Dr Delphine Grass

Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature

Research Overview

My research focuses on contemporary French literature, creative criticism and practice-based research in translation. Within this scope, my work explores the relationship between modern languages, translation and practice as theory. I am a member of the Critical Poetics research group (Nottingham Trent University), the AHRC-funded Experiential Translation Network and the Eco-translation Network (Edinburgh University). In my work I am particularly interested in creative-critical practices around translation, the relationship between translation and performance, and in the figure of the translator as theorist. My work in this area explores the socially transformative potential of translation, establishes new generative links between practice and research, and models new epistemologies and forms of experimental scholarship. Lately, I have began to focus on eco-translation practices in language-based artistic practices which explore translation in more-than-human as well as multicultural contexts. My interest in epistemological diversity and eco-translation is related to my work on endangered and minority languages such as Alsatian. Another aspect of my research into contemporary writing practices focuses on the relationship between literature, art and politics. I have written and published works on Michel Houellebecq, writing technologies, posthumanism, national indifference as an ethics of care and the archive. My new research project, funded by the AHRC/MEITS, is entitled 'Translation as Creative Critical Practice'. It researches the ways in which translation can stimulate creative approaches to scholarship and to the reading and interpretation of texts. I have recently written a book entitled Translation as Creative Critical Practice (CUP, 2023) which explores creative-critical translation practices as forms of critical thinking on the nature of translation norms. I am also collaborating with Dr. Lily Robert-Foley (University of Montpellier III) on two further projects. One is a monograph collective monograph entitled Unending Translation: Creative-Critical Experiments in Translation and Life Writing (tbc). The other is a special of issue of Life Writing (Routledge) entitled ‘The Translation Memoir’ which will be published in 2023. I am also a published poet and poetry translator.

Selected Publications

Ghosts in the Text: Writing Technologies, Authorial Strategy and the Politics of Reactionary Autoimmunity in Houellebecq's Works
Grass, D.B. 1/04/2019 In: The Australian Journal of French Studies. 56, 1, p. 53–69.
Journal article

The Democratic Languages of Exile: Reading Eugene Jolas and Yvan Goll's American Poetry with Jacques Derrida and Hannah Arendt
Grass, D.B. 1/07/2017 In: Nottingham French Studies. 56, 2, p. 227-244. 18 p.
Journal article

World literature at the Alsace Borderland: The Frontier Poetics of Claude Vigée and André Weckmann’s Poetry
Grass, D. 09/2015 In: Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. 11, 3, p. 1-19. 19 p.
Journal article

Domesticating Hierarchies, Eugenic Hygiene and Exclusion Zones: The Dogs and Clones of Houellebecq's La Possibilité d'une île
Grass, D. 07/2012 In: L'Esprit Créateur. 52, 2, p. 127-140. 14 p.
Journal article

The disappearing subject: language, transparency and modern architecture in the works of Michel Houellebecq
Grass, D. 06/2011 In: Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. 15, 3, p. 339-347. 9 p.
Journal article

Moving Lines: Translation as Performance in Hans/Jean Arp
01/06/2020 → 30/06/2020
Research

ISF: Translation as Creative Critical Practice
30/01/2019 → 30/06/2020
Research

Translation as Creative Critical Practice
30/01/2019 → 30/06/2020
Research

The Author and the world: New interdisciplinary approaches to authorship
06/01/2014 → 05/01/2016
Research

Multilingual Creativities
24/02/2013 → …
Other

Set up in error
01/01/1900 → …
Research

Translation as Creative-Critical Practice: An Eco-Critical Perspective
Invited talk

Translation as Creative-Critical Practice
Invited talk

Translating across Material and Ecosemiotic Boundaries
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Celebrating the Creative Critical
Invited talk

Voice Notes: Creativity, Technology and Exile (AHRC) (External organisation)
Member of Advisory Panel

Critical Poetics: Writing with Care
Invited talk

Life’s Not Personal: A Creative – Critical Conference on Experimental Life Writing
Oral presentation

De Materia Medica: Mode d'Emploi
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

De Materia Medica: Mode d'Emploi
Invited talk

The Translation Memoir/ Translation as Memoir
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

"Translation as Performance: A Journey in Practice-Based Research"
Invited talk

« Roland Barthes et les nouveaux “je(s)” »
Invited talk

‘“This Author is not for Turning”: The Return of the Author beyond the Creative/Critical Divide’
Invited talk

'Found in Translation: Literary Dispatches from the Peripheries of Europe'
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

'Translate, Create, Debate! Literary Dispatches from the Peripheries of Europe'
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

"Displacement is the New Translation" by Kenneth Goldsmith: Towards a New Critical Poetics?
Invited talk

Hans/Jean Arp's Translations without Objects
Oral presentation

Language Shifts
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

What we do in Archives: Stories of Facing the Unreadable
Invited talk

Orpheus in the Archives
Invited talk

life.theory.death
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Lancaster Litfest
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Lancaster Litfest
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Multilinguisme et Traduction comme Avant-Gardes
Invited talk

Modern Autofictions
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

After Life: Aesthetics, Politics, Thought
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Screening the literary
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

The Near and the Far
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Re-reading Derrida’s Faith and Knowledge
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

International Journal of Francophone Studies (Journal)
Editorial activity

The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture (Journal)
Editorial activity

Modernist Studies Association
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

ACLA
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Multilingual French Identities
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Kadin/Women2000 (Journal)
Publication peer-review

exhibition
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Contemporary Poetry in Public Spaces
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

"Living Translation" event, The University of Bristol
Invited talk

It Gives us the Other
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Invitation for poetry reading at the Sorbonne University
Invited talk

Colloquy (Journal)
Publication peer-review

Association for the study of Modern and Contemporary France postgraduate study day
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Le Monde de Michel Houellebecq
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Hermes International Symposium, World Literature and World Culture
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Opticon1826 (Journal)
Editorial activity

Arp Foundation Fellowship
Fellowship awarded competitively

  • Authors and the World
  • Multilingual Creativities