Professor Siobhán McIlvanney

Biography

I graduated with an MA in French and German from the University of Glasgow, before completing a D.Phil. at the Queen’s College, Oxford. I joined the department of French at King’s in 1994.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Contemporary French and Francophone Women’s Writing
• Franco-Algerian Women’s Writing 
• Early French Women’s Press

My main area of research is contemporary French and Francophone women’s writing. I am also interested in early manifestations of feminist thought in women’s journalistic writings in France and have recently published a monograph on the early years of the French women’s press, Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women’s Press, 1758-1848 . You can find out more about the book in an interview here.

I have co-edited a volume on mediatic representations of women and the city that challenges the conventional configuration of the city as a masculine space, Women and the City in French Literature and Culture: Reconfiguring the Feminine in the Urban Environment. I have published extensively on a range of French and Francophone women authors and have a particular interest in Franco-Algerian women’s writing, including works by Maïssa Bey, Leïla Marouane and Malika Mokeddem. I also published the first monograph in English on the contemporary French author, Annie Ernaux

For more details, please see my full research profile.

Teaching

I teach on a variety of courses in the French department related to French and Francophone women’s writing at both BA and MA level. I also teach on a Liberal Arts module outside the Department.

Expertise and Public Engagements

I am a member of the International Assessment Board for the Irish Research Council. I was the recipient of a Teaching Excellence Award in 2007.

Selected Publications

• Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758-1848  (2019, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press).

• Women and the City in French Literature and Culture: Reconfiguring the Feminine in the Urban Environment  (2019, Cardiff, University of Wales Press).

• 'In Celebration of Celibacy: Sophie Fontanel's L'Envie (2011)' in Plaisirs de femmes: Women, Pleasure and Transgression in French Literature and Culture. Allison, M., Evans, E. & Tarr, C. (eds.) (2019, Oxford, Peter Lang) pp. 235-48.

• '"Impuissance" and "Culpabilité": Reducing the Weight of Maternal Influence in Contemporary French Women’s Narratives of Anorexia' in Starvation, Food Obsession and Identity: Eating Disorders in Contemporary Women's Writing. (2018, Oxford, Peter Lang) pp.23-44 

• 'Promenade au pays de la vieillesse: Re-viewing Literary and Cinematic Representations of Ageing in Simone de Beauvoir'  Dec 2017, Journal of Romance Studies (Vol.17, No.3) pp.275-92.