Dr Veronique Lane
Lecturer in French Studies and Comparative LiteratureProfile
I have been teaching comparative literature, translation theory and practice, and medical humanities at Lancaster University since 2017. Prior to Lancaster, I have also taught French and comparative literature as Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University in the US, and have been awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
At Lancaster, I teach courses on modernism, literature and mental health, and I give final-year translation seminars; I also lecture on the MA in Translation Studies and supervise MA and PhD students, and am a member of the Faculty's Health Hub. I have served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, Convenor of the department’s final-year honor dissertation module, and as Lead Reviewer for the Faculty’s Research Ethics Committee.
I have edited and contributed an introduction and chapter to the first publication theorizing "Literary Back-Translation" (Translation and Literature, vol. 29, no. 3, 2020), as well as an augmented volume on the subject with case studies from leading international scholars in the US, the UK, Ireland, Italy and China (Edinburgh University Press, 2024).
At the intersection of Comparative Literature, Translation Studies, and Medical Humanities, my current research activities include workshops for patients with schizophrenia designed with mental health practicioners in psychiatric institutions, the co-organization of a conference opening a dialogue between mental health practitioners and literary translators, and the publication of my second monograph, The Therapeutic Value of Literary Translation: Artaud, Eliot, H.D., Hölderlin, Nerval, Proust and Woolf (also forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press).
Research Grants
2012-14: Postdoctoral Fellowship, awarded by the SSHRC (Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)
2010: Research Grant, awarded by the McMahon Memorial Fund of Wesleyan University, for the organization of the colloquium Jean Genet politique, une éthique de l’imposture, Paris, Théâtre de l’Odéon
2009-10: Doctoral Scholarship, awarded by the FQRSC (Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture)
2007-10: Doctoral Scholarship, awarded by the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères à Paris
2007-10: Doctoral Scholarship, awarded by the SSHRC (Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)
Current Teaching
FREN101: The Great War and The Avant-Gardes
FREN101: French oral seminars
FREN301: Translation (French into English)
DELC320: Final Year Dissertation (convenor)
DELC349: French Modernisms and Mental Health
DELC416: MA in Translation Methods and Theory
DELC420: MA Translation Project
Additional Information
I convene the undergraduate final-year dissertation module, and have supervised several MA dissertations and translation projects.
I am currently co-supervising two PhD theses: "Translating Invented Languages: Anthony Burgess' Nadsat in A Clockwork Orange" and "The Body Divine: Constructing Female Identity Through Mythological Imagery and Intersemiotism in Surrealism" (funded by the AHRC through the NWCDTP).
Research Overview
Véronique carries out research in three main areas: North American and European modern literatures, translation theory, and medical humanities.
Recent publications include her monograph, The French Genealogy of the Beat Generation: Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac's Appropriation of Modern Literature, from Rimbaud to Michaux (Bloomsbury, 2017), and the introduction and chapter she contributed to the first publication theorizing ‘literary back-translation' (guest-editor, Translation and Literature, vol. 29, no. 3, 2020).
Her second monograph, which is under contract with Edinburgh University Press, offers a comparative analysis of works by seven modernist writers-translators who experienced mental health illness: Friedrich Hölderlin, Gérard de Nerval, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, T.S. Eliot, Hilda Doolittle, and Antonin Artaud. It theorizes translation as a form of introspection impacting the identity and the literary work of writers-translators.
Her current research project investigates the therapeutic value of the translation process for professional literary translators and NHS patients.
PhD Supervision Interests
Modern French Literature and Drama, French Critical Thought, Francophone Literature and Culture (Quebec), Literary Translation, Translation Theory, Narratives of Illness, Mental Health, Medical Humanities
Translation as an Empirical Process: From Modernist Translation to Contemporary Transfiction
Invited talk
Antonin Artaud’s Therapeutic Experiences of Translation
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Translation, Modernism, and Madness: The Case of Antonin Artaud
Invited talk
Antonin Artaud, from Mental Breakdown to Modernist Breakthrough
Invited talk
Paris Interzone: The Transcultural Beat Generation (Collaboration, Publication, Translation)
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Book Launch: The French Genealogy of The Beat Generation
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
The Anachronistic Fate of Modern French Drama: The Theatre of the Absurd Upstaged by The Theatre of Cruelty
Invited talk
La littérature et le cinéma français aux sources de la Beat Generation
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
L'incantation littéraire: les formes d'une force
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Fellowship awarded competitively
- FASS Health Hub