I am so grateful to receive this award, it feels very surreal. My PhD involved multiple interruptions due to illness, covid, and becoming a mother. Without the unwavering support of my supervisor, Ros Murray, there is no world in which I would have been able to reach this point. I am deeply grateful for her support and for this award.
Eleanor Gluck, French Studies PhD student
07 November 2025
Student wins King's Outstanding Thesis Prize for research on translations of sexuality, gender and sex
Eleanor Gluck (French Studies PhD) received a King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize for her research on translations into English of three French authors of transgressive pornographic literature.
With focus on the Marquis de Sade, Dominique Aury (penname Pauline Réage) and Georges Bataille, Eleanor offers a new perspective on these “transgressive” texts by using translation as an experiment. The texts and their constructions of gender and sexuality, are read in relation to one another as products of language and/in translation.
Eleanor wrote a fantastic thesis, which was nominated on the basis of the quality of the writing, the originality of the content and the contribution it offers to the fields of translation studies and queer theory, as well as literary studies. She had a positive approach throughout the entire process, always producing work that was of an exceptionally high quality from the outset. Many congratulations Eleanor!
Dr Ros Murray, Senior Lecturer in French
Eleanor’s research pays particular attention to the production of English-language translations of these three authors produced by two American men living in Paris: Austryn Wainhouse and Richard Seaver. Their translations were published by the Olympia Press in Paris and Grove Press in New York during the 1950s and 60s.
Despite the apparently radical, anti-establishment ethos of this project by the two publishing houses, Eleanor reveals the extent to which the translations of Sade, Aury and Bataille reiterated – and often exaggerated to the point of parody – the sexism and binarism of the source texts.
Eleanor initially became interested in this area of research while researching the translation of sexuality, gender, and sex in her free time.
I find this area of research compelling as it opens up all these intriguing cans of worms relating to how we think about gender, sexuality, sex, and (in) language.
Eleanor Gluck, French Studies PhD student
Eleanor is in the process of publishing her thesis as a monograph.
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Senior Lecturer in French