PhD Student Profiles

Valérie-Anne Belleflamme

Provisional PhD title: “Imagining Otherwise: Temporality and the Craft of Fiction in Gail Jones’s Novels”

My PhD is concerned with the work of contemporary Australian writer and essayist Gail Jones. It draws on her complicated view of time as folded and multiple (from which new possibilities and unexpected associations emerge) and extends it in a way that is metaphorical and metadiscursive, so as to investigate the poetic forms of indirection Jones uses to acknowledge the existence of alternative stories and cosmologies. Employing philosophical concepts and postcolonial theories of time and writing, my thesis examines how Jones’s written oeuvre aestheticizes darkness so as to disclose the wounds of colonialism in a manner that is “not pathological but somehow creative and intrinsically resistant”, as she puts it herself.

CEREP provides a highly stimulating working environment due to the diversity and inventiveness of its internationally renowned experts in the field of postcolonial studies. My supervisor Professor Marc Delrez’s outstanding expertise in and original views on literatures of Australia and New Zealand make his supervision particularly inspiring and valuable to me.

During my time here, I have attended seminars, readings and talks on postcolonial literatures and theories ranging from New Zealand to the Caribbean, via India and Nigeria, Australia and South Africa. I have enjoyed exchanging ideas over texts and a cup of tea during events and conferences. Under the auspices of the European Association for Studies of Australia (EASA) and CEREP, I have had the honour of co-organising the association’s 2017 Liège conference entitled “Australia–South Asia: Contestations and Remonstrances.” I have also been compiling a bibliography of Gail Jones’s work as part of CEREP’s project on online bibliographies of postcolonial writers.

Bastien Bomans

Provisional PhD title: “Queer Trinidad: At the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Race in Trinidadian Literature”

My PhD project aims to provide a multidimensional reading of Trinidadian novels through a lens that is simultaneously queer and intersectional, and that defies one-dimensional, ‘western’ understandings of sexualities and genders. My literary corpus includes works by authors from the Trinidadian diaspora, such as David Chariandy, Shani Mootoo, and Lawrence Scott.

CEREP members’ research areas covering a wide geographical range of postcolonial literatures allows for fruitful discussions and collaborative exchanges. I am also glad to be able to benefit from the expertise of the two Caribbeanists in CEREP: my supervisor Bénédicte Ledent, who helps me clarify my thoughts and arguments, points me towards theoretical works and academic events that might be of interest for my project, and has always been very supportive; and Rebecca Romdhani, who is part of my advisory committee and who convenes the CEREP theory seminars.

At the conferences and other activities organised by CEREP, I have the opportunity to build my professional skills by assisting in these scholarly events and developing my research network by meeting international speakers and collaborators of the research unit. I particularly benefit from my interactions with Caribbeanists Alison Donnell from the University of East Anglia (UK), and Ronald Cummings from Brock University (Canada). Also important to my academic development are the CEREP theory seminars. Indeed, I started attending these meetings in 2017 as a master student. These seminars always involve fascinating discussions on postcolonial theories and their convergences with other fields, such as decolonial studies and queer studies. The conversations on race, gender, and sexuality (among others) that emerge in these meetings are of utmost relevance, not only for my thesis, but also within the academic world itself and beyond. CEREP thus significantly keeps aiding me to deepen and broaden my knowledge, as well as to fine-tune my critical thinking, both as a PhD candidate and as an activist.

Laura Gerday

Provisional PhD title: “From the ‘Postcolonial’ to the ‘Global’: Identifying New Avatars of Postcolonialism in Linguistics and Literary Studies”

Over the past three years, I have been investigating the theoretical (dis)connections between, on the one hand, two linguistics areas (i.e. world Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca) and, on the other hand, two literary spheres (i.e. postcolonial literary criticism and world literature). The objective underlying my doctoral research is in substance to find out what has happened to some key ideas and concepts of postcolonial thinking in twenty-first-century English linguistics and Anglophone literary studies by means of stylistics-informed methods.

Liège-based CEREP is world-renowned for the wealth of relevant material on postcolonial studies that it not only gathers but also produces. Indeed, CEREP’s standing rests on the extensive expertise of its long-serving members, who are always readily available to assist PhD students with their projects. Needless to say, I feel fortunate to be surrounded by leading scholars willing to help refine mine. Amongst them is my thesis supervisor, Dr Daria Tunca. It is by taking one of her MA courses that I was introduced to the field of stylistics, which has proved to be an invaluable tool to uncover the ideological underpinnings of academic discourse and so is of particular pertinence to my research. Dr Tunca has offered unswerving support and constructive advice on every aspect of my thesis – form and content alike – in the course of many animated conversations.

Of great significance to my project too and my professional training have been the numerous and diverse CEREP events. The seminars, symposia and conferences acquaint me with the variegated domains that postcolonial studies encompasses as well as with prominent figures in the field, thereby enabling me to make connections with a vast network of specialists. More specifically, I have benefited from the CEREP theory seminars in that they shed light on the lacunae of my work and broaden my knowledge of postcolonial thought. As an elected CEREP board member, I am also able to benefit from the experience of being actively involved in the running of the research unit.

Other current PhD students

• Giulia MASCOLI, “Music and Musicality in Caryl Phillips’s Fiction”