Global French Studies: Transnational, Transcultural, and Transdisciplinary Perspectives
The 32nd annual conference of the Australian Society for French Studies (ASFS) was held at The University of Melbourne, 11-13 December 2024.
In total, 85 delegates from Australia and across the world shared their research with the ASFS community.
The event kicked off its first day with online sessions as well as an in-person Postgraduate Day, organized and led by ASFS Postgraduate Officer Dr Beth Kearney.
The keynote speakers Professor Maeve McCusker, Associate Professor Mame-Fatou Niang, and Dr Gemma King gave fascinating talks, and the conference closed with a roundtable discussion, ‘Future Directions in French Studies: Global Perspectives’, which was moderated by Professor Charles Forsdick.
As part of the conference, a wine reception and book launch were held for the volume in honour of Professor Colin Nettelbeck, Liens franco-australiens : Mélanges en l’honneur du professeur Colin Nettelbeck.
Several ASFS prizes and grants were also awarded during the conference. The ASFS / AJFS Postgraduate Essay Prize was awarded to Hannah Doyle for her essay ‘“Ma sœur, il est parti ! ma sœur, il m’abandonne !” : La mise en scène de l’abandon dans les élégies de Marceline Desbordes-Valmore’. Sophie Tallis was awarded the Colin Nettelbeck Prize to support her 2025 research travel plans for her project on French and Francophone girlhood cinema. The ASFS School Liaison and Community Outreach Fund was awarded to Charlotte Mackay who continued her collaborative project club littéraire francophone for secondary school teachers of French, and to Marie-Laure Vuaille-Barcan who ran two linguistic workshops for high school French teachers aimed at improving the quality of French language teaching in the Newcastle region.
The conference organisers Bertrand Bourgeois, Lucie Froidevaux, Andrew McGregor, Nicholas Strole, and Antonia Wimbush would like to thank the ASFS Executive Committee for all their support. They are also grateful for the generous financial support from the Embassy of France in Australia and Liverpool University Press, as well as from the Faculty of Arts, the School of Languages and Linguistics, and the French Trust Fund at The University of Melbourne.