Rosalind Silvester

I have research interests in contemporary literature and migratory studies, most notably concerning francophone Chinese writing, art, installations and film.  In 2010 and 2019, I organised international colloquia in this field, with the Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian and the installation artist Chen Xuefeng as the keynote speaker at each conference. These colloquia led to an edited volume, published by Presses de l’Université de Montréal (2012), and a special journal issue (to be published by Modern Languages Open in 2022).  I have published several articles on Ying Chen, François Cheng, Dai Sijie, Gao Xingjian and Shen Yuan, co-edited Transnational/Transartistic Journeys, a special issue of the Irish Journal of French Studies (2015), and my monograph on Ying Chen’s Fiction: An Aesthetics of Non-Belonging came out in 2020 (Oxford, Legenda). Most of my research is interdisciplinary, combining text and image studies, philosophy and film criticism, applying theories from the Education Sciences to literature, and investigating intermediality and transnationalism.  

As well as language teaching, at undergraduate level I offer the mini-modules 'Francophone Drama' (L1), focusing on Eugene Ionesco, and ‘Les revenantes’ (L3) which studies the social, cultural and ideological manifestations of doubles and revenants in two francophone works. I also teach two Optional Modules: ‘Myth and Biography’ (L2) examines the autofiction produced by Pierre Michon, Patrick Modiano, Annie Ernaux and Michel Tournier; ‘Contemporary Francophone Chinese Fiction’ (L3) explores the themes of migration, identity and minority literature in a range of genres. 

At postgraduate level, I have supervised MA and MRes students on a range of topics: Sartrean existentialism, Samuel Beckett, Annie Ernaux, contemporary women's writing, transnational studies. I have also supervised an MPhil on interwar French literature and PhD theses on Haitian Women's Writing, Multimodality in French Women's Life Narratives and, currently, the Dissemination of Environmental Art.