Akane Kawakami

Akane Kawakami is a Professor of French at Birkbeck, University of London, where she has taught since 2006. Prior to this, she held lectureships at the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick. Her research and teaching focus on twentieth-century and contemporary French and Francophone literature, with particular interest in travel narratives and exoticism, photography and the photographic, contemporary fiction, and intersections between literary and visual culture.

• BA Hons in Philosophy and Modern Languages (French), University of Oxford (1991)
• MPhil in English and French, University of Oxford (1993)
• DPhil in French Literature, University of Oxford (1996)
• Senior Fellow, Advance HE (2017)

Her research explores how photographic and visual elements intersect with literary texts, especially in French postmodern and contemporary fiction. She investigates transnational narratives, focusing on Franco-Japanese cultural exchanges, and examines the role of autobiography in photobiography (works by Proust, Guibert, Ernaux, and Macé). She has published extensively in refereed journals and authored three monographs, including Photobiography (2013) and a revised edition of her Modiano study (2015), which reflects on his Nobel Prize-winning work.

Recent publications highlight trends in French literature post-2000, including analyses of Michael Ferrier’s transnational narratives and Patrick Modiano’s treatment of trauma and memory. Her work engages with Deleuzian concepts (e.g., rhizomatic poetry) and examines how literary forms challenge capitalist ideologies. She is a member of the steering group for the Centre for Research in Aesthetics of Kinship and Community and serves on the executive committee of the Association of University Professors and Heads of French.

• Senior Fellow, Advance HE (2017)

Kawakami supervises PhD students working on themes such as contemporary French Catholic novels, rhizomatic poetry, and representations of South Asians in Japanese animation. She welcomes supervisees in her specialist areas: contemporary French fiction, travel narratives, and literature-photography intersections. Her academic collaborations include discussions with Japanese novelist Horié Toshiyuki on Modiano’s works.