Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Dr Gillian Jein

Senior Lecturer in French (Urban Humanities)

Background


Gillian joined Newcastle University as Senior Lecturer in French Studies in the School of Modern Languages in September 2018.


Research Interests (see the blog above)

Gillian is an Urban Humanities researcher with a background in French Studies. Her work explores the intersections of culture, place and power to try and understand how cities are experienced and made meaningful. One aim is to map the aesthetic and political ecologies of humans and non-humans in contemporary urban environments, and to address questions around what 'the city' is and 'who' or 'what' it is for. 

She is currently writing a book based on a research project, 'Inventing Grand Paris: Culture, Regeneration and the Right to the City', which was funded by the AHRC ECR Leadership Fellowship scheme from 2018–2019. 


Her latest Publication is 'Speculative Spaces in Grand Paris: Reading JR in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil', in Christoph Lindner and Gerardo Sandoval (eds.), Aesthetics of Gentrification: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. [Open Access]


Roles

SML Director of Impact & Engagement.

Theme leader, 'Defining and Experiencing Cities' at Newcastle University's Centre for Researching Cities.


PhD Supervision

I welcome enquiries from research candidates interested in the following areas of modern and contemporary French & Francophone Studies: 

  • Grand Paris
  • Cities and Nature/Cultures
  • Travel Writing


Qualifications

  • PhD in French Studies, Trinity College, Dublin. Supervised by Prof. David Scott and fully funded by the TCD Ussher Fellowship.
  • Diplôme d’études approfondies (DEA), Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris III. Supervised by Philippe Hamon. Pensionnaire at the École Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm, Paris.
  • B.A. Two Subject Moderatership in French & History, Trinity College, Dublin. Funded by the Drogheda Credit Union Scholarship.
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

 

Previous Positions

Before coming to Newcastle in 2018, I was lecturer and senior lecturer at Bangor University in North Wales from 2012. I also served as Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Bangor from 2016–2018. Prior to Wales, I worked on fixed-term contracts at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland (2010–2012) and at the University of Stirling, Scotland (2009–2010).

Research

A researcher in the Urban Humanities, I work on French urban cultures of the modern and contemporary period and I'm interested in how cultural production contributes to the materiality, meanings and experiences of the built environment.

 

My current project, 'Inventing Grand Paris: Culture, Regeneration and the Right to the City', repositions understandings of the Paris 'banlieues' in light of contemporary redevelopment and attendant gentrification within the context of the Grand Paris programme. I focus on the role played by image-making and visual culture (both state-led and community driven) in the transformation of the banlieues under the onus of this massive regeneration scheme.  


Interested in working at the juncture of theory and practice, I've also worked alongside visual artists on creative projects exploring issues such as veillance (mutual watching), the digital gaze and violence in contemporary society. 


I write on socially engaged art and urban environments, and have published a monograph on urban travel writing in French, Alternative Modernities in French Travel Writing: Engaging Urban Space in London and New York, 1851–1986 (London: Anthem Press, 2016 [2019 for paperback]). 


From 2011-2019, I was co-editor of the Irish Journal of French Studies.


 

Invited Talks

  • Keynote Speaker. 'Making Do' in Urbanism and the Arts. Organised by Slow Lab at University of Oregon, Portland. 20 November 2020.  
  • Invitation to participate in British Academy roundtable discussion on 'Representing Urban Violence', held at the British Academy on 15 January 2020. 
  • Keynote Speaker. Jein, G. 'Re-visioning Violence: The Art of the Street in Transnational Paris, Exploring the Transnational Neighbourhood: Integration, Community and Co-habitation, organised by the UCD Humanities Institution, and IMLR, SAS, University of London. 25-26 September 2019. 
  • Keynote Speaker. Jein, G. 'Globalism is Ordinary' at 'Mobilities and Moorings: Renegotiating Spaces and Identities in modern and contemporary French and Francophone Culture', Postgraduate Conference, The Graduate School, Queen's University Belfast, 30–31 May 2019.
  • **Invited Talk: 'Articulating Violence in Urban Space', Centre for Transnational Studies, University of Southampton, 18 March 2020. 
  • **Invited Talk: 'Hypoplace and the Hexagon: The Cultural Production of Grand Paris', as part of workshop 'Variable Geometries: The French Hexagon in Post-war French and Francophone Culture ' organised by UCD Humanities Institute. 3-4 April 2020.  
  • Invited Talk: Cities and Modern Languages seminar at the University of Bristol. 15 May 2019.
  • Invited Talk: 19 April 2016: Jein, G. ‘Black Mirror: Digital Culture and Gentrification in Pantin’. Invited paper delivered as part of the symposium ‘Paris Past and Present: Liquid Spaces, Contested Spaces’ held at the School of Advanced Study, Senate House as part of the Cities@SAS initiative and in collaboration with the University of London Institute in Paris.
  • Invited Talk: 19 January 2017: Jein, G. ‘Reimagining the City’. Presentation and Facilitation of discussion on Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift’s work in urban cultural geography. Session given at the ‘Cities in Theory’ reading group at the School of Advanced Study, Senate House, London.
  • Invited Talk: 26 February 2018: ‘Face Politics & Street Art’ at City, Art and Politics: Reconfiguring the Meaning of Urban Space, organised by Christina Horvath of University of Bath. 44AD Gallery, Bath.


Public Engagement


**postponed events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 


Conference Organisation

  • 2017: Organiser of ASMCF [Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France] Annual Conference. 7–9 September at Bangor University. Along with colleagues in French Studies, I co-organised this major Association’s annual conference, which explored the theme of ‘Work and Play’. I also organised two panels, ‘Work & Play in the banlieues’, which dealt with my research area as part of this conference. (Appendix 20)
  • 2014: Organiser of ‘City Margins, City Memories’, Institute of Modern Languages Research, Senate House, London, 7–8 April 2014. This international, interdisciplinary conference was organised in collaboration with colleagues from SMLC and the School of Philosophy and Religion at Bangor University. Both keynote speakers, Prof. Bill Marshall (French Studies, Stirling University) and Prof. Hugh Campbell (Dean of Architecture, UCD), were research colleagues of mine. (Appendix 29)
  • 2007: Organiser of ‘Dislocation’, Postgraduate Research Conference held at Trinity College, Dublin, 23 March 2007. Organised along with peers in the department of French at Trinity College, Dublin.



Presentations at Conferences:

  • Jein, G. ‘Inventing Greater Paris? Playing with Architecture in the Banlieues’, at ASMCF conference, Bangor University, 8 September 2017.
  • Jein, G. ‘(De)Facing the Suburbs: Street Art and the Politics of Spatial Affect in the Paris Banlieues’. Seminar paper at SMLC research forum, Bangor University, December 2015.
  • Jein, G. ‘Decelerating Travel: Endotic Space and Transnational Paris in Leïla Sebbar’s Métro Instantanés’ at Borders & Crossings/Seuils et Traverses Conference, Liverpool Hope University, 22 July 2013.
  • Jein, G. ‘The Transnational Everyday? Decelerating Space in the récit urbain’ at the XIV annual ADEFFI conference, NUI Galway, 20 October 2012.
  • Jein, G. ‘(De)facing the Wall: JR’s 28 millimètres’ at the XIII annual ADEFFI conference (Association d’Etudes française et francophones d’Irlande), Couvent des Oblats, Aix-en-Provence, 21 October 2011.




Teaching

I teach on the following modules:


Undergraduate Culture Modules:

  • FRE4020: Writing Elsewhere: Cultures of Travel in French
  • FRE2009: Paris (Unit 2: Marginalité)
  • FRE1006: Introduction to French & Francophone Studies


 

Publications