Francesca Counihan

Following my initial studies at University College Galway, I spent 6 years in France, working first as a lectrice and then moving to Paris to work on my DEA and doctorate at l’Université de Paris VII. I then lectured in UCG for 3 years, before taking up my current post in Maynooth.

I was involved in founding the Association of French and Francophone Studies in Ireland (ADEFFI) and am also a member of Women in French and of the Société Internationale d’Études Yourcenariennes (SIEY). In collaboration with my colleague Dr Bérengère Deprez from the University of Louvain, I organised the 2005 conference of the SIEY at NUI Maynooth. I was recently external reader for a PhD thesis on gender in the work of Marguerite Yourcenar completed at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. Other external responsibilities include work as co-editor of a critical collection on Yourcenar with Peter Lang, as reader for the Irish Journal of French Studies and also for the Women’s Studies Review in NUI Galway. In recent presentations, I have looked at 'Trois femmes puissantes, by Marie Ndiaye (2010), the use of images in Camille Laurens’ recent work (2010), the position of women writers in the Académie française, and ancient and modern history in the work of Marguerite Yourcenar (2013).