Overview
Amber Bal is a fifth year PhD candidate in French Literature. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, she received a BA (first-class honours) in Classics and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford. Her dissertation “Patchwork Lands: Non-Urban Modernities in West and Central African Literature” explores the representation of rural spaces in literature and archival documents written in French, Wolof, and English.
Her other research interests include ecocriticism, classical reception (tragedy and pastoral literature), nineteenth and twentieth century French anthropology, and political economic analyses of empire. Her research has appeared in the European Society for Moral Philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir Studies, Africa is a Country, Research Africa. She is currently a Chateaubriand Fellow for the year 2023-24
Research Focus
20th and 21st Century Francophone Literature