Dr Laura Kennedy joined UCC in August 2024 as a Lecturer in French. She holds degrees from Queen’s University Belfast, SOAS, and the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP). Before joining UCC she was a Teaching and Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. Laura is a broad-based postcolonial literary scholar with a strong specialism in North Africa and the French Caribbean. Her teaching at UCC is primarily in postcolonial literary studies across a range of geographical and cultural contexts.

My research interests are focused in the area of postcolonial literary studies, and in particular my research examines francophone literature from and about the French Caribbean and North Africa. I am especially interested in the politics and poetics of language in postcolonial literature, as well as Afrofuturism in postcolonial cultural production. My research is comparative in nature, engaging with both francophone and anglophone contexts, and as such my wider research interests and publications lie in comparative and world literary studies.

I am currently working on my first monograph (under contract with Liverpool University Press), which will refine and expand my doctoral thesis. My PhD project examined how and why the once colonial languages of French and English are recast in World Literature, by comparatively assessing how authors writing from French and British ex-colonies, non-metropoles, and the metropolitan margins have re-appropriated the languages through which they were once oppressed. Exploring works by francophone writers Patrick Chamoiseau, Kamel Daoud, Faïza Guène, and François Cheng, and anglophone writers Marlon James, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Frances Molloy, and Xiaolu Guo, this monograph will assess how these hegemonic languages are subverted in Caribbean, African, European, and Asian migrant literature.

I also recently co-founded the research network 'Literary Dislocation(s)' with Christopher Mole (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle). This project brings together researchers and non-academic stakeholders to discuss the theme of 'dislocation(s)' in literary production, exploring its various and wide-reaching forms and literary representations. Its purpose is to provide a forum for networking and collaboration, particularly for early career researchers. Our network recently ran a six-month international seminar series online, and we are currently putting together a special issue based on this series, to be published with Comparative Critical Studies in June 2027.  

I would be happy to supervise students working in any area relevant to my research interests, and I particularly welcome expressions of interest for PhD research proposals. 

Modules taught:

• FR1201 - Introduction to French Studies
• FR1901 - Understanding France for International Business
• FR2204 - Topics in Literature and Culture
• FR2202 - Literary Seminar I
• FR2305 - Postcolonial France 1958-2020
• FR4752 - Imagining the Future: Francophone Afrofuturism
• FR4201 - Literary Seminar II
• FR4702 - Contemporary Society and Politics in the French-Speaking World
• LL2108 - Crossing Borders: Cultures and Societies
• LL3102 - European Cultural Capitals
• LL6038 - Metropolis, Mobility and Minorities
• PG7044 - Researching Through Gendered & Intersectional Lenses: An Interdisciplinary Introduction

I am also the coordinator of Second Year French, the Higher Diploma in Arts (French), and the second year module Topics in Literature and Culture (FR2204).