Lyn Thomas
Deputy Director, ISET
Professor of Cultural Studies
Qualifications
| Background and Career |
| Research Interests and Activities |
| Publications |
| Postgraduate Supervision |
• MA Oxford
• MA London University
• PhD London University
Contact details
Institute for the Study of European Transformations
London Metropolitan University
Tower Building
166-220 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB
Tel: 020 7133 4071
l.thomas@londonmet.ac.uk
Lyn Thomas is Professor of Cultural Studies at London Metropolitan University. She studied French and German at Oxford University (MA, 1976), Film and Television Studies at London University (MA, 1989) and obtained her PhD in Media Studies from London University in 2000. She taught French and German in secondary schools until 1989 when she took up a post as Lecturer in French at the then Polytechnic of North London. She has developed and taught courses in contemporary French women's writing, popular culture and film, as well as contributing to the BA in Film Studies and MA in Mass Communications at London Metropolitan University. She is currently teaching media studies in the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences. She has organised several ISET seminar series and two international conferences: 'Actualités de Recherche en Sociologie de la Réception' (Current Research in the Sociology of Reception) with Isabelle Charpentier, Université de Versailles - Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines in November 2003, and 'Countering Consumerism: Religious and Secular Responses' with Kate Soper, at London Metropolitan University, April 2006. She has been a member of the Feminist Review Editorial Collective since 1998. She is a member of the AHRC's peer review college.
Research Interests
French and British media; media audiences; 'quality' media and fan cultures; representations of 'the good life' in lifestyle and reality television; the relationship between religion, spirituality and media; conceptualisations of class in French and British literature and sociology; contemporary French women's writing, especially Annie Ernaux.
Activities
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New publication in edited book on Annie Ernaux |
 Annie Ernaux |
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Religion, Consumerism |
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The special issue of Feminist Review on Religion and Spirituality, edited by Lyn Thomas and Avtar Brah is now published.
www.feminist-review.com
Keynote address on 'The Archers: nostalgia, rural radio and urbane listeners' at a one day symposium on media and the countryside at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, May 12th, 2011. More
Invited speaker at a conference on 'Annie Ernaux: Time and Memory' at the château of Cerisy in Normandy in July 2012.
Seminar on the representation of Irish communities and Muslim communities in the British press 1974-2007, at the Working Lives Research Institute, May 2010 (with Henri Nickels).
Presentation of first findings of the 'suspect communities' project, London Metropolitan University, March 5th, 2010 (with Mary Hickman, Henri Nickels, Sara Silvestri)
Plenary presentation on 'Lost and leisured femininities in contemporary lifsetyle television' in an ESRC research seminar series on 'Nostalgia in the Twenty-First Century' Strathclyde University, April 2010. The presentation can be viewed at: http://www.strath.ac.uk/nostalgia/seminars/pastseminars/#d.en.230716
Paper at an interdisciplinary conference on 'Alternative spiritualities, the New Age and New Religious Movements in Ireland' at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth on 30 & 31 October 2009. The paper, 'Returning to the fold: The Monastery in narratives of spiritual life', discussed the programme's impact on 'lapsed' Catholics and other Christians, including second generation Irish 'lapsed' Catholics.
Paper in a one day symposium on media reception, participation and power, organised by CRESC, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change, on 27 June 2009; the paper discussed BBC2's The Monastery as an instance of the 'new visibility of religion', in a plenary panel on 'religious identities, media production and reception' with Professor Stewart Hoover, Director of the Center for Religion, Media and Culture, Colorado; Ruth Deller (Sheffield) and Professor Marie Gillespie (OU).
Presentation on her research on Archers fans online at the final showcase event of the BBC/AHRC knowledge exchange pilot programme on 27 April 2009. The audience consisted of BBC staff, other media professionals, academics and AHRC staff
Publications
Books
Religion, Consumerism and Sustainability - Paradise Lost? L. Thomas, (ed) Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
The Politics and Pleasures of Consuming Differently, M. Ryle, K.Soper and L. Thomas (eds) Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
Annie Ernaux: A la première personne, (2005) Editions Stock: Paris
Fans, Feminisms and 'Quality' Media (2002) London and New York: Routledge
Annie Ernaux: An Introduction to the Writer and her Audience (1999) Oxford and New York: Berg.
Journal Articles and Working Papers
Changing old habits? "New Age" Catholicism, subjectivity and gender in BBC2's The Monastery and its reception, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 14, Issue 5, October 2011 pp. 558 - 572
'The Archers: An everyday story of old and new media', The Radio Journal, Vol.7 No.1, 2009.
'A la recherche du moi perdu: Memory and Mourning in the Work of Annie Ernaux', Journal of Romance Studies, Vol.8, Issue 2, Summer 2008
'Alternative realities: downshifting narratives in contemporary lifestyle television', Cultural Studies vol 22, no 5, 2008
'Reading and Writing with Bourdieu: Popular and Literary Intertexts in Annie Ernaux's Les armoires vides', ISET Working Papers, 2008.
'The "Alternative Hedonist" critique of consumerism', with Soper, K., Working Paper 31 'Cultures of Consumption' Programme, 2007; http://www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/publications.html#workingpapers
'Annie Ernaux, class, gender and whiteness: finding a place in the French feminist canon?' Future of Feminism, Future of Fiction issue, Gender Studies, Vol.15, No. 2, July 2006.
'Exploring the interspace: recent dialogues around the work of Annie Ernaux' with Loraine Day (University of Southampton) in Feminist Review 74, 2003
Chapters
'Who owns Ambridge? Producers and online listeners negotiate meaning in The Archers' in H. Thornham and S. Popple 'Content Cultures: Transformations of User Generated Content in Public Service Broadcasting' London: IBTaurus, forthcoming 2012.
« Le texte-monde de mon enfance » : Intertextes populaires et littéraires dans Les Armoires vides in J. Dor and D. Bajomée (eds) Annie Ernaux: se perdre dans l'écriture de soi, Paris: Klincksieck, coll. 'Circea' (forthcoming).
Introduction, L. Thomas (ed) Religion, Consumerism and Sustainability – Paradise Lost? Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p.1-16.
'Sustaining Spiritualities in Consumer Cultures' in L. Thomas (ed) Religion, Consumerism and Sustainability – Paradise Lost? Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 72-92.
'Annie Ernaux et ses lecteurs' in Sergio Villani, (ed) Annie Ernaux. Perspectives critiques, Ottawa: Legas, 2009
'Ecochic: green echoes and rural retreats in contemporary lifestyle magazines' in K. Soper, M. Ryle and L.Thomas (eds) The Politics and Pleasures of Consuming Differently; Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
'Ecoreality: the Politics and Aesthetics of 'Green' Television' in Exposing Lifestyle Television: The Big Reveal, G. Palmer (ed) Ashgate, 2008.
'La construction et l'interprétation de l'appartenance de classe dans les études qualitatives de réception' ('The construction and interpretation of class belonging in qualitative reception study') in I. Charpentier (ed) Comment sont reçues les oeuvres: Actualités des recherches en sociologie de la réception et des publics, (How are texts read: Current Research in the Sociology of Reception and of Audiences) Paris: Créaphis, 2006
'Influences illegitimes: Confidences comme intertexte des Armoires vides' in Thumerel, F. (ed) Annie Ernaux: Une Oeuvre de l'Entre-Deux, Universite d'Artois-Presses, 2004).
'Representations of childhood in Sandrine Veysset's Y aura-t-il de la neige à Noel' in L. Mazdon (ed) France on Film: Reflections on Popular French Cinema, (Wallflower Press, 2001).
Journal Editing
Forthcoming: Feminist Review No. 97, Spring 2011, 'Religion and Spirituality', with Avtar Brah.
Feminist Review, No.74, 'Fiction and Theory: Crossing Boundaries' with Vicki Bertram and Helen Crowley, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Basingstoke and New York.
Feminist Review, No.72, 'Drugs' with Emily Banks, Vicki Bertram, and Nirmal Puwar, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) Basingstoke and New York.
Feminist Review, No.71, 'Fashion and Beauty' with Lucy Bland, Nirmal Puwar, Rita Rupal, and Merl Storr, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) Basingstoke and New York.
Feminist Review, No.70, 'Globalisation' with Avtar Brah, Helen Crowley and Meri Storr, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) Basingstoke and New York
Supervision of the following research degrees:
2004 - 2009 Marie-Pierre Moreau, Secondary school teachers' constructions of gender and career trajectory in France and Britain (Director of Studies Merryn Hutchings)
2008 - 2009: PhD by prior output, Inge Weber-Newth, European Migration to Post-War Britain: History, Migration, Identities'
2002 - 2007: PhD, Chafik Abdelghani, Synonymy in the Qur'an: A Potential Translation Problem from Arabic (Director of Studies Nadia Rahab)
2001 - 2004: PhD by prior output, Margaret Llewellyn Jones, Body, Space and Ideology: Strategies in the Dramatic Representation of Identity
1999 - 2004: PhD, John Ford, Creolisation: A Sign of Modernity and Postcolonial Healing in the Literature of Erna Brodber, David Dabydeen and Caryl Phillips, (Director of Studies, Patricia Murray)
1999 - 2003: PhD, Darren Waldron, Queering Contemporary French Film: A Study of Representations and Reception (awarded in January 2004)
1995 - 2000: PhD, Emma Webb, Autobiographical Intentions and Interpretations: Marie Cardinal, Annie Leclerc
1995 - 1999: PhD, Maria Esposito, Space, Place and the Past: National Identity, National Cinema and the French film de patrimoine
1998 - 1999: M.Res, Darren Waldron, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary French Comedy: A Case-Study of 'Gazon Maudit' (awarded Distinction in October 1999)
Emma Webb, Maria Esposito and Darren Waldren were full-time students funded by the British Academy / AHRB.
Currently supervising
Matthew Janes 'Entrer par effraction: The Construction of Reader, Writer, and Narrator Identities in Annie Ernaux's Twenty-First Century Writing'
Smita Ray (with Janet Enever and Helen Crowley) 'English Language Learning: A Case Study of Gujarati Speaking Women in London'
Calogero Giametta (with Nick Mai and Helen Crowley) 'The Impact of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity on Contemporary Migration to the UK'
