Academic & Teaching staff

Dr Sarah Waters

Senior Lecturer and Subject Leader for French

Dr Sarah Waters

0113 343 3473

Biography

I was an undergraduate of French and Italian at University College Dublin and a postgraduate at the University of Limerick, where I completed an MA in European Integration and a PhD. I spent a year as a lectrice in Rouen and in 1993 was appointed to a lectureship in French at the University of Leeds, where I am now a Senior Lecturer.

Teaching

I teach mainly 20th- and 21st-century French politics and society on the following modules: Readings in Modern French Society (Level 1); Politics and Society in France since 1945 (Level 2); Social and Ideological Change in France since 1968 (Level 3); Contemporary Political Issues in France (Level 3). I also contribute to teaching on other courses including language and literature.

Research

My research focuses on 20th- and 21st-century French politics and society and I am particularly interested in the theory and practice of social movements. My latest monograph (Continuum, forthcoming 2012) focuses on questions of globalisation, opposition and identity in contemporary France. This is a continuation of earlier work on the French protest grouping, Attac and on the role of leftist intellectuals in opposing neo-liberalism. I have also carried out research on the Confédération Paysanne and have interviewed the organisation's current leader and this research was published as an article for French Politics, Culture and Society in 2010.

In 2008 I co-organised (with I. Cornils and A. O'Leary) a major international conference at the University of Leeds on 'Memories of 1968: International Perspectives', and I secured funding for this conference from the French Embassy and the ASMCF; Selected papers from the conference were published as a volume which I co-edited with I. Cornils (Lang, 2010).

Research Supervision

I could offer research supervision in areas including social movement theory (particularly the work of Alain Touraine, Alberto Melucci and Pierre Bourdieu), protest and social conflict in contemporary France, new social movements, leftist intellectuals, globalisation and opposition in France and debates on the 2008 economic crisis.

Publications

Book

Social Movements in France: Towards a New Citizenship (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003) (See review by G. Hayes in Modern & Contemporary France, 13:3, August 2005, pp. 357-361)

Edited volumes

'New Voices? Alternative Politics in France Today', special issue of Modern & Contemporary France, vol. 12, no. 1 (2004), ed. J. Drugan, J. House and S. Waters

Memories of 1968: International Perspectives, ed. I. Cornils and S. Waters (Peter Lang, 2010)

Book chapters and articles


'Situating Movements Historically. May 1968, Alain Touraine and New Social Movement Theory', Mobilization, 13.1 (2008), 63-82
'A l'attac. Globalisation and Ideological Renewal on the French Left' Modern & Contemporary France, 14.2 (2006), 141-56 
'Mobilising against Globalisation. Attac and the French Intellectuals West European Politics, 27.5 (2004)
'Social Movements and Social Exclusion in the New France' in Contemporary French Cultures and Societies, ed. F. Royall (Peter Lang, 2004)
'Mouvements des chômeurs: Entretien avec une militante', Modern & Contemporary France, 8.3 (2000)
'Chambers of Commerce in Italy: A Model of Cooperative Development?', European Urban and Regional Studies, 6.2 (1999)
'New Social Movements in France: Une nouvelle vague citoyenne?', Modern & Contemporary France, 6.4 (1998)
'New Social Movement Politics in France: The Rise of Civic Forms of Mobilisation', West European Politics, 21.3 (1998)
'The Limits of Local Economic Intervention: The Case of the French and Italian Chambers of Commerce', Local Government Studies, 24. 3 (1998)
'Chambers of Commerce and Local Development in France: Problems and Constraints', Government and Policy, 16.4 (1998)
'Tangentopoli and the Emergence of a New Political Order in Italy', West European Politics, 17.1 (1994)