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Staff Profile

Dr Catherine Gilbert

NU Academic Track Fellow (NUAcT)

  • Email: catherine.gilbert@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: School of Modern Languages
    Old Library Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    UK
Background

I started as an Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellow in the School of Modern Languages in September 2020, after completing a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at Ghent University, Belgium (2018-2020). My research interests span postcolonial African literatures and cultures; cultural memory, trauma and narrative; social and environmental justice. 

My first monograph, From Surviving to Living: Voice, Trauma and Witness in Rwandan Women's Writing (Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2018), which examines the published testimonies written by Rwandan women genocide survivors, received the Memory Studies Association Outstanding First Book Award in 2019.

I obtained my PhD in French and Francophone studies from the University of Nottingham in 2014. I subsequently held postdoctoral research and teaching positions at the University of Nottingham; the School of Advanced Study, University of London; and King’s College London.

From 2017 to 2018 I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford co-convening the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series ‘Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation’. I co-edited, with Professor Kate McLoughlin and Dr Niall Munro, a volume developed from this series, On Commemoration: Global Reflections upon Remembering War (Peter Lang, 2020).

At Newcastle University, I sit on the steering committee of the Centre for Heritage and am co-convenor of the Cultures of Memory Faculty Research Group. I am Co-Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Modern Languages.

I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) from 2021-2024 and led the organisation of the MSA Seventh Annual Conference on the theme of 'Communities and Change', which was held at Newcastle University from 3-7 July 2023.

From 2021-2023 I was Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ishami Foundation, a genocide education charity working in the UK and Rwanda.

Research


My current research sits at the intersection of memory, social and environmental justice. I am interested in exploring modes of storytelling within communities in the face of ongoing practices of extractivism and violence. This work adopts a comparative perspective (Latin America and Africa), and particularly considers slower forms of violence (environmental, reproductive, systemic).

I recently completed the project 'Genocide Commemoration and Education in the Rwandan Diaspora', which explored commemorative responses to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, seeking to build an understanding of the forms of commemoration taking place among Rwandan genocide survivors living in the diaspora. Focusing on three European case study areas - Belgium, France and the UK - it examined the myriad ways in which community groups, authors, artists and creative practitioners are communicating their experiences of violence and exile to the host societies, and investigated the impact of place and displacement on commemorative practices within diasporic communities. 

A second strand of the project investigated the transmission of memory through education, exploring the initiatives and activities of Rwandan community organisations aimed at helping teachers address the subject of the genocide in their classrooms. It analysed the teaching materials that are being developed as well as the responses of teachers and students in both Belgian and British schools. Overall, this project sought to strengthen our understanding of memory practices emerging among migrant communities and how we can meaningfully work together to better live with the ongoing legacy and impact of traumatic historical pasts. Part of this project was funded by an MSCA Individual Fellow (Grant ID: 795271) held at Ghent University, Belgium, from 2018-2020.


PhD supervision

I welcome enquiries from research candidates with an interest in cultural memory studies, and particularly from candidates looking to explore creative responses to conflict, violence and displacement.


Current PhD students:

Vic Riveros Schober (co-supervised with Philippa Page)

Natalie Heidaripour (co-supervised with Chris Whitehead and Katie Markham)

Emma Bloodgood (co-supervised with James Riding and Rachel Pain)

Teaching

I teach on the following modules:


Undergraduate:

SML1022 Introduction to Cultural Studies

SML4008 Memory and Storytelling Across Borders (Module Leader)

FRE4022 Social Justice in French and Francophone Culture


Global Film Practice MA:

FMS8366 Film and Social Justice (Module Leader)

Publications