Postcolonial Studies: An Early Career Perspective
By Louise Hardwick
Following the launch of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies in January 2016, we have invited heads of other Postcolonial Studies research institutes, centres and networks to share information about their current research activities and to enter into the debate about the future of the field. Responding to our questions, Dr Louise Hardwick (University of Birmingham) highlights the initiatives led by the FRANCOPOCO Network and the importance of languages within the field of Postcolonial Studies.
What is your research background?
I am a Modern Linguist by training, and studied French and German for my BA. I opted to write a Final Year dissertation on Francophone literature – and was hooked! From then on, I chose to focus on Francophone literature from my M.St and D.Phil research.
During my Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, I launched a fortnightly Francophone Postcolonial Seminar, and I wanted to create a similar forum when I arrived as a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 2010. With a group of colleagues at Birmingham, I launched the Francophone Colonial and Postcolonial Network, or FRANCOPOCO Network for short.