Professor Julia Dobson

BA, MA, PhD

School of Languages and Cultures

Honorary Professor in French Film and Performance

Julia Dobson
Profile picture of Julia Dobson
j.dobson@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2877

Full contact details

Professor Julia Dobson
School of Languages and Cultures
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I studied French and Russian at the University of Nottingham, continuing to postgraduate study there with an MA in Critical Theory and comparative PhD on the Theatres of Hélène Cixous and Marina Tsvetaeva.

My interdisciplinary profile led me to work in Departments of French Studies, Film Studies and Cultural Theory at the universities of Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Warwick and Leeds before joining the School of Languages and Cultures in Sheffield in 2004. I have continued to establish and foster interdisciplinary programmes and research networks within the university. 

My diverse research interests across film and performance share a sustained engagement with negotiations of identity, exploring the representation of agency, voice and the body in contemporary film and theatre and shifting constructions of the private and the political. My recent work in French film focuses on cinematic spatialities (constructions of the North) and the role of film’s manipulation of space and time in Perec’s narrative strategies. My current project in this field explores the explosion in representations of adolescence in 21st century French film.

My current research in performance focuses on object-based theatre - examining the radically disruptive presence of performing objects (puppets, dolls, automata, robots, everyday objects and machines) at the foundations and frontiers of popular and avant-garde performance.

I frequently work with major film festivals, directors, distributors, schools and diverse audiences to share and encourage engagement with French film. I am co-director of the Sheffield Centre for Research in Film and have held visiting research positions at the Forum des Images and the Institut international de la marionnette.

Qualifications
  • PhD University of Nottingham (‘Construction of Poetic Identities in the Theatre of Hélène Cixous and Marina Tsvetaeva’)
  • MA Critical Theory, University of Nottingham 
  • BA Hons French and Russian, University of Nottingham
Research interests

My research encompasses contemporary French film, cultural theory and contemporary performance. My work across these fields engages with shifting dynamics of relationships between self and other and between discourses of the private and the public. Within such negotiations of identity, my research explores the representation of agency, voice and the body in contemporary theatre and shifting constructions of the private and the political in contemporary French film.

My recent work in French film argues for close attention to the interactions between genre, gender and filmic discourses in the constructions of personal, social and political identities, including constructions of the ‘auteur’ in contemporary French film (see Negotiating the Auteur (Manchester University Press, 2012). I have worked on cinematic spatialities (constructions of the North) and the role of film in Perec’s narrative strategies. My current project examines the representation of adolescence in 21st century French film.

My early research on theatre addressed the development of Cixous’s ‘scene of writing’. My current research focuses on object-based theatre and examines the radically disruptive presence of performing objects - puppets, dolls, automata, robots, everyday objects and machines - are present at the foundations and frontiers of popular and avant-garde performance. In an interdisciplinary context, we live in a world of smart objects, artificial intelligences and commodified, enhanced bodies, the uncanny material presence and ambiguous agency of performing objects remains central to contemporary renegotiations of our understanding of ourselves, of otherness and to what it means to be human. One outcome of this research will be a monograph: 'Performing objects: Puppets and beyond in contemporary French performance’ (Liverpool University Press).

Publications

Books

  • Dobson J (2012) Negotiating the Auteur. Manchester: Manchester University Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Edited books

  • Dobson JL & Rayner J (Ed.) (2016) Mapping Cinematic Norths: International Interpretations in Film and Television. Peter Lang. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Forsdick C, Leak A & Phillips R (2019) Georges Perec’s Geographies UCL Press RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2019) Vanishing Points: the Subject and the City in 'Un Homme qui dort' / 'The Man who Sleeps' (Perec and Quaysanne, 1974) In Forsdick C, Philips R & Leak A (Ed.), Georges Perec's Geographies; Perecquian Geographies. Material, Performative and Textual Spaces (pp. 47-64). London: UCL Press. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2017) Dis-Locations: Mapping the Banlieue In Forrest D, Harper G & Rayner J (Ed.), Filmurbia: Screening the Suburbs Palgrave Macmillan View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • (2016) Mapping Cinematic Norths In Dobson J & Rayner J (Ed.) Peter Lang UK RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2016) (Dis)Locations, Relocations: Representations of Northern France in Contemporary French Cinema In Dobson J & Rayner J (Ed.), Mapping Cinematic Norths: International Interpretations in Film and Television (pp. 178-196). Peter Lang View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2015) Hélène Cixous In deeney JF & Gale MB (Ed.), Fifty modern and contemporary dramatists (pp. 57-62). Routledge RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2013) Troublantes matières: des corps (in)habités dans l'oeuvre de Gisèle Vienne In Guidicelli C (Ed.), Surmarionnettes et mannequins Craig, Kantor et leurs héritages contemporains (pp. 389-411). Laverune, France: L'Entretemps / Institut international de la marionnette. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2013) Troubling Matters: Mannequins, Murder and Gisèle Vienne’s corps troublants In Maggie A & Imogen L (Ed.), Woman Matter / Femmes Matiere: French and Francophone Women and the Material World (pp. 21). Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2011) Asserting Text, Context and Intertext: Jill Forbes and French Film Studies In Higbee W & Leahy S (Ed.), Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives, 1985-2010 (pp. 115). Intellect Books RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson J (2009) Cixous's Theatre and the Dramatic Returns of the Dead, Redefining the Real: The Fantastic in Contemporary French and Francophone Women's Writing (pp. 173-185). Oxford, England: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2009) 'Cixous' Theatre and the Returns of the Dead In Hutton M-A (Ed.), Redefining the real: The fantastic in Contemporary French and Francophone Women's Writing (pp. 173). Peter Lang Pub Incorporated RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson JL (2008) Jacques Audiard: Contesting Filiations In Ince K (Ed.), Five directors: Auteurism from Assayas to Ozon Manchester Univ Pr RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson J (2004) Hélène Cixous (1937-), Contemporary Critical Theorists: From Lacan to Said (pp. 118-134). Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson J (2001) E. D. E. N. Southworth, American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870 (pp. 285-292). Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dobson J (1999) Nationality, Authenticity, Reflexivity: Kieslowski's Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993), Blanc (1993), and Rouge (1994), French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference: Essays (pp. 234-245). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Book reviews

Research group

I welcome research proposals on:

  • French film (fiction and documentary) 
  • French theatre and performance (post-1950)
  • Object-based theatre
  • Cultural and critical theory
  • Constructions of space in contemporary culture
  • Adolescence and girlhood
  • Gender studies
  • Hélène Cixous

Current and recent PhD students:

  • Alessandra Sau, ‘Memory, Nostalgia, and the (post)nuclear: French, German, and British cultural representation after Hiroshima and Chernobyl’, funded , 2020 – 
  • Katy Stewart, ‘Francophone and Lusophone African Cinema’, funded, 2018 - 
  • Victoria Pugh, ‘Problem bodies and sideshow space: A study of the twentieth century sideshow in Blackpool 1930-1940’, funded, 2017-2020
  • Bridget Coulter (with Music) ‘Popular music and constructions of gender identity in girls’ 2016-2019.
  • Martin Elms ‘Contemporary Algerian Visual Art’ funded 2014-2020 (PT)
  • Svea Schauffler, ‘Inventing Subtitling Strategies for the Translation of Wordplay in Wallace and Gromit Films: An Audience Reception Study’, 2009-2012
Teaching interests

 

Teaching activities

Undergraduate

  • Language teaching at all levels
  • FRE305/6 Contemporary French Cinema (module leader)
  • MDL103 Introduction to European Cinema 
  • MDL107 / 117 Understanding Modern France
  • MDL115 Critical Contexts
  • LIT101 Introduction to Film (School of English)

Postgraduate

  • Research methods
  • MAMLC modules
  • Dissertation supervision
Professional activities and memberships
  • Editor, French Screen Studies (2008 -)
  • Nottingham French Studies, Editorial Board (2018 -)
  • AHRC Peer Review College (2016-2020)
  • Member of Executive Committee, Association of University Professors and Heads of French (2020 -)
  • University Council of Modern Languages, Mentor for Early Career Academics (2019 - )
  • Trustee, Sheffield Showroom Cinema and Media and Exhibition Centre (2019 - )
  • Chair, White Rose College of Arts and Humanities Languages and Linguistics subject cluster (2016-2019)
  • Fellow, Royal Society of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce (2017 - )
  • Member, Society for French Studies
  • Member, NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies
  • External examiner: Modern Languages, University of Exeter 2011 – 2015, University of Birmingham 2014 – 2017 and University of Newcastle 2016 – 2019 
  • External examiner for PhD theses: University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Edinburgh, Royal Holloway University, University of Bradford
  • Co-director Sheffield Centre for Research in Film.
  • Reviewer for: Edinburgh University Press, French Studies, Forum for Modern Languages Studies, Modern and Contemporary France, Modern Drama. Esprit créateur

Previous administrative duties

  • Academic lead, Interdisciplinary Programmes Office (Faculty of Arts) 2012-2016
  • Director, MA in Public Humanities  
  • Member, University Strategic Curriculum Change Steering Group
  • Member, Humanities Research Institute, Steering Committee 
  • SLC Director of Postgraduate Affairs 
  • SLC Director of Research and Innovation  
  • Member, Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee 
  • Member, Faculty Postgraduate Committee

Current administrative roles

  • Deputy Head, School of Languages and Cultures 
  • Director of Knowledge Exchange, School of Languages and Cultures 
  • Member, iHuman Research Group
  • Appeal Committee of the Senate  
  • Steering Committee member, Sheffield Robotics Advisory Board, Medical Humanities Sheffield