Professor David Platten

Profile

I was born in South London, educated in Coventry and graduated in 1986 with First Class Honours from the University of Liverpool, where I took a BA French with Spanish. I read for a Ph.D. on the work of novelist, short story writer and essayist Michel Tournier, which was awarded in 1994, also by the University of Liverpool. In 1989 I was appointed to a temporary position as Lecturer in French at the University of Leeds, which was made permanent in 1991. In 2000 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer and in 2011 to Professor of Modern French Studies.

I served as Head of the French Department (2005-2008), and as Pro-Dean in Student Education in the Faculty of Arts (2009-2014), then latterly as Director of Recruitment (2014-2019) and Deputy Unit of Assessment Leader (Research Excellence Framework, 2018-2021) in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

I have acted as reader and reviewer for numerous publishers, including Routledge, Oxford University Press, Manchester University Press, the University of Wales Press and the Clarendon Press, and academic journals such as French Studies, The Modern Language Review, Modern and Contemporary France, and French Cultural Studies. I have also acted as a subject specialist consultant for the University of Swansea and served as Chief Educationalist for the Arts Fundraising and Philanthropy Consortium (2013-6).

Research interests

My research reflects my interest in metaphor, narrative and other modes of cognition. The question of how and to what extent acts of creative expression bear on public debate and social attitudes underpins much of my work, which draws on modern and contemporary French literature, cinema and television drama, popular forms, especially crime fiction and comics, and the interface between sport and culture, primarily in relation to football and cycling. I have also worked in a transnational context on the topics of adaptation and cultural migration. I am currently engaged with a project which interrogates the legacy of Algerian French writer Albert Camus, who is more popular now, in and beyond the francophone world, than he was during his lifetime. This research will culminate in the publication of a single-authored book titled Killing Time: the Enduring Appeal of Albert Camus.

Qualifications

• 1994. Ph. D. 'Michel Tournier and the Metaphor of Fiction', University of Liverpool.
• 1986. B.A. (Hons) French with Spanish, Class I (Distinction in Spoken French). University of Liverpo
• 2009-2010: ‘Leadership Development Programme for Heads of Schools, Pro Deans and Ull Directors’, Uni
• 2003-2004: ‘Tomorrow’s Leaders’: Leadership Development Programme, University of Leeds.

Professional memberships

• 2019 - the present. Albert Camus Society..
• 2014 - the present. Association of University Professors and Heads of French.
• 2013 - the present. Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, Queen's University, Belfast.
• 2007 - the present. Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures Populaires et les Cultures Médiatiques, Université de Limoges
• 2000-2003. Executive Committee of the Society for French Studies.

Student education

As well as language, my teaching incorporates modules on Contemporary French Culture (including television drama, comics, and rap music), French Cinema, Modern French Fiction, and Crime Fiction and the Fantastic across the Globe, as well as in the past Bilingual Liaison Interpreting. I have supervised and examined many postgraduate and doctoral theses at Leeds and elsewhere.

Research groups and institutes

• Popular culture
• Digital cultures
• French
• Literary studies