Dr Cécile Bishop

MA, MSt, PhD

I graduated from Sciences Po Paris (France) in 2006, before moving to Oxford for an MSt in European Literatures.

I completed my thesis in French Studies at King’s College London, which formed the basis of my first book, Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny (Legenda, 2014). In 2012, I was appointed to the Joanna Randall McIver Junior Research Fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford, followed by a lectureship at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2013.

In 2015, I moved to a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of French Literature, Thought, and Culture at New York University.

In 2021, I was appointed to the position of Kelleher Fellow in French and Associate Professor of Post-Colonial Francophone Literatures and Culture at Oriel College, Oxford.

Research Interests

Postcolonial Literatures in French (particularly from the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa), Visual Culture (especially photography), Race in France, Interpretation and Criticism.

Selected Publications

Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny (Oxford: Legenda. Research Monographs in French Studies n°41, 2014).

Seeing Race, Seeing Ghosts: Zamor, Ourika, and the Specter of Blackness,’ L’Esprit Créateur 59(2) (2019), pp. 56-71.
‘Portraiture, Race, and Subjectivity: The Opacity of Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait d’une négresse,’ Word and Image 35(1) (2019), pp.1-11.
‘Photography, Race and Invisibility: The Liberation of Paris, in Black and White,’ Photographies 11(2-3) (2018), pp.193-213.
‘Race as Aesthetics? Denise Colomb in the Caribbean’, French Studies, vol 72(1) (2018), pp.53-72.
‘Traces of Humanity? Carl de Keyzer and Johan Lagae’s Congo Belge en images,’ International Journal of Francophone Studies, 15(3) (2012), pp. 517-540.