Dr Sophie Maddison

School of Languages, Arts and Societies

Teaching Associate in French and Francophone Studies

Dr Sophie Maddison
Profile picture of Dr Sophie Maddison
s.maddison@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Dr Sophie Maddison
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I specialise in Franco-Italian cultural connections spanning the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. My research is ecocritical and urban-oriented. I am also interested in the intersection of the environmental, health, and medical humanities.

My doctoral thesis was a comparative study of cities in the works of Matilde Serao (1856-1927) and mile Zola (1840-1902), with a focus on Naples and Paris. My first monograph, , is under contract with Legenda. By addressing Serao and Zola in a way that looks beyond their most renowned work and their most frequently noted similarities, Urban Interconnections uncovers new lines of affinity between Naples and Paris during the late nineteenth century. I demonstrate that Serao and Zola are crucial to exploring such connections not only from a literary-historical perspective, but also in the light of present-day urban and environmental challenges. 

I am currently working on a postdoctoral project titled Occupation, Environment, and the Postwar City in French and Italian Culture. This research counteracts a lack of comparative scholarship on French and Italian experiences of occupation during the Second World War, the role played by cultural production in our understanding of such experiences, and the environmental connections between occupied cities and postwar urban life. My postdoctoral research brings ecocritical analysis into dialogue with memory studies, trauma studies, and approaches to urban space stemming from the social sciences.

At Sheffield, I convene the second-year module Understanding Gender and Society in France and the Francophone World. I teach undergraduate modules on modern France, textual intersections, French literature and the environment, and comparative visual studies. I also contribute to postgraduate modules on advanced translation and transnational cultural  movements.

Qualifications
  • MPhil, PhD (Glasgow)
  • MLitt (Glasgow)
  • BA (Exeter)
Research interests
  • Comparative approaches to French and Italian culture
  • Environmental humanities
  • Health humanities
  • Medical humanities
  • Urban narratives - particularly relating to Naples and Paris
  • Cultural responses to the Second World War
  • Occupation studies
  • Postwar urban environments
Teaching activities

Undergraduate:

  • MDL107 Understanding Modern France
  • MDL115 Intersections: Text, Image, Thought in the French-Speaking World
  • MDL120 Comparative Visual Cultures
  • MDL213 Understanding Gender and Society in France and the Francophone World (Convenor)
  • MDL319 Litt辿rature et environnement en France aux 18e-19e si竪cles

Postgraduate:

  • MDL406 Innovations: Cultural Movements and Patterns
  • MDL6048 Advanced Translation from French
Professional activities and memberships
  • Member of the network
  • Member of the research network
Publications

Journal Articles

Reading Beyond Gender in Zolas Au Bonheur des Dames, 晦A姻乙艶稼岳, and La Joie de Vivre, Dix-Neuf (2024)

DOI:

Ci嘆 竪 immondo; ma 竪 la verit: The Entanglement of Dirt and Truth in Matilde Seraos Il ventre di Napoli (1884; 1906) and mile Zolas 晦A壊壊看馨馨看庄姻 (1877), Modern Language Review, 117:4 (2022), 560-80

DOI:

Book Reviews

Matilde Serao: International Profile, Reception and Networks ed. By Gabriella Romani, Ursula Fanning, and Katharine Mitchell (review), Modern Language Review, 119:2 (2024), 276-77

DOI: