Dr Edward Boothroyd BA MPhil(B) PhD

BA (Joint Honours) French Studies and Music, MPhil(B)in Humanities, PhD in French Studies: The Parisian Stage during the Occupation, 1940-1944: A Theatre of Resistance

I went to primary school near Leicester, then at the age of 9 moved to East Yorkshire, about 20 miles from Hull. After a batchelor’s degree in French and Music, I spent two years teaching English at the University of Lyon II. Since completing my Master’s and PhD, I have been a visiting lecturer at the universities of Aston and Wolverhampton, and took up the position of Teaching Fellow in French Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2011.

I have taught core language across all years, as well as France moderne 1 and 2, Politics, Culture and Society, and other ‘content’ modules such as the Year 1 Introduction to French Literature and Film Studies (for which I delivered the lectures on the nouvelle vague in the 2015-2016 session. For the last three years, I have been the convenor of a Year 2 module called Conflict, Identity and Absurdity in twentieth-century French theatre. My previous teaching has included translation for French Erasmus exchange students, Landmarks of European Literature and Text & Interpretation. At Aston University I designed and convened a final-year option on Intellectuals and Politics in Postwar France.

My PhD focused on the theatre in Paris during the German Occupation (http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/345/1/boothroyd09PhD.pdf), and I have since written articles and biographies on playwrights such as Anouilh, Claudel and Montherlant, as well as delivering a paper on Spanish theatre in France for the Society of French Studies annual conference in 2008, which I turned into an article for Romance Studies (January 2012). More recently, I gave a paper entitled ‘Resistance Myths: Sartre and Smokescreens’ at the 2015 SFS annual conference in Cardiff.

Outside work, I have been the leader of the Leamington Sinfonia (www.leamingtonsinfonia.org.uk) since 2008, and was deputy leader of the Birmingham Chamber Orchestra (www.birminghamchamberorchestra.com) for nearly 10 years. I regularly play badminton and tennis and I invest much of my spare time in my local evangelical church, where I am a lay pastor and regular preacher, as well as leading a smaller ‘community group’.