Dr Elliot Evans

• BA French & Philosophy, King’s College London
• MSt Women’s Studies, University of Oxford
• PhD French, King’s College London

After completing an undergraduate degree at King's College, London in French and Philosophy in 2009, I began a Masters' degree in Women's Studies at the University of Oxford funded by the Thomas and Elizabeth Williams Scholarship. I wrote my PhD thesis funded by the AHRC in the Department of French at King’s College London, working on the reception and development of queer theory in France and questions of the representation of the body through literature, philosophy and visual art.

Before starting my PhD, I worked at Oxford and at the University of East London in student support and welfare, and later in Diversity & Inclusion for King’s College London.

I spent a year abroad as an undergraduate at l'Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), funded by the Erasmus scheme. I also received the Crompton Scholarship to attend the ENS in Lyon, 2015-16.

I teach undergraduate modules in translation, as well as my final-year module ‘Contemporary Representations of the Body: Literature, Theory and Art’. This module brings together material from across all of the language areas in our Department to examine how the body might be understood differently across various cultures, and under varying political structures etc. Together we explore the body as a site where systems of power converge, and are made visible and present.

I also convene the team-taught module ‘Global Critical Theory’, which forms part of our MA in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory. This module seeks to understand Critical Theory beyond its situation in Western thought, moving from postcolonial and decolonial thinking through theories of language, psychoanalysis, biopolitics, etc. 

I contribute to teaching and supervision on our MRes programme in Sexuality and Gender Studies, teaching sessions on transgender theory, gender studies and intersectionality. I also run the module ‘Research Methods in Critical Cultural Studies’.

I would be very interested to receive research proposals or expressions of interest relating to the following areas:

Visual Art
Psychoanalysis
Queer, Feminist and Transgender Theories
20th and 21st Century Literature and Critical Theory
Activism and Art/Literature
Technologies and Biotechnologies
Medical Humanities

Find out more - our PhD French Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Elliot is the author of Queer Permeability: The Body in French Thought from Wittig to Preciado (2020). Their research is concerned with the varied constructions of sexuality and gender across cultures; with the biopolitical formation of these identities, and the ways in which they are elaborated through writing and visual production.

My work has focused on questions of the body: Queer Permeability being concerned with the question of how to approach the material body within the context of contemporary French queer works, particularly those by Paul B. Preciado, Monique Wittig and the performance artist ORLAN. 

For some time, my work has also been concerned with the biopolitical management of bodies and illness, not just by states but in the interests of neo-colonialism and global capitalism. As such, my current research project is a comparative analysis of the visual language of HIV/AIDS across four national contexts: Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Haïti, Québec, specifically looking at experimental film and video art.

Selected Lectures and Invitations

• ‘Truvada as Birth Control? Revisiting Bareback through the lens of Transgender Studies’ for Bareback Now, Queer Analysis. Invited Lecture: University of Amsterdam, 31/5/2023.
• ‘Les rêves à paresse: Monique Wittig and post-work utopias’ for ‘After Work’, the Society for French Studies Postgraduate Conference. Keynote: King’s College, London, 27/5/2022.
• ‘'In my head' / ce que Dustanme fait’, for the exhibition The films of Guillaume Dustan 2000-2004. Invited Lecture: Fri Art Kunsthalle, Switzerland, 15/06.2021/
• 'Letting Rage Speak: Asserting the value of Rage in the Academy' for the University of Cambridge 21st Graduate Conference. Keynote: University of Cambridge, 26/11/2020.
• Piggy in the Middle: Gay Sex and the Pandemic Panel discussion, Fringe! London Queer Film and Arts Fest, November 2020.
• Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth, with Guardian journalist Freddy McConnell. Panel discussion, Screening Rights Film Festival, October 2020.
• 'Negotiating Masculinity, Negotiating the City: Walking the streets of Paris from Baudelaire's poet to Preciado's drag king flâneurs' for the conference ‘New’ Masculinities in French Studies. Keynote: University of Maynooth, 24/7/2020.
• ‘This is 4Real: the authority of the material body in transgender debates’ for the Gender & Authority Series, Christ Church College. Invited Lecture: University of Oxford, 7/6/2018.
• ‘Queer permeability: the body and queer theory in France’ for the French Department Research Seminar. Invited Lecture: University of Warwick, 14/11/2018.
• ‘The Visual Language of HIV/AIDS in France and Québec’ for the French Department Research Seminar. Invited Lecture: King’s College, London, 3/3/2021.
• ''A new cartography of the city': queer interventions in urban public space in Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie' for City-Centric: Sexing and Gendering Urban Spaces. Invited Paper: Humboldt University, Berlin, 19-21/10/2015. 

I have been leading the project ‘Consent on Campus’, in collaboration with the organisation Our Bodies Our Voice and the Student Guild campaign against sexual harassment, ‘Not On’. We are working with a producer to create a video resource of student-led discussion on consent.