Prof Margaret Topping

Prof Margaret Topping is Professor of French Literary and Visual Cultures.

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Prof Margaret Topping is Professor of French Literary and Visual Cultures. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Oxford University, gaining a Joint Honours degree in French and Spanish (1994), an M.St. (1995), and a D.Phil. (1998). She has previously taught at Oxford University, the University of Wales Bangor, and Cardiff University. She joined Modern Languages at Queen's in 2011.

Her research trajectory has developed from an early disciplinary focus on one of France's canonical writers, Marcel Proust, to a firmly interdisciplinary approach to debates linked to travel, tourism and migration, and to the ethics and aesthetics of cross-cultural representation. Particular focal points are the ethical role and responsibilities of public spaces such as museums and archives in negotiating diversity, as well as the possibilities for creating enhanced connectivity, cohesion and social wellbeing in post-conflict or postcolonial societies through community-based initiatives such as cultural festivals or urban art projects. Increasingly, what unites and drives her research interests is a passion to communicate better the public value of the arts and humanities.

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