Research Student Profiles

Current postgraduate students in the Department of French.

Eleanor Hodgson

I completed my BA in French and Music at the University of Sheffield in 2010 before going on to study for an MA in French Studies, specialising in Medieval French, also at the University of Sheffield. I began my doctoral studies in autumn 2011 under the supervision of Dr Penny Simons, and my thesis focuses on an anonymous Old French text from the end of the twelfth century, Guillaume de Palerne, looking at the way it interacts with and rewrites other Old French texts. My other research interests include the role and music of French rap artist Abd Al Malik, and the settings of Paul Eluard's resistance poems by composer Francis Poulenc. I hold the Dorothy Mable Tingle Scholarship from the University of Sheffield for my research.

Selected conference papers and publications:

‘Word Gets Around – Oral communication connecting communities in the Lais of Marie de France’, Track Changes: The Postgraduate Journal of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at the University of Sheffield, 2 (2012), p.17 accessible via http://trackchanges.group.shef.ac.uk/Issue%202,%20Winter%202011/Eleanor%20Hodgson.pdf
'Intertextual transformation of the Old French Narcissus et Dané in Guillaume de Palerne' , presented at the Medieval and Early Modern Student Association annual conference, University of Durham, July 2012
'Ways of seeing Abd Al Malik: the dual identity of a rap role model?', presented at the School of Languages and Cultures Postgraduate Colloquium, University of Sheffield, May 2012
'Figure Humaine as artistic resistance: Eluard and Poulenc during the Occupation', presented at the School of Languages and Cultures Postgraduate Colloquium, University of Sheffield, May 2011

Abigail Taylor

Email: frp11art@sheffield.ac.uk

I graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2009 with a BA Honours in French Studies. I remained in Sheffield in 2010 to complete an MA (Research) in French Studies. I followed the Sociological Pathway in the MA which focused on social exclusion, the informal economy and gender studies. I also took several voluntary modules on inequality in the Department of Geography. Following a year working in the public sector and after missing the world of French Studies and academia, I returned to Sheffield in autumn 2011 to commence a PhD on child poverty in France and England, supervised by Professor Jan Windebank from the French Department and Dr Adam Whitworth from the Geography Department. My PhD studies are funded by a University Prize Scholarship.

Selected conference papers:

Taylor, A. (2012) ‘Understanding Child Poverty in Lille and Sheffield: an Emphasis on the Future with Knowledge of the Past’, paper presented at Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, ADEFFI and Society for the Study of French History Futures Postgraduate Study Day, University of Sheffield, 3rd March 2012.
Taylor, A. (2012) ‘Interpreting Child Poverty in France and the UK’, paper presented at Ways of Seeing School of Languages and Cultures Postgraduate Colloquium, University of Sheffield, 11th May 2012.

Gemma Wheeler

Email: frp09glw@sheffield.ac.uk

I studied for my first degree in French, Spanish and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge, and went on to complete an MA in Medieval History at the University of York. After a couple of years away from academia, I came to Sheffield for an MA in French Studies, before beginning a PhD in autumn 2009 on the subject of adaptation and political commentary in Geffrei Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, supervised by Professor Penny Eley and Dr Penny Simons. My PhD studies have been funded by a University Scholarship.

Selected conference papers and publications:

'Rewriting the Past: Women in Wace's Roman de Brut', Reading Medieval Studies, 36 (2011)
'A Norman by any other name: rewriting ethnic tensions in Geffrei Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis' - presented at 'Writing Europe before 1450', University of Bergen, 5th June 2012