Professor Claire Gorrara - BA, MSt, DPhil (Oxon) FRHistSoc
Overview
Position:
Acting Head of School
Email:
Gorrara@cardiff.ac.ukTelephone: +44(0)29 2087 4955
Fax: +44(0)29 2087 4946
Extension: 74955
Location: Room 2.30, 65-68 Park Place
Office hours: Monday, 15:00 - 14:00
Wednesday, 10:00 - 11:00
My works covers three main areas: narratives and memories of the Second World War in France, post-war French crime fiction and French photography and visual cultures. These areas are connected by my interest in under-represented or marginalized voices in French culture and the ways in which they mediate processes of social and cultural change. In relation to the Second World War, I have worked extensively on the autobiographies, prose fiction and memoirs of French women writers. More recently, I have published articles and a monograph on post-war French noir fiction and film. I have also collaborated with colleagues on contemporary Francophone photography and issues of cultural memory. I have just completed a book that explores French crime fiction and memories of the Second World War to be published by Manchester University Press in December 2012.
Selected Publications
French Crime Fiction and the Second World War: Past Crimes, Present Memories (Manchester University Press, 2012), ISBN 978 07190 8265 8.
The Lost Decade: the 1950s in European History, Society, Culture and Politics, eds H. Feldner, C. Gorrara and K. Passmore, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011, ISBN 101443825832, 270pp.
'Conflicted Masculinities: Figures of the Resistance in French Crime Fiction', in Constructions of Conflict: Transmitting Memories of the Past in European Historiography, Culture and Media, eds. Katherine Hall and Kathryn N. Jones (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 93-110.
The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture: Dark Fictions Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 019 924609 2, 136pp.
French Crime Fiction Cardiff University of Wales Press, 2009, ISBN 0708 32101 1, 134pp.
Selected Projects
Monograph Study: Past Crimes, Present Memories: French Crime Fiction and the Second World War
Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2012
Supported by: British Academy small grant (2007) and Visiting Fellowship with the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London (2011)
Overview: Past Crimes, Present Memories explores France’s preoccupation with memories of the Second World War through an examination of popular culture and one of its most enduring forms, crime fiction. It examines what such popular narratives tell us about past and current perceptions of the war years in France and how they relate to post-war debates over memory, culture and national identity. By investigating representations of the war years in a selection of French crime novels from the early 1940s to the present day, this book argues for the importance of popular culture as an active agent of memory in the ongoing debates over the legacy of the war years in contemporary France.
Research Unit
Languages, Cultures and Ideologies
Crime Narratives in Context
Related Links
Publications
Authored books
French Crime Fiction and the Second World War: Past Crimes, Present Memories (Manchester University Press, 2012), ISBN 978 07190 8265 8.
The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture: Dark Fictions Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 019 924609 2, 136pp.
Women's Representations of the Occupation in Post-1968 France Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, ISBN 0333 66947 9, 168pp.
Refereed journal articles
'Forgotten crimes? Representing Jewish Experience of the Second World War in French Crime Fiction' South Central Review, 27, 1-2, 2010, 3-20.
‘Photography and the Cultural Encounter: François Maspero’s Balkans-Transit and Nicolas Bouvier Chronique japonaise, with M. Topping, Journal of Romance Studies, 8/1, 2008, 61-75.
‘Reflections on Crime and Punishment: Memories of the Holocaust in Recent French Crime Fiction’, Yale French Studies, 108, 2005, 131-145.
‘Cultural Intersections: The American Hard-Boiled Detective Novel and Early French Roman Noir’, Modern Language Review, 98/3, 2003, 590-601.
‘Malheurs et Ténèbres: Narratives of Social Disorder in Léo Malet’s 120 rue de la gare’, French Cultural Studies, 12/3, 2001, 271-83.
‘The Aubrac Controversy’ with H. Diamond, History Today, 51/3, 2001, 2-3
‘Narratives of Protest and the Roman Noir in Post-1968 France’, French Studies, 54/3, 2001, 313-325.
‘The Witness and the Historian in the 1990s: Resistance Voices’, Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, 28, 2001, 92-98
‘Speaking Volumes: Amélie Nothomb’s Hygiène de l’Assassin’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 23/6, 2000, 761-66.
‘Meurtres pour mémoire: Remembering the Occupation in the Detective Fiction of Didier Daeninckx’ Journal of the Institute of Romance Studies, 6, 1998, 353-359.
`Writing and Memory: The Occupation and the Construction of the Self in 1980s French Literature', Modern and Contemporary France, 5/1, 1997, 35-45.
`Bearing Witness in Robert Antelme's L'Espèce Humaine and Marguerite Duras' La Douleur', Women in French Studies, 5, 1997, 243-251, and in CD Rom ‘Memory, History and Critique: European Identity at the Millennium’, eds. F. Brinkhuis and S. Talmor, Cambridge MA: International Society for the Study of European Ideas/University for Humanist Studies, 1998.
`Une prise de conscience féministe?: L'Occupation vue par les femmes écrivains en France après 1968', Clio, 1, 1996, 200-205.
'Feminist Rereadings of the War Years: The Case of Clara Malraux', French Cultural Studies, 7, 1996, 63-76.
Edited books
The Lost Decade: the 1950s in European History, Politics, Society and Culture, edited by H. Feldner, C. Gorrara and K. Passmore, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011, ISBN 10 14438 2583 2
French Crime Fiction: Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009, ISBN 0708 32101 1, 134pp.
France since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts, co-editor with R. Langford, London: Edward Arnold, 2003 ISBN 0340 76360 4, 154pp.
European Memories of the Second World War edited with H. Peitsch and C. Burdett, Oxford: Berghahn, 1999, ISBN 1 57181 936 3, 333pp. Reprinted second edition 2006.
Chapters in books
'Conflicted Masculinities: Figures of the Resistance in French Crime Fiction', in Constructions of Conflict: Transmitting Memories of the Past in European Historiography, Culture and Media, eds. Katherine Hall and Kathryn N. Jones (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 93-110.
‘Dramatic and Traumatic: French Crime Fiction and the Reconstruction of France’ in New Approaches to Crime in French Literature, Culture and Film, ed. L. Hardwick, Peter Lang, 2009.
‘Through the Looking Glass: Defeats of Detection in Sébastien Japrisot’s L’Eté meurtrier’, in Sébastien Japrisot: The Art of Crime, eds. M. Hurcombe and S. Kemp, Rodopi 2009.
‘Revolt and Recuperation: Masculinities and the Roman Noir in Immediate Post-War France’ in French Masculinities: History, Culture and Politics, eds. C. E. Forth and B. Taithe, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007, pp.157-171.
'Occupation Memories: History and the Aubrac Affair' with H. Diamond in Memory and Memorials: The Commemorative Century, eds. W. Kidd and B. Murdoch, Ashgate, 2004, pp. 233-244.
‘L’Assassinat de l’écriture: Amélie Nothomb’s Les Combustibles’ in Amélie Nothomb: Authorship, Identity and Narrative Practice, eds. S. Bainbrigge and J. Toonder, Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 105-113.
'The Second World War, 1939-45: Divided Selves' in France Since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts, eds. C. Gorrara and R. Langford, Edward Arnold, 2003, pp. 81-93.
'The Campaign for Parity in the 1990s: Women and French Republic' with H. Diamond in France Since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts, eds. C. Gorrara and R. Langford, Edward Arnold, 2003, pp. 121-135.
'Facing the Past: French Wartime Memories at the Millennium' with H. Diamond in Reinventing France: State and Society in the Twenty-First Century, eds. S. Milner and N. Parsons, Palgrave, 2003, pp.173-184.
‘Tracking Down the Past: The Detective as Historian in Texts by Patrick Modiano and Didier Daeninckx’, in Crime Scenes: Detective Fictions in European Culture Since 1945, eds. E. O’Beirne and A. Mullen, Rodopi, 2000, pp.281-290.
`Remembering the Collaborating Father in Marie Chaix's Les Lauriers du lac de Constance and Evelyne Le Garrec's La Rive allemande de ma mémoire' in European Memories of the Second World War eds. Peitsch, Burdett, Gorrara, Berghahn, 1999, pp. 202-210.
‘Victors and Victims: The Hard-Boiled Detective and Recent Feminist Crime Fiction' in The Art of Murder: New Essays on Detective Fiction, eds. G. Klaus and S. Knight, Stauffenburg Verlag, 1998, pp.167-179.
`Reviewing Gender and the Resistance: The Case of Lucie Aubrac' in The Liberation in France: Image and Event, eds. H.R. Kedward and N. Wood, Berg, 1995, pp.143-153.
Editorship of journals
Guest-edited issue of Modern and Contemporary France with introduction on `Gendering the Occupation of France' with H. Diamond, 7/1, 1999.
New Readings, co-edited with C. Burdett and F. Meyer, 5 volumes published, 1995-99. An e-journal since December 2000. Volume 9 co-edited with H. Feldner, 2008.
Other publications
État présent: ‘French Crime Fiction: From Genre Mineur to Patrimoine Culturel’, French Studies, 60/4, 2007, 1-6.
Biography
Career profile
I completed my undergraduate studies at Leeds University, gaining a First Class Joint Honours degree in French and English (1989). I subsequently studied at Oxford University and was awarded a Masters in European Literature in 1991 and my DPhil doctorate in 1994, the latter devoted to women’s literary representations of the Second World War in post-1968 France. I was appointed Lecturer at Cardiff University in September 1994, Senior Lecturer in 2001, Reader in 2005 and Professor of French Studies in 2008. I have two children, born in 2003 and 2005.
Recent awards, prizes and nominations
April 2011: Nominated a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
February-March 2011: Visiting Fellow, Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London
June 2008: Cardiff Humanites Research Institute (CHRI): £1,680
Cardiff Distinguished Visiting Fellow scheme: to fund the visit of Dr Maurizio Ascari (Bologna University) as part of the Crime Narratives in Context Research Network activities
March 2007: Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France: £350.00
Conference support: ‘The Lost Decade: the 1950s in European History, Society, Economy and Culture’, Cardiff University, 11-13 July 2007
January 2007: British Academy small grant fund: £2,292
Research support for the project: ‘Reconstructing France: Popular Culture, Crime Fictions and National Identity, 1946-58’
April 2002: Cassell Foundation funding: £700 and Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France funding: £200
Conference support: 'Cultural Intersections: Noir Fiction and Film in France and Italy' conference at the Institute of Romance Studies, London
July 2001-September 2002: Leverhulme Research Fellowship: £15,646
Memberships and external activities
I am co-series editor of two series with University of Wales Press: French and Francophone Studies with H. Diamond (Bath University) and European Crime Fictions with G. Pieri (Royal Holloway, University of London) and S. Godsland (Birmingham University).
Since 2007, I have been a member of the editorial board member of Synergies Royaume Uni et Irlande, an interdisciplinary journal allied to GERFLINT, Groupe d’Etudes et de Recherches pour le Français Langue Internationale. I also referee articles for the following journals: French Studies, Romance Studies, Modern and Contemporary France, Modern Language Review, Journal of Law and Society, Feminist Review, Témoigner, History and have acted as a reader for the following publishers: Oxford University Press, Routledge, University of Wales Press and University of Manchester Press.
I was external examiner for French degree schemes at Kingston University, 2003-7, and Leeds University, 2005-8.
I am currently an external examiner for French degree programmes at Swansea University from 2011-2014
I have acted as an External Examiner for doctoral awards at the following institutions: University of Kent (2010), University of Leeds (2010), Birkbeck, University of London (2011), Université de la Bretagne Occidentale (2011)
I am a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.
Presentations
I have given over forty conference and research papers to date, including eighteen invited addresses. Of particular note are invitations to speak at the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute, Berlin (2003), the Southwark Playhouse (2005), Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg (2010), Forthcoming presentations include an invitation to speak at the ‘Vichy et après: l’écriture occupée’ at the University of Paris 3, Sorbonne, Nouvelle, in June 2012
Selected recent papers:
‘Past Crimes, Present Memories: French Crime Fiction and the Second World War’ at Crime Across the Continent, British Library, 18 November 2011
Résister au masculin: l’image de résistant dans le roman noir français’, Colloque international à Hamburg/Gut Siggen, ‘L’Appel du 18 juin 1940. Y-a-t—il une mémoire franco-allemande de la Résistance?’. Hamburg, June 2010
Keynote: ‘War stories: Telling Tales of the Second World War in French Crime Fiction’, University of Leeds, conference ‘Finding the Plot: On the Importance of Storytelling in Popular Fictions’, April 2010
Teaching profile
I teach and have taught French language at all undergraduate levels, including translation, essay writing, grammar and report writing. I co-devised and team-lead the first-year French introductory module: Modern France: War, Culture and Conflict and have taught specialist French modules on the following topics: Twentieth-Century French Women’s Writing, French Culture and the Occupation, French Crime Fiction, French Dissertation (year 4 only). I also contribute to a team-taught cross-School module: May 68: Marking Changes in European Politics and Culture.
In terms of postgraduate teaching, I coordinate the European Culture and Ideology strand of the MA European Studies, contributing also to the core course on European Identities.
I habe also provided teaching for the Graduate School for the Humanities and have offered a workshop session on Memory and Culture open to a range of postgraduate students.
In terms of research students, I have co-supervised three PhDs to date on the following topics:
Myths and Oppression of Gendered and Racialised Subjects in the Prose Fiction of Rosario Castellanos' (passed May 2003)
Representations of Travel and Memory in 1960s and 1970s French- and German-Language Literature' (passed April 2004), AHRC funded studentship
Comparative Perspective on the Poetic Course of Arthur Rimbaud, William Blake and Sohrab Sepehri' (passed 2006).
I am currently co-supervising two doctoral projects:
Iain Mossman (AHRC BGP): ‘Constructions of the Algerian War Appelés in French Cultural Memory’
Matthew Berry: ‘From Proust to the Present Day: Defying Convention, Defining Convention’
I would welcome applications from those wishing to work on questions of cultural memory, war and modern France, literary and visual narratives of conflict, both within France and in a broader European frame,and French crime fiction and film
School and cross school roles
2012- : Acting Head of School
2010-2012: Deputy Head of the School of European Studies
2008-2012: Director of Research for the School of European Studies
1996-2008: Chair of the Research Unit, Histories, Memories and Fictions of Europe
2006- : Co-network coordinator of the cross-disciplinary, cross-school research network, Crime Narratives in Context with H. Worthington (ENCAP)
