Dr Lea Vuong
My expertise is in modern and contemporary French and Francophone literature and visual arts. I am particularly interested in word and image interactions.
My current focus is on the oeuvre of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010).
I am also working on collaborative projects related to the South Pacific and Oceania, in particular Francophone contemporary art, literature and cinema in the region.
Another interest is the cultural legacy of the Bièvre, the lost urban river of Paris.
Teaching
Some of the units I currently coordinate and teach include:
- FRNC3100 - Visual Cultures
- SLCS4205 - Cross Cultural Literature and Film
Supervision
- Honours
I regularly supervise Honours students, on a variety of topics related to French and Francophone culture and thought, and I welcome enquiries from prospective students.
- HDR (postgraduate)
I welcome the supervision of HDR students working on any aspect of French and Francophone literature and art (modern and contemporary periods).
- Louise Bourgeois: The Artist as Writer (under contract with Penn State University Press)
My upcoming book is a study of Louise Bourgeois's writings and the relationship between her oeuvre and literature. Using the perspective of literary studies to reassess her oeuvre, I establish how writing, reading, but also collecting and making books are central to her artistic practice.
I recently published a co-edited special issue of Word & Image (38, 1, 2022) on the archives of Louise Bourgeois, which regroups essays by scholars and curators and includes a series of facsimiles of the artist's private writings.
This co-edited volume of essays looks at contemporary Francophone literature, visual arts, film, and other cultural productions in the region. It seeks to reposition Oceanian studies within global Francophone Studies, and to challenge the relative marginality of Francophone cultural productions in the South Pacific.
I also co-convened the recent international symposium on 'Arts and Environmental Concerns in Oceania' (University of Sydney, February 2023), which was funded jointly by the Pacific Fund (French Embassy), Sydney Environment Institute, Power Institute and the School of Languages and Cultures.
- Other projects:
I am working on a new research project on the Bièvre river, Paris's hidden waterway. As it went under the surface, it sunk away artworks, literary texts, material objects and traces of cultural practices. My project uncovers this neglected corpus, looking at Paris through its absent river to understand what it was, could have been and what it plans to be.
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| Monstrous bodies monstrous selves: Grotesque poetics as a critical-creative practice in the work of Virginie Despentes Julia Ducournau and Paul B. Preciado | Beau SMITH-DAVIES |
Selected publications
(Liverpool University Press, 2024)
(2022)
(Legenda, 2016)
Publications
Books
- Vuong, L. (2016). Pascal Quignard: Towards the Vanishing Point. Cambridge: Legenda. [More Information]
Edited Books
- Royer, M., Segeral, N., Vuong, L. (2024). Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
Book Chapters
- Vuong, L. (2024). 'Wrapped Islands' and invisible artists: rethinking contemporary art in Oceania today. In Michelle Royer, Nathalie Ségeral, Léa Vuong (Eds.), Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema, (pp. 135-157). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
- Royer, M., Segeral, N., Vuong, L. (2024). Introduction. In Michelle Royer, Nathalie Ségeral, Léa Vuong (Eds.), Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema, (pp. 1-9). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
- Vuong, L. (2016). 'Dibutade'. In Mireille Calle-Gruber and Anais Frantz (Eds.), Dictionnaire sauvage Pascal Quignard, (pp. 145-147). Paris: Hermann.
Journals
- Vuong, L. (2022). Art and Archive: Louise Bourgeois Through a Feverish Gaze. Australian Journal of French Studies, 59(1), 46-59. [More Information]
- Vuong, L., Bates, J. (2022). At home with the artist: exploring the Louise Bourgeois Archive. Word and Image: a journal of verbal/visual enquiry, 38(1), 1-10. [More Information]
- Vuong, L., Bates, J. (2022). Interview with Maggie Wright, Louise Bourgeois Archive, The Easton Foundation. Word and Image: a journal of verbal/visual enquiry, 38(1), 11-18. [More Information]
Edited Journals
- Vuong, L., Bates, J. (2022). Louise Bourgeois: Through the Archives. Word and Image: a journal of verbal/visual enquiry, 38(1). [More Information]
- Vuong, L., Bishop, C. (2011). La non lecture. La Lecture Litteraire, 11(2011).
Reference Works
- Vuong, L. (2025). Pascal Quignard. In Siobhán McIlvanney (Eds.), The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited. [More Information]
2025
- Vuong, L. (2025). Pascal Quignard. In Siobhán McIlvanney (Eds.), The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited. [More Information]
2024
- Vuong, L. (2024). 'Wrapped Islands' and invisible artists: rethinking contemporary art in Oceania today. In Michelle Royer, Nathalie Ségeral, Léa Vuong (Eds.), Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema, (pp. 135-157). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
- Royer, M., Segeral, N., Vuong, L. (2024). Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
- Royer, M., Segeral, N., Vuong, L. (2024). Introduction. In Michelle Royer, Nathalie Ségeral, Léa Vuong (Eds.), Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Cinema, (pp. 1-9). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [More Information]
2022
- Vuong, L. (2022). Art and Archive: Louise Bourgeois Through a Feverish Gaze. Australian Journal of French Studies, 59(1), 46-59. [More Information]
- Vuong, L., Bates, J. (2022). At home with the artist: exploring the Louise Bourgeois Archive. Word and Image: a journal of verbal/visual enquiry, 38(1), 1-10. [More Information]
- Vuong, L., Bates, J. (2022). Interview with Maggie Wright, Louise Bourgeois Archive, The Easton Foundation. Word and Image: a journal of verbal/visual enquiry, 38(1), 11-18. [More Information]
2021
- Vuong, L. (2021). Review: PASCAL QUIGNARD, Sur le geste de l'abandon. Dirige par MIREILLE CALLE-GRUBER. French Studies. [More Information]
2020
- Vuong, L. (2020). Simone de Beauvoir et Louise Bourgeois, la sororite en texte et en image. Loxias, 69, 1-13.
2019
- Vuong, L. (2019). Review - Pascal Quignard: vies, oeuvre. Par AGNES COUSIN DE RAVEL. French Studies, 73(3), 485. [More Information]
- Vuong, L. (2019). Review - Sur le poeme jamais ecrit: en lisant Pascal Quignard. Par GILLES GONTIER. French Studies, 73(3), 484-485. [More Information]
2017
- Vuong, L. (2017). Pascal Quignard: du monument a la ruine, de la ruine au vivant. Tangence, 115(2017), 35-55. [More Information]
2016
- Vuong, L. (2016). 'Dibutade'. In Mireille Calle-Gruber and Anais Frantz (Eds.), Dictionnaire sauvage Pascal Quignard, (pp. 145-147). Paris: Hermann.
- Vuong, L. (2016). 'Maniere noire'. In Mireille Calle-Gruber and Anais Frantz (Eds.), Dictionnaire sauvage Pascal Quignard, (pp. 345-347). Paris: Hermann.
- Vuong, L. (2016). Pascal Quignard: Towards the Vanishing Point. Cambridge: Legenda. [More Information]
2015
- Vuong, L. (2015). Louise Bourgeois: A Woman of Her Words. In Iris Muller-Westermann (Eds.), Louise Bourgeois: I Have Been to Hell and Back, (pp. 211-219). Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.
- Vuong, L. (2015). Metamorphoses et Disparitions. In Mireille Calle-Gruber, Jonathan Degeneve and Irene Fenoglio (Eds.), Pascal Quignard. Translations et metamorphoses, (pp. 449-462). Paris: Hermann.
2014
- Vuong, L. (2014). Pascal Quignard et le non-lieu du conte. In Agnes Cousin de Ravel, Chantal Lapeyre-Desmaison and Dominique Rabate (Eds.), Les Lieux de Pascal Quignard, (pp. 220-232). Paris: Gallimard.
2013
- Vuong, L. (2013). L'enfant fetiche dans l'oeuvre de Pascal Quignard. Litteratures, 69(2013), 107-122.
- Vuong, L. (2013). Pascal Quignard's Metamorphoses: A Contemporary Recuperation of Literary Fairy Tales. In Michael Gratzke, Margaret-Anne Hutton, Claire Whitehead (Eds.), Readings in Twenty-First-Century European Literatures, (pp. 119-136). Oxford: Peter Lang. [More Information]
- Vuong, L. (2013). The favorite child in the work of Pascal Quignard [L'enfant fétiche dans l'œuvre de Pascal Quignard]. Litteratures, 69, 107-122. [More Information]
2011
- Vuong, L., Bishop, C. (2011). "La Traversee des livres": enjeu d'une approche critique de la non-lecture. La Lecture Litteraire, 11(2011), 5-22.
- Vuong, L., Bishop, C. (2011). La non lecture. La Lecture Litteraire, 11(2011).
Selected Grants
2022
- Symposium on cultural expressions of climate change across the French speaking islands in the South Pacific, Royer M, Segeral N, Vuong L, Embassy of France in Australia/Pacific Fund Research Grant
In the media
- Louise Bourgeois: Tides & Currents. International Symposium at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 10-12 March 2024
https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/symposium-louise-bourgeois
- Panel: ‘My own voice wakes me up’/Léa Vuong, Philip Larratt-Smith and Justin Paton on Louise Bourgeois, 25 November 2023. Art Gallery of New South Wales
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/art/watch-listen-read/listen/panel-my-own-voice-wakes-me-up/
- Learning Curve Lecture series: Louise Bourgeois. Hiding in plain sight: Louise Bourgeois and the lost river of Paris. Art Gallery of New South Wales.Friday, 10 November 2023, and Saturday, 11 November 2023
https://mgnsw.org.au/events/learning-curve-lecture-louise-bourgeois/
- SYMPOSIUM: IN-BETWEEN: LOUISE BOURGEOIS AND ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW: 1965-1973, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS 1 – PANTHÉON SORBONNE, UNIVERSITÉ RENNES 2, HICSA, AWARE. Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (Paris, France). 7-8 October 2022
