Category: Schools
ASMCF workshop on Outreach in French studies
On April 28th, the ASMCF ran an online workshop to discuss the principles, strategies, and challenges of designing and delivering outreach activities in French Studies. We were delighted to welcome Dr Daniel Finch-Race who talked about his ‘Post-16 French Enrichment Day on Environment...
ASMCF newsletter January 2021
Our January Newsletter is now available for members, friends and colleagues of the ASMCF....
‘Enjoy learning French outside the classroom’: tips from Dr Ashleigh Harris (QUB)
This post is part of a series on bridging the gap between secondary and higher education. It is intended for students and teachers from both systems to reflect on how to make the transition smoother. Dr Ashley Harris is a Lecturer in French Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. ...
Conference 2020 – Exile, home and belonging
Association of Modern & Contemporary France Annual conference, 10-12th September 2020, University of Leeds, United Kingdom Exile, Home and Belonging Confirmed keynote speakers: Johanna Siméant (Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) Max Silverman (University of Leeds) Bill Marshall (Un...
Teaching La Haine Virtual Special Issue for teachers and students
We are delighted to launch the first of our virtual special issues of the journal Modern and Contemporary France on the theme of 'Teaching Kassovitz's La Haine.' The Virtual Special Issue is ideal for teachers of A-Level and their students and can be found at this webpage. The Virtual Special Iss...
Preparing to study French at university: the view from students in England
Preparing to study French at university: the view from students in England This post is part of a monthly series on bridging the gap between secondary and higher education. It is intended for students and teachers from both systems to reflect on how to make the transition smoother. ...
Preparing to study French at university: tips from Cristina Johnston and Hannah Grayson
This post is part of a monthly series on bridging the gap between secondary and higher education. It is intended for students and teachers from both systems to reflect on how to make the transition smoother. Cristina Johnston is a Senior Lecturer in French and Hannah Grayson is a Lectur...
Preparing to study French at university: tips from Marjorie Huet-Martin
This post is part of a monthly series on bridging the gap between secondary and higher education. It is intended for students and teachers from both systems to reflect on how to make the transition smoother. Marjorie Huet-Martin is a Senior Teaching Fellow in French at the University of...
Preparing students to study French at university: tips from Antonia Wimbush
This post is part of a monthly series on bridging the gap between secondary and higher education. It is intended for students and teachers from both systems to reflect on how to make the transition smoother. Dr Antonia Wimbush is a Teaching Fellow in Politics, Languages & Internatio...
Extended deadline for the Schools Liaison & Outreach Funding Initiative
The ASMCF’s Schools Liaison and Outreach Funding Initiative offers up to £500 to support members of the Association who organise teacher- or pupil-focused events which fulfill the following objectives: promote the learning of French in its social, political, historical and cultural context i...
Teaching Vichy and the Occupation: ASMCF-funded workshop for teachers
The Vichy regime and the German Occupation of France in the Second World War is a mainstay of A-Level curricula for French. Whether taught in the form of a set text or as a stand-alone module or topic, the Occupation is one of the few constants across examination boards. The one-day workshop, ‘Tea...
University of Stirling Schools Event
In June 2019, French at the University of Stirling ran a series of seminars, CPD workshops and plenary sessions for Higher and Advanced Higher pupils and teachers from schools across Scotland, supported by the ASMCF Schools Liaison and Outreach Fund and by the University of Stirling’s Division of ...
Teaching Vichy and the Occupation
Academics and teaching staff at the University of Warwick, Aston University and Finham Park School in Coventry were awarded £500 from our Schools' Liaison and Outreach Activities fund to organise an event on sharing best practice and creating additional teaching resources on the topic of the Occupa...
Post-16 French Enrichment Day on Environmental and Medical Issues
The ASMCF was delighted to support the Post-16 Enrichment Day on Environmental and Medical Issues at the University of Bristol on 11 May 2019 through its Schools’ Liaison and Outreach Activities. You can find a report of the day, written by Dr Daniel Finch-Race here....
Post-16 French Enrichment Day on Environmental and Medical Issues
The ASMCF was delighted to support the Post-16 Enrichment Day on Environmental and Medical Issues at the University of Bristol on 11 May 2019 through its Schools' Liaison and Outreach Activities. Below you can find a report of the day, written by Dr Daniel Finch-Race: #EnviroMedicalHuma...
Four successful applications to the Schools’ Liaison and Outreach Activities Fund
We are delighted to announce that four projects have been successful in the first round of the 2019 Schools’ Liaison and Outreach Activities Fund. Led by schools or by universities in different parts of the country, these projects demonstrate the range of actions and themes in which ASMCF members ...
ASMCF-funded project report: Queen University Belfast’s A-Level French Day
On 25 January 2019, 150 AS-Level pupils and their teachers from across Northern Ireland participated in a major outreach day hosted by French Studies at Queen’s University Belfast, funded by the ASMCF's Schools Liaison & Outreach Activities Fund. Demand for this event greatly exceeded supply a...
‘Entre les murs’: studying French politics through cinema
This post is part of a series on outreach projects undertaken by ASMCF members and how their research can be of use to teachers. Martin O'Shaughnessy has taken his work out to a range of non-University audiences. He has introduced films and led post-screening discussions in cities such ...
2018 ASMCF Schools Liaison & Outreach Funding awarded to French Studies at Queen’s University Belfast
Dr Steven Wilsonhas been awarded £480 to organise two French Outreach Days to be held for AS-Level pupils at Queen's University Belfast in February 2019. This collaboration between French Studies at QUB and NICILT (Northern Ireland Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research) will be a...
Douglas Johnson Memorial Lecture 2019
The Society for the Study of French History and The Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France and Institut Français, Royaume-Uni present the Douglas Johnson Memorial Lecture, Monday 14th January 2019. Too hot to handle? Flora Tristan (1803-1844), campaigner for gender equality P...
Outreach Project and Teaching Resources: Life Under Occupation
This post is part of a series on outreach projects undertaken by ASMCF members. Dr Wendy Michallat’s work on British student Madelaine Blaess's papers offer a fantastic opportunity for schools to integrate historical documents and the latest academic developments into their schemes of work. ...
ASMCF-funded: Schools event organised by French at Stirling
Dr Fiona Barclay and her colleagues at the University of Stirling organised an event for pupils in the local area to discover what studying French at university is like and the careers it can lead to. Meanwhile, their teachers attended two CPD sessions on approaches to teaching and assessing cultura...
PG Showcase: Alison Marmont, Intersectional “Othering” in Contemporary France and the Novels of Linda Lê and Marie NDiaye
Across Europe we are witnessing an increasing prevalence in right-wing, exclusionary discourses which foster hostility towards those who are designated as foreign and, therefore, not belonging within the conglomerate’s national borders. Linda Lê and Marie NDiaye, two critically acclaimed contempo...
ASMCF Annual Conference
Lancaster University, Thursday 13–Friday 14 September 2018: New Forms of Expression in the French and Francophone Worlds The programme for the 2018 annual conference alongside further information can be found here: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/languages-and-cultures/research/asmcf-annual-conferen...
Outreach Funding Initiative
The ASMCF's Schools Liaison and Outreach Funding Initiative offers up to £500 to support members of the Association who organise teacher- or pupil-focused events which fulfill the following objectives: promote the learning of French in its social, political, historical and cultural context ...
‘Identity in Conflict’ – ASMCF/SSFH PG Study Day
The first panel of postgraduate papers of the 2018 Postgraduate Study Day comprised three papers examining approaches to identity by literary figures across three centuries. Presented in chronological order, the first paper was given by Jessica Kasje (Yale) who re-examined George Sand’s relationsh...
“L.O.V.E, and Other Disaffections” – Conference Report
On the 4th November 2017, Benjamin Dalton and Dr Adina Stroia hosted the London French Postgraduate Conference “L.O.V.E, and Other Disaffections” at the Senate House Library, with help from the generous funding made available by the ASMFC. The aim of the conference was to bring together graduate...
Researching in the BiFi – The Peter Morris Memorial Travel Prize
My thesis examines a group of contemporary French films which I locate as the continuation or evolution of the well-studied New French Extremity trend of the 1990s and 2000s. The New French Extremity has been criticised as an arbitrary grouping, but the body of work written on it proves that it was,...
ASMCF-SSFH Postgraduate Study Day 2018: Conflict – Programme and Registration
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asmcf-ssfh-postgraduate-study-day-2018-conflict-tickets-42167848169 3rd March 2018, IMLR, Senate House, London 9.30-10.00: Registration 10.00: Welcome Prof. Chris Tinker, ASMCF President 10.15: Professional Development Session I:...
IMPACT FOR RESEARCHERS: THEMES AND WORKS STUDIED BY PUPILS AGED 16-18 IN THE UK
This post explains some of the broad themes and suggested texts and films studied in schools across the country. For more ideas on disseminating your research in secondary education, see the three-part series on working with schools. The ASMCF offers financial support for liaison and outreach act...
CfP: ASMCF Annual Conference, New Forms of Expression in the French and Francophone Worlds
Lancaster University, Thursday 13 - Friday 14 September 2018 We invite proposals for papers that critically examine the innovation and experimentation that characterise new and emerging forms of expression in the French and Francophone worlds. The relationship between reading and writing is const...
Eighth Douglas Johnson Memorial Lecture in French History
The Society for the Study of French History and The Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France and Institut Français, Royaume-Uni Present: The Douglas Johnson Memorial Lecture, Monday 8th January 2018. How the French and British Learned to Vote Professor Malcolm Crook (K...
CONFLICT. CfP for the ASMCF-SSFH PG Study Day 2018
3 March 2018 The Institute of Modern Languages Research University of London, Keynote: Emile Chabal (Edinburgh) Deadline for abstracts: January 12 2018 Contemporary society is riven by conflict, be it in the public, political or intellectual arena. Even a cursory glance at current new...
A Date With History
On the 9th June, the French Embassy and the Institut français du Royaume-Uni launched an exciting new collaboration with York Festival of Ideas - “A Date with History”. Bringing together leading historians from France and the UK, A Date with History, this first edition addressed histori...
What is Europe?
Matthew Brown and Howard Chae On 9th June, leading historians from France and the UK were invited by the French Embassy and the Institut français du Royaume-Uni to York to participate in an exciting and novel collaborative enterprise. Entitled ‘A Date with History’, this discussion panel ser...
Europe: A History of Migrations
Megan Crane and Alastair Brunton The fourth and final session of the day began with a reminder by Robert Winder, author of Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, and David Bates, author of William the Conqueror, about the long durée of the history of migration in Europe. The l...
Perspectives on Franco-British Relations
Nigel Ritchie and Katherine Barrowman Renaud Morieux (Cambridge) discussed the notion of ‘foreigners’ in eighteenth century Britain and France. There were times when states could sharpen their distinctions, such as through the creation of the Alien office in Britain in the 1790s, but for the...
Did You Say Europe? Opening Talks
Adam Rolewicz The opening talks for A Date with History were an excellent introduction to an insightful conference. The two lectures delivered by Professors Roger Chartier and Chris Clark were a powerful examination of two case studies in European history, and how they shaped the Europe of toda...
ASMCF 2017: WORK AND PLAY CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Bangor University, 7-9 September 2017
DAY 1: Thursday 7 September 12:30-1:30pm Registration (Foyer, Main Arts Building) 1:30-1:45pm Welcome address (Main Arts Lecture Theatre) 1:45-3:15pm PETER MORRIS LECTURE (Main Arts Lecture Theatre) Sarah Waters (University of Leeds) Neo-liberalism and the Medicalis...
PG Showcase: Jonathan Harris on the Berber diaspora
The Amazigh Flag, designed in Paris in 1967 and popularised by the Académie Berbère Source: Pascal Berger http://commentdire.canalblog.com/archives/2008/02/12/7919696.html France is dotted with hundreds of Berber cultural associations, linking together hundreds of thousands of North A...
‘Modern Mobility & Identity’ – ASMCF/SSFH PG Study Day
Session 2 of the last parallel session of the day addressed the question of identity in various ways. First with Bryony Leighton (Oxford), who explored the development of prosthetic design throughout the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries with her paper named 'You're made of metal: Where does ...
‘Recording/Remembering Mobility’ -ASMCF/SSFH PG Study Day
The panel 'Recording/remembering mobility' had a further common theme of inclusion versus exclusion across different types of mobility. Antonia Wimbush's paper, 'Postcolonial mobility: Empowerment of exile' focused on Véronique Tadjo, an Ivoirian writer and lecturer born in Paris, a Fulbright sch...
‘Mobility Politics’ – ASMCF/SSFH PG Study Day
I thoroughly enjoyed chairing the panel on ‘mobility politics’, which examined the diverse political, cultural, and religious dimensions of mobility in a range of historical and geographical contexts. The papers all spoke to each other well, with similar themes emerging: political inclusion, cit...
‘Mobility and Mental health’ – ASMCF/SSFH PG Study Day
At the ASMCF-SSFH PG Study Day, the panel entitled ‘Mobility and Mental health’ approached the topic of the study day through three rich papers that considered movement in relation to various aspects and concepts of mental illness. The first paper was given by Catherine Annabel (Sheffield) who e...
Mobilising Research beyond the Academy
The second of three professional development sessions at the ASMCF-SSFH Postgraduate Study Day 2017 consisted of two papers reflecting on the theme of impact and engagement through research on French literature, history, and culture. We heard from Kate Astbury, Associate Professor and Reader at Warw...
Working with Schools part 3: French is not just France
This is the final post in a three-part series on working with schools. The previous posts are here and here. This two-part workshop (either in two one-hour sessions or one two-hour session) is aimed at students aged 12-15 and focuses on the fact that French is a national language of many African ...
PG Showcase: Mason Norton on Resistance in Upper Normandy, 1940-44
Whether you prefer to call it ‘The French Resistance’ or ‘resistance in France’, the subject of resistance during the Second World War in France poses an interesting paradox for the historian. Whereas most historians of the 20th century work with an abundance of written sources, the sources ...
Liam Innis on Flora Tristan – Brian Darling Memorial Prize
Many congratulations to Liam Innis who won the Brian Darling Memorial Prize, a prize awarded for an undergraduate essay or dissertation of distinction, which may treat any theme relevant to the Association's concerns (for more information see http://www.asmcf.org/funding/). Here is his prize-winn...
Thinking Work / Penser le travail: The London Postgraduate French Conference
At the annual London Postgraduate French conference ‘Thinking Work / Penser le travail’, held on Friday 4th November 2016 at the Institute of Modern Languages Research at the University of London, the organizers (Ben Dalton – KCL; Kate Foster – KCL; Adina Stroia – KCL) invited postgraduate...
ASMCF-SSFH PG Study Day 2017: Mobility/Immobility Programme
9.30 - Registration and Coffee 10.15 - Welcome 10.30 - Professional Development Session: Funding roundtable Dr David Hopkin (Oxford) Dr Ewa Szypula (KCL/Nottingham) Dr Katherine Shingler (Nottingham) Dr Laura O'Brien (Northumbria) 11.15 - Coffee 11.30 - Professional Development Ses...
Meet the editorial board (I)
In this series of posts, we're introducing you to our editorial board team. In this first post, co-editors Martin O'Shaughnessy and Patrick Young. Martin O'Shaughnessy I am Professor of Film Studies at Nottingham Trent University, UK and was previously Professor of French Cinema. I am also the...
About the journal Modern and Contemporary France
Founded in 1980 by the Association for the Study of Modern & Contemporary France, Modern & Contemporary France is an international peer-reviewed journal, offering a scholarly view of all aspects of France from 1789 to the present day. It is a multi-disciplinary journal of French studies...
Working with schools: some ideas on cooperation (part 2 – topics)
See part 1 for an introduction to possible formats that collaboration with schools can take, and part 3 for an example. Based on preliminary scoping of teachers at comprehensive schools in England, there is great demand for support in designing engaging materials for the new specifications. Obv...
Toeing the line? French communists, 1956, oral histories
In this year of presidential elections, Fiona Haig talks about her article 'Democratic centralism or "centres" of power in the French Communist Party Var Federation? A glimpse of party culture in 1956' 24:1 (2016) What does this article tell readers about modern and contemporary France? Frenc...
French cinema, Hollywood and the ‘interracial buddy comedy’
David Pettersen talks about his article 'Transnational blackface, neo-minstrelsy and the ‘French Eddie Murphy’ in Intouchables' 24:1 (2016) What does this article tell your readers about modern and contemporary France? The idea for this article originated in my experience teaching Intouchabl...
No money, a tiny crew, a depressing storyline – and a hit French film
Tim Palmer talks about his article ‘War and Peace in the Contemporary French Film Ecosystem: Valérie Donzelli’s La Guerre est declarée’ 25:1 (2017) What does this article tell your readers about modern and contemporary France? There are so many aspects of modern France to enjoy, but fo...
French colonies, intellectuals and far-right ideas
Gavid Bowd talks about his article 'Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Charles Maurras and colonial Madagascar' 24:1 (2016) What does this article tell your readers about modern and contemporary France? The article attempts to show the influence of far right ideas on an intellectual in a French colony....
Etre mère célibataire en France à la fin du 20ème siècle : action publique, identité familiale, paroles de femmes
Entretien avec Anne-Laure Garcia, auteure de "Solitudes maternelles, solidarités publiques et entraides privées: les mères célibataires dans la France de la fin du vingtième siècle" 23:4 (2016). Qu'est-ce que votre article nous apprend sur la France moderne ? L'article donne, tout d'abord...
Femmes célibataires au Maroc et en Algérie: enjeux, défis et pratiques littéraires des femmes
Entretien avec Isabelle Charpentier, auteure de 'De la difficulté (sexuelle) d’être une femme célibataire au Maghreb – Une étude de témoignages & d’œuvres d’écrivaines algériennes et marocaines' 23:4 (2015) Quels sont les sujets que vous abordez dans votre article ? L’arti...
Immigration, empire and boosting the birth rate
An interview with Alexandra Schultz, author of '"The purity of the blood": Poncet de la Grave, pronatalism and empire' 25:1 (2017). What does this article tell your readers about modern and contemporary France? In this article I hope to relate to readers the fascinating but largely unknown caree...
Working with schools: some ideas on cooperation (part 1)
This is the first post in a three-part series on working with schools. The implementation of the new GCSE and A-Level specifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (with the first exams in 2018) offers a great opportunity to step up collaboration between universities and schools, with new...
PG Showcase: James Illingworth on George Sand
The Mythopoetics of Bodily Representation in George Sand My research, funded by the AHRC Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership, considers the representation of the body in nineteenth-century fiction, focusing on the works of George Sand (1804-76). The 1800s witnessed major developments in...
Research in the Charente: The Peter Morris Memorial Travel Award 2016
Many congratulations to Adam Spencer (Hull) who was awarded this year's Peter Morris Memorial Travel Award! Thanks to Adam for the following blog post and picture. You can read his whole report and find out more about this prize scheme here. 'The purpose of my dissertation follows on from the w...
Call For Papers 2017 ASMCF Annual Conference: Work and Play
Bangor University, 7–9th September Keynote Speakers Helen Abbott (University of Birmingham) Claude Boli (Responsable scientifique du Musée National du Sport, Nice) Sarah Waters (University of Leeds) From the Tennis Court Oath to Nuit Debout, work and play have been instrumental in o...
Welcome to the Journal!
Founded in 1980 by the Association for the Study of Modern & Contemporary France, Modern & Contemporary France is an international peer-reviewed journal, offering a scholarly view of all aspects of France from 1789 to the present day. It is a multi-disciplinary journal of French studies...