Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Colonies & Colonization, emigration & immigration, Cultural memory, Culture, Globalization & Development, History, Language and Literature (French), Literatures in a modern language

Research keywords:

Comparative Studies, Multilingualism, Postcolonialism

Regions:

Africa, Caribbean, Europe

Summary of research interests and expertise:

In my role at the ILCS, I lead in the facilitation and support of UK and international research, public engagement and knowledge exchange in languages and cultures, principally French and Comparative Literature, Memory and Postcolonial studies. I previously taught at Durham University (2016–19), Université Paris-Est (2015–16) and the University of Leeds (2014–15). 

I specialise in contemporary French and Francophone Literature and Culture, with specific interests in Algeria and what has become known as the Algerian Civil War or "Black Decade" of the 1990s. My wider research interests are in post/colonialism, the 'decolonial', world literature, literary translation, memory studies and cultural history. 

My monograph, Writing the Black Decade: Conflict and Criticism in Francophone Algerian Literature (Lexington Books, 2021), studies how literature – and the way we read, classify and critique literature – impacts our understanding of the world at a time of conflict. I argue that, while it is frequently understood as an illuminating and emancipatory mode, literature – and the ideas we have about it – can in fact restrain our understanding of the world at a time of crisis, as well as further entrench the kinds of polarized discourses that lead to conflict in the first place. Foregrounding the notion of "the literary" and the aesthetic, I move beyond sociological readings of Algerian writers’ works and ultimately show how writers engage with and anticipate academic readings of their work, particularly in postcolonial studies and world literature.

I have published articles and chapters on the work of multiple North African writers, including Mustapha Benfodil, Maïssa Bey, Salim Bachi, Kamel Daoud, translated a book-length collection of poems by Mustapha Benfodil (Hesterglock Press, 2018) and written about the theory and practice of "world literature" in the work of Edouard Glissant, Abdelkébir Khatibi and the Algerian writer Kaouther Adimi (see publications list). Through my involvement with public engagement and knowledge exchange activity, I have developed a keen interest in the translingual, and cross-languages approaches in languages and cultures education across the education pipeline, and together with colleagues at ILCS I am an active member of the 'Decolonise MFL Curriculum' special interest group based at the UK Association for Language Learning (ALL).    

I am currently co-General Editor (with Katia Pizzi) of the Journal of Romance Studies, co-convenor of the Out of Practice seminar (with Clare Lees, IES) and a member of several School committees, including the Environmental Humanities Research Hub, Academic Quality & Standards Committee and the University of London Ethics Committee. Together with Emanuelle Santos (Birmingham), I co-lead the Decolonising Languages Network. 

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
19-Dec-2024	Undoing conceptual languages? Epistemic ambivalence as self-reflexive agency in Kaouther Adimi’s Des pierres dans ma poche (2015) Journal articles Francosphères 13.2 (2024), pp. 115-127.
31-Oct-2024	Translation of 'L' by Debasish Lahiri Journal articles Revue de la poésie in toto, 6 (2024), p. 61.
15-Aug-2024	Women in Translation month: a moving Algerian novel tracks the economic struggles of writers and publishers Articles The Conversation, 15 August, 2024.
15-Jul-2024	(with Guido Bartolini) Historical Responsibility and the Mediation of Difficult Pasts Chapters In: Mediating Historical Responsibility: Memories of 'Difficult Pasts' in European Culture, ed. by Guido Bartolini and Joseph Ford (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), pp. 3-31.
14-Jul-2024	(with Guido Bartolini) Mediating Historical Responsibility: Memories of 'Difficult Pasts' in European Culture Edited Book De Gruyter: Volume 40 in the series Media and Cultural Memory Mediating Memories and Responsibility brings together leading scholars and new voices in the interdisciplinary fields of memory studies, history, and cultural studies to explore the ways culture, and cultural representations, have been at the forefront of bringing the memory of past injustices to the attention of audiences for many years. Engaging with the darkest pages of twentieth-century European history, dealing with the legacy of colonialism, war crimes, genocides, dictatorships, and racism, the authors of this collection of critical essays address Europe’s ‘difficult pasts’ through the study of cultural products, examining historical narratives, literary texts, films, documentaries, theatre, poetry, graphic novels, visual artworks, material heritage, and the cultural and political reception of official government reports. Adopting an intermedial approach to the study of European history, the book probes the relationship between memory and responsibility, investigating what it means to take responsibility for the past and showing how cultural products are fundamentally entangled in this process.
01-Feb-2024	(with Neela Doležalová) The View From... The Multilingual Classroom Articles Languages Today 46 (Winter 2024), pp. 20-21.
26-Dec-2022	Towards a vernacular poetics of World Making: Edouard Glissant, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Kaouther Adimi Journal articles Modern Languages Open, 1, 21 pp. DOI: http://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.428.
01-Dec-2022	(with Charles Burdett) Editorial: A new name for the Institute of Modern Languages Research Journal articles Journal of Romance Studies 22.4 (2022), 421-24.
16-Oct-2022	Preface Chapters In: Kateb Yacine: Soliloquies and Other Poems, ed. by Boukhalfa Laouari and Carmen Garraton Mateu (Tizi Ouzou: Editions Frantz Fanon, 2022), forthcoming.
01-Sep-2022	Tristan Leperlier, Algérie: les écrivains dans la décennie noire. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2018. 344 pp. €25.00 (pb). ISBN 9-78-2271120755. Review H-France Review 22.156, 1-6.
01-Sep-2022	(Paperback edition) Writing the Black Decade Conflict and Criticism in Francophone Algerian Literature Monographs Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, September 2022
05-Jul-2022	(with Emanuelle Santos) Decolonising languages: Ways forward for UK HE and beyond Journal articles Languages, Society and Policy
01-Jul-2022	(with Adi Saleem Bharat), Contextualizing Apostasy and ‘Ex-Muslims’ in France and North Africa Journal articles Contemporary French Civilization 47.2 (2022), 131–141.
01-Jul-2022	(with Adi Saleem Bharat) 'Je suis incroyant, mais un incroyant de culture musulmane': a roundtable discussion with Salim Bachi Journal articles Contemporary French Civilization 47.2 (2022), 247–255.
01-Jul-2022	Leaving Islam in France and North Africa Edited Book Special issue of Contemporary French Civilization 47.2 (2022).
01-Jan-2021	Writing the Black Decade: Conflict and Criticism in Francophone Algerian Literature Monographs Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021
01-Nov-2020	Deconstructing the Grotesque in Contemporary Francophone Algerian Literature, or: How to move beyond the ‘zombified’ State? Journal articles Irish Journal of French Studies, 20 (2020), 48–71.
01-Nov-2020	Revisiting the Grotesque in Francophone African Literature Edited Book Special issue of the Irish Journal of French Studies, 20 (2020), 1–172.
01-Nov-2020	(with Sarah Arens) Introduction: Revisiting the Grotesque in Francophone African Literature Journal articles Irish Journal of French Studies, 20 (2020), 1–13.
27-Apr-2020	Encountering COVID-19: Lessons from Languages Articles In Living Languages, ILCS blog/Talking Humanities
06-Jun-2019	Academic Conferences and Schools Outreach: An Integrated Approach in Modern Languages Articles Talking Humanities blog post
01-Mar-2018	Cocktail Kafkaine: Dark Poetry [bilingual edition] Edited Book Translated and edited book of poems by Mustapha Benfodil (Bristol: Hesterglock Press, 2018).
01-Jan-2017	Kamel Daoud: (im)possibilités de lecture Chapters  In: Kamel Daoud, esquisse d’un phénomène postcolonial algérien, ed. by Boukhalfa Laouari (Tizi Ouzou: Editions Frantz Fanon, 2017), pp. 60-75.
01-Jan-2016	Rethinking urgence: Algerian Francophone literature after the ‘décennie noire' Journal articles Francosphères, 5, 1 (2016), pp. 39-58.
01-Jan-2015	Introduction: Transnational Memory and Traumatic Histories Journal articles Forum: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts, Special Issue 4 (2015).
01-Jan-2014	Algiers, Paris, New York: migrating terror Journal articles Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies 5, 2 (2014), pp. 10-15.
01-Jan-2014	Figuring Camus in recent Algerian writing: between the mother and (in)justice Journal articles Journal of Camus Studies (2014 issue), pp. 45-60.

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date	Details
Aug-2020	Deconstructing the Grotesque in Contemporary Francophone Algerian Literature, or: How to move beyond the ‘zombified’ State? PeerReviewed Taking Achille Mbembe’s theory of the grotesque as a starting point, this article examines how a series of contemporary Algerian novels deploy an aesthetic of the grotesque to contest and deconstruct the operation of State power in Algeria. The article shows how three writers of the post-civil war period (Habib Ayyoub, Salim Bachi and Mustapha Benfodil) engage in distinct yet related ways with representations of the grotesque and the obscene in a renewed effort to break out of a state of false consciousness that renders citizens and observers complicit with the structures of power in place. The article argues that one of the reasons Mbembe’s landmark essay is so important to the situation now faced by Algerian artists, writers and civil society, is because it helps us to see the failure of the grotesque as a contestatory aesthetic and hence provides new insight into the spectacle of power at work in Algerian society and politics.
Dec-2022	Towards a Vernacular Poetics of World-making: Edouard Glissant, Abdelkébir Khatibi, and Kaouther Adimi PeerReviewed Drawing on a select group of literary and intellectual voices from the Francosphere, this article examines how writers and theorists from outside Europe deploy experimental linguistic and literary forms to deconstruct dominant definitions of the world and the kinds of world-making processes widely understood to constitute it. Rereading works by the Martinican writer, poet, and thinker Edouard Glissant and the Moroccan sociologist and literary critic Abdelkébir Khatibi, and applying their insights to the work of the Algerian writer Kaouther Adimi, the article advances an account of what it refers to as a “vernacular poetics of world-making”. Through an analysis of these writers’ works, the article shows how they implicitly deploy vernacular poetics to simultaneously destabilise and rearticulate ideas of “world” and posit a poetics of world literature “from below”. In so doing, the article advocates for a mode of reading that engages a slower, more contemplative, self-reflexive thinking, arguing that the power of a vernacular poetics is in its capacity not so much to change the world but to reveal the world as it is, in its founding epistemic heterogeneity.
Jul-2022	Decolonising languages: Ways forward for UK HE and beyond PeerReviewed In the following opinion article, Joseph Ford and Emanuelle Santos give a short account of work being done with a view to ‘decolonise languages’ in UK Higher Education and pose some fundamental questions that are still absent from mainstream discussions on the topic.
Jul-2024	Historical Responsibility and the Mediation of Difficult Pasts PeerReviewed Mediating Memories and Responsibility brings together leading scholars and new voices in the interdisciplinary fields of memory studies, history, and cultural studies to explore the ways culture, and cultural representations, have been at the forefront of bringing the memory of past injustices to the attention of audiences for many years. Engaging with the darkest pages of twentieth-century European history, dealing with the legacy of colonialism, war crimes, genocides, dictatorships, and racism, the authors of this collection of critical essays address Europe’s ‘difficult pasts’ through the study of cultural products, examining historical narratives, literary texts, films, documentaries, theatre, poetry, graphic novels, visual artworks, material heritage, and the cultural and political reception of official government reports. Adopting an intermedial approach to the study of European history, the book probes the relationship between memory and responsibility, investigating what it means to take responsibility for the past and showing how cultural products are fundamentally entangled in this process.

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
Building a Transnational Community of Practice: Writing and Researcher Development in Latin America and the Caribbean Co-A on BA funded project (£29,954.00), led by Dr Ainhoa Montoya. The project brings together Latin American and Caribbean early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences with mid-career and senior scholars and journal editors. Through in-person workshops, a one-to-one mentoring scheme, hands-on training on publishing international articles, and the acquisition of valuable research and career-building skills, participants develop working papers into manuscripts publishable in leading international journals. Through the process, the project also aims to facilitate transnational networking and collaborations and to reflect critically on the structural barriers to the dissemination in international journals of knowledge production in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Convocation Seminars in World Literature and Translation Funded by a grant from the University of London's Convocation Trust (£2262.10), this series of 12 seminars brings together scholars, teachers and students working in languages and comparative literature across London and the UK with the aim of examining the increasingly contentious place of world literature in the study of languages, as well as languages in the study of world literature.
Decolonising Languages Network Co-convened with Dr Emanuelle Santos (University of Birmingham)
Everyday Eco-Activism: Language, Art and Climate Change PI on BA Small Grant (£9,973.00), co-led with Jamille Pinheiro Dias (CLACS/EHRH), Yewande Okuleye, Neela Doležalová, in collaboration with the Good Growth Hub, Hackney Wick. The project seeks to amplify the voices of translingual communities on climate from one of the UK’s most culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the UK. In its initial phase, the project will run three creative participatory action workshops with young participants (aged 18-30), recruited from the local area in collaboration with partners working on the former Olympic Park in Stratford, East London. The project’s aim is to investigate connections between the everyday languaging/diverse knowledges of translingual communities and the conceptual languages of climate change in scientific, political and public discourse, with a view to emphasising how local perspectives both understand and contribute towards wider debates. Employing a participatory methodology, the project team will run the three workshops to consult on a planned proposal to the AHRC’s Catalyst scheme, as well as produce a set of discrete collaborative outputs.
Professeur invité, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne (UBM) In March 2022, I was Visiting Professor at the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne (UBM) working on my new research project, ‘Towards a Vernacular Poetics of World-Making’. Co-funded (c. £2,500) by Université Bordeaux-Montaigne (UBM) and the Ministère de l’Éducation nationale and the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche.

Current PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: 01-Oct-2023 Until: 01-Oct-2027	Crafting a Vision for Revolutionary Language Acquisition through Artivism and Media Arts in the Secondary Classroom PhD in Modern Languages, AHRC LAHP CDA partnership award, co-supervised with Melina Irvine and Lisa Panford and Naomi Wells.
From: 01-Oct-2021 Until: 01-Oct-2024	Representing Arab Diaspora in Contemporary Film and Literature PhD in Modern Languages, co-supervised with Charles Burdett (ILCS)
From: 01-Oct-2020 Until: 30-Sep-2025	Pacific Island(er)s on the move: Eco-criticism and migration in Francophone and Anglophone indigenous Pacific short-form writing, 1976-2021 PhD in Modern Languages, co-supervised with Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland (TCU)

Past PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: 01-Oct-2020 Until: 01-Oct-2021	MRes supervision: 'Adapting Panurge'
From: 01-Oct-2019 Until: 01-Oct-2021	MRes supervision: 'Representations of the "insider" and "outsider" in Belle Epoque Paris: Lautrec, Maupassant and Daudet'

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

Professional Affiliations

Professional affiliations:

Name	Activity
AHRC Peer Review College	Member
Higher Education Academy	Fellow
Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies	Member
Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France	Member
Society for French Studies	Member

Relevant Events

Other editing/publishing activities:

Date	Details
2019	Journal of Romance Studies Co-General Editor

Knowledge transfer activities:

Details
Member of the Association for Language Learning (ALL) special interest group: 'Decolonise Secondary MFL' Facilitating dialogue between MFL specialists in schools, universities, HE ITT institutions and publishing, in order to mobilise pedagogical advances in decolonised curriculum development, in order to have positive practical impact on our students in the primary and secondary MFL classroom.
1000 Words For Belonging A multilingual knowledge exchange arts project that recognises and celebrates linguistic diversity as a major strength for creativity, community and a sense of belonging, in collaboration with creative facilitator and writer, Neela Doležalová and Gearies Primary School in East London.

Consultancy & Media

Available for consultancy:

Yes

Media experience:

Yes

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