Dr Edward Boothroyd BA MPhil(B) PhD

Photograph of Dr Edward Boothroyd

Department of Modern Languages
Teaching Fellow in French Studies

Contact details

Address
Ashley Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Following undergraduate and postgraduate study at the University of Birmingham, I was appointed to the position of Teaching Fellow in French Studies in September 2011. My specialism is in 20th-century literature and French theatre from the 17th-century onwards.

Qualifications

BA (Joint Honours) French Studies and Music, MPhil(B)in Humanities, PhD in French Studies: The Parisian Stage during the Occupation, 1940-1944: A Theatre of Resistance

Biography

I went to primary school near Leicester, then at the age of 9 moved to East Yorkshire, about 20 miles from Hull. After a batchelor’s degree in French and Music, I spent two years teaching English at the University of Lyon II. Since completing my Master’s and PhD, I have been a visiting lecturer at the universities of Aston and Wolverhampton, and took up the position of Teaching Fellow in French Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2011.

Teaching

I have taught core language across all years, as well as France moderne 1 and 2, Politics, Culture and Society, and other ‘content’ modules such as the Year 1 Introduction to French Literature and Film Studies (for which I delivered the lectures on the nouvelle vague in the 2015-2016 session. For the last three years, I have been the convenor of a Year 2 module called Conflict, Identity and Absurdity in twentieth-century French theatre. My previous teaching has included translation for French Erasmus exchange students, Landmarks of European Literature and Text & Interpretation. At Aston University I designed and convened a final-year option on Intellectuals and Politics in Postwar France.

Research

My PhD focused on the theatre in Paris during the German Occupation (http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/345/1/boothroyd09PhD.pdf), and I have since written articles and biographies on playwrights such as Anouilh, Claudel and Montherlant, as well as delivering a paper on Spanish theatre in France for the Society of French Studies annual conference in 2008, which I turned into an article for Romance Studies (January 2012). More recently, I gave a paper entitled ‘Resistance Myths: Sartre and Smokescreens’ at the 2015 SFS annual conference in Cardiff.

Other activities

Outside work, I have been the leader of the Leamington Sinfonia (www.leamingtonsinfonia.org.uk) since 2008, and was deputy leader of the Birmingham Chamber Orchestra (www.birminghamchamberorchestra.com) for nearly 10 years. I regularly play badminton and tennis and I invest much of my spare time in my local evangelical church, where I am a lay pastor and regular preacher, as well as leading a smaller ‘community group’.

Publications

  • ‘“Spanish” Theatre in Occupied France,1940–1944’, Romance Studies, Vol. 30 No.1, January 2012, 48–60
  • ‘La Scène française pendant l’Occupation allemande: un “théâtre résistant”? Le cas de Paul Claudel’, Bulletin de la société Paul Claudel, Vol. 204, December 2011, 57-64
  • Author entry on Jean Anouilh, online Literary Encyclopedia (www.litencyc.com), managed by French editors Tim Unwin and David Jones, published July 2010.
  • Author entry on Henry de Montherlant, online Literary Encyclopedia, published July 2011.