Fabien Arribert-Narce is a PhD student in French at the University of Kent and at the University of Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle. He began work on his PhD in 2007 after completing a BA in France (Grenoble) and a MA in Modern French Studies at Kent (with distinction). He was ‘pensionnaire étranger’ at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris from January to June 2009, and he worked on his research topic at the National Institute of Japanese Literature in Tokyo during Autumn Term 2009 (research grant awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council). His doctoral research is funded by the AHRC and the University of Kent. He was awarded the 2010 ‘Prix Jeune Chercheur’ by the ‘Conseil International d’Etudes Francophones’, for his paper ‘Une guérilla contre le temps: les archives photobiographiques de Denis Roche’ given at the 24th Annual Congress of the CIEF (Montréal, July 2010).

Fabien’s thesis focuses on the uses of photography in the autobiographical works of Roland Barthes, Denis Roche and Annie Ernaux. His main research interests are literary theory, autobiography, contemporary French women’s writing, the visual arts, and the influence of Japanese Culture on French literature and theory of the twentieth century. His current research focuses mainly on twentieth-century French literature (Ernaux, Perec, Duras, Barthes, Roche, Ndiaye).

Edlira Mandis is currently in the first year of her part-time MPhil. She has completed both a BA and Masters in French, at the University of Kent. Her study will focus on the literary representations of motherhood in contemporary French women’s writing, examining texts by Marie Ndiaye, Marie Darrieussecq, Lorette Nobécourt and Christine Angot amongst others.

A key aspect of Edlira’s research will be to engage with the current literary and academic interest on the mother as subject and motherhood viewed from a mother’s own standpoint and experience. Edlira will also focus on another defining characteristic of contemporary French women’s fiction: the emphasis on form and style. The main interest lies in assessing its impact on the textual treatment and reading of mother-related thematics, paying close attention to any arising feminist concerns.

A further research objective will be to investigate the possibility of a special relationship between the unconventional narrative form and structure adopted in these texts and the presence of the maternal. Taking as a point of departure the theories of l’écriture feminine, the aim will be to examine the various ways in which such a relation is expressed, or indeed challenged, and what its subsequent implications would be concerning current feminist research.

Sid Land is currently in the last year of his MPhil and is preparing for his upgrading meeting in September 2009. Having studied part-time as a mature student on the University of Kent's evening programme for French, Sid Land obtained a First Class degree in French (Single Honours) in 2006. Indeed, he received the highest marks for any degree awarded that year by the Languages and Literature Board of SECL. Since 2007, he has been registered for an M.Phil in French at the University of Kent. His subject is the impact of Rousseau's Emile on primary education in the 1960s in England and France. This reflects two areas of interest for Sid. One is his professional life as a practitioner of primary education; the other is his academic interest in the social idealism of the French Enlightenment. When Sid trained as a teacher in 1973, it was at a time when colleges of education were concerned with the notion of teacher education rather than the narrower concept of passing on skills. Now that teacher training is radically different, being more oriented to the demands of society and the labour market, Sid is interested in analysing the impact, in the 1960s, of Rousseauist ideas, both in France and in England. Sid works as a teacher and as a lecturer for the OU. (PhD)

For completed Dissertations please click here.