Dr Sonia Wilson

PhD (Queensland), DEA (Paris III - Sorbonne nouvelle), MA (McGill University), BA Hons (Adelaide)
Lecturer
Room 745, Brennan MacCallum Building A18
+61 2 9036 6125


Sonia Wilson was educated in Australia, Canada and France. She joined the University of Sydney in 2010 after holding a position at the University of Melbourne for 6 years. Her research interests lie in the area of life writing in French, particularly the journal intime and correspondence. Her current project focuses on the relationship between photography and text in late twentieth-century French autobiographical works.

Research areas

• life writing, specifically diary and letter writing
• intersection of gender and genre
• late nineteenth century French women's writing and social history

Selected publications

Books

• Personal Effects: reading the ‘journal’ of Marie Bashkirtseff. Oxford: Legenda, 2010. Publisher's catalogue.

Book chapters

• “Personal Encounters: Catherine Pozzi as reader of Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal." Soi-disant: Life-Writing in French. Ed. Juliana De Nooy, Joe Hardwick and Barbara E. Hanna. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005. 108 – 123.

Articles

• “Undoing Rousseau: rereading Les Confessions through the preface to Marie Bashkirtseff’s journal.” The French Review 80.1 (2006): 140 – 156.
• “Reading the details of dress in Marie Bashkirtseff’sjournal intime.” Nottingham French Studies 43.2 (2004): 12-23.
• “Making an Exhibition of oneself in Public: the preface to Marie Bashkirtseff's journal intime.” French Studies LV.4 (2001): 485 – 97.
• WILSON, S. (1998) “Reading (and) the Personal: Preface to Journal d'une jeune fille Second Empire.” Australian Journal of French Studies XXXV.2 (1998): 178-188.

Book Reviews

• Review of Françoise Simonet-Tenant. Le journal intime. Genre littéraire et écriture ordinaire. Paris: Téraèdre, 2004 in Biography 29.2 (2006): 364-367
• Review of Bland, C. and M. Cross, eds. Gender and Politics in the Age of Letter-Writing, 1750-2000. Ashgate, 2004. in Modern and Contemporary France 13.3 (2005): 365-366.
• Review of Rythmes pittoresques. Marie Krysinska. Édition critique établie par Seth Whidden. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2003. in New Zealand Journal of French Studies 25.1 (2004): 68-70.

Areas of teaching and research supervision

Teaching

• French language (FRNC2611 and FRNC 2612)

Supervision

• life writing (autobiography, journal intime)
• Annie Ernaux
• late nineteenth century French women's writing

Other professional contributions

• Co-convenor of the annual Australian Society of French Studies conference (Melbourne, July 14-16, 2008)
• Treasurer of the Australian Society of French Studies