ResearchBioMediasPublicationsArticles
Research themes
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British and French nineteenth-century novel
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Victorian print culture and the urban space
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Persistence of Victorian forms, practices and thought
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Aesthetics, politics and economics in Britain and the Empire.
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Emerging subjectivities (gendered, post-/decolonial and animal)
Current Project
- Imagining Capital : aesthetic responses to economic pressures in the nineteenth-century: the representation of capital and its effects/affects in literature and the press in Britain and Empire.
- paradigm shifts, new forms of affect, emerging subjectivities and new relationships with the environment in the Victorian period
Doctoral research themes
I welcome research projects on Victorian literature and print culture including the persistence of its thought, practices and forms (media adaptation, aesthetic and political borrowings); the effects of capital including the affect or sensibilities which cluster around money and its circulation within Britain and the Empire; the urban space and the life of the city’s inhabitants (new animal, gender or post/decolonial subjectivities).
Education and positions
- 1980-84 : King’s College, Université de Londres, B. A. Honours: French language and literature.
- 1984-86 : Ecole Normale Supérieure, 45 rue d’Ulm. MPhil in French and comparative literature (UFR Science des textes et des documents), Université Paris 7. Dissertation on the dynamics of seduction in La Cousine Bette de Balzac directed by Nicole Mozet et Julia Kristeva).
- 1992 : Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle : PhD (Doctorat Nouveau Régime) in English literature on W. M. Thackeray and the vanity of the text. Jury : Hubert Teyssandier (DR). Roger Chazal, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Marie-Christine Lemardeley, Michel Baridon.
- 1992 : Permanent position as Associate Professor (Maître de conferences) at Université de Picardie, Amiens
- 1998 : Associate Professor (Maître de conferences) at Université Paris Diderot
- 2006 : Diploma for the status of research supervisor (Diplôme d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) at Université Paris Diderot. Jury : Marie-Françoise Cachin (garante), Cornélius Crowley, Catherine Lanone, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Alexis Tadié.
- 2007 : Post as full Professeur at Université Paris Diderot
Administration and responsabilities
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2011-2018: Elected member of the board of Doctoral School 131 of Université de Paris
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2014-today : Elected member of the scientific committee for the faculty of English Studies, Université de Paris
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2013-today : Co-director of the Masters programme « Intelligence et innovation culturelles ». Two year work placement MA programme.
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2014-18 : Chair of the academic association of Victorian and Edwardian Studies « Société Française d’Etudes Victoriennes et Edouardiennes » (SFEVE)
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2015- today : Policy officer « Alumni Paris Diderot » working with the Vice-president of ‘Outreach to industry, society and health’. Position renewed for the new Université de Paris (after P7 – P5 merger)
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2017-today : advisor on academic matters at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and innovation (Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur, de la recherche et de l’innovation)
Sara Thornton : “De 1870 à aujourd’hui il y a une sorte d’industrie de la fin du ‘Mystère d’Edwin Drood’ le roman-feuilleton inachevé de Dickens”Les nuits de France Culture – 22 décembre 2019
Sara Thornton – La transmission à l’époque de Dickens13 minutes – conférences courtes – Université Paris Diderot – désormais Université de Paris – 6 avril 2016
‘What can economists learn from literature : Literary productions offer illustrations of economic theory in action’Sara Thornton – Institut for New Economic Thinking – 4 août 2015
Interview de Sara Thornton sur France 5 concernant une adaptation de Dombey and Son par Charles Dickens, (Dombais et Fils, 2007)
L’univers étrange de Charles Dickens
Comforting Creatures: Changing Visions of Animal Otherness in the Victorian Period Comforting Creatures / 57e Congrès de la SAES : (Re)Construction(s) Date de publication : 11/10/2018
Dickens and the Virtual City : Urban Perception and the Production of Social Space Date de publication : 01/01/2017
Littérature et publicité : de Balzac à Beigbeder Date de publication : 08/11/2012
Persistent Dickens Études anglaises - N°1/2012 Date de publication : 02/04/2012
Cahiers Charles VIntroduction : Theorizing the Nineteenth-Century Literary Scene :Media, Politics, Performance Date de publication : 11/10/2010
Advertising, Subjectivity and the Nineteenth-Century Novel Dickens, Balzac and the Language of the Walls Date de publication : 08/04/2009
- Comforting Creatures: Changing Visions of Animal Otherness in the Victorian Period, Edition et introduction avec Laurence Roussillon-Constanty, Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens. N°88, 2018. https://journals.openedition.org/cve/3790?lang=en
- Dickens and the Virtual City: Urban Perception and the Production of Social Space, avec Estelle Murail, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319350851
- Persistent Dickens, co-édition avec Alain Jumeau, Etudes Anglaises No. 1/2012, Paris : Editions Klincksieck, 2012. https://www.klincksieck.com/livre/2657-etudes-anglaises-n12012
- Littérature et publicité : de Balzac à Beigbeder, co-édition avec Laurence Guellec et Françoise Hache-Bisette (eds.), Marseille : Editions Gaussen, 2012. https://sites.google.com/site/gausseneditions/company-blog/publication/litterature-et-publicite
- Circulation and Transfer of Key Scenes in Nineteenth-Century Literature avec Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada, Cahiers Charles V, numéro 48, Paris, 2010.https://www.persee.fr/issue/cchav_0184-1025_2010_num_48_1
- Advertising, Subjectivity and the Nineteenth-Century Novel: Dickens, Balzac and the Language of the Walls, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. https://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9780230008328
- Lectures d’une œuvre: Selected Stories de Kathrine Mansfield, avec Stéphanie Amar-Flood, Paris: Editions du Temps, 1997.
- Lecture d’une œuvre: David Copperfield de Charles Dickens, Paris: Editions du Temps, 1996
Articles et chapitres d’ouvrage (sélection) :
- Thornton, Sara and Bernard, Catherine, ‘Empathy, indiscipline and employability: the case of the bi-lingual Masters programme “Cultural intelligence and innovation” at the University of Paris’ in Empathy, sensibility and graduate employment – can the humanities help? Special Issue of the Journal Industry and Higher Education, Sage Publishing : London, Los Angeles, 2020 .
- Thornton, Sara, ‘Cloud, steam and smoke : structures of feeling and epistemological shifts in nineteenth-century weather’ in What’s The Weather Like In Anglophone Literature and Arts, Catherine Lanone et Jean-Pierre Naugrette (eds), Paris : Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2019.
- Thornton, Sara, « Edwin Drood : A Spectre haunts the British Library », dans « Les mystères de Charles Dickens », Jean-Pierre Naugrette (ed.), Revue des deux Mondes, novembre 2018. https://www.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/article-revue/edwin-drood-un-spectre-hante-la-british-library/
- Thornton, Sara, « Remembering Atonement in Atonement : Guilt and the Victorian House », Atonement, Cahier Spécial, Catherine Bernard (ed.), Etudes britanniques contemporaines, n°55, 2018. https://journals-openedition-org.rproxy.sc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/ebc/5562
- Thornton, Sara, « Realism and its revelations : City perspectives in London and Paris » in Jeremy Tambling (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook to Literature and the City, London and New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F978-1-137-54911-2_45
- Thornton, Sara, « Twisting the economic tale: what literature can do that political economy can’t », Liberté, Egalité, Fragilité, Challenging Economic Injustice Through Literature, Institute of New Economic Thinking, April 2015. Sixth Annual Conference in collaboration with OECD, Paris. https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/twisting-the-economic-tale-what-literature-can-do-that-political-economy-cant
- Thornton, Sara, « Charles Dickens et The Life of Our Lord: un texte privé pour ses enfants ? » dans Mariella Colin (dir.), Les catéchismes et les littératures chrétiennes pour l’enfance en Europe (xvie-xxie siècle), Pessac : Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, coll. « Études sur le livre de jeunesse », 2014, 324 p. https://www.cairn.info/revue-archives-de-sciences-sociales-des-religions-2016-4-page-294.htm
- Thornton Sara, « Paris and London superimposed: urban seeing and new political space in Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities », Études anglaises, 2012/3 (Vol. 65), p. 302-314. URL : https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-anglaises-2012-3-page-302.htm
- Thornton, Sara, « Dickens et notre rêve de cinéma », Cinématismes. La littérature au prisme du cinéma, éditions Peter Lang, collection « Film Cultures », dirigée par Jacqueline Nacache et Jean- Loup Bourget, avril 2012. https://www.peterlang.com/view/9783035104073/9783035104073.00001.xml
- Thornton, Sara, «The Burning of Miss Havisham : Dickens, Fire and the ‘Fire Baptism’ », Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations : Great Expectations, Harold Bloom (ed.), Chelsea House Publications, April 2010. https://fr.scribd.com/document/137294987/Great-Expectations-New-Edition-Bloom-039-s-Modern-Critical-Interpretations
