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Heather Williams joined the Centre in 2007 as Pilcher Senior Fellow. She is currently working on the Wales and the French Revolution project|, concentrating on translation. This allows her to combine her experience in French literature with Celtic Studies. After graduating in Modern Languages (French) from St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, she completed her D.Phil. there on Stéphane Mallarmé, and then went on to hold posts at the Universities of Nottingham, Oxford and Aberystwyth.
Research interests:
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Translation and cultural exchange between Welsh, French and English during the period of the French Revolution. She has also worked on translation between French and Breton, especially in the 1830s and the 1960s and 1970s.
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Ecocriticism, especially in conjunction with postcolonial theory, and as it relates to Brittany and Wales from Romanticism to the present day.
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Brittany, the representation of Brittany in French-language literature both from Brittany and from the mainstream French tradition. Her Postcolonial Brittany: Literature Between Languages (2007) investigates the space between the two languages of modern-day Brittany through a series of close readings of literary texts that represent Brittany or Bretonness in the French language.
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Postcolonial literary criticism as it relates to Celtic countries or regions.
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French poetry, especially Stéphane Mallarmé. Her Mallarmé’s Ideas in Language (2004) is a series of close readings of Mallarmé’s poetry and theoretical work that investigate his ideas in language rather than his ideas on language. The book argues that his way of embedding ideas in verbal textures earns him a place not just in the history of poetry, but also in the history of philosophy, and of the discourse of critical theory.
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Travel writing, especially in relation to postcolonialism and translation studies; travellers to Brittany and to Wales from Romanticism onwards.
Current projects
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Cultural changes and exchanges: Brittany and Wales / Bretagne/pays de Galles : quand les chemins se croisent et se décroisent
Dr Heather Williams is British team leader of this joint project, which is funded by the British Council and the Ministère des Affaires étrangères (Partenariats Hubert Curien), and aims to develop stronger links between the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS) and the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC) , Brittany. See details of our joint workshops here .
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Travellers to Wales
This is a collaboration with Dr Kathryn Jones (Swansea University) and Dr Carol Tully (Bangor University). The project is interested in exchanges and connections between Wales and other (mainly European) countries/cultures in either direction, from 1750 to the present day, and in particular in travel accounts to Wales from these countries. We are hoping to identify patterns of reception and significant periods of activity which will later form the key foci for a network or research grant bid. A workshop and planning event was held at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in April 2009.
Selected publications
Books:
Postcolonial Brittany: Literature Between Languages (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), 191pp.
Mallarmé’s Ideas in Language (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004), 175pp.
Barddoniaeth i Bawb? Stéphane Mallarmé [Poetry for all? Stéphane Mallarmé] ([Aberystwyth]: Cronfa Goffa Saunders Lewis, 1998), 64pp. This is a work of literary criticism for the reader with a background in Welsh literature. It also contains some of my own translations of Mallarmé’s verse into Welsh.
Articles and chapters in books:
'Chwedlau ac arferion marwolaeth Llydaw', Llên Cymru, 34 (2011), 216-25.
‘Translating Bretonness – colonizing Brittany’, forthcoming, in Festschrift for Rosemary Lloyd.
'"Me zo bet sklav": African Americans and Breton Literature', Comparative American Studies on ‘The Celts and the African Americas’, 8:2 (2010), 126-39.
‘Between French and Breton: the politics of translation’, Romance Studies , 27:3 (2009), 223–33. [PDF| ]
‘Ecofeirniadaeth i’r Celtiaid’, Llenyddiaeth Mewn Theori , 3 (2008) [2009], 1–28.
‘Ar drywydd Celtigrwydd: Auguste Brizeux’ [In Search of Celticity: Auguste Brizeux], Y Traethodydd , CLXI (2006), 34–50.
‘Celtomania’, in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia , ed. John T. Koch (5 vols., Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006).
‘Writing to Paris: poets, nobles, and savages in nineteenth-century Brittany’, French Studies , 57 (2003), 475–90.
‘ Séparisianisme or internal colonialism’, in Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction , ed. by Charles Forsdick and David Murphy (London: Arnold, 2003), pp. 102–11.
‘Une sauvagerie très douce’, in Visions/ Revisions: Essays on Nineteenth-Century French Culture , ed. by Nigel Harkness, Paul Rowe, Tim Unwin, Jennifer Yee(Oxford: Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 99–106.
‘Diffinio Llydaw’ [Defining Brittany], Y Traethodydd ,CLVII (2002), 197–208.
‘Mallarmé and the language of ideas’, Nineteenth-Century French Studies , 29 (2001), 302–17.
‘Mallarmé’s early correspondence: the language of crisis’, Romance Studies , 19 (2001), 148–59.
‘Dafydd ap Gwilym and the debt to Europe’, Études celtiques , 34 (1998–2000), 185–213.
‘Mallarmé dans la critique littéraire galloise’, Revue d’études françaises , 5 (2000), 109–15.
‘La Pensée corporelle de Mallarmé’, Vives Lettres , 9 (2000), 109–22.
‘Diffinio dwy lenyddiaeth Llydaw’ [Defining the two literatures of Brittany], Tu Chwith , 12 (1999), 51–6.
‘Taliesin, l’Alexandre gallois, le retour de la cynghanedd ’, in Formules: Revue des littératures à contraintes , 2 (1998), 85–95.
‘Barddoniaeth i bawb o bobl y byd: cabledd?’ [Poetry for all: heresy?], Taliesin , 95 (1996), 56–62.
Heather has reviewed books for Barn , Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies , French Studies , Modern and Contemporary France , New Welsh Review , New Zealand Journal of French Studies , and Nineteenth-Century French Studies .
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