About

I am a PhD student in contemporary French literature. My project focuses on queer vulnerability in French contemporary narratives and is supervised by Professor Oliver Davis and Dr Douglas Morrey.

Research

My research analyses the proliferation of references to vulnerability in contemporary queer French texts. Whilst previous understandings of queer vulnerability placed emphasis on forms of violence originating externally (e.g. social discrimination, physical aggressions), a new generation of queer French authors has shifted the emphasis towards an expression of vulnerability inherent to their queerness. Seeking to challenge a discourse which associates the expression of queer suffering with passivity and victimhood, by bringing these texts together alongside Jean-Luc Nancy’s affirmative philosophy for the first time, I will offer instead a narrative of vulnerability as a form of agency. I will do so by analysing the works of Louis (2014, 2018, 2021), Daas (2019), Debré (2018, 2020, 2022, 2023), Delabroy-Allard (2018), and Bouraoui (2005, 2016, 2018).

Research Interests

• Queer literature
• Contemporary French autofiction
• Contemporary French Thought

Conference papers

• ‘Est-ce que ça n’effraie plus les cadavres’: Queer practices and necropolitics in the writing of Édouard Louis and Constance Debré', Society of French Studies Annual Conference, 2024.
• ‘I wish I could have been a fag’: Queer literary networks in negotiation in Constance Debré’s works', Queer and feminist relationships in contemporary fiction of Romance cultures, University of Vienna, 25-27 October 2023.
• ‘I don’t keep corpses’: On sustaining and resisting deadly literature in Constance Debré and Édouard Louis’s works', Spectres, spectrums and spectrality: New and interdisciplinary approaches to Comparative and World Literature, The British Comparative Literature Association Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference, University of Warwick, 12-13 October 2023.

Organised conferences and Events

• Co-founder and co-convenor, Sex:Queer Research Network, a Warwick-based interdisciplinary and interdepartmental initiative
• Organising committee, M4C CDF initiative, Sex in Contemporary Media: An Interdisciplinary Conference, 4-6 October 2023
• Co-organiser, SMLC PGR Symposium 2023, 'Rethinking the Crisis across Languages and Cultures', 12-13 May 2023

Teaching

FR1013: Modern French Language

Scholarships and Awards

Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership, AHRC Doctoral Award, 2022-2026

Qualifications

Hypokhâgne A/L, Poitiers, France

BA (Hons) in French and German, King's College London, UK

MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures, University of Cambridge, UK