Research in French and Francophone Studies

Our research engages with an expansive range of French and francophone cultures from the early modern period right through to contemporary phenomena. We specialise in literature, thought, film and visual culture, intellectual history, cultural and social practices, and language practices and identities across the French-speaking world. Alongside sustained excellence in literary, textual and historical scholarship, we remain committed to advancing innovative, theoretically informed and methodologically ambitious interdisciplinary research in established and emerging areas of French and francophone culture, society and theory. This includes resolute engagement in ecological issues, medical humanities, and digital and technological developments.

We therefore interrogate diverse traditions, histories and media through a wide range of critical perspectives, including aesthetic theory, social and political thought, postcolonial and decolonial studies, gender and sexuality studies, environmental humanities, critical race studies, translation studies, and film-philosophy. Increasingly, our work engages questions of worldliness, globality and cosmopolitanism, ecological crisis, migration, memory, and the politics of cultural value. While theoretically ambitious and globally oriented, our research wishes to remain linked to historical contextualisation and to the linguistic and formal specificity of cultural production.

All of our research aspires to make internationally recognised scholarly contributions while addressing pressing real-world and situated challenges. We are particularly attentive to the role of francophone cultures in shaping and contextualizing global debates about citizenship, colonial legacies, social justice, climate futures, and cultural industries. In this way, our work also contributes powerfully to key Faculty of Arts research themes at the University of Warwick — which can concern literature, language and translation, cultural industries and cultural value, global and transnational identities, ethico-political debates, and critical interrogations — while also supporting and extending University interdisciplinary research 'spotlights'.

French and Francophone Studies at Warwick has long been recognised for both research excellence and innovation. As a founding department of the University of Warwick, it pioneered the field of Cultural Studies in French. This continuing tradition has been reflected in notable success in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework exercises, as well as in its wide range of externally funded and socially impactful projects. Our projects regularly attract competitive external funding from major bodies such as the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the Modern Humanities Research Association, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as prestigious international schemes such as the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and the Newton International Fellowship scheme. Recent initiatives have increasingly developed co-produced, community-engaged and impact-driven research, extending collaboration beyond academia and demonstrating the public value of French and francophone cultural research.

We sustain a dynamic and outward-facing research culture. Colleagues serve on the editorial and advisory boards of leading international journals and book series, including Modern and Contemporary France, French History, The International Journal of Cultural Policy, Francophone Postcolonial Studies, Renaissance Studies, and Film-Philosophy, thus helping further to steer and encourage the field nationally and internationally. Our researchers are active participants in national and international networks and collaborative research partnerships, contributing to interdisciplinary conversations across the humanities and social sciences. The Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies provides a regular forum for colleagues, postgraduate researchers, and invited national and international speakers to present work in progress and advanced research in a supportive but rigorous environment.

Support for postgraduate and early-career research is central to our intellectual community. Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers are fully integrated into research life, presenting at seminars, contributing to collaborative initiatives, and participating in cross-institutional networks. Through focused and tailored engagement with the Centre for Arts Doctoral Research Excellence and the Humanities Research Centre, our postgraduate community benefits strongly from structured training, interdisciplinary exchange and international visibility.

French and Francophone Studies at Warwick combines a strong tradition of scholarly excellence with a purposeful and vigorous commitment to innovation, collaboration and global engagement. Please explore the links below to find out more about our research areas, current projects, forthcoming events and individual staff specialisms.