Biography
My main research interest lies in the field of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century French literature, particularly in the field of poetry, and
that of word and image. As well as literary and social questions, my research
also covers bibliographical, and now increasingly, cross-disciplinary aspects.
Having published a book on the sixteenth-century blason poétique , and
a descriptive catalogue of the sixteenth-century poetry holdings of the
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris, I then turned my attention towards
emblematics, an ever-expanding field of interdisciplinary study now extremely
fashionable among European and North American scholars. I have published two
substantial books on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French emblem
literature, several facsimile editions of major French emblem books, and a large
number of articles and chapters in books. In collaboration with two colleagues I
have produced a 2-volume descriptive bibliography of French emblem books. My
current major research commitment is a similarly collaborative bibliographical
project on the massive, but seriously under-documented, published output of the
seventeenth-century Jesuit polymath Claude-François Menestrier. In addition to
this I am also working more generally on the ’reading’ of emblematic
materials.
Within the School of Language and Literature I am Undergraduate Programme
Coordinator for French, and Honours Adviser for French. I am also Postgraduate
Officer for the School. Within the University I am an ex-officio member of
Senate and serve on various Senate and other University committees.
I am a member of the cross-disciplinary Centre for Early Modern Studies
(CEMS), and I serve on the Advisory Board of Galsgow Emblem Studies.
