Dr Liesbeth Francois

BA, MA (KU Leuven, Belgium), PhD (KU Leuven, Belgium)

My research focuses on contemporary Latin American literature and culture, mainly from Mexico and Argentina. More specifically, my publications have zoomed in on the interrelated issues of space and politics in literature. My first book, Andares vacilantes. La caminata en la obra de Sergio Chejfec (Beatriz Viterbo, 2018) is based on my PhD dissertation, and looks at the way in which the oeuvre of Argentine author Sergio Chejfec aesthetically and politically reconfigures the link between walking and writing. In a subsequent project, which led to the publication of Subterranean Space in Contemporary Mexico City Literature (Palgrave, 2021), I analysed the way in which subterranean imaginaries of Mexico City shed light on the tensions and concerns surrounding modernisation and urban growth in a wide-ranging corpus of literary works. Furthermore, I have published on the topics of space and mobility in the work of several Latin American authors, and co-edited two volumes on, respectively, the everyday and urban space in contemporary literature and culture.

My current research project combines my interest in the politics of literary imagination with the figure of youth and its affective resonances. I have explored this topic through the genre of the Bildungsroman, and I am currently looking at the way in which youthfulness is mobilised in contemporary Mexican literature to reflect more broadly on the intersubjective conditions of possibility for a democratic society.

As a Teaching Associate in Spanish, I lecture on topics related to 20th and 21st century Latin American literature, as well as on contemporary Latin American cinema and visual culture.