Dr Sura Qadiri

I specialise in francophone postcolonial literature, particularly from North Africa, and have a growing interest in literature from France which explores themes of ethnic and religious diversity. My current book project focuses on postsecular visions of society in literature from North Africa and France.

Dawson College Assistant Professor and Director of Studies in Modern & Medieval Languages; Tutor

I obtained a B.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Modern Languages at the University of Cambridge. I have taught in the French Departments at Oxford University and University College London prior to joining St Catharine’s as a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in French in September 2018. 

I have a special interest in francophone postcolonial literature, particularly from North Africa, and occasionally from France and the Middle East. My work focuses comparatively on the aesthetic, social, political and sometimes spiritual value attributed to the novel in a variety of contemporary cultural contexts. In particular, I look at the relationship between literature and personal and collective religious identities in France, Algeria and Morocco.

Books

• Postcolonial fiction and Sacred Scripture: Rewriting the Divine? (Oxford: Legenda, 2014)

In Preparation

• Reading Religion in French and Francophone Writing: Postsecular Poetics (Forthcoming with Liverpool University Press)

Papers

• ‘Abdelwahab Meddeb: A Literary Path towards Islamic Atheism?’ in The Journal of Romance Studies, 13:1, spring 2013, pp.49-64
• ‘Postcolonial Enlightenment: The Rhetoric of Reformers of Islam in Sarkozy’s France’ in The International Journal of Francophone Studies, 16:4 December 2013, pp.405-422
• ‘The Story of a Story: Literature as a Space of Reflection in Driss Chraibi’s Le Passé simple and Kamel Daoud’s Meursault, contre-enquête’ in The Irish Journal of French Studies, December 2017
• ‘Notions of a Postsecular Nation: Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission and Sabri Louatah’s Les Sauvages I-IV’, forthcoming in The Journal of Romance Studies in 2019
• ‘Policing Postsecular Paris: Karim Miské’s Arab Jazz and Sabri Louatah’s Les Sauvages I-IV’ forthcoming in Essays in French Literature and Culture in 2018
• ‘Writing (Religious) Identity in London and Paris: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Alice Zéniter’s L’Art de Perdre,’ forthcoming in Francosphères in 2019

I am an Academic Associate of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

2018