Dr Béatrice Damamme-Gilbert L-ès-L, Maîtrise, PhD

Department of Modern Languages
Honorary Senior Lecturer in French Studies

Contact details

Email
b.l.y.damamme-gilbert@bham.ac.uk
Address
c/o Department of Modern Languages
Ashley Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Since I retired I have continued to research into post-World War II  literary narrative: forms of personal and social memory, myth and the everyday with reference to war and post-holocaust culture, with a particular interest in psychoanalytical approaches to trauma and the works of Julien Gracq, Patrick Modiano, J.-M. G. le Clézio and Henry Bauchau.

Biography

I studied for my Licence (Lettres modernes) and a Maîtrise on Imagery in one of Julien Gracq’s novels at the University of Nancy II.  My PhD thesis, a linguistic and stylistic study of enumeration in 20th century French Literature, was completed at the University of Birmingham under Jo Reed’s supervision. When I became a Lecturer in 1979 and, in 1998, a Senior Lecturer, my interest in literary stylistics and non-literary discourse (press and advertising) remained alive but gradually gave way to a stronger commitment to literary studies – particularly French narrative literature of the 20th century onwards (especially Gracq, Modiano, Le Clézio, Bauchau) with a focus on forms of narrative, memory and representation of war.

I also took an interest in late 19th century/early 20th century urban and regional cultural memory and representation (exhibitions, cultural practice particularly in connection with Lorraine during the Belle Époque).

During my full-time career I taught on a vast range of language and literature courses at all levels, as well as modules in visual culture and discourse analysis.

Research

My research interests lie in forms of memory as expressed in French Literature of the second half of the 20th century and beyond, with a particular interest in Julien Gracq, Patrick Modiano, J.M.G. Le Clézio and Henry Bauchau. I am working specifically on how a writer’s persona, considered via psychoanalytical theory (including transgenerational analysis and Cyrulnik’s ethological approach), embodied everyday experience, particularly in the case of difficult or violent events, and the role of memory – both individual and collective/cultural – can together be linked to specific forms of imaginary representation, be it patterns of narrative, imagery or myth. Researching what traces 20th-century wars (1st and 2nd World Wars and Algerian War) have left on the literary forms chosen by specific writers is at the core of my current work.

I published a book and several articles on literary stylistics, as well as articles on advertising and on urban discourse. More recently I have published a range of articles and book chapters on the four literary figures I am researching, as well as a monograph on Julien Gracq.

Publications

Self-authored books

  • ‘La Forme d’une ville’ de Julien Gracq: Lecture d’un lieu dialogique, coll. ‘Archives des Lettres Modernes’, Caen-Paris, Lettres modernes Minard, 1998,  95 pp.
  • La Série énumérative,  étude linguistique et stylistique s'appuyant sur dix  romans français publiés entre 1945 et1975, Paris-Genève, Droz, 1989, 370 pp.

Articles in refereed journals

  • ‘Julien Gracq au quotidien’ in special issue of Europe on Julien Gracq, edited by Bernhild Boie, 1007, 2013, pp.145-152
  • ‘L’écriture du rivage chez Gracq: rumeur, dramaturgie et fête’, in special issue of L’Esprit créateur on ‘L’Écriture du rivage: mythes, idéologies, jeux’, edited by Bruno Tritsmans and Luc Rasson (University of Antwerp), 51, Summer 2011, pp.31-33
  •  ‘Julien Gracq (1910-2007) et La Grande Bretagne’, French Studies Bulletin, 29, 2008, pp.68-71  
  • ‘Les enjeux de la mémoire dans Onitsha et L’Africain, de J.M.G. Le Clézio’, Australian Journal of French Studies, 16, 2008, pp.16-32
  • ‘Au delà de l’auto-fiction: Écriture et lecture de Dora Bruder de Patrick Modiano’, French Forum, 29, 2004, pp.83-99
  • ‘The 1909 Nancy International Exhibition: Showcase for a Vibrant Region and Swansong of the École de Nancy’, Art on the line, special issue on Émile Gallé, 2007/1
  • 'Remarques sur les manifestations de la subjectivité dans les comparaisons du discours narratif', Verbum, 1993, 1-2-3, pp.101-110
  • 'La Coordination dans les énumérations littéraires est-elle plus "normale" que l'asyndète?’, Language and Style, 23, 1993 (1990), pp.85-91
  • 'Dream and Reality in Julien Gracq's Un Balcon en forêt: Language, Narrative and Reader Participation', Romance Studies, 18, 1991, pp.21-32
  • 'Réflexions sur le rôle des démarcateurs de coordination dans les énumérations littéraires', Le Français moderne, 49, 1981, pp.20-35

Essays in books

  • ‘The Question of Genre in Holocaust Narrative : The Case of Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder’ in Genre Trajectories : Identifying, Mapping, Projecting, edited by Garin Dowd and Natalia Rulyova, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 45-65
  • ‘Le travail du silence dans l'écriture de la guerre' in Mémoires occupées: fictions françaises et seconde guerre mondiale, edited by Marc Dambre, Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013, pp.47-54
  • ‘Henry Bauchau’s Le Boulevard périphérique : the war story as clarification and investigation of the present’, chapter 7 in Framing narratives of the second World War and Occupation in France, 1939-2009, edited by Margaret Atack and Christopher Lloyd, Manchester, M.U.P., 2012, pp.91-99
  • ‘Sommeil en Flandre et en Ardenne : précipités de la mémoire de mai-juin 1940’ in Julien Gracq 7 : La Mémoire et le présent : actualité de Julien Gracq,  edited by Patrick Marot et Sylvie Vignes, Caen, Lettres modernes Minard, 2010, pp. 117-132
  • ‘Sinuosité, tensions et accidents de parcours dans les chemins de Lettrines’ in Julien Gracq 6 : Les Tensions de l’écriture, Adieu au romanesque, persistance de la fiction, edited by Patrick Marot,  Caen, Lettres modernes Minard, 2008, pp. 27-49
  • '‘L’Entre-deux dans Un Balcon en forêt’ in Julien Gracq 5 :Les dernières fictions “Un Balcon en forêt” “ La Presqu’île”, edited by Patrick Marot,  Caen, Lettres modernes Minard, 2007, pp. 97-114
  • ‘Secrets, fantômes et troubles de la transmission du passé dans la pratique littéraire de Patrick Modiano’ in Patrick Modiano, edited by John Flower, Amsterdam, Rodopi, (Faux Titre 305), 2007, pp.109-130
  • ‘Plaisir, circulation et appropriation : de Gracq lecteur aux lecteurs de Gracq’ in Julien Gracq 4: Références et présences littéraires, edited by Patrick Marot,  Paris-Caen, Lettres modernes Minard, 2004, pp.93-151
  • ‘Voices with or without Faces: Address and Reader Participation in Recent French Magazine Advertising’ in Advertising and Identity in Europe: The I of the Beholder, edited by Jackie Cannon, Robin Warner and Patricia Odber de Baubeta, Bristol and Portland, Or, USA, Intellect, 2000, pp.42-50
  • ‘French Magazine Advertising: New Forms of Dialogue?’,  in Sheila Perry and Pamela M Moores (eds.), Media Developments and Cultural Change, Working Papers of the Northern Media Research Group (NMRG), University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle,1999, pp 47-61
  • La ville et la vie: Discours et Dialogue dans La Forme d'une ville de Julien Gracq', in Aspects de la critique - Colloque des Universités de Birmingham et de Besançon, Besançon, Centre Jacques Petit - CNRS, 1997, pp.101-116

Encyclopedia entries

  • Entries: ‘Advertising’ ‘Linguistic/DiscourseTheory’, ‘Benveniste’, ‘Genette’ , ‘Gracq’ ‘Greimas’, ‘Jakobson’ in Alex Hughes and Keith Reader (eds.), Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture, Routledge, 1998

In press

  • ‘Male Imagination and Representation of Home Spaces in Times of War : Julien Gracq's Un balcon en forêt (A Balcony in the Forest)’ in Domestic Imaginaries: Navigating the Home in Global Literary and Visual Cultures, edited by Bex Harper and Holy Price, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 57-78