Professor Siobhán McIlvanney

Biography

I graduated with an MA in French and German from the University of Glasgow, before completing a D.Phil. at the Queen’s College, Oxford. I joined the department of French at King’s in 1994.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Contemporary French and Francophone Women's Writing
• Narratives of Ageing and Care
• Franco-Algerian Women Writing
• The Early French Women's Press

My most recent research has focused on representations of women's ageing and care in French and Francophone women's writing, in particular matrilinear relations and relations between carer and cared-for, including in care home narratives. I have also co-edited a forthcoming volume on Women and Power in Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures and Societies examining the manifestations – and abuses – of power that, while specific to the geopolitics of a French and Francophone context, remain an informative index of more widespread attitudes to women’s rights in terms of professional and personal parity. I have published extensively on a range of French and Francophone women authors and have a particular interest in Franco-Algerian women’s writing, including works by Maïssa Bey, Leïla Marouane and Malika Mokeddem. I published the first monograph in English on the contemporary French author, Annie Ernaux.

I am also interested in early manifestations of feminist thought in women’s journalistic writings in France and have recently published a monograph on the early years of the French women’s press, Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press. You can find out more about the book in an interview here.

I am very happy to be contacted by prospective PhD students whose research interests coincide with my own.

For more details, please see my full research profile.

Teaching

I teach on a variety of courses in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures related to French and Francophone women’s writing at both BA and MA level. I also teach on modules for students outside the Department.

Expertise and Public Engagements

I am co-editor of the De Gruyter series, Cultures of Ageing and Care and I am an editor of twentieth and twenty-first century French and Francophone Women's Writing for the Literary Encyclopedia. I am on the Executive Committee of the Society for French Studies. I am co-President of Women in French UK-Ireland and a member of the Executive Committee of Women in French North America. I am also an External Assessor for the Irish Research Council. 

Selected Publications

• 'Collaborative Care: Sharing Stories of Ageing in Recent French and Francophone Women's Writing', Women's Narratives of Ageing and Care (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025), pp. 21-38.
• With Shirley Jordan, ‘Thoughts on Place: A Conversation with Annie Ernaux’, French Studies, 78:3 (2024), pp. 497–510.
• 'Working Through Maternal Ambivalence: The Wake-up Call of Chanson douce', Modern & Contemporary France, Volume 31, 2023, Issue 3, pp. 361-377. Winner of Modern & Contemporary France article of the year 2023.
• Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758-1848 (2019, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press). Shortlisted for the R. Gapper Book Prize 2020.
• Women and the City in French Literature and Culture: Reconfiguring the Feminine in the Urban Environment (2019, Cardiff, University of Wales Press).