Holocaust Cardiff University
From: Until: 2023	Plurilingualism in the Curriculum for Wales: A Qualitative Inquiry into Secondary School International Language Teachers' Beliefs during the Preparatory Stages of the New Curriculum and Reformed GCSEs Cardiff University, ESRC DTC
From: Until: 2024	Promoting International Languages in Wales: A Study of the Role of Routes into Languages Cymru and its Approach to Motivating Learners Cardiff University, ESRC DTC
From: Until: 2025	Picturing Malaya: Colonial Counter-insurgency, Camera Images and Imperial Imaginaries in 'Emergency' Britain (1948-1958) Cardiff University (second supervisor), AHRC CDA with the Imperial War Museum

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

Professional Affiliations

Professional affiliations:

Name	Activity
Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Chevalier dans l'Ordre du Merite National
Member of the AHRC Advisory Board

Relevant Events

Related events:

Date	Details
10-Dec-2025	Feature interview with Research Professional An interview and feature piece with Research Professional on the current picture for Arts and Humanities in the UK

Other editing/publishing activities:

Date	Details
2026	AHRC: Peer Review College AHRC Doctoral Focal Award scheme

Knowledge transfer activities:

Details
Humanities and Innovation Summit Panellist at the SAS-organised event on innovation in Arts and Humanities in the Knowledge Quarter in London on 8 June

Consultancy & Media

Available for consultancy:

Yes

Media experience:

Yes

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