Emma Wilson

Emma Wilson (born 1967) is a British academic and writer, specializing in French literature and cinema. She is a Reader in Contemporary French Literature and Film at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Corpus Christi College. [ [http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/staff/efw1000/ Emma Wilson's page at the University of Cambridge] ] She is currently head of the French department at Cambridge.

Wilson was a scholarship student at Surbiton High School [ [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1381142.ece A girl's own story - Times Online ] ] and then studied French and Latin as an undergraduate at Cambridge. She then stayed on to do a PhD in the French department. Her thesis was entitled "The pain of the pleasure of the text: Tournier, reading and sexuality". [http://ulmss-newton.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search%5FArg=wilson%20emma&SL=None&Search%5FCode=NAME%5F&CNT=25&PID=5_0ozbhtViiVuiYWAJ9sh3QNSbkM&BROWSE=2&HC=1&SID=1 Accessed on 29th June 2008] Wilson then got a post as a university lecturer in Cambridge.

As a researcher, Wilson is author of five books and over twenty articles published in scholarly journals in the field of modern languages and film. Her published work includes book studies of Alain Resnais and Krzysztof Kieslowski as well as specific work on writers such as Marcel Proust, Marguerite Duras, Hélène Cixous and Michel Tournier. As well as her contribution to these author fields, however, Wilson's writing has applications to critical theory. In her 1996 work, "Sexuality and the Reading Encounter", Wilson makes a contribution to reader response theory in relation to feminism and queer theory. She argues for the potential for change in the reader's identity through reading. The encounter between reader and text, she says, depends 'not on pre-constructed identities, but on the very performance of identity in the process of reading' ["Sexuality and the Reading Encounter: Identity and Desire in Proust, Duras, Cixous and Toumier" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 28.] Wilson is particularly interested in the way that readers position themselves in relation to representations of desiring relations. [ Adrian Stokes, 'Theories of Reading and Reception' in Kate McGowan (ed.) "The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 96" (Blackwell Publishing, 1999) p. 105. ]

Wilson's 2003 study of the cinematic treatment of missing children, "Cinema’s Missing Children", was described as "a book rich in academic and cultural backstory". [http://www.audiencemag.com/LIBRARY/Bindery/bind1105.html "Audience" magazine.] Her latest book on the Canadian-Armenian film maker Atom Egoyan will be published this year. [http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/staff/efw1000/ Accessed 27 May 2008]

Emma Wilson is the daughter of novelist Jacqueline Wilson. [cite news
url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,6000,1147818,00.html
title=Profile: Jacqueline Wilson
author=Claire Armitstead
date=February 14 2004
publisher=The Guardian
accessdate=2008-05-25]

Published work

* "Alain Resnais" (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006) ISBN 9780719064067
* "Cinema's Missing Children" (Wallflower, 2003)
* "Memory and Survival: The French Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski" (Oxford: Legenda, 2000)
* "French Cinema since 1950: Personal Histories" (Duckworth, 1999) ISBN 0715628496
* "Sexuality and the Reading Encounter: Identity and Desire in Proust, Duras, Cixous and Toumier" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) ISBN 0198158858
* (editor) "Sexuality and Masquerade: The Dedalus Book of Sexual Ambiguity" (Dedalus, 1996)

References

Further reading

* Kate Ince, Review of "Sexuality and the Reading Encounter: Identity and Desire in Proust, Duras, Tournier and Cixous", "The Modern Language Review" Vol. 92, No. 3 (July 1997), pp. 741-742.
* Michael Worton, Review of "Sexuality and the Reading Encounter: Identity and Desire in Proust, Duras, Cixous and Toumier", "French Studies" 52, 1998; pp.222-223.
* Martha Noel Evans, Review of "Sexuality and the Reading Encounter", "Modern Philology" 96 no.2 (1998), p. 284.
* [http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/39703/cinemas-missing-children/ Review of "Cinema's Missing Children"] by James Oliphant for "PopMatters".
* [http://www.kamera.co.uk/books/cinema's_missing_children.php Review of "Cinema's Missing Children"] by Antonio Pasolini for Kamera.co.uk.
* [http://www.audiencemag.com/LIBRARY/Bindery/bind1105.html 'Kinds of Blue'] : Review of "Cinema's Missing Children" by Richard Armstrong for "Audience Magazine", 2005.
* Phil Powrie 'Review: Memory and Survival: The French Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski', "French Studies" 56, Apr 2002; pp. 288-289.
* Phil Powrie, 'Review of French Cinema Since 1950: Personal Histories', "French Studies" 54, 2000 pp. 550-551.

External links

* [http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/staff/efw1000/ Emma Wilson's page at the University of Cambridge]
* [http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/teachoff.php?contid=174 Emma Wilson's page at Corpus Christi College]