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9 February 2012 - French Research Seminar Professor Margaret Topping, (Queen’s University, Belfast) 'This is not a photo opportunity': verbal/visual struggles in francophone travel literature LR1 at 5.15pm
6 March 2012 - French Research Seminar Christianson Lecture, Prof Jeremy Jennings (Queen Mary’s London), ‘Travels with Alexis de Tocqueville: Tocqueville's Journey into America’ LR8 at 5.15pm
1 May 2012 - French Research Seminar Professor Rodney Sampson, ‘A 'near miss' in the recent development of French pronunciation’ LR8 at 5.15pm
9 May 2012 - French Research Seminar 'The Sarkozy Presidency: Breaking the Mould?' half-day conference with Professor Gino Raymond, Professor Philippe Marlière (UCL), Professor Alistair Cole (Cardiff) and Professor Michelle Cini (Bristol, Politics)’
From his earliest days as a government minister, Nicolas Sarkozy made a name for himself as a politician with an abrasive tongue and a combative manner. On becoming president he rapidly stamped his own distinct style on the office. This half-day conference will examine the impact of Sarkozy on his country's political system, his understanding of multiculturalism in France, how he managed France's relationship with Europe, and will probe the nature of 'Sarkozysme' itself.
15 May 2012 'Les Misérables: the First 60 Years (1862-1922)'Prof Kathryn Grossman (Pennsylvania State University)IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at 5.15pm Venue TBC
3rd November 2011 - French Research Seminar David McCallam (University of Sheffield), 'The Terrorist Earth? Some Thoughts on Sade and Baudrillard' LR8 at 5.15pm
24th November 2011 - French Research Seminar Alan Riding (Independent Researcher and Journalist), 'Dark Years or Golden Age? French Culture under Nazi Rule, 1940-1944' LR8 at 5.15pm
8th December 2011 - French Research Seminar Marianne Ailes (Bristol) 'La Manche - Barrier or Channel: The Matter of France in Medieval England' LR8 at 5.15pm
July 2011: Congratulations to recent graduates Rachel Stewart and Danielle Northcott who have been awarded the Michael Freeman Prize and Mary Morrison Prize respectively. Rachel was awarded the prize for the best essay on Medieval or Renaissance literature produced by a final-year student while Danielle received hers for her essay comparing the First World War novel 'Le Feu' and pacifist film 'La grande illusion'.
17 June 2011: AHRC grant success for French graduate
Liz Day, who graduated last summer with a First-Class BA in French (Single Hons), has been awarded an AHRC BGP Studentship Professional Preparation Masters grant to study for a Diploma in Journalism: Newspaper Route at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. During her time as an undergraduate at Bristol University, Liz wrote numerous articles for the student newspaper ‘Epigram’ . Dr Bradley Stephens said ‘It’s a huge success on her part, not least given the current competitive climate of student funding, and we are absolutely thrilled for her.’
16 June 2011 - French Research Seminar 'Why the world will never be the same again and what we should do about it.' Lord Paddy Ashdown, LR1, 3 Woodland Road, 14.30hrs All Welcome
9 June 2011: Book Publication: 'France and the Spanish Civil War Cultural Representations of the War Next Door, 1936-1945', by Dr Martin Hurcombe and published by Ashgate.
In this wide-ranging study of French intellectuals who represented the Spanish Civil War as it was happening and in its immediate aftermath, Martin Hurcombe explores the ways in which these individuals addressed national anxieties and shaped the French political landscape. Bringing together reportage, essays, and fiction by French supporters of Franco's Nationalists and of the Spanish Republic, Hurcombe shows the multifaceted ways in which that conflict impacted upon French political culture. He argues that French cultural representations of the war often articulated a utopian image of the Nationalists or of the Spanish Republic that served as models behind which the radical right or the radical left in France might mobilise. His book will be of interest not only to scholars of French literature and culture but also to those interested in how events unfolding in Spain found an echo in the political landscapes of other countries.
Podcast: French Resistance during World War II: History and Legacy' with Dr Martin Hurcombe and Professor Gino Raymond (MP3 format 17.3MB in English and French)
18 May 2011: Book Publication: Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the Liability of Liberty , by Dr Bradley Stephens and published by Legenda.
The arch-Romantic Victor Hugo (1802-85) and the Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) are widely perceived to have little in common beyond their canonical status. However, responding to Sartre's often overlooked fascination with Hugo, this new book cuts through generic divisions to argue that significant parallels between the two writers have been neglected. Bradley Stephens reveals how both Hugo and Sartre engage with human being in distinctly non-ontological terms, thereby anticipating postmodernist approaches to human experience. From different origins but towards similar realizations, they expose the indeterminate human condition as at once release and restriction. These writers insist that liberty is not simply a political ideal, but an existential condition which engages human endeavour as a dynamic rather than definitive mode of being. 'The Liability of Liberty' affirms the ongoing relevance of the two most iconic French writers of the modern period to contemporary discourse on what it means to be free.
4 May 2011 - French Research Seminar: Martin Hurcombe (Bristol), Alison Fell (Leeds), Pierre Schoentjes (Ghent): workshop on ‘First World War Veterans and Political Culture in Interwar France and Germany’.
17 March 2011 - French Research Seminar: Laura McMahon (Girton College, Cambridge), ‘Animality and Film: Disney, Gertrude Stein and Arnaud des Pallières’.
16 March 2011 - European Cinema research seminar: Black and White in Color: The Long Front of Race in Postcolonial European Cinema, Dr Mark Betz (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King's College London ), at 4.00pm in Room G113, 21 Woodland Road. Contact: Catherine O'Rawe (c.g.orawe@bristol.ac.uk) or Nick Rees-Roberts (n.rees-roberts@bristol.ac.uk)
3 March 2011 - French Research Seminar: Christianson lecture, Prof. Robert Lethbridge (Master, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge), 'Zola's Manets' (illustrated) at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 3, 17 Woodland Road.
17 February 2011 - French Research Seminar: Tim Unwin (Senior Research Fellow, Bristol), ‘Aller-retour outback: French travellers in nineteenth-century Australia’.
November 2010 - Success for Bristol Graduate
Dominic Lintner, who graduated in French and Italian in 2010, has been awarded the Douglas Johnson Memorial Essay Prize by the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France for his dissertation 'Developments in far Right Thought in France, 1954-1972'.
2 December 2010 - French Research Seminar: Nick-Rees Roberts (Bristol), ‘Fashion, Cinema and Consumption: Delon, Dior and Brand Heritage 5.30pm, LR8 21 Woodland Road
18 November 2010 - French Research Seminar: Jean-Pierre Boulé (Nottingham Trent) ‘Sartre, Sarkozy and May, 5.15pm, LR8 21 Woodland Road
Honoured as a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Prof. Boulé is a founding member of the UK Society for Sartre Studies and serves on the editorial board of Sartre Studies International. His research has focused especially on sexual politics and cultures of masculinity in France, and he is the author of numerous titles in this field, including
Hervé Guibert: Voices of the Self (1999), HIV Stories: the Archaeology of AIDS Writing in France (2002), and Jean-Paul Sartre, Self-Formation and Masculinities (2005). Questions raised in these research areas promise to figure in this paper on Sartre and Sarkozy as part of a new project exploring current crises in French masculinities and their relevance to ongoing political debates over French identity.
14 November 2010: War Poetry on Radio 4 Professor Susan Harrow contributes to programme examining the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire
11 November 2010 - French Research Seminar: Anne Lewis (Birkbeck College, London), ‘Subversive relations? Text, Caption and Image in Illustrations to Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse’.
Professor Susan Harrow has been elected President of the Society for French Studies, the oldest and leading learned association for French studies in the UK and Ireland
Research Seminar on Thursday 13 May 2010 will be given by Martin Hurcombe at 5.30pm in LR8, 21 Woodland Road. Martin will be speaking on 'Journey's End: André Malraux, Fellow-Travelling, and the Spanish Civil War'.
French Cooking Competition - Tuesday 11 May 2010 in the Student Common Room, 17 Woodland Road
April 2010: Professor John Parkin has been awarded the grade of 'Officier' in the newly announced 'Palmes Académiques' honours.
Research Seminar on Thursday 22 April 2010 will be given by Bradley Stephens at 5.30pm in LR8, 21 Woodland Road. Bradley will be speaking on Sartre, the Surreptitious Romantic? Reading Existentialism alongside Romanicism
Annual Christianson Lecture in French Studies on Thursday 18 February 2010 will be given by Professor Max Silverman from the University of Leeds on Identity and Memory in a Transnational Age. Lecture will be held at 5.30pm in LT3, 17 Woodland Road
Forum of French Literature -Every Thursday at lunchtime (1pm-2pm) in the French Department, 19 Woodland Road, Room 2.66. Contact: Servane.Michel@bristol.ac.uk