Nicola Marie Hitchcott

Nicola Marie Hitchcott is a Professor of French and African Studies and Head of the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews. She holds affiliations with the Centre for the Critical Reimagining of Human Rights. Her research focuses on postcolonial literatures in French/Anglophone Africa, genocide studies (particularly Rwanda), Belgian colonialism, and ecocritical analysis.

Education: BA and PhD from University College London (UCL), first in her family to attend university.

Research Interests: Specializes in West African women's writing, migrant narratives, and fictional responses to historical trauma. Current projects include 'Stories of the Mothers of Métis Children Stolen from the Belgium Empire' (funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh) and previously led the AHRC-funded 'Rwandan Stories of Change' project.

Articles Overview: Recent work addresses decolonizing medical terminology, postcolonial ecocriticism, and intergenerational memory of genocide. Her 2025 co-edited volume on ecotexts establishes new frameworks for climate-critical analysis in Francophone studies.

• 2018: Finalist for Wellcome Trust/AHRC Health Humanities Medal

Advising: Supervised 11 PhD completions (6 now hold permanent academic positions). Active in teaching modules on Francophone identities, cultural memory, and postcolonial theory.

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with University of Rwanda and University of Cologne researchers on decolonial projects.