Teaching interests

My teaching interests are in contemporary postcolonial literature and theory, women's writing and feminist theory. I currently run two final-year modules: a Special Subject on literature, culture and politics in the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti and a comparative literature module on modern and postmodern French and English theatre and fiction. I run two second-year modules, one on representations of Paris by filmmakers of immigrant origin and one on post-1968 women's writing. I also contribute to first-year language teaching. At postgraduate level I contribute to the core MA module Intellectual Contexts, as well as offering my own modules on francophone postcolonial writing. I am currently co-supervising two PhDs: one on the crime writer Fred Vargas and one on 'le couple' in contemporary French fiction. 

Research interests

My research interests also lie in the field of francophone Caribbean literature and postcolonial theory, women's writing and feminist theory. I have published books, book chapters and journal articles on various aspects of women's writing and francophone Caribbean literature and film. I am a member of the University's Centre for Caribbean Studies as well as of the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies and I am joint editor of its international journal, Francophone Postcolonial Studies. My current research has begun to take a slightly different direction and I am working on French national identity and representations of bodily difference in contemporary fiction, film and photography, and particularly on representations of disability in the wake of the 2005 'loi de l'égalité des chances, la participation et la citoyenneté des personnes handicapés'. 

Publications

Books

An Introduction to Caribbean Francophone Writing: Guadeloupe and Martinique (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1999), edited, 230pp.

Mapping A Tradition: Francophone Women’s Writing from Guadeloupe (MHRA Texts and Dissertations Series, 2000), 234pp.

Francophone Literatures: A Literary and Linguistic Companion (London: Routledge, 2001), coauthored with Malcolm Offord, Rosemary Chapman, Nicki Hitchcott and Laïla Ibnlfassi, 283 pp.

Edited Journals

Francophone Postcolonial Studies 

Journal of Romance Studies: Black Paris, 5. 3 (2005), with Nicki Hitchcott.

Book Chapters

‘Appropriating a Tradition: History and Identity in the Work of Maryse Condé’, in Tim Youngs, ed.,  Writing and Race   (Harlow and New York: Longman, 1997),  pp. 122-146.

‘“Voix féminines/Voix féministes”? Women’s Writing from the Francophone Caribbean’, in Kamal Salhi, ed., Francophone Voices (Exeter: Elm Bank, 1999), pp. 141-155.

‘Between Speech and Writing: “La nouvelle littérature antillaise”?’, in Ashok Bery and Patricia Murray, eds., Dislocations: Comparing Postcolonial Literatures (Basingstoke: Macmillan: 2000), pp. 193-204.  

'Imagining the "Unimaginable": Guadeloupean Women Writers and the Representation of Black Female Desire', in Joan Anim-Addo, ed., Centre of Remembrance: Memory and Caribbean Women's Literature (London: Mango Publishing, 2002), pp. 203-214

‘From Exile to ‘errance’: Dany Laferrière’s Cette grenade dans la main du jeune Nègre est-elle une arme ou un fruit?’, in Gertrud Aub-Buscher and Beverley Ormerod, eds, The French Caribbean Today (Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press: 2003), pp. 60-81.

Journal Articles

‘The Return of Africa’s Daughters: Negritude and the Gendering of Exile’, in ASCALF Bulletin, 7 (1993), 3-20.

‘Between Irigaray and Cardinal: Reinventing Maternal Genealogies’, in The Modern Language Review, 89:1 (1994), 61-70.

‘L’Écriture féminine antillaise: une tradition féministe?’, LittéRéalité, XVIII:1 (2001), 13-30.

‘Ethnographical Fictions/Fictional Ethnographies: Ina Césaire’s Zonzon Tête Carrée’, Nottingham French Studies: Gender and Francophone Writing (Special Issue), 40:1 (2001), 75-85.

‘Migration and Melancholia: from Kristeva’s “dépression nationale” to Pineau’s “maladie de l’exil”’, French Studies, LX, 2  (2006), 232-2.

‘Theorising the “Not Quite” Postcolonial: Politics, Psychoanalysis and French Caribbean Writing’, Journal of Romance Studies, 6.3 (2006), 127-35.

‘“Une Histoire sérieuse de nègres?” Humour and the Refiguring  of the Republic in Pascal Légitimus’ Antilles-sur-Seine’, Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 4:1 (2007), 45-71.