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Dr Mairead Ni Bhriain

Mairead ni Bhrian
Dr Mairead ni Bhrian
Phone: 0121 204 3938
Email: m.nibhriain@aston.ac.uk
Room number: MB734

Profile    

I was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Irish and French in 2001 (National University of Ireland, Galway). I then spent a year in Aix-en-Provence, where I worked as a language assistant, before returning to Galway to complete an MA in French (NUI, Galway). My MA research culminated in a minor thesis on the well-known Québécois writer, Michel Tremblay. I obtained my PhD in French Studies in February 2009 (NUI, Galway). My doctoral research, which was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), focused on the role of the intellectual in post-war French society and the complexities of decolonisation. (Thesis title: The Republic on Trial: Intellectuals and Decolonisation in France (1946-1963)).

Qualifications & education

  • BA with First Class Honours in French and Irish, 2001, National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)
  • MA in French, NUIG, 2003
  • PhD in French Studies, NUIG, 2009

Employment

  • 2008 - 2009: Language teacher and lecturer at the National University of Ireland,  Galway (NUIG)
  • 2001-2002: Language assistant at Université de Provence Aix-Marseille   

Teaching activity    

  • French history, French cultural studies and French language

Research interests    

  • French colonial history & the trials of decolonisation
  • French intellectual history
  • Constructions of the Republic in post-war France
  • The historiography of French colonialism
  • France as a postcolonial society
  • Francophone literature

Recent research funding   

My doctoral research was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

PhD supervision   

I would be happy to supervise students interested in French intellectual history, decolonisation, representations the French Republic, and post-war French society, culture and politics.

Membership of professional bodies  

  • ADEFFI (Association des Etudes Françaises et Francophones d'Irlande)
  • SFPS (Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies)
  • GWACS (The Group for War and Cultural Studies)
  • ACSI (Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland)

Publications    

Book Chapters

  • ‘Le Carnavalesque dans Des nouvelles d’Edouard de Michel Tremblay: A la recherche d’une culture québécoise’, in Máire-Aine Ní Mhainnín and Elizabeth Tilly (eds), Canada: Text and Territory (Newcastle: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
  • ‘Decoding Justice: Intellectual Discourse and the trial of the Malagasy deputies’, in Antoine Masson and Kevin O’Connor (eds), Representations of Justice (Luxembourg: Peter Lang, 2007)
  • Book Reviews
  • Jim House and Neil MacMaster, Paris 1961, Algerians, State Terror, and Memory (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 2006) in Journal of Contemporary European Studies, July 2007.

Conferences/Seminars

  • French female intellectuals and the Algerian war: L’Affaire Djamila Boupacha (1959-1962).Guest speaker at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth as part of the Modern Languages seminar series. (December 2008)
  • Le Carnavalesque dans Des nouvelles d’Edouard de Michel Tremblay: A la recherche d’une culture québécoise. ACSI conference on ‘Canada at home and abroad’. (April 2006)
  • Representations and Conceptions of the Theme of Justice in French Intellectual Discourse of Engagement. Conference at Trinity College Dublin on ‘Representations of Justice in France and Ireland’. Organised by the Trinity School of Law in association with the French Embassy and Le forum des Juristes Francophones (FJF). (December 2005)
  • Intellectuals and Decolonisation: Madagascar, March 1947. The Burn French Studies Conference, Aberdeenshire. (October 2005)
  • The Fall of French Colonialism and the Rise of American Hegemony: The voice-role-legacy of the intellectuel engagé. Conference on ‘Cold War France and America: New Perspectives’ in Tallahassee, Florida.  Organised by the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary Francophone Studies, Florida State University. (Febraury 2005)
  • Représentations de la décolonisation française: le discours intellectuel comme ‘lieu de mémoire’. ADEFFI conference at the University of Limerick. (October 2004)
  • Cycles of Intellectual Engagement and Voids in Postcolonial French Historiography.  Interdisciplinary conference entitled ‘Enemies of Empire’, University of Limerick. (June 2004).