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Dr Michelle Royer

Dr Michelle Royer
PhD (UNSW), BA (Paris), MA (Paris)
Senior Lecturer
Room 744, Brennan MacCallum Building A18

+61 2 9036 9480

Research areas and supervision

  • Feminist film theory
  • Films Studies
  • French cinema
  • Film stars studies
  • Contemporary French feminist discourse
  • Marguerite Duras’ films, novels and autobiographic writing
  • Marguerite Duras and the French media
  • Creative processes

Current projects

  • Senescence and cinema
  • The cinema of Claire Denis

Postgraduate Students:

  • Annabelle Doherty: ‘French Heritage Film and Cinematic Cultural Memory’.
  • Emme Devonish: ‘Epistemology in literature and film’
  • Kari Hanet: ‘Hollywood remakes French films (1990-2010); the remake as cultural translation?’
  • Miriam Thompson: ‘Rebellious maids in French Film’
  • Valerie Queva: "Melodrama and Trauma: the physic of spectatorship in the cinema of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, David Lynch, Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow and Pedro Almodovar.'

Selected publications

Edited books and special issues of journals in preparation

  • Françoise Grauby & Michelle Royer (eds), ‘From Rabelais to Oulipo’, The Australian Journal of French Studies, 2012.
  • Françoise Grauby & Michelle Royer (eds), ‘Playtime: formes, fonctions et théories du jeu’, Essays in French Literature & Culture, 2013.

Books

  • Jacqueline Meunier, Béatrice Atherton, Françoise Grauby, Michelle Royer (eds)
    Le français et la diversité francophone en Asie-Pacifique, Actes du 2ème colloque CAP,
    Congrès de la FIPF Numéro 1, Gerflint, Sydney 2010
    Editions Drukarnia Cyfrowa EIKON PLUS Cracovie 2011.
    ISBN - 978-2-9539284-1-9
  • Françoise Grauby and Michelle Royer (eds), Repenser les processus créateurs/Rethinking Creative Processes, Bern, 2001, Peter Lang.
  • L'Ecran de la passion une étude du cinéma de Marguerite Duras, Brisbane, 1998, Boombana Publications.
  • Françoise Grauby and Michelle Royer, Recherche mode d'emploi, Australian research centre, UNSW, 1996.

Book chapters and Journal Articles

  • Michelle Royer and Miriam Thompson, ‘Mobility and Exile: a study of space and objects in Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum (2008)’ in Michael Gott and Thibaut Schilt, Transnationalism, Mobility and New Migrations in the Contemporary French-Language Road Movie, Intellect, Bristol, 2012.
  • ‘Enseigner le cinema dans le cadre du FLE’ in Jacqueline Meunier, Béatrice Atherton, Françoise Grauby, Michelle Royer (eds)
    Le français et la diversité francophone en Asie-Pacifique, Actes du 2ème colloque CAP,
    Congrès de la FIPF Numéro 1, Gerflint, Sydney 2010
    Editions Drukarnia Cyfrowa EIKON PLUS Cracovie 2011.
    ISBN - 978-2-9539284-1-9
  • ‘Encounters with the ‘third age’: Benguigui’s Inch’Allah dimanche and Beauvoir’s Old Age’ in Jean-Pierre Boule and Ursula Tidd (eds,) Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Beauvoirian Perspective. Oxford: Berghahn, 2011 (in press).
  • ‘La voie du gai désespoir, en compagnie de Marguerite Duras’, in Michelle Royer, Grauby Françoise and al., for a special issue of Essays in French Literature and Culture (forthcoming).
  • ‘Figures de l’hybridation dans les films de Marguerite Duras’ in Yann Mevel (eds) Les Orients de Marguerite Duras, Amsterdam, Rodopi (forthcoming)
  • ‘The Hijacking of a genre: French Female Filmmakers and the Road Movie’, in Maggie Allison and Angela Kershaw (eds), Parcours de femmes Twenty Years of Women in French, Oxford, Bern, Peter Lang, 2011, pp. 243-257.
  • ‘National Cinema and Transcultural Mappings: The case of France’, Literature and Aesthetics, Vol.20, 1, July 2010, pp. 139-149.
  • “Writing, the Writing Self and the cinema of Marguerite Duras”, in Julie Beaulieu and Rosanna Maule (eds) In the Dark Room: Marguerite Duras and Cinema, Peter Lang, 2008.
  • ‘The Cosmopolitanization of French Cinema’, Literature and Aesthetics , 2008, Vol 18, 2, pp.107-118.
  • “Du paratexte au cinema: la poïétique durassienne et sa mise en scène”, in Stimpson (eds) Marguerite Duras: écritures, écritures, Paris, Minard, 2007, pp.159-169.
  • ‘Spatial opposition and the gendered spectacle of social suffering in French films’, Literature and Aesthetics, 2007, Vol.17, 2, pp. 141-151.
  • “Shame and Gaze: embodied social suffering and spectator’s gaze in French cinema”, Embodying Words and Images, Australian Journal of French Studies, Volume XLIV, Number 2, 2007.
  • ‘Shaping and Reshaping WWII: French Cinema and the National Past’, Literature and Aesthetics , 2006, Vol 16, 2, pp.227-240.
  • “Le Bordeaux et le/la Bouffi(e) : Duras à table”, The Arts of the Table, Monash Romance Studies, 2004, pp.88-99.
  • Michelle Royer, Renate Günther, Marguerite Duras, Carnet Austral, September 2003, p.15-17
  • Ninette Boothroyd, Michelle Royer, 'Robert Dessaix’s Journey into French', Southerly, 2003, Vol 63, N°1, pp.95-105.
  • 'L'Inde romancée. L'Inde dans le genre romanesque depuis 1947', Carnet Austral, N° 17, Sept. 2002 (book review).
  • 'L’Ecriture du vécu: l’oeuvre paralittéraire de Marguerite Duras' in Duras femme du siècle, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2002 pp. 73-86.
  • 'La télévision australienne' in Les télévisions du monde, Corlet Télérama, 1998, pp.383-390.
  • 'Produire l'oeuvre au dehors: l'écriture durassienne face au regard de l'autre', n°1, Australian Journal of French Studies ,1998, pp. 88-99.
  • “Afterthought on reading and sexual difference”, Australian Feminist Studies, n°15, Autumn 1992, pp.81-85.1
  • “Women in a changing Europe”, Australian Feminist Studies, 1992, n° 15, Autumn pp. 99-105.
  • “Les films de Marguerite Duras: un corps morcelé”, Journal of Durassian
    Studies    , Vol. 2, Fall 1990, pp. 49-59.
  • “Les films de Marguerite Duras: un corps morcelé”, Journal of Durassian Studies, Vol. 2, Fall 1990, pp.49-59.
  • “Deconstruction of Masculinity and Femininity in the films of Marguerite Duras”, in Threadgold and Cranny-Francis (eds) Masculine/feminine and Representation, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1989, pp. 128-139.

Conferences convener

  • Convener of the 18th Conference of Australian Society for French Studies : ‘Playtime: formes, fonctions et théories du jeu’ held 30/09-2/10/2010
  • Convener for CAP-FIPF 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference, congress held at the University of Sydney 2-5 December 2010.
  • Co-convener of the conference 'Repenser les processus créateurs/Rethinking Creative Processess' 15-16 February, 1999 held at Sancta Sophia College, University of Sydney

Conference, seminar papers and radio interviews

  • ‘Duras, le cinéma et le gai désespoir’ Colloque international de la Société Marguerite Duras, « Marguerite Duras, le rire dans tous ses éclats » held in Bellingham, May 2011.
  • “The teaching of cinema in university language departments”, delivered at CAP-FIPF 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference, held at the university of Sydney, 2-6 decembre 2010.
  • ‘Le Gai désespoir en compagnie de Marguerite Duras’ ASFS conference held at the University of Sydney, September 2010
  • « National Cinemas and Transcultural Mappings: The Case of France’ conference on Transcultural Mappings held at the University of Sydney, April 2010.
  • “Conflits de générations et intégration dans le cinéma” presented at the CIEF conference in Montreal in July 2010.
  • “Mise en scène de l’hybridation dans les films de Marguerite Duras”, paper delivered at the conference “Les Orients de Marguerite Duras” in September 2009 in Sendai (Japan).
  • Bibliographical entry in Professor Robert Harvey “Les Ecrits de Marguerite Duras” for IMEC (Institut de la Mémoire Contemporaine).
  • Seminar paper “Encounters with the third age”, delivered at SLC Research Day, 2009.
  • Conference paper “Mai 68 et cinéma” presented at the conference “Que reste-t-il de Mai 68?” held at Alliance Française in Sydney in May 2009.
  • Seminar paper “French female filmmakers and the Road Movie” delivered at the department of French Studies Seminar series, 2008.
  • “Duras and the Orient” Seminar paper presented at the SLC Research day, 2008.
  • “Social Integration and Gender in Post-Colonial French Cinema” presented at the University of Sydney international conference “History, Modernity and the Muslim World between Europe and Asia”, 2008.
  • ABC Radio National, “Australia Talks”, with Julie Briggs, interviewed about French Tunisian film The Secret of the Grain by Abdel Kechiche. 25 March 2008,
  • “Féminisme, écriture féminine et féminin dans la parole publique de Marguerite Duras ”. Conference paper presented at the Duras society conference in Gothenburg (Sweden) in May 2007
  • Michelle Royer and Margaux Harris “Interview with French film actress Catherine Deneuve, held in Paris in 2007.
  • Michelle Royer and Margaux Harris “Interview with filmmaker André Téchiné” held in Paris in 2007.
  • “100% récup: Le Glanage d’Agnès Varda”, ASFS conference, University of Western Australia, July 2005.
  • Presentation of Dr Grauby’s novel Un cheval piaffe en moi at The French Alliance of Sydney, 2005.
  • “Le Bordeaux et le/la Bouffie: Duras à table”, The Arts of the Table, ASFS conference, University of Adelaide, July 2000.
  • “L’oeuvre paralittéraire de Marguerite Duras”, Duras Femme du siècle conference, Institut Français de Londres, London, 2000.
  • “Le cinéma de Marguerite Duras”, a two-hour radio interview for SBS radio exclusively on my book L’Ecran de la passion, 3rd July 1998.
  • 1997 Interviewed by Isabelle Draux about the rise of the National Front in France, SBS radio 5 June.
  • Cinema and femininity, new perspectives”, Women in a changing Europe, Alborg,Danemark, 1992.
  • “Masculinity and femininity in India Song of Marguerite Duras”, invited guest at the Forum on Marguerite Duras, Performance Space, 1990.
  • “The Outsiders”, Conference on the Politics of Exile, The Performance Space, Sydney, 1989.
  • “Deconstruction of Masculinity and Femininity in the films of Marguerite Duras”, Masculine/feminine and Representation Conference, University of Sydney, 1989.
  • “The cinema of Marguerite Duras”, guest speaker at the forum on Marguerite Duras, Performance Space, Sydney, 1989.
  • “Across the boundaries of genre”, ASPCLS Conference, Brisbane, 1988.
  • “The place of writing in Marguerite Duras’work”, AULLA, Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1988.
  • “One block from heaven”, Photofile, Winter 1988, pp. 28-29.

Editing

  • Robert Dessaix, Corfou, translated by Dr Ninette Boothroyd, Trouville-sur-mer, 2002, Reflet.
  • Robert Dessaix, Night Letters, lettres de Venise, translated by Dr Ninette Boothroyd, Trouville-sur-mer, 2001, Reflet.
  • Robert Dessaix, Une mère et sa honte, translated by Dr Ninette Boothroyd, Trouville-sur-mer, 1999, Reflet.
  • 'Produire l'oeuvre au dehors: l'écriture durassienne face au regard de l'autre', n°1, Australian Journal of French Studies, 1998, pp. 88-99.
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Teaching

  • French Language (3rd Year Advanced)
  • French cinema
  • Research methodology
  • Honours seminar on French cinema
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Other professional contributions

  • Member of the reading committee, Collection Marguerite Duras, Peter Lang Bruxelles.
  • Representative of the Duras Society in Australia.
  • Editor and project coordinator for the translation and publication of Robert Dessaix's books: A mother's Disgrace, Night Letters, Corfu
  • Project liaison for the publication of Australian literature in French for French publisher 'Le Reflet'
  • Diploma of Editing and Publishing (Sydney 2001)
  • Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at UNSW (1999-2001)
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