Over time my interests in avant-garde culture have moved from single-author studies (Tristan Tzara, Luis Buñuel, Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Luc Godard) to the investigation of wider movements (Dada and surrealism) and comparative research. As a researcher and as an advocate for modern languages, I am interested in exploring relationships with disciplines outside the arts and humanities.

Funded by a UofG-SFC grant for Reinvigorating Research (£14K), since 2021 I have been developing a pilot project on surrealism and neuroscience with Frank Pollick (Psychology and Neuroscience), post-docs and PGRs. The project is based on the notion of 'surprise', and uses fMRI brain imaging to test responses to a bank of stimuli that reflects the diversity of the surrealist canon as it is understood by modern research. The project won the Best Poster award for a poster produced by Yingying Huang at SINAPSE 2023.

In 2018-2019, with colleagues from anthropology, nursing and law, I co-devised a pilot project on the use of humour in social justice outreach in Sierra Leone. Developing out of work on the avant-garde, my angle is the relationship between dark humour, absurdity and violence, as well as the more general role played by language and culture in facilitating policy, meaning and progress in responding to major problems. Supported by the NGO Timap for Justice, the project brought together paralegals and professional local comedians for a public workshop on sexual and gender-based violence, followed by focus groups and interviews with local people.

Following the pilot, over 2020-2022 I was Co-investigator on an AHRC scoping grant (c.£150K) on performing arts and social violence (PI Susan Fitzmaurice) in partnership with Timap for Justice, and Clowns Without Borders (South Africa).

Based on dream worlds, (ir)rationalism, and the paradoxical idea of 'wanting (not) to understand' violence, I am writing comparatively on the relationship between surrealism, Islamism, and white supremacism. I shared some early aspects of this work at the 2022 Modern Languages Association International Symposium held in Glasgow.

These new projects build on a number of publications on the ‘classical’ or ‘historical’ avant-garde, which remains an active area of my research.

With Erica O'Neill, I am co-editor of a special issue of Dada/Surrealism (no.25) on 'Approximate Humanism: Tristan Tzara', due for publication in 2024.

My book Dada as Text, Thought and Theory (Oxford: Legenda Research Monographs in French Studies, 2015) argued for a significant reappraisal of one of the twentieth-century's most prominent cultural movements. Using close textual analysis to approach topics either ignored or resisted by most traditional criticism, the book presents new work on women Dada poets, psychoanalysis and madness, and the history of ideas, including Buddhism and quantum physics. The book was shortlisted for the 2016 Gapper Prize, awarded by the Society for French Studies.

Over 2014 I worked with Saskia Warren on a feasibility study into a heritage space related to the Birmingham Surrealist group led by Conroy Maddox. The project was funded by the Communities and Culture Network+ and involved workshops and a round table as part of a Birmingham Surrealist Laboratory.

I contributed to the BBC Radio 4 programme 'The Balsall Heath Bohemians: Stewart Lee Celebrates the Birmingham Surrealists' (True Thought Productions), broadcast on 1 August 2023.

I am also interested in Dada and Surrealism as part of a tradition of experimental or (would be) 'radical' French culture. With my colleague Emma Wagstaff I co-edited a special issue of Nottingham French Studies (2011) on the French avant-garde, in the aim of expanding the periodisation and scope of the avant-garde canon, as well as the methods used to understand individual authors and bodies of work. My other published research in this area considers French avant-garde work from the 1920s and 1930s within a variety of contexts, including European cultural and intellectual responses to armed conflict, combat testimony from soldiers, modern geo-politics and the (so-called) 'so-called 'war on terror'', and the politics and commodification of avant-garde art. I have also drawn on Dada and surrealism in looking at collaborative experimental work produced on film and video by Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville in the 1970s and 1980s. I provided six French-English translations (c. 40,000 words) to Christina Howells' reader on French Women Philosophers (Routledge, 2003).

My monograph on Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) - Modernist Song: The Poetry of Tristan Tzara (Oxford: Legenda, 2006) - represents the first book-length study of poetry written by the man remembered popularly as 'the Father of Dada', whose life in literature continued for nearly four decades after the totemic Sept manifestes Dada of 1924.

I have corresponded with galleries, cultural organisations and researchers about the various research topics described here, and it is always a pleasure to hear from colleagues or students working in related areas. I am very happy to discuss possible supervision and collaboration, or to respond to questions about any aspect of my work.

List by: Type | Date

• Surrealism and Neuroscience. £14,013. Scottish Funding Council-UofG Reinvigorating Research. PI with Frank Pollick (School of Psychology and Neuroscience). 2021-2022

• Relationscapes in Alternative Modern(c)ities. CIVIS Mobilities award, co-funded by Erasmus+. With Raluca Bibiri (PI University of Bucharest), Anne Reynes-Delobel (Université Aix-Marseille), and Stamatina Dimakopoulou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). 2022

• Performing Arts and Social Violence: Innovating Research Approaches to Sexual and Gender-based Violence in the Global South. £148,565. AHRC Scoping Grant. Co-Investigator (PI Susan Fitzmaurice). In partnership with Timap for Justice (Sierra Leone), and Clowns Without Borders (South Africa). 2020-2021

• Humour and Global Health Challenges Workshop
£450. Institute of Global Innovation (GCRF, University of Birmingham). With Laura S. Martin. West Midlands Europe Hub, Brussels. Representatives attending from Save The Children, MSF, Clowns Without Borders UK, and the European Federation of Healthcare Clown Organisations. 2019

• Speaking Through Laughter: Addressing Gender-based Violence with Humour in Sierra Leone
£7,052. Institute of Global Innovation (GCRF, University of Birmingham). With Laura S. Martin, Simeon Koroma, Caroline Bradbury-Jones. In collaboration with NGO Timap for Justice. 2019

• Erasmus+ Mobility
£503. University of Amsterdam (teaching and research). December 2018

• Dada as Text, Thought and Theory
£1,250. Society for French Studies. 2015

•The Birmingham Surrealist Laboratory
£3,069. The Communities and Culture Network+ With Saskia Warren. February-August 2014.

• Paterson, John Ignatius Wareham
  Léopold Chauveau (1870-1940), the Age of the Monstrous, and Widening Access

Elizabeth Benjamin, 'The Authenticity of Ambiguity: Dada and Existentialism', PhD (2015), University of Birmingham. Since published in book form as Dada and Existentialism: The Authenticity of Ambiguity (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016).

Sabina Stent, 'Women Surrealists: Sexuality, Fetish, and Female Surrealism', PhD (2012), University of Birmingham.

Through co-supervision I have worked with a range of doctoral students on wider topics including Francophone literature in Africa and the Caribbean, and hyperreality in a post-truth era.

External Examining (Postgraduate Research)

• 2018. Katherine Brook (KCL), ‘Proust and the Avant-garde: Perception, Knowledge, Representation’ (PhD). Co-External Examiner with Thomas Baldwin (University of Kent)
• 2017. Nefeli Zygopoulou (UCL), ‘Identity, Language, Militancy: The Question of Origins in the Poetry and Prose of Tristan Tzara and Mário de Andrade’ (PhD)
• 2014. Rossella Bondi (Oxford Brookes), ‘A la Recherche de l’Homme Nouveau: Alberto Savinio et les Avant-gardes à Paris (1911-1937)’ (PhD). Since published in book form as A la Recherche de l’Homme Nouveau. Alberto Savinio et les Avant-gardes à Paris (1911-1937) (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2020)
• 2013. Clarissa Hotchkis (Royal Holloway, University of London), 'To What Extent was the Rebellion Portrayed Within Avant-garde Women's Art a Rebellion Against Gender Norms?' (MPhil)
• 2010. Barnaby Dicker (Royal Holloway, University of London), 'Visibly Frame-based Cinematography: Practice, History, Theory' (PhD)

Over 2017-2020 I was External Examiner for the MSc by Research in French at the University of Edinburgh.

As a temporary Lecturer at another institution, the first seminars I was asked to give were on medieval French architecture. While this is somewhat outside my normal field, it taught me the importance of preparation and adaptability, as well as the surprising comparative connections that can emerge between areas of study.

Since starting full-time teaching in 2002 I have taught a broad range of topics within French and European cultural history at four other UK universities, and offered specialised teaching on avant-garde cinema. At Masters level I have delivered classes on the European avant-garde, film, and translation theory and practice.

I have retained an active commitment to language tuition through grammar lectures and class teaching, particularly final-year Prose and Translation.

I greatly enjoy teaching, and find that the avant-garde lends itself strongly to the sense of difficulty, analysis, debate, humour and risk that can be vital to learning. While my role as Head of School limits the amount of teaching I can do currently, I have greatly enjoyed contributing to different courses at Glasgow including Year 1 French Culture, Senior Honours French language, Modernities 1880-1945 (Critical Studies MLitt), lectures on myth and imagination for the SMLC MLitt Comparative Literature, and the Honours course Writing the Visual designed by Elizabeth Geary Keohane.

In 2017 and 2018 I was privileged to deliver guest classes to MA students at the University of Amsterdam, supported on the second occasion by an award from Erasmus+.

Since 2021 I have hugely enjoyed participating in various CIVIS taught courses (Blended Intensive Programmes) and summer schools at the Universities of Athens, Bucharest, and Stockholm. The activities have focused variously on the themes of (in)transitive modernities and care in the arts and humanities. Over 2025 I will again teach on the BIP led by colleagues at Athens on PostRacial Transmodernities: Afro-European Relations, Mediterranean Trajectories & Intercultural Reciprocities.

CIVIS courses are open to students across member institutions. For more information, see https://civis.eu/en/civis-courses

Editorial boards

• 2013: Dada/Surrealism
• 2004 - 2010: Studies in European Cinema
• 2023: Synthesis. An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies

Professional & learned societies

• 2008 - 2011: Honorary Secretary, Society for French Studies
• 2024 - 2027: President, Association of University Professors and Heads of French+

I completed my first degree and MA at the University of Warwick (1994-1999) before moving to Wadham College, Oxford to write my doctoral thesis (1999-2002) under the supervision of Professor Malcolm Bowie. After positions at various other institutions, I joined the University of Glasgow as an incoming Head of School in June 2020.

Within the University of Glasgow, I am currently the Champion for the Early Career Development Programme (ECDP) in the College of Arts and Humanities.

I am the incoming President of the Association of University Professors and Heads of French+ (2024-2027)

I sit on the Editorial Board for the US-based journal Dada/Surrealism, and for Synthesis (an anglophone journal of comparative literary studies).

Over 2019-2023 I was an External Examiner attached to the School of Modern Languages, Linguistics and Film at Queen Mary University of London.

Previous Positions

• 2005-2020: Lecturer>Senior Lecturer>Professor, University of Birmingham (Head of the Department of Modern Languages 2015-2018)
• 2004-2005: Keble College, Oxford (fixed-term)
• 2003-2004: University of Leeds (fixed-term)
• 2002-2003: University of Exeter (fixed-term)

Previous Roles

• Honorary Secretary of the UK Society for French Studies 2008-2011 (co-opted 2007)
• Reviews Editor for Studies in European Cinema (2002-2010)
• Editorial Board Member of Studies in European Cinema (2002-2010)