Dr Jane Southwood
Lecturer, School of Arts
Contact
| Email: | jsouthw5@une.edu.au |
| Room: | E11 225 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 2741 (or +61 2 6773 2741 overseas) |
Jane Southwood has taught and carried out research at five universities in Australia and France. She has also been a guest lecturer at two other tertiary institutions in France and has run workshops in translation for groups of University students drawn from several universities. Her training in language teaching began in France at the Centre de Linguistique Appliquée, University of Besançon (now University of Franche-Comté). It was there she discovered her passion for teaching and learned much about an interactive approach under the guidance of the late Dr Marilyn Gill. Jane Southwood’s research for her Master of Arts thesis on the Délie (1544) of the poet, Maurice Scève, supervised by Associate Professor Beverley Ormerod of the Department of French Studies, University of Western Australia, gave her a grounding in the complex and fascinating world of Renaissance France, what is now called the Early Modern Era. This area had begun to interest her when she was exposed to the repertoire of sixteenth-century composers while singing with the University of Besançon choir and a small group uniquely devoted to composers such as Jannequin, Josquin Desprez and Orlando de Lassus.
Jane Southwood’s doctoral thesis on the writings of the first woman to be elected to the French Academy, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), was supervised by Professor Denis Boak, Department of French Studies, School of European Languages, University of Western Australia. The thesis, undertaken as an external student, dealt with rhetorical and narrative procedures in two of Yourcenar’s works: a novel centred on a sixteenth-century alchemist/physician and the imaginary memoirs of the emperor Hadrian, who reigned from 117-138.
In association with her husband, Charles, Jane Southwood continues to be involved with many aspects of French culture: music, dance, theatre, film, and creative word play.
Research interests
Areas of research on which Jane Southwood is currently engaged, and on which she has delivered conference papers and published articles, include medical practice during 19th-century French voyages of exploration and further work on Marguerite Yourcenar. She is also working on a research project - for which a Teaching Development Grant has been awarded - focusing on designing for and enriching programmes in e-learning in French. The project involves colleagues from French and German, as from the Teaching and Learning Centre and the Dixon Library, UNE. The project will also involve colleagues at other Australian and overseas universities.
Publications
Jane Southwood has published articles in Australia, the United Kingdom and France on texts from the Middle Ages, on sixteenth-century and nineteenth-century poetry, on the significance of islands, on the work of Marguerite Yourcenar, on translation, and on nineteenth-century and contemporary medicine. The journals in which she has published include French Studies, Essays in French Literature, The Australian Journal of French Studies, Studies In Travel Writing, arts + medicine, the publications of the Société Internationale d’Etudes Yourcenariennes and the online publications of the Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Ministère de la Jeunesse, de l’Education nationale et de la Recherche, Paris. She has also contributed to a compendium of literary extracts and her theatre criticism has been published on line.