Professor Claire Williams
Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture
Fellow of St. Peter's College
Organiser of Brazil Week
Member of the Editorial Board of Portuguese Studies (MHRA Journals), Bulletin of Contemporary Hispanic Studies.
Research
Claire Williams' research focuses on women's writing, life-writing and minority writing from the Lusophone world, particularly Clarice Lispector (Brazil), Maria Ondina Braga (Portugal), and Lília Momplé (Mozambique).
Teaching
I lecture on Modern Literature from the Portuguese-speaking world (from Machado de Assis and Aluísio de Azevedo to Conceição Evaristo and Luiz Ruffato) and teach other courses such as Brazilian Cinema and Contemporary Brazilian Literature. I also team teach on courses such as Women’s Writing in Lusophone Literature and Latin American Cinema.
Membership of Research Networks
- Member of the Grupo de Estudos em Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea (Universidade de Brasília) (https://www.gelbc.com/)
- Member of Steering Committee, Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing, IGRS, University of London - (https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-study-contemporary-womens-writing-ccww)
- Intersexualidades (Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa, Universidade do Porto): (https://ilcml.com/intersexualidades/)
Publications
- BOOKS
Editor, with Maria José Blanco, Feminine Plural: Women in Transition in the Luso-Hispanic World (Peter Lang, forthcoming)
Editor, with Adriana X. Jacobs, After Clarice: Lispector’s Legacy in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Legenda, 2022)
TORCH Book at Lunchtime, January 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dANAmY-A3Oc)
Editor, with Maria José Blanco, Women in Transition: Crossing Boundaries, Crossing Borders, (London: Routledge, May 2021), paperback June 2023
Editor, with Hilary Owen, Transnational Portuguese Studies, co-edited with Hilary Owen (Liverpool University Press, 2020).
Editor, with Maria José Blanco, Feminine Singular: Women Growing up Through Life Writing in the Luso-Hispanic World, co-edited with Maria José Blanco (Peter Lang, 2017)
The Encounter Between Opposites in the Works of Clarice Lispector , Hipla Monographs (Bristol: Hipla, 2006).
Editor, with Claudia Pazos Alonso, Closer to the Wild Heart: Essays on Clarice Lispector (Oxford: Legenda/EHRC, 2001).
2. BOOK EDITIONS
Clarice Lispector, Clarice Lispector Entrevista (Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2024), organised and introduced by Claire Williams
Reviewed in O Globo (28 October 2024): https://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/noticia/2024/10/28/clarice-lispector-a-reporter-autora-inovou-fazendo-entrevistas-com-estilo-unico-e-instigante.ghtml
Interview: https://site.claricelispector.ims.com.br/2023/10/19/entrevista-com-claire-williams/
Podcast (spotify link): https://open.spotify.com/episode/0s4RUVVlBTpHNAdtjpeCEo?si=Xx0xOyirS22R…
Maria Ondina Braga, Biografias no Feminino: Mulheres Escritoras. Retratos com Sombras. Dispersos e Inéditos (Lisbon, INCM, 2023), with Isabel Cristina Mateus.
3. BOOK CHAPTERS
‘E Lucrécia Crescia…’, in Personagens de Clarice Lispector, ed. by Yudith Rosenbaum, Antonio Ladera and Eliane Fittipaldi (São Paulo: Hucitec, 2023), pp. 261-78.
‘One Hundred Years of Clarice Lispector: The Star of the Hour’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel, ed. by Juan de Castro and Ignacio Lopezcalvo (New York: OUP, 2022).
‘Something to Declare: Illegal Immigrants in Contemporary Brazilian Literature’, in Living (Il)legalities in Brazil: Practices, Narratives and Institutions in a Country on the Edge, ed. by Sara Brandellero, Georg Wink and Derek Pardue (London: Routledge, 2020).
‘Neither Here nor There: Unsettling Encounters in Paulo Scott’s Habitante Irreal’, in Vinícius de Carvalho and Nicola Gavioli (eds.) Literature and Ethics in Contemporary Brazil (Routledge, 2017), pp. 124-144.
4. ARTICLES
‘O jantar: Uma leitura do conto’, in HispanismeS: La revue de la Société des Hispanistes Français 15: Dossiê Laços de família (May 2021), ed. by Sandra Assunção, Ilana Heineberg and Michel Riaudel, pp. 121-31. [Special Issue on the short story collection Family Ties. ]
‘Possible and Impossible Dialogues: Interpreting Clarice Lispector’s Interviews for Manchete and Fatos e Fotos’, Journal of Lusophone Studies 4.2 (2019), pp. 198-218.
‘Vivências Partilhadas’: Finding Common Ground in the Short Stories of Three Goan Women Writers’, Journal of Romance Studies 19.3 (2019), pp. 327-43.
‘“Para Inglês Ver”: traduções de literatura contemporânea brasileira na época dos megaeventos’, Special Issue of Abriu (Universitat de Barcelona), ‘Literatura brasileira atual e desafios do contemporâneo’, ed. by Carmen Villarino Pardo, Abriu 6 (2017), pp. 105-32.
‘Tracing Back Trauma: The Legacy of Slavery in Contemporary Brazilian Literature by Women’, Angelaki 22: 1 (March 2017). pp. 103-22.