A day in the life of a Fellow: Dr Sura Qadiri

Around 60 in number, the Fellows of St Catharine’s are responsible for teaching, research, pastoral, governance and other important activities that enable our academic community to thrive. Each Fellow has their own timetable and ways for managing these responsibilities, which can vary week-to-week and, in particular, during term-time versus vacation periods. Any other Fellows who would be interested in providing insights into their day-to-day priorities are welcome to get in touch with comms@caths.cam.ac.uk.

Dr Sura Qadiri joined St Catharine’s as a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in French in September 2018. She is a College Tutor and Director of Studies for Modern and Medieval Languages. She specialises in francophone postcolonial literature, particularly from North Africa, and contemporary French literature. Sura has kindly agreed to share a snapshot of how she typically spends her days. 

Getting started

I usually start my day at 7am by checking my inbox for email messages from students, colleagues from Catz or my department, and other contacts from around the world. Other times, I will take advantage of an early start to make some progress with my writing – particularly at weekends when the house is quiet because the rest of my family are having a lie-in.  

Right now, I’m in the middle of writing a book on postsecular visions of society in fiction from France and North Africa. Literature can be a place where different sorts of diversity and value systems are represented, including often happier cohabitations than we see reflected in public discourse. It is interesting to explore literature’s role in our understanding of society, beyond the initial draw of a good story and drama.

I have also just submitted a proposal for a new book about little-explored story-telling forms in North African literature. I’ve proposed looking at the ecologies of story-telling, in terms of diversity, thinking about the ways that class and geography influence which texts are read by different communities. The study will feature my debut exploration of graphic novels!

Other writing projects include a series of three book reviews for the Journal of French Studies. The third review is yet to be submitted and I have had to ask the editor for a deadline extension, which they kindly granted. I often reflect on my own experiences when encouraging students to be realistic about what they can achieve in the time available and to ask for deadline extensions when needed, especially in light of the disruption caused by the pandemic.

9am–3pm

I really value contact time with students over Microsoft Teams or Zoom – it is nice to connect, catch up and discuss their work. I try to set-up video calls while my two children are usually at school (they are 9 and 14 years old). I found this worked really well during Michaelmas Term 2020. Of course, like many families, the national lockdown upended our schedule rather suddenly and this term has already been very different. Fortunately, my children are now at an age where they can figure out problems on their own or wait until I’m free to ask me for help. 

I have routine 1-to-1 meetings towards the start and end of each term with some of my 56 tutees, undergraduate students for whom I provide pastoral support as a College Tutor. I’m then on hand to help with any questions or concerns that they might have throughout the rest of the term. Over the recent vacation, I was in contact with some of these students about staying put in Cambridge after the pandemic prevented them travelling back to their home countries, and with others in the UK and abroad when the changing COVID-19 restrictions affected their plans to return to College. This involved sharing up-to-date information so they could make decisions that complied with the latest official advice and I worked closely with the Senior Tutor when a student was facing exceptional circumstances and needed our support.

I meet with the nine other College Tutors and the Senior Tutor every two weeks to discuss pressing issues, share problems and get feedback from colleagues in a similar role. We regularly invite visitors to join our meetings, as their insights can help us offer better advice to our students: JCR and MCR representatives joined us last term and the Head Porter is due to join us in the next few weeks.

On odd weeks (Week 1, Week 3, etc), I also have supervisions with eight dissertation students. I need to read what students have sent me ahead of these meetings so I’m ready to provide support and feedback to help them develop their drafts further.

Among my other academic responsibilities is recruiting a lecteur/lectrice to support the language learning of students of French. We find people through a long-standing exchange programme we have with a Parisian university. This year, the first task will be to find out how Brexit will affect the process and to think around any difficulties that have arisen. I am in close contact with my counterpart at Robinson College with whom we share our lecteur/lectrice.

Between meetings, I might have a chance to peer review an article that was submitted to a journal in my field. I am a reviewer for the Australian Journal of French Studies and the Journal of French Studies.

Late afternoons/evenings

My evenings can be pretty varied. One evening might be a Governing Body meeting, the next I could be attending a student event.

As a member of Governing Body, I am a Trustee of the College as a registered charity, responsible for ensuring compliance with charity law and exercising control over all matters concerning the College. Governing Body runs the College through its various officers and committees, with many Fellows providing significant time and expertise to ensure its smooth operation, both for our community today and to ensure our College is well-positioned for generations to come. We meet at least three times a term, typically at the end of the day on a Friday. Important areas for discussion at the moment are the College’s financial recovery from the pandemic and updates on the ambitious plans for St Catharine’s set out in the ‘Our College, Our Future’ strategy.

A great example of a student event is the online film viewing and live Q&A organised by the College’s Modern and Medieval Languages Society (MML Soc). ‘Liberation’, the second film in Karim Miské's three-part documentary series called ‘Decolonisations’, follows the myriad efforts to resist colonial oppression made by people around the world from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. I led the informal, 45-minute Q&A session alongside my colleague Dr Sami Everett from St Edmund’s College, which enabled students to interact with Karim and find out more about his vision. The event was well-attended, and I will be meeting with the students who run MML Soc this week to discuss ideas for future speakers and activities.

Before the pandemic, I organised trips for Catz students to enrich their studies. While we aren’t currently able to visit the British Museum or the theatre like we did in previous years, it is reassuring that we can still find creative ways to come together to discover works of art in these difficult times.

I might also spend time preparing for the next meeting of the College’s craft ‘sewcial’ group. Launched last year, the group brings together students, staff, Fellows and alumni who enjoy crafts. Regular talks enable us to explore communities and cultures around the world – all from the comfort of our own homes – and even provide inspiration for new craft projects. I’m in conversation with some fantastic guest speakers for this term and look forward to seeing some of the Catz community online soon. We meet on Zoom for an hour or so at 2pm every Saturday, and all members of the Catz community are welcome (email me to find out more). A highlight this term will be a talk by textile artist and writer Clare Hunter, whose wonderful book, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of the Needle, was featured as a Radio 4 ‘book of the week’ in 2019.

Find out more about studying MML at St Catharine's.