About
How do instances of displacement — exile, travels abroad — shape how we see ourselves and our relationship to the societies with which we interact and the nations to which we belong or from which we are excluded? How do intercultural encounters — whether in-person or through the circulation of cultural produce and artefacts — push against or transgress the boundaries that nation’s construct? And how do cultural actors translate these experiences into literature and other creative forms — indeed how do these experiences shape literature and other creative forms? These are the questions that drove forward my academic research. These questions continue to provide the steer for my creative travel writing, which brings a literary eye to my journeys across the world.
During my time in academia, I developed a distinctive profile as a specialist of nineteenth-century French fiction and women’s writing with transnational and interdisciplinary interests. My research considered intercultural encounters, primarily between France and Britain, and their impact upon individual subjectivity, cultural production, and nation-building. My PhD project (University of Bristol, 2017) investigated how early nineteenth-century authors Germaine de Staël and Claire de Duras translate their experiences of exile, alienation from France’s new regime, and disconnection from their past lives by writing the self through agents and sites of otherness. The resulting monograph, Writing the Self, Writing the Nation (Peter Lang, 2019) argues that the two authors used the novel form to write against the national and gendered frameworks espoused by nineteenth-century French legislation and discourse. I have a significant corpus of published articles on this material and adjacent areas, which additionally incorporates visual culture, poetry, and historical works.
Since stepping back from research, I have begun building a career as a freelance translator, copyeditor, and writer. In particular, I document my nomadic lifestyle on my house-sitting website
La maison péripathétique. My travel writing has been published in the online literary journal
Majuscule and
House Sitting Magazine.
Publications
Academic
‘Myth- and Monarch-Making: Claire de Duras’s Pensées de Louis XIV (1827)’,
Australian Journal of French Studies, forthcoming 2021
‘Emotional Verisimilitude and Fictional Illusion in the Early Nineteenth-Century Novel: Responses to Claire de Duras’s Édouard (1825)’, in
Le Monde du roman français 1800-1820, ed. by Chanel de Halleux, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, forthcoming 2020
‘Female Bodies of (Inter)National Significance: Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Germaine de Staël, and Claire de Duras’,
Dix-Neuf, 23:1 (2019)
Writing the Self, Writing the Nation: Romantic Selfhood in the Works of Germaine de Staël and Claire de Duras, (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019)
‘Les réfractions intertextuelles: Germaine de Staël, Claire de Duras, et la poésie anglaise’,
Cahiers staëliens, 68 (2018)
‘Brave New Voices: Translation and the Tools for Self-Expression’,
In Other Words, 48 (2016), 84–7
‘
Claire de Duras’,
The Literary Encyclopedia (published 29 February 2016) [over 3200 views]
‘
Olivier’,
The Literary Encyclopedia (published 16 November 2015) — [2600 views]
‘
Edouard’,
The Literary Encyclopedia (published 21 August 2015) [over 2000 views]
‘
15 June 1815, Claire de Duras and the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball’ The Last Stand: Napoleon’s 100 Days in 100 Objects, February–July 2015 (published 15 June 2015)
Translations
Gleizes, Delphine, ‘Adapting Les Misérables for the Screen: Transatlantic Debates and Rivalries’, trans. by Stacie Allan, in
‘Les Misérables’ and its Afterlives: Between Page, Stage, and Screen, ed. by Kathryn Grossman and Bradley Stephens (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 129–142
Gasiglia-Laster, Danièle, ‘Éponine on Screen’, trans. by Stacie Allan, in ‘
Les Misérables’ and its Afterlives (see Grossman and Stephens, above), pp. 159–174
Laster, Arnaud, ‘A New Creation: Histoire de Gavroche in Words and Song’, trans. by Stacie Allan, in
‘Les Misérables’ and its Afterlives (see Grossman and Stephens, above), pp. 175–190
Rasson, Luc, ‘“The sweet liberty of the trenches”:
Capitaine Conan by Roger Vercel and Bertrand Tavernier’, trans. by Stacie Allan,
Journal of War & Culture Studies, 6:4 (2013), 302–312
Book Reviews
Review of Germaine de Staël, Delphine. Édition d’Aurélie Foglia (Gallimard, 2017),
French Studies, 72:3 (2018), 438–9
Review of Les Métaphores naturelles dans le débat sur la Révolution (Garnier, 2016) by Olivier Ritz,
French Studies, 71:4 (2017), 580
Review of Lettres à Claire de Duras (1814–1828) (Manucius, 2016) by Alexandre de Humboldt,
Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 45:3–4 (2017)
Review of The Virtues of Abandon: An Anti-Individualist History of the French Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2014) by Charly Coleman,
Modern & Contemporary France, 25:2 (2017), 229–230
Review of Chateaubriand: The Paradox of Change (Peter Lang, 2015) by Malcolm Scott,
Modern & Contemporary France, 24:2 (2016), 236–237
Review of The Gods Want Blood by Anatole France (Translated by Douglas Parmée),
Criticks – BSECS Online Reviews (First published 7 October 2014)
