Portraitfoto Jody Danard

Jody Danard

“Perdre le Nord”: Literary Subject Constructions in the Narrative Imagined Space of the North in French Canadian Contemporary Literatures from Québec, Acadie and Autochthonous Territories

The North as a contradictory figure between man and nature, space and history, fact and construction has always exerted a certain fascination on people in Europe and has increasingly been used as a spatial narrative frame in literature from Québec – but also of Acadian or autochthonous provenance. The fictional(ised) North has since come under the scrutiny of researchers as a cultural-geographical space of identitary negotiation, but especially as a literary-aesthetic space of identity construction. My PhD project focuses on the following research questions: In what ways have subject constructions with reference to the North been constructed literarily, aesthetically and narratively in exemplary French Canadian narrative texts since the 2000s? Which long-lived topoi and narratives play a role in the different corpora? What new narratives are emerging?

Research Interests
  • French Canadian Literature
  • Indigenous Literature
  • Space in Narratives
  • Imagined North
Vita
  • Since January 2022
    Research assistant, Department of French Literature, University of Bremen
  • 2019 – 2021
    M. Ed. English & French Philology, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel
  • 2019 – 2021
    M. Ed. English & French Philology, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel
  • 2018
    Abroad Study Semester at the Université de Montréal, CAU Scholarship
  • 2016 – 2019
    B. A. English & French Philology, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel
Publications
  • 2023
    Dystopie, Fragmentation et Filiation dans Aquariums de J.D. Kurtness. Nordic Journal of Francophone Studies/ Revue nordique des études francophones, 6(1), p. 34–44. Accessible at: doi.org/10.16993/rnef.96.
Talks, Workshops and Events
  • 10. – 11.10.2024
    Conference ESF Conference „Territory, Tension & Taboo“ Emerging Scholars Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries, University of Bremen
  • 13.04.2023
    Talk Processus de négociations culturelles, filiation et identité dans Aquariums de J.D. Kurtness at the Forum Junge Romanistik: Migration und Transnationalisierung in der Romania, University of Passau
  • 05.03.2023
    Emerging Scholars’ Forum Solidarité féminine et écoguerrières nordiques dans la trilogie de Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba at the 44th Annual Conference of the GKS, Hotel am Badersee Grainau
  • 22.09.2022
    Talk Les littératures autochtones du Québec: le renouveau du roman de terroir francophone? at the 13. Kongress des Frankoromanistenverbands, University of Vienna
  • 30.08.2022
    Colloquium Acabride – L’Acadie hybride with Prof. Dr. Karen Struve and Dr. Benjamin Peter, University of Kiel
  • 25.07. – 05.08.2022
    European Summer School for Canadian Studies (ESSCS), Scholarship of the AIEQs (Association Internationale des Études Québécoises)
Teaching
  • Summer Term 2023 U Bremen
    Traduction littéraire français-allemandLesekurs zur Einführung in die französische Literaturwissenschaft
  • Winter Term 2022/23 U Bremen
    La littérature francocanadienne (Québec et Acadie): analyses de texte et préparation d’une exposition à la SUUB/Traduction littéraire
  • Summer Term 2022
    Einführung in die französische Literaturwissenschaft: Literaturgeschichte und Textanalyse
Is contradiction eurocentric?

“Is contradiction a eurocentric concept, operational phenomenon, and instrument of power?”

Kerstin Knopf
power and resistance

“Michel Foucault says: “Where there is power, there is resistance, and […] this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (History of Sexuality I, The Will to Knowledge, 1976, p. 95)”

Gisela Febel
driver

“Contradictions are an important driver of scientific practice and knowledge.”

Norman Sieroka
city

“The city is a laboratory not only of modernity, but also of contradiction.”

Julia Lossau
relational

“At first I thought contradiction was always a relational thing; but the more I ponder it, the more I think contradiction creates relation.”

Ingo H. Warnke