Dr Brenda Garvey
Senior Lecturer
Biography
Dr Brenda Garvey leads the French team at the University of Chester, designing, developing and teaching on undergraduate French modules and works closely with colleagues from other language areas on cultural studies modules. She takes a particular interest in pastoral care and supervision and oversees undergraduate student portfolios and projects. She also leads the MA Language, Cultures and Translation programme and has supervised MA and MRes dissertations on a range of subjects related to language, identity formation and social movements across the French speaking world. Dr Garvey supervises PhD projects on language, literature and culture with particular reference to responses to cultural imperialism and independence.
Teaching and Supervision
Dr Garvey teaches on French language and culture modules at all levels and on global cultural studies modules at levels 6 and 7. Her research-based teaching allows for exploration of cultures and societies across central and western Africa where French has had a influence and of social movements in Europe and abroad with a particular focus on young voices.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Dr Garvey researches in contemporary literature from France and West and Central Africa. She has a particular interest in women's writing, young voices, storytelling and orality and the decolonisation of research and cultural currency. Her PhD thesis examined spatio-temporal dynamics in the works of Annie Ernaux, Patrick Modiano, Jean Echenoz and Marie Darrieussecq and she has published on these authors as well as on language and literature in West Africa. Since 2008 she has carried out research in Senegal and Mali where her projects have included collecting migrant stories from Africa and Europe, collaborative workshops with colleagues in Universite Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, on the publication, access and sharing of knowledge, and youth protest particularly through hip hop. Dr Garvey encourages student participation and partnership in research and welcomes expressions of interest from postgraduate students. She is currently supervising a number of PhD theses on topics including literary translation, Algerian cinema, cultural imperialism through food, and linguistic hybridity in West African and Caribbean prose fiction.