Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Gender studies

Research keywords:

Bande Dessinée Graphic Novels Gender Studies Feminist Visual Theory Migration French Guiana

Summary of research interests and expertise:

My principal research interests concern the representation of women in French-language graphic novels (bande dessinée) and the work of contemporary female bande dessinée artists. Both of these interests are reflected in my first monograph, Invisible Presence: The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics, published by Intellect in September 2021. 

A further research interest concerns French Guiana, a département d’outre-mer known as Guyane in French, in particular the social and cultural plurality of this under-studied region. This interest became the focus of Locating Guyane, a volume published by Liverpool University Press in 2018, which I co-edited with Sarah Wood. 

My current research project returns to the question of women in bande dessinée, considering how contemporary female artists are using the form to break entrenched female bodily ‘taboos’, both in their depictions of women’s bodies and their reflection on questions of reproductive health. 

In addition to my lecturing role at ULIP, I sit on the steering committee of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing, and I am reviews co-editor for the European Comic Art journal. 

 

PUBLICATIONS: 

• Invisible Presence: The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics, Intellect, September 2021. 
• ‘Tracing the Trauma of Clandestine Migration in the Bande Dessinée’ in Immigrants and Comics: Graphic Spaces of Remembrance, Transaction, and Mimesis, N. L. Serrano (ed.), Routledge, 2019. 
• Locating Guyane, co-edited with Dr Sarah Wood, Liverpool University Press, 2018 
• ‘Performing and Parading Gender in French Guiana’s Carnival’ in Locating Guyane, C. MacLeod and S. Wood (eds.), Liverpool University Press, 2018, pp.183-200 
• ‘Centre Stage on the Page: Women in, on and Making Comics’ in Studies in Comics, special issue, 7:2, 2017, co-edited with Sarah Lightman 
• ‘From Wandering Women to Fixed Females: Relations of Gendered Movement through Post-Colonial Space in Lettres d’Outremer and Le Bar du vieux Français’ in Comic Book Geographies, J.Dittmer (ed.), Franz Verlag Steiner, 2014, pp. 75-90. 
• ‘Sex and Death in Quebec: Female AutobioBD and Julie Doucet’s Changements d’Adresses’ in European Comic Art, 5:1, July 2012, pp. 57-70 
• ‘L’Eugénisme pour les enfants: Heroes, Villains and Racial Purity in Le Téméraire’ in L’Esprit Createur, 52:2, Summer 2012, pp. 59-74 
• ‘Adopting and Adapting: Ethnic Minority Women’s Quest for Identity in the Bande Dessinée’ in Adaptation: Studies in French and Francophone Culture, N. Archer & A. Weisl-Shaw (eds.), Peter Lang, Modern French Identities series (Peter Collier, ed.), 2012, pp. 207-218 
• ‘(Post)-Colonial Persistence: The Presence of the “Black Venus” in the Work of Warnauts and Raives’ in Contemporary French Civilisation, 36:3, November 2011, pp. 287-302 

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
01-May-2024	Unveiling IVG: Representations of Women's Experiences of Abortion in the Bande Dessinée Chapters 'Unveiling IVG: Representations of Women's Experiences of Abortion in the Bande Dessinée' in Drawing (in) the Feminine: Bande Dessinée and Women, ed. Margaret C. Flinn, Columbus: Ohio University Press, 142-159
01-Sep-2021	Invisible Presence: The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics Monographs Invisible Presence: The Representation of Women in French-Language Comics, Intellect, September 2021.
01-Sep-2019	Tracing the Trauma of Clandestine Migration in the Bande Dessinée Chapters ‘Tracing the Trauma of Clandestine Migration in the Bande Dessinée’ in Immigrants and Comics: Graphic Spaces of Remembrance, Transaction, and Mimesis, N. L. Serrano (ed.), Routledge, 2019
01-Sep-2018	Locating Guyane Edited Book Locating Guyane, co-edited with Dr Sarah Wood, Liverpool University Press, 2018
01-Sep-2018	Performing and Parading Gender in French Guiana’s Carnival Chapters ‘Performing and Parading Gender in French Guiana’s Carnival’ in Locating Guyane, C. MacLeod and S. Wood (eds.), Liverpool University Press, 2018, pp.183-200
01-Sep-2017	Centre Stage on the Page: Women in, on and Making Comics Journal articles ‘Centre Stage on the Page: Women in, on and Making Comics’ in Studies in Comics, special issue, 7:2, 2017, co-edited with Sarah Lightman
01-Sep-2014	From Wandering Women to Fixed Females: Relations of Gendered Movement through Post-Colonial Space in Lettres d’Outremer and Le Bar du vieux Français Chapters ‘From Wandering Women to Fixed Females: Relations of Gendered Movement through Post-Colonial Space in Lettres d’Outremer and Le Bar du vieux Français’ in Comic Book Geographies, J.Dittmer (ed.), Franz Verlag Steiner, 2014, pp. 75-90.

Additional Publications

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
‘Re-drawing the Ideal: Women Artists and Extreme Female Bodies’

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

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