Research

The Department hosts a vibrant research seminar series with guest speakers from across the EU. It also contributes to the new Faculty of Humanities research seminar series. Academic staff in the department are also members of research networks in Africa, the United States and Europe.

The Department has recently undertaken a major expansion in its research activity. It has an international profile in francophone African and Caribbean Studies, and is strengthening its profile in a number of other areas including contemporary European cinema, gender and society in post-reunification Germany, pedagogical theory and practice and culture and society in contemporary Spain.

Key areas of activity include:

• Visual cultures of the francophone world;

• Politics and society in contemporary francophone Africa;

• Story-telling in francophone Africa and the diaspora;

• Issues of equality and social justice in francophone Africa;
• Cultural Representations of France during WWII (especially regarding its Empire)

• Contemporary European cinema;

• Translation practice and theory;

• Modernity in European Identities;

• 19th- and 20th- century Spanish literature and thought;

• Independent student learning;

• Protestantism in nineteenth and twentieth century Spain;

• The Historiography of 20th-century Spain;

• East German women's feminist identity and their experiences since reunification;

• The role of Residence Abroad in the undergraduate curriculum;

• Pedagogic theory and practice of second-language learning.

For further details of research activities in Modern Languages please contact the Head of Department, Prof. Claire Griffiths, at c.griffiths@chester.ac.uk