Academic biography

Dr Dervila Cooke is an academic working across French-speaking culture (literature, film, visual art, and sociopolitical aspects), usually focusing on highly contemporary studies of France and Québec, in domains such as life-writing, fiction, film (feature and documentary), urban studies, impressionist art, photography, and some song). Her third-level teaching experience spans Oxford Brookes University; University College Dublin; the National University of Ireland, Maynooth; and what is now the Waterford element of SETU. In 2008, she joined Saint Patrick's College in the Department of French, which was incorporated into DCU in October 2016. Dr Cooke’s recent books and special issues include two sole-authored books on contemporary cultural mixing, belonging, and migration: Indigenous and Transcultural Narratives in Québec: Ways of Belonging (March 2024) and Life Writing and Transcultural Youth in Contemporary France: Azouz Begag, Maryam Madjidi, and Laura Alcoba (in press, August 2024). In 2016, she edited a journal issue entitled New Work on Immigration and Identity in Contemporary France, Québec, and Ireland. Her doctoral research focused on Patrick Modiano, resulting in a monograph on his (auto)biographical fictions (2005), and a text-image issue of French Cultural Studies (2012). In terms of pedagogy, she gained a Postgraduate certificate in teaching in higher education from Oxford Brookes University in 2007, and has been teaching since 1994. She was part of a team nominated for the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching at DCU for an innovative project on Interactive Orals (2021). She welcomes supervision applications from graduate students, particularly those interested in domains such as life-writing; cultural representations of migration and of immigrant experiences; hybrid identities in France and Quebec in literature and film/creative visual or verbal art; eco-criticism; urban studies of Paris or Montreal. Other topics may also be of interest, as may co-supervisions, but these should include a focus on French-speaking culture. She is also interested in hands-on environmentalism, and in outreach/interdisciplinary activities. In 2022, she was nominated for DCU's “President's Award for Engagement”. She has published on cultural representation of Newfoundland's overfishing crisis, and was part of the organisational team for the ACSI conference on the Canadian Anthropocene led by Niall Majury at Queen's University Belfast in 2024. In 2021, she initiated and led the SeasonsPace project, funded by the IRCHSS (New Foundations). Dr Cooke organised a series of seminars and events for this, and created links between French, UK, and Irish community gardens. She also led and oversaw work with Irish primary and secondary schools, raising awareness of what is in season locally through hands-on growing projects and a programme of reflections on carbon footprint and food miles. Dr Cooke has been Secretary of the Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland (ACSI) since summer 2018 and was elected its President in summer 2024. In April 2016 she received the Prix de la délégation québécoise for a project on memories of childhood in recent autobiographical writing in Québec. Prior experience continued: Her degrees in French are from University College Dublin. She was an Erasmus student in Caen during her B.A., and a lectrice in Rennes. She spent two years at the École normale supérieure (Ulm, Paris) during her doctoral studies. She was an IRCHSS postdoctoral research fellow at Trinity College Dublin. From 2006-2008, she was Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University.