University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of French Studies / Staff / Academic Staff

Dr Althea Arguelles-Ling

PhD (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), MA (University of Illinois at Chicago), BA (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Part-time Lecturer
Room 739, A18 Christopher Brennan Building

+61 2 9351 5644

I am presently involved in the ARC Discovery Project : National Identity and Communications in Early Modern France. My contribution explores manifestations of the national imagination in Olympe de Gouges's theater. In general, my work centres around differences in writing based on gender lines, primarily relating to 18th-century French writers of theatre. I observe the intersubjective nature of the parent-child dyad in some women-writers and the persistence of domination and submission in representations written by men.

Research areas

  • 18th century French theatre
  • Women writers
  • Gender studies
  • National identity

Current projects

  • Olympe de Gouges and Nationalism
  • Françoise de Graffigny
  • Jean Mallat and 19th century travel writing

Selected publications

"Famille, Révolution, Patrie: National Imaginings in the Plays of Olympe de Gouges. Submitted, National Identity and Communications in Early Modern France, ARC Discovery Project (2007).

'Benoist, Françoise-Albine Puzin de la Martinière.' Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Samia Spencer. Columbia, S.C.: Bruccoli Clark Layman, (2005).

"Making Mother and Daughter in Cénie and La Gouvernante." Submitted, Women in French Studies (2007).

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Areas of teaching and research supervision

  • French language – intermediate
  • Literature
  • Texts and society
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Conference activity

  • ‘Family Romance as Utopia and Sign of the National Imagination in the Plays of Olympe de Gouges.’ The 14th Annual International Conference of the Australian Society for French Studies, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, July 2006.
  • 'Contact Zone: Jean Mallat’s Les Philippines'. Accepted for the 13th Annual International Conference of the Australian Society for French Studies, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, July 2005
  • 'Presence: How Much and How Women Speak in Eighteenth-century French Theatre.' The Second International Women in French Conference, Scripps College, Claremont, California, April 2004
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