Dr Delphine Grass

Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature

Research Overview

My research focuses primarily on modern and contemporary French and comparative literature, theory and criticism. As a member of the Critical Poetics research group (Nottingham Trent University), I am particularly interested in creative critical practices around translation, as well as in translation as a creative writing and art practice in itself. My work in this area explores the socially transformative potential of translation to imagine new communities and to model new forms of artistic participation. 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 translation, writing technologies, posthumanism, national indifference as an ethics of care and the archive. I have also written several articles on Michel Houellebecq and am the translator, with Tim Mathews, of his poetry collection The Art of Struggle. 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 the reading and interpretation of texts. I am currently working on a short monograph entitled Translation as Creative Critical Practice (under contract with Cambridge University Press). 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 (UCL Press, 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 practicing poet and have published works in both French and English.

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

The Translation Memoir/ Translation as Memoir
Participation in conference

"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

Lancaster Litfest
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Lancaster Litfest
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Multilinguisme et Traduction comme Avant-Gardes
Invited talk

Modern Autofictions
Participation in conference

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

Screening the literary
Participation in conference

The Near and the Far
Participation in conference

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

International Journal of Francophone Studies (Journal)
Editorial activity

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

Modernist Studies Association
Participation in conference

ACLA
Participation in conference

Multilingual French Identities
Participation in conference

Kadin/Women2000 (Journal)
Publication peer-review

exhibition
Festival/Exhibition/Concert

Contemporary Poetry in Public Spaces
Participation in conference

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

It Gives us the Other
Participation in conference

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

Le Monde de Michel Houellebecq
Participation in conference

Hermes International Symposium, World Literature and World Culture
Participation in conference

Opticon1826 (Journal)
Editorial activity

Arp Foundation Fellowship
Fellowship awarded competitively

Abdelbaqi Ghorab

Abdelbaqi Ghorab

PhD student, Associate Lecturer

Isabelle Pyle

Isabelle Pyle

PhD student, Associate Lecturer

  • Authors and the World
  • Multilingual Creativities