Dr Fabienne Collignon
School of English
Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature
+44 114 222 0242
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I joined the School of English in September 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2017. Before coming to Sheffield, I held a short-term post at the University of Glasgow, where I also completed my PhD in 2009, and a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. From September 2018 to February 2020, I was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Universität zu Köln.
- Research interests
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My work is indexed to critical theory, frequently examining the politics of subject formation and ‘un-forming’, as well as techno-organic assemblages and/or techno-cultural events. My first monograph, Rocket States: Atomic Weaponry and the Cultural Imagination (Bloomsbury, 2014), maps the technological unconscious of the American Cold War and is concerned with identifying the recurring figures and fantasies of the conflict: the dome or parabola as sheltering techno-form; fictions of total security adapting to constantly changing targeting strategies; gadget love; closed, freezing worlds.
I am currently working on my next project, which conceptualises the ‘insectile’ as a new category for literary-theoretical thought and uses it as a critique of contemporary posthumanism. The investigation focuses on a) the recurrent motif of insects, b) entomological occurrences (buzzing; teeming; hatching) and c) affects (itching; tingling), as well as d) particular disturbances associated with insects (interruptions; distractions; the incidental) in US and European cultural texts.
I’m also co-editing The Dictionary of Neoliberal Terms (with Matthew Cheeseman & John Miller) and do a variety of other creative writing projects. I have published a pamphlet on, and love letter to, the Borussia Dortmund captain Marco Reus, available here: https://fabcollignon.bandcamp.com/album/on-marco-reus
- Publications
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Books
- The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human. Taylor & Francis.
- Rocket States: Atomic Weaponry and the Cultural Imagination. Bloomsbury Publishing. View this article in WRRO
Journal articles
- Hotel-daddy-wasp-machine. Textual Practice.
- The insectile informe: H. P. Lovecraft and the deliquescence of form. Extrapolation, 60(3), 229-248. View this article in WRRO
- The politics of a smile. New Formations, 95, 87-102. View this article in WRRO
- Atomic–Antarctic terminal zone. Textual Practice. View this article in WRRO
- USA Murated Nation, or, the Sublime Spherology of Security Culture. Journal of American Studies, 49(1), 99-123. View this article in WRRO
- The Ballistic Flight of an Automatic Duck. Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon, 1(2). View this article in WRRO
- Silo Psychosis. C-Theory(In the Name of Security).
- The arc of the 0(0000). Configurations, 19(1), 49-71.
- Aberrations in the Heartland: An Interview with Rachel Chavkin, Artistic Director of TEAM. European Journal of American Studies(1).
- A glimpse of light. Textual Practice, 22(3), 547-562.
- Homme-Insecte: Form, Typus, Fetish. Modernism/modernity. View this article in WRRO
Chapters
- Techno-Criticism and/against the Value of the Flesh In Ladkin S, McKay R & Bojesen E (Ed.), Against Value in the Arts and Education Rowman & Littlefield International
- Cold Pac Politics: Ubik's Cold War Imaginary In Dunst A & Schlensag S (Ed.), The World According to Philip K. Dick (pp. 48-65). Palgrave Macmillan
- Soft Machines, The Globalization of Space
- Thomas Pynchon’s Half-Lit, Hollow Worlds, Between Science and Fiction: The Hollow Earth as Concept and Conceit Hamburg: Lit Verlag.
Book reviews
- I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick. PARALLAX, 19(2), 95-97.
Website content
- Soft Technology. Retrieved from http://skying-blog.blogspot.com/
- The Posthuman as Inhuman: To Lend an Ear, To Fall.
- The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human. Taylor & Francis.
- Research group
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I’m interested in supervising projects oriented towards critical theory, particularly concerning theories of technology and forms of subjectivity, and on contemporary literature and film/cultural studies; etc. I’m also interested in the critical/cultural aspects of football—occasioned by my enthusiastic support of Borussia Dortmund—on which I’ve supervised some MA dissertations.
- Teaching activities
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- LIT117 Contemporary Literature
- EGH21002 Literature and Critical Thought
- LIT271 Radical Theory
- LIT303 Contemporary Literature
- LUT6046 Rocket State Cosmology