Research interests

I work on contemporary French political, intellectual and cultural history, and also on issues raised by international language policies. I have developed through various publications a broad approach to the interface between national cultures and government policies, with a particular focus on issues of political secularism, education reform, the media, national memory, language, and international cultural projection. My main project at the moment is a study of strategies for the projection of the French language.

Teaching and supervision

I usually teach the content module French Presidents and the Media and the language module Final-Year French Writing.

Administrative Roles

I have been since 2019 Director of Research & Impact and since 2021 Deputy Chair for the School of Modern Languages & Cultures, and since 2021 Deputy Chair (overseeing Research & Impact) for the Faculty of Arts. I have been head of French (2005-2008) and, on a secondment, director of the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies (2014-2017).

Recent Publications

• 'Emmanuel Macron and the Reprojection of the French Language', Modern and Contemporary France (2022), online advance publication available here
• 'What good is a supercentral language? Justificatory repertoires for the projection of French, 1998-2018', European Journal of Language Policy, 14/1, 2022, pp. 67-87 (pre-publication author's version available here )
• 'World Lingua Franca Regimes and Real Freedoms', forthcoming in O. Davis and C. Watkin (eds), New Interdisciplinary Perspectives On and Beyond Autonomy, (Routledge, 2022)
• 'Language Policies and Cultural Diversity in England' in Diane Saint-Pierre & Alexandre Couture-Gagnon (eds), Culture, Language and Cultural Diversity: Cultural Policy and its Policy Instruments, University of Ottawa Press, forthcoming (2023).
• 'The Subject of Recognition in International Relations: Axel Honneth', in C. Davis and O. Davis (eds), Freedom and the Subject of Theory: Essays in Honour of Christina Howells, Oxford: Legenda, 2019, pp. 142-152.
• 'International Recognition Regimes and the Projection of France'Link opens in a new window, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 24/6, Nov 2018, pp. 696-709
• 'Cultural insecurity and its discursive crystallisation in contemporary France', Modern and Contemporary France, 25/3, 2017, pp. 265-80.
• 'Cultural policy through the prism of fiction (Michel Houellebecq)', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 23/1, Jan 2017, pp. 1-16.
• ‘Laïcité: a parallel French cultural policy (2002-2007)’, French Cultural Studies, 25(3/4), 2014
• Government through Culture and the Contemporary French Right (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
• ‘Fields and fragments: Bourdieu, Pascal and the teachings of literature’, in Paragraph, 35/1 March 2012, pp. 97-114 (open access version here)
• ‘Designs on the popular: framings of general, universal and common culture in French educational policy’, in David Looseley (ed.), Policy and the Popular (London: Routledge, 2011) [also available in International Journal of Cultural Policy, 17/4, Sept 2011, pp. 421-437] [open access version here]
• 'Questions of Religion and Cultural Policy in France', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 17/2 (March 2011), pp. 153-169 [open access vs here]
• Intellectuals, Culture and Public Policy in France: Approaches from the Left, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (available through University of Chicago Press in USA), 2010.
• 'Cultural Policy Implicit and Explicit: A Distinction and Some Uses', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15/2, 2009, pp. 141-53 [open access version here]

For full list of publications, see here.

Qualifications

BA, DPhil (Oxford)