Dr Francesca Leveridge

I joined the Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies in 2024 as Lecturer in French. Prior to this, I was based at the University of Nottingham, where I was awarded my PhD in Translation Studies in 2023.

My work is primarily situated at the intersections of French and Francophone Film Studies, Audiovisual Translation Studies and Postcolonial Studies. I have a particular interest in the representation and translation, via subtitling, of multilingualism in contemporary francophone cinema and their relationship to identity formation and power relations, both on and beyond the screen. An article on 'Cinéma-monde and subtitling' that I co-authored with Dr Pierre-Alexis Mével (University of Nottingham) was recently published in the Journal of Romance Studies in a special issue on cinéma-monde, a concept and corpus at the heart of the research I work on and through.

At Exeter, I am teaching French language at all levels, as well as contributing to teaching on the MA in Translation Studies for students specialising in translation from French and subtitling. From the 24/25 academic year, I will be convening the second-year module 'French-language Road Movies: Space, Place and Identity' (MLF2006) and the final-year module 'Multilingualism, Audiovisual Translation and Power in Cinéma-monde' (MLF3007), both informed by my research interests. I will also be co-convening the final-year undergraduate module 'Migration in World Cinema' with Dr Natalia Pinazza and the MA module 'Translation and Communication for Accessibility' with Professor Chloe Paver, with whom I share an interest in accessible museum communication. I am currently supervising both undergraduate and MA dissertations in Translation Studies, Communications and Intercultural Communication that span film studies, literary translation, digital accessibility and popular culture.

In addition to my work on (translation in/of) francophone film, I have a particular interest in the work of filmmakers, artists and access workers developing novel approaches to the translation of sound and image in both live and recorded performances. For the past two years, I have been working as part of an interdisciplinary team with colleagues at the University of Nottingham on a research project employing experimental techniques (electrodermal activity and heart rate monitoring) to psychophysiologically investigate the emotional impact of aesthetically integrated subtitles on film audiences. A pre-print of our first paper can be found here.

I am an Academic Lead for Widening Participation in Modern Languages and Cultures, and share the Schools and Widening Participation role with Professor Tom Hinton. I welcome opportunities for outreach work and am very keen to work with sixth forms and colleges preparing first-generation students for university.