Elly is a DPhil student in French at Wadham College and a Stipendiary Lecturer at Somerville College. She holds an MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (University of Oxford) and a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages (University of Cambridge). She has also studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, France.
Funded by the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities, Elly’s doctoral project explores points of encounter between water and experience in twenty-first-century women’s writing in French. Her thesis brings together the work of Marie Darrieussecq, Nathacha Appanah, Amélie Nothomb, and Fatou Diome to analyse the role of water in literary representations of grief and trauma, doing so in conversation with posthuman and decolonial feminisms. Elly’s other research interests include: the environmental humanities; critical disability studies; feminist visual and material cultures; LGBTQ+ literatures; and the work of Paul B. Preciado.
Elly is the former Postgraduate Officer of the Society for French Studies. Prior to this, she worked as the Society's Conference Assistant. In these roles, she has co-organised the 63rd Annual Conference (Queen’s University Belfast, 27-29 June 2022), the 64th Annual Conference (Newcastle University, 26-28 June 2023), and three Postgraduate Conferences held at King's College London: 'After Work' (27 May 2022), 'Surroundings' (19 May 2023), and 'Deviations' (31 May 2024).
In Spring 2023, Elly co-led the four-part online seminar series 'So Hot! Feeling the Heat in Contemporary Women's Writing', hosted by the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing at the Institute for Languages, Cultures and Societies (ILCS). The seminar recordings can be found on the ILCS website.
Elly is a first-generation student and, before going to university, attended state schools in Southend-on-Sea.
Teaching and Outreach
Prelims Paper III: Short Texts
Prelims French Sole Paper XI: Introduction to French Film Studies
FHS Paper IIA: Translation from French
FHS Paper XII: Special Subject in Advanced Translation
FHS Paper XIV: Dissertation
Elly has taught twentieth-century French women's writing for the Sarah Lawrence Exchange Programme at Wadham College, Oxford, and co-convenes the Feminist Critical Theories and Practices series for undergraduates at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Elly is also involved in a number of widening participation initiatives, including UNIQ, Wadham's Modern Languages Summer School, and the Faculty's Y7-13 Flash Fiction Competition.
Publications
Elly Walters, ‘Nathacha Appanah’s Ecologies of Violence’, Modern Language Review (forthcoming)
Elly Walters, ‘Hunger Beyond Borders: Marie Darrieussecq’s Narratives of Starvation’, Modern and Contemporary France (forthcoming)
David Ewing and Elly Walters, ‘“After Work/Après le travail”: Introduction’, French Studies Bulletin 45.1–2 (Spring 2024), pp. 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1093/frebul/ktae005.
David Ewing and Elly Walters (eds.), ‘“After Work/Après le travail”’, French Studies Bulletin 45.1–2 (Spring 2024).
Selected Conference Papers
'‘“l’eau, toute cette eau”: Thinking with Water in Francophone Literature’, Underworlds/Underwater, TORCH Environmental Humanities Hub, 5 December 2024
‘The Ends of Thread: Empire and Ecology in the Textile Art of Joana Choumali’, The End(s) of Empire, Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies Annual Conference, 15-16 November 2024
‘Spoilt fruit: Ecologies of sexual and reproductive violence in Nathacha Appanah's writing’, Society for French Studies 64th Annual Conference, 26-28 June 2023
‘Crisis and/in water in Nathacha Appanah's Rien ne t'appartient’, Women and/in crises – Femmes et/en crises, Women in French UK-Ireland, 26-28 May 2023
‘“C'est une danse de ressac, c'est un ballet de marée”: Water, Dance, and Nathacha Appanah’, Oxford French Graduate Seminar, 7 March 2023
‘Performing Genderlessness: The Dissident Theatres of Claude Cahun and Anne F. Garréta’, Society for French Studies 63rd Annual Conference, 27-29 June 2022
‘“Je sentais le poids de la mer sur ma poitrine”: Marie Darrieussecq and the depths of despair’, Oxford French Graduate Seminar, 1 February 2022
‘Water and mental unhealth in Amélie Nothomb’s Soif and Marie Darrieussecq’s La Mer à l’envers’, The Immersive Potential of Literature and Hybrid Media in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Women in French PG/ECR Symposium, 13-15 January 2022