Marie Kawthar Daouda

Dr. Marie Kawthar Daouda serves as a Stipendiary Lecturer in French at Oriel College, University of Oxford, where she teaches both literature and language courses across the undergraduate curriculum. Her academic work is situated within the French Department of Oxford's Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, one of the leading language departments in the UK.

Dr. Daouda completed her academic training in French and English literature at La Sorbonne and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale. She earned her PhD with a thesis titled "L'Anti-Salomé, représentations de la féminité bienveillante au temps de la Décadence (1850-1920)", which was published as a monograph by Oxford, Peter Lang in 2020. Her second book project, "La Prière désespérée, de Baudelaire à Bernanos", is forthcoming from Garnier, continuing her exploration of spiritual dimensions in French literary tradition.

Dr. Daouda's research focuses on challenging conventional understandings of femininity in literary history, particularly examining benevolent feminine figures in fin-de-siècle novels who counter the dominant "femme fatale" stereotype. Her work spans multiple interdisciplinary domains including the evolution of exoticism and orientalism from the Napoleonic era to the Third Republic, intersections between visual arts and literature, children's literature of the Second Empire, and the religious dimensions of literary works from the late 18th century through the 1930s. She demonstrates particular expertise in the literary movements of Naturalism, Decadence, and Symbolism and their complex interrelationships.

Her scholarly publications reveal a consistent engagement with French literary traditions from the 19th and early 20th centuries, with special attention to Baudelaire's enduring influence, the reinterpretation of classical myths and fairy tales, and the complex relationship between religious thought and literary production. Dr. Daouda's research methodology demonstrates remarkable interdisciplinary breadth, connecting literary analysis with historical, theological, psychological, and gender studies perspectives to examine how literary figures negotiate authority, legitimacy, and creative expression within specific historical contexts.

• Monograph: "L'Anti-Salomé, Représentations de la féminité bienveillante au temps de la Décadence (1850-1920)", Oxford, Peter Lang, 2020
• Monograph (forthcoming): "La Prière désespérée, de Baudelaire à Bernanos", Paris, Garnier

As an educator, Dr. Daouda teaches across the full undergraduate curriculum at Oxford, covering Prelims Papers I-IV and Finals Papers I, II, VIII, and X. Her teaching spans major periods of French literature, from 17th-century works by Pascal and Racine to 20th-century texts by Proust and Camus. She has developed particular expertise in fin-de-siècle literature, teaching both canonical figures like Baudelaire and Mallarmé alongside less-studied authors such as Rachilde, Vivien, and Lorrain. Additionally, she serves as the Visiting Students Coordinator at Oriel College, supporting international students in their academic journey at Oxford.