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 the French Caribbean. Her teaching at UCC is primarily in postcolonial literary studies across a range of geographical and cultural contexts.

Currently, Laura is: co-convenor of the CASiLaC Violence, Conflict and Gender research cluster; book review editor for Comparative Critical Studies; conference secretary for the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies; and Vice Leader of Working Group 5 of the MultiLiLiTrans COST Action. 

My research expertise lies in postcolonial literary studies, particularly in French Caribbean literature. I am also interested in the politics and poetics of language and Afrofuturism in postcolonial cultural production. My research is often comparative, 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 working on my first monograph (under contract with Liverpool University Press). This study examines 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 assesses how these hegemonic languages are subverted in Caribbean, African, European, and Asian migrant literature.

I 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
• 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
• FR4801 - French Critical Thought II: from the Twentieth Century to the Present
• 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 First Year French, the Higher Diploma in Arts (French), and the first year module Introduction to French Studies (FR1201).