Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland joined Bangor University as Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies in 2014. Before then, she was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath, and a Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Leicester. She holds a PhD in French and Francophone Studies from Bangor University (2011), an MA in European Languages and Cultures from Bangor University (2007), and a BA in German from the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest (2005). 

Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland's research specialisms include: French and Francophone ecocriticism and environmental humanities, with a focus on environmental violence, resistance and justice; text/image and bande dessinée studies; and adaptation and intermediality. She has published articles on these areas in journals including European Comic Art, Modern Languages Open, Modern and Contemporary France, Studies in Comics and Studies in French Cinema. She is the author of Adapted Voices: Transpositions of Céline’s ‘Voyage au bout de la nuit’ and Queneau’s ‘Zazie dans le métro’ (Oxford: Legenda, 2015). She has co-edited a special issue of European Comic Art on ‘Comics & Adaptation’ (stemming from a conference she co-organised at the University Leicester), and a special issue of Studies in Comics on ‘Comics & Nation’ (also stemming from a conference she co-organised, at Bangor University). She is review co-editor for European Comic Art. 

Her current research project is entitled 'Narratives of a More-than-human France, 1945 to Today: Space, Environment, Resistance' and is funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant. It investigates the relationship between narrative, space and the environment in France since 1945, with a focus on ‘hyper-sites’ of environmental violence and injustice (nuclear sites, factory farms, industrial slaughterhouses, zoos, toxic landscapes). It aims to analyse the cultural narratives and spatial dynamics that have shaped relationships to the nonhuman in contemporary France, and modes of resistance against anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, nationalistic and capitalist divisions of space. The corpus comprises a range of media, as well as scientific writings, direct action, political discourse and material sites. The project develops a French ecocriticism that questions what ‘French’ means from transspecies, ecofeminist and eco-decolonial perspectives, in exposing and contesting environmentally unjust narratives and their impacts on bodies and territories, and promoting modes of understanding and sharing territory as more-than-human. Beyond the French context, this leads to a consideration of the role of Modern Languages in collective action towards meaningful sustainability. As part of this project, she is co-organising an International Online Conference on 'Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching' (23rd-25th March 2023; see https://www.ecomodlang.com/), and an online seminar series entitled ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ (February-July 2023), during which artists and activists will discuss ways in which their work explores environmental and animal issues (click here for more details). 

Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland's current administrative responsibilities are: Subject Lead and UG Course Director for French and Francophone Studies; School Internationalisation (Exchanges) and Year Abroad Officer; Year Abroad coordinator for French; School representative on Bangor University's Senate.

Email: a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk

Location: room 417, 3rd floor, New Arts building

Undergraduate teaching

LXE-1700: Creating National Histories (year 1)

LXE-2025: Reading Fantastic Literatures (2nd year)

LXF-3112: Bande dessinee & adaptation (Final year)

LCF/LZF-1002: Advanced French 2 (1st year)

LCF/LZF-2020 & 2040: French language skills (2nd year)

LCF/LZF-3020, 3030 & 3040: French language skills (Final year)

LCE/LXE-3210 & 3200: Press Dossier (Final year)

Postgraduate teaching:

LXM-4035: French Film & Comic Adaptation

LXM-4001: Modes of Critical Theory (team-taught)

LXM-4002: Research Methods (team-taught)

LXM-4031: Critical Theory in Practice (team-taught)

Teaching qualification

FHEA

I welcome applications from PhD students in any of my areas of interest, especially French and Francophone ecocriticism and environmental humanities; comics and text/image studies; adaptation studies; intermediality.

2022

2021

2020

2019

2017

2015

2014

2013

2011

2010

2023

  • Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching

    The conference programme is available to view at https://www.ecomodlang.com/programme/

    The three-day international online conference ‘Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching’ will reflect on the role Modern Languages as a discipline has to play in times of ecological crises, in rethinking our academic practice as educators, scholars and eco-citizens, and ways in which this intersects with current efforts to decentre and decolonise the curriculum. The conference will open a reflection on the place of Modern Languages in the Environmental Humanities and in collective action towards environmental sustainability and justice.

    As a discipline that has been profoundly and productively decentred in the postcolonial context, moving beyond the nations that ‘for a long time, determined [its] boundaries’ (Forsdick 2015: 2), how might Modern Languages contribute to developing and rethinking our sense of place and sense of planet (Heise 2008) in times of climate emergency and the sixth mass extinction? How may Modern Languages take part in challenging the universalism of monolingualism and of the ‘Age of Man’? What role can Modern Languages play in the Environmental Humanities and the ‘‘‘unsettling’’ of dominant narratives’ and exploration of ‘the implications of new narratives that are calibrated to the realities of our changing world’ (Bird Rose, van Dooren, Chrulew, Cooke, Kearnes and O’Gorman 2012)? What methodologies, concepts and multilingual lexicon does the transnational and cross-disciplinary field of Modern Languages offer to rethink our relationship to the more-than-human? How may we, as Modern Languages scholars and educators, contribute to meaningful and significant sustainability, while navigating the pitfalls of a term that green capitalism has attempted to void of its potential for political dissensus? What possibilities are there for those working within unsustainable higher education systems?

    These are some of the key questions that this conference will explore. As part of the conference there will be workshops to collaboratively build a multilingual lexicon of environmental keywords across cultures, and to share pedagogical resources for developing ecological awareness in conjunction with linguistic and cultural diversity.

    The conference will feature a talk and discussion with political scientist, author and activist Fatima Ouassak, as part of the ‘Récits des vivants/More-than-human narratives’ online seminar series. The seminar will take place 4-5pm GMT on 23rd March and will be in French with simultaneous English translation.

    ‘Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    23 Mar 2023 – 25 Mar 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Récits des vivants/More-than-human narratives series: talk and discussion with activist and author Fatima Ouassak

    For the second seminar in our online series, it is an honour to welcome Fatima Ouassak, who is a political scientist, author and activist, and a key and vital voice in contemporary environmentalism in France. A militant for a feminist, popular, antiracist and radical ecology, she is the author of La Puissance des mères, pour un nouveau sujet révolutionnaire [The power of mothers: for a new revolutionary subject] (2020); and Pour une écologie pirate. Et nous serons libres [For a pirate ecology. And we will be free] (2023). Fatima Ouassak is the founder of the Classe/Genre/Race network, and co-founder of the association Front de mères (Mothers’ Front) and the Maison d’Écologie populaire Verdragon (Centre of Popular Ecology). During this seminar Fatima Ouassak will talk about her activism and her call for a pirate ecology. The talk and discussion will be in French with simultaneous English translation.

    23 Mar 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course (Speaker)
  • Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives online seminar series: talk and discussion with visual artist Alexander LeeRécits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

    First seminar on 8th February 1-2pm UK time: talk and discussion with visual artist Alexander Lee

    Alexander Lee was born in Stockton, CA, and grew up on the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts (2000), his MFA from Columbia University (2002), and MPS from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University (2004). His work, which has been exhibited extensively worldwide, spans drawing, sculpture, performance, painting and video, forming a thought-provoking decolonial practice-based reflection on Polynesia’s pasts, presents and futures and on environmental collapse from the multi-layered perspectives of the Pacific. Drawing on Polynesian natural-cultural forms, concepts and images, questioning and dismantling the history and legacy of imperialism and colonial narratives, Lee’s work is concerned with the necessity and urgency of transformation on our changing planet.

    All are welcome to attend this free event, which will be held online via Zoom on 8th February 1-2pm UK time. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link. To register please go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/recits-des-vivantsmore-than-human-narratives-seminar-series-alexander-lee-tickets-524684915707

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists will discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal questions, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series will explore key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it will shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

    While this series will focus on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

    All the seminars will be in English (with the exception of the fifth seminar, which will be delivered in French with English simultaneous translation available).

    After our first event with Alexander Lee, the following seminars in the ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ series will feature:

    Seminar 2 – 23rd March, 4pm UK time: political scientist, activist and author Fatima Ouassak

    Seminar 3 – 19th April, 2pm UK time: film director Maud Alpi

    Seminar 4 – 4th July, 3.45pm UK time: comics artist Anne Defréville

    Seminar 5 – comics writer Jessica Oublié (mid-July, exact date TBC)

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    8 Feb 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course (Speaker)

2022

2021

2020

2019

  • Sketching/Scripting Women: Women and Politics in Bande dessinee, Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing, Institute of Advanced Study, University of London

    Event funded by: the Cassal Fund, IMLR (£708)

    Since the mid-1990s, female artists have become an increasingly visible presence in bande dessinée (French-language comic art), a medium with which women were previously rarely associated as creators or even consumers. Research concerning the work of Francophone female graphic novelists has been slow to emerge but is now a growing field. The primary goal of the seminars in the Sketching/Scripting Women series is therefore to contribute to and help steer the development of research into female bande dessinée creation, by bringing together practitioners, academics and the general public.

    The Spring 2019 seminar in this series centred on the theme of ‘Women and Politics in Bande dessinée’, which were discussed by four speakers: three academics (Dr Ann Miller as a keynote speaker, Dr Edward Still and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland), and a prize-winning graphic novelist (Tanx). The three academic papers explored questions of the relationship between women and politics in female-authored bandes dessinées that focus on different historical and geographical contexts. Dr Ann Miller (University of Leicester) presented a keynote speech on ‘The Nude and the Naked: From Fine Art to Comics’; Dr Edward Still (University of Birmingham) presented a paper on ‘‘‘Monstrez-vous en tutu”: Obsessional Feminine Identity and Interpersonal Histories in the Bandes Dessinées of Nawel Louerrad’; and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland (Bangor University) presented a paper on ‘Ecopolitics, Gender and Brittany in Bande dessinée’.

    Following the three academic papers, graphic novelist Tanx spoke (in French) about her oeuvre and discuss her experience as a female artist in the French comics industry. Tanx’s work, with its distinctive underground and rock-inspired aesthetics, explores and subverts cultural and artistic representations of gender and the female body. Tanx was the 2009 co-recipient (for Esthétique et filatures, co-authored with Lisa Mendel) of the Prix Artémisia, an award created to honour the best female-created bande dessinée published each year.

    26 Apr 2019

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in conference (Organiser)
  • Studies in Comics (Journal)

    Co-guest editor of the Special Issue of Studies in Comics on 'Comics & Nation'

    2019

    Activity: Editorial activity (Guest editor)

2017

  • ASMCF Conference (Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France): Work & Play

    From the Tennis Court Oath to Nuit Debout, work and play have been instrumental in organising socio-political life in the French Republic. Culturally too, work and play are formative of identity, inviting reflection on the power relations at stake in the construction and deconstruction of identities. This conference seeks to bring together a broad range of disciplinary approaches to consider theories, representations, practices and interconnections of work and play in France and the rest of the French-speaking world. Traversing sociological, political, anthropological as well as aesthetic and cultural spheres, the conference theme is intended to stimulate debate across a far-reaching horizon of enquiry.

    Keynote Speakers:

    Helen Abbott (University of Birmingham)

    Claude Boli (Responsable scientifique du Musée National du Sport, Nice)

    Sarah Waters (University of Leeds)

    7 Sep 2017 – 9 Sep 2017

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Comics & Nation

    With the generous support of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF)

    In recent years, the rise of the ‘graphic novel’ has boosted academic interest in comic art from different disciplines and fields of study. Graphic texts, in their multiple forms and genres, have been a cultural manifestation reflecting societal changes, historical tensions and also their effects on individual stories since their inception. Comics have also been instrumental in the construction of national identities, both in nation-states and in stateless nations.

    This conference aims to put into dialogue scholars working on a variety of cultures and disciplines to provide a forum for the discussion of the interrelation between comic art (comic books and strips, cartoons and caricature) and nation, placing special emphasis on text/image creation from minority cultures (e.g. Brittany, Corsica, Galicia, Catalonia, Wales, Scotland, Sardinia, etc.) but also including those from nation-states (e.g. UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc.).

    13 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017

    Activity: Participation in conference (Organiser)
  • European Comic Art (Journal)

    Review co-editor

    2017 – 2021

    Activity: Editorial activity (Editor)

2016

  • European Comic Art (Journal)

    Co-editor of a special issue of European Comic Art on 'Comics & Adaptation'

    1 Jan 2016 – 15 Jan 2017

    Activity: Publication peer-review (Guest editor)

2015

  • Comics & Adaptation in the European Context

    With the generous support of:

    the Society for French Studies (SFS)

    the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF)

    10 Apr 2015

    Activity: Participation in conference (Organiser)

  • Narratives of a More-than-human France, 1945 to Today: Space, Environment, Resistance

    01/09/2022 – 30/09/2023 (Active)

  • Conference: Comics and Nation

    01/07/2017 – 30/11/2017 (Finished)

    Description

    In recent years, the rise of the ‘graphic novel’ has boosted academic interest in comic art from different disciplines and fields of study. Graphic texts, in their multiple forms and genres, have been a cultural manifestation reflecting societal changes, historical tensions and also their effects on individual stories since their inception. Comics have also been instrumental in the construction of national identities, both in nation-states and in stateless nations.

    This conference aims to put into dialogue scholars working on a variety of cultures and disciplines to provide a forum for the discussion of the interrelation between comic art (comic books and strips, cartoons and caricature) and nation, placing special emphasis on text/image creation from minority cultures (e.g. Brittany, Catalonia, Corsica, Galicia, Kurdistan, Mapuche, Quebec, Scotland, Wales, etc.) but also including those from nation-states (e.g. China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK, etc.).

    Links: