Dr Delphine Grass
Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative LiteratureResearch Overview
My research focuses on modern and contemporary French and comparative literature and theory, with a special interest in creative criticism and practice-based research. Within this scope, my work explores the relationship between modern languages, translation and practice as theory. As a member of the Critical Poetics research group (Nottingham Trent University) and of the AHRC-funded Experiential Translation Network, 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. 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 scholarship and to the reading and interpretation of texts. I am currently working on a short monograph entitled Translation as Creative Critical Practice (under contract). 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 practicing poet and have published works in both French and English.
Research Grants
FASS Strategic Internationalisation Fund application in support of my research collaboration with Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3 (2021)
Arp Foundation Fellowship: 'Moving Lines: Translation as Performance in Hans/Jean Arp' (2020)
AHRC/MEITS 'Translation as Creative Critical Practice' (2019 for 24 months)
The Society for French Studies Conference Fund: Awarded (with Dr. Charlotte Baker) in support of the conference "Multilingual French Identities" taking place in January 2014 at Lancaster University.
My PhD research was funded by the UCL Graduate School Scholarship (Fees and Maintenance Scholarship awarded on merit and excellence accross UCL faculties)
PhD Supervision Interests
Literary translation, modernism, modern and contemporary French literature, creative criticism, postcritique, comparative literature, autotheory.
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
All Publications
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
Celebrating the Creative Critical
Invited talk
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