BA PhD (Bristol)

I obtained my first degree (Modern Languages, French and Spanish) from the University of Bristol. After completing my doctoral thesis there in 2004, I spent a year as a lecturer at Newcastle University before taking up my post in Birmingham.

I have taught across the undergraduate programme at Birmingham, including Modern France (Years 1 and 2), Politics, Culture and Society (Year 2), Renaissance to Realism (Year 2), and French Language (all years). My final-year option, (Re)Imagining the Nineteenth Century, explores contemporary reworkings of classic novels by Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola in literature and film. I am also module convenor for the final-year language option Dissertation.

Prospective postgraduate students wishing to work on any aspect of nineteenth-century French literature and culture are warmly invited to contact me. I would be especially interested in supervising work relating to my key interest in adaptation.

The principal focus of my research to date has been the representation of provinciality in nineteenth-century fiction, with special reference to the work of Honoré de Balzac. This is the subject of my book, which examines Balzac’s attempts to record the ‘exotic’ diversity of provincial France at a time when the advent of the railway was threatening to level the country’s cultural landscape.

I am also interested in contemporary ‘re-imaginings’ of nineteenth-century literature, and have recently completed a book (co-authored with Dr Kate Griffiths, Cardiff University) entitled Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio and Print.

I served as Conference Officer for the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes from 2009-11, and am co-editor of the proceedings of two annual conferences (‘Memory’, 2008, and ‘Aller(s)-Retour(s)’, 2009), with Professor Susan Harrow (University of Bristol) and Dr Loïc Guyon (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick) respectively.

I have spoken widely on Balzac and the nineteenth century at conferences including French Studies, and the annual conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes. In 2008-09 I was also the organiser of a research seminar series at Birmingham, on the theme of re-imagining the nineteenth century. This series was funded by the Dean’s Initiative Fund, and welcomed guest speakers of international renown, including the author and illustrator Posy Simmonds (Gemma Bovery, 1999).

My own recent research papers have included:

• 'Balzac's Other Side: Mediumship and Literary Adaptation in Charles d'Orino's Contes de l'au-delà ', annual conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes ('Heaven and Hell'), University of Exeter, 8-10 April 2013
• 'Pastiche in pieces: rewriting Flaubert in Contre-enquête sur la mort d'Emma Bovary', colloquium on 'Crime Fiction and the Palimpsest', University of Durham, 14 September 2012
• ‘Wrecked reels and silent spectaculars: L’Auberge rouge and Le Mort vivant’, annual conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes (‘Dirt and Debris’), University of Birmingham, 7-9 April 2011
• ‘Balzac et l'exotique à rebours’, special lecture given at the Maison de Balzac (Passy), 20 June 2009
• ‘Reversing the provincial exotic: Balzac, Ursule Mirouët, and a little Chinese seamstress’, annual conference of Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vanderbilt University (Nashville), 15-17 October 2008
• ‘Balzac and the politics of provincial difference: From Les Chouans to Un caractère de femme’, annual conference of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (‘Mapping France’), University of Reading, 6-8 September 2007
• ‘A matter of (bad) taste? Honoré de Balzac’s Contes drolatiques in England and America’, annual conference of the Society of French Studies, University of Birmingham, 2-4 July 2007
• ‘Power to the young? Balzac’s jeunocratie, from Une fille d’Ève to Z. Marcas’, annual conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes (‘Institutions and Power’), 27-29 March 2007

Monographs

• (with Kate Griffiths), Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio and Print (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013)
• Preserving the Provinces: Small Town and Countryside in the Work of Honoré de Balzac (Oxford: Peter Lang, French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, 2007)

Edited books

• (with Susan Harrow), Mapping Memory in Nineteenth-Century France (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012)
• (with Loïc Guyon), Allers-Retours: Nineteenth-Century France in Motion (forthcoming with Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013)

Critical editions

• (with Michelle Cheyne), Honoré de Balzac: 'Le Nègre' (under consideration)

Articles and book chapters

• 'Les Spectres muets: l'adaptation de Balzac dans Narayana et The Conquering Power', L'Année balzacienne (2012), 213-229
• ‘Cracks in a Cartoon Landscape: Fragmenting Memory in Posy Simmonds’ Gemma Bovery’, Essays in French Literature and Culture (November 2011), 45-65
• 'Footsteps in the Snow: Piecing Together Time in Madame Bovary and Contre-enquête sur la mort d’Emma Bovary’, South Carolina Modern Language Review, 10.1 (Autumn 2011), 13-24
• ‘Mao’s China in the Mirror: Reversing the Exotic in Dai Sijie’s Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise’, Romance Studies, 29.1 (January 2011), 27-39
• ‘Searching for gold: Honoré de Balzac and the redemption of provincial France’, Lingua romana, 7 (Autumn 2008)
• ‘An Exercise in International Relations, or the Travelling Salesman in Touraine: Balzac’s L’Illustre Gaudissart’, in Currencies: Fiscal Fortunes and Cultural Capital in Nineteenth-Century France, ed. by Sarah Capitanio et al. (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), 161-73

Short articles

• 'Silent Spectaculars: Adapting Balzac in Le Mort vivant and L'Auberge rouge', Romance Notes, 52.1 (2012), 61-69
• ‘A Matter of (Bad) Taste? Honoré de Balzac’s Contes drolatiques in England and America’, French Studies Bulletin, 118 (Spring 2011) 11-14
• ‘Two Tales of One City: Balzac and the Decline of Tours’, French Studies Bulletin, 99 (Summer 2006), 37-40

Encyclopedia entries

• I have completed several entries for The Literary Encyclopedia including ‘Honoré de Balzac’ (2006), Eugénie Grandet, La Rabouilleuse, Le Colonel Chabert, La Cousine Bette (all 2008), and Le Père Goriot (2009).

Reviews

• I have reviewed numerous publications for journals including French Studies, Modern Language Review, Forum for Modern Language Studies, and The English Historical Review.