Dr Rachael Langford BA, MA, PhD
Overview
Position:
Senior Lecturer
Email:
LangfordRE@cardiff.ac.ukTelephone: +44(0)29 2087 5643
Fax: +44(0)29 2087 4946
Extension: 75643
Location: Room 2.32, 65-68 Park Place
I research and publish on nineteenth-century French studies, on Francophone African literature, film, and visual culture; and Francophone colonial cultures. Within the nineteenth century I am interested in French literature, visual arts and culture between 1850 and 1914, and specifically in the politics and culture of the early Third Republic (1870-1914) and in French colonialism. Within Francophone African studies, I work on the literature and visual culture of Francophone Africa and its complex relationships with French culture and politics. I have a particular interest in the ways in which visual textual forms of representation engage with one another, and in the links between ‘amateur’ and ‘official’ representations.
I am currently a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow, having been awarded £42000 over 20 months to study the representation of the Congo in Francophone visual culture from 1885 to the present day. I have previously also received grants from the British Academy to support work on Francophone African film and bandes dessinées.
I am Director of the School’s Institute for the Study of Visual Cultures and joint co-ordinator of the cross-disciplinary research network ‘Representing Mobility and Migration in European Cultures’ which brings together staff from Cardiff Humanities Schools with practitioners, researchers and non-HEI partners to network and share research.
I am currently supervising doctoral students on the representation of the conscript experience of the Franco-Algerian War; on same-sex utopias in twentieth and twenty-first century French literature and culture; and on the experience of return migration in the Balkan states and Italy. I welcome applications from research students in any of my areas of research expertise.
Selected Publications
‘Post-colonial Cowboys: masculinity and the Western in Francophone African cinema’ in Mysterious Skin: The Male Body in Contemporary Cinema ed. Santiago Fouz-Hernandez (I.B. Tauris, 2009) 978 1 84511 831 0
‘Photography, Belgian Colonialism and Hergé’s Tintin au Congo (1932/46)’, Journal of Romance Studies 8:1 (Autumn 2008), 77-89. ISSN 1473-3536
‘Politics and Aesthetics in Francophone African Film: the Case of Souleymane Cissé’s Finyé (1982’), International Journal of Francophone Studies, 10:1 (2006) ISSN 13682679.
Depicting Desire: Gender, Sexuality and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe Literary and Artistic Perspectives edited and introduction, R. Langford (2005) ISBN 3-03910-321-0. 280pp.
‘Colonial False Memory Syndrome? The Cinémémoire Archive of French Colonial films and Mémoire d’Outremer (Claude Bossion, 1997)’,Studies in French Cinema 5:2 (2005), pp.99-109. ISSN 14715880.
‘Locating Colonisation and Globalisation in Francophone African Film and Literature: Spatial Representation in Borom Sarret (1963), La Noire de… (1966) and Cinéma (1997)’ French Cultural Studies 16:1, pp.91-104 (2005). ISSN 0957-1558.
Research Unit
Languages, Cultures and Ideologies
Related Links
French Department
Institute fr Film and Visual Cultures
Representing Migration and Mobility in European Cultures
Publications
Authored books
Forthcoming: African Cinema and Film Genre: Postcolonial Encounters
Jules Vallès and the Narration of History: Contesting the French Third Republic in the Jacques Vingtras Trilogy (Peter Lang, 1999), ISBN 3-906762-99-8.
Refereed Journal Article
Revenant(s) de guerre? Spectres of Decolonisation in the French Second World War Combat Film’, French Studies: A Quarterly Review (forthcoming, 2013)
‘Gide and Allégret on the Congo: photography, film and text in visual-cultural context’, French Cultural Studies (forthcoming, 2013)
‘Photography, Belgian Colonialism and Hergé’s Tintin au Congo (1932/46)’, Journal of Romance Studies 8:1 (Autumn 2008), 77-89. ISSN 1473-3536
‘Politics and Aesthetics in Francophone African Film: the Case of Souleymane Cissé’s Finyé (1982’), International Journal of Francophone Studies, 10:1 (2006), ISSN 13682679.
‘Locating Colonisation and Globalisation in Francophone African Film and Literature: Spatial Representation in Borom Sarret (1963), La Noire de… (1966), and Cinéma (1997)’ French Cultural Studies 16:1 (2005), pp.91-104, ISSN 0957-1558.
‘Colonial False Memory Syndrome? The Cinémémoire Archive of French Colonial films and Mémoire d’Outremer (Claude Bossion, 1997)’, Studies in French Cinema 5:2 (2005), pp.99-109, ISSN 14715880.
‘France and Africa: a fading affair?’ [with Gordon Cumming], Modern and Contemporary France 13:1 (2005) pp.3-7, ISBN 0963 9489.
‘Black and White in Black and White: Identity and Cinematography in Ousmane Sembène’s La Noire de... (1966)’, Studies in French Cinema, 1: 1 (2001), pp.13-21.
‘L’Insurgé: identité et idéologie’, Revue d’études vallésiennes, 18 (1994), pp.23-37.
Edited Books
Self and Other, T. Altenberg and R. Langford, special issue of New Readings (vol. 10, Summer 2009), ISSN 135 9 4855
Textual Intersections: Literature, History and the Arts in nineteenth-century Europe (Amsterdam, Rodopi BV, forthcoming)
France and Africa in the Age of Globalisation, G. Cumming and R. Langford, special issue of Journal of Modern and Contemporary France, 13:1 (2005), ISSN 0963 9489.
Depicting Desire: Gender, Sexuality and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe Literary and Artistic Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2005), ISBN 3-03910-321-0.
France since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts C. Gorrara and R. Langford (Edward Arnold, 2003), ISBN 0340763604.
Book Chapters
‘Gender and Genre: Male Identity, the Western and Francophone African Film’, in Ghost Riders: the Western in World Cinema eds. Dayna Oscherwitz and Ellen-Mary Higgins (University of Texas Press, forthcoming 2013)
‘Intertextual, intermedial, intersections’ in Textual Intersections: Literature, History and the Arts in nineteenth-century Europe, ed. R Langford (Rodopi, 2009), pp. 9-17
‘Post-colonial Cowboys: masculinity and the Western in Francophone African cinema’ in Mysterious Skin: The Male Body in Contemporary Cinema ed. Santiago Fouz-Hernandez (I.B. Tauris, 2009) 978 1 84511 831 0
‘The Political Sketch? Jules Vallès's use of the Pictorial in the Jacques Vingtras Trilogy’ in Esquisses/ébauches: Projects and Pre-Texts in Nineteenth-Century French Culture ed. Sonya Stephens (Peter Lang, 2007) pp.143-55
‘Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe – Points of Convergence’ in Depicting Desire: Gender, Sexuality and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Literary and Artistic Perspectives ed. R. Langford (2005), pp.11-22.
‘The Paris Commune of 1871: the Triumph and Defeat of the Red Republic’ in France since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts eds. C. Gorrara and R. Langford (2003), pp.40-53.
‘Introduction: France and the Republic since 1789’ [with Claire Gorrara] in France since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts eds. C. Gorrara and R. Langford (2003), pp.1-12.
‘Challenging the Colonisation of Space: Interiors and Exteriors in the Films of Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé’ in Francophone Post-Colonial Cultures: Critical Essays ed. K. Salhi (2003), pp.114-125.
‘Jules Vallès and the Language of Education’ in Pierre Bourdieu, Theory into Practice: Language, Culture, Education eds. M. Grenfell and M. Kelly (1999), pp.155-165.
‘Revolutionary Times: the Use of the Diary Form in Jules Vallès’s Jacques Vingtras Trilogy’ in Marginal Voices, Marginal Forms: Diaries in European Literature and History from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century eds. Langford and West (1999), pp.90-106.
‘Introduction: Diaries and Margins’ [with R. West] in Marginal Voices, Marginal Forms: Diaries in European Literature and History from the Sixteenth to the TwentiethCentury eds. Langford and West (1999), pp.6-22.
Biography
Career Profile
A graduate of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, I was appointed Lecturer in French in the School of European Studies in Cardiff in 1996 and became Senior Lecturer in 2005.
Awards and Prizes
2009: £40,225 Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship. 20 months of funding to undertake research into ‘Images of the Congo in Francophone Visual Culture, 1885 to the present day’.
2008: £1500 Cardiff Humanities Research Institute (£750) and School of Art, Media and Design, University of Wales Newport (£750): match-funding to support initial RMMEC workshops 2007-08.
2007: £1500 British Academy Small Research Grant for research in France and Belgium on bande dessinée, Westerns and Francophone African filmic practice.
2007: £250 from Assocation for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, as funding for L’Histoire vue et vécue 2-day conference, 4-5 Arpil 2007.
2004: £450 British Academy Overseas Conference Grant to travel to the University of South Carolina to present an invited paper at the Orphan Film Symposium: Orphans ’04, Place and Region in Forgotten Films.
2003: Involved as a film specialist in formulating sections of the bid by Prof. Gerrit-Jan Berendse for £20,135 of European Science Research Infrastructure Fund money, to set up a Cardiff Centre for European Cinema Studies.
May 2000: Cardiff Scheme for Supporting Research in the Arts and Humanities: (with G. Pieri and G. Ní Dhùill) £4,637 for research work relating to preparation for publication of volumes stemming from the conference Textual Intersections: Literature and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Cardiff, July 2001.
March 1997: £1,840 Cardiff Young Researchers Initiative award for Francophone African film research project at the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. Research completed February to April 2000.
Academic session 1994-1995: St. John’s College, Cambridge, Continuation Award (undisclosed amount covering fees and accommodation)
1991-1994: British Academy Major Studentship for doctoral studies at University of Cambridge. Doctorate awarded 1996.
Memberships / External Activities
Editor University of Wales Press publications series, ‘Studies in European Visual Culture’
Academic referee for UK and US commercial and academic publishers: Peer reviewer for International Journal of Francophone Studies, Journal of Modern and Contemporary France, Journal of the Society for French Film Studies, Australian Journal of French Studies,
External PhD examiner, University of Glamorgan; Internal PhD Examiner, Cardiff University.
Teaching Profile
I teach at all levels in the School of European Studies, from first year undergraduates to Post-graduate taught and research students. My approach to teaching is research led and seeks to enable students to deepen their understanding of Francophone culture and society while enhancing their language skills. In French language work and in Francophone literary/cultural studies, I encourage students to consider what they are studying within its wider social, historical and political contexts, and to convey my enthusiasm for critical engagements with the language and cultures of the French-speaking world.