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Dr Emma Herdman

Lecturer

Phone

+44 (0)1334 46 3651

Email

eh58@st-andrews.ac.uk

Office

Room 11

Location

United Colleges

Office hours

Monday 12-1, Thursday 11-12, or by appointment

 

Teaching

I teach French language, literature and culture at all levels, as well as early modern French (and other) texts for Comparative Literature, and I offer three Honours Modules:

• “Discovering the Renaissance” (FR4111) introduces students to the literature of the period as it looks back to the classical past, focusing on themes of imitation, interpretation and imagination;
• “Representations of the Renaissance” (FR4115) looks to the future, examining how this peculiarly privileged era in France’s cultural past has been received and portrayed in historical literature and in films from the seventeenth century to the present day;
• “Women’s Voices in Renaissance France” (FR4118) looks beyond France to explore how women, as writers and as characters, use their voices to challenge or confirm the dominant cultural narratives of the wider European Renaissance.

I also teach postgraduate students, and I actively welcome enquiries from students interested in pursuing a PhD in any aspect of the literature and culture of Renaissance France.

Research areas

My research interests are in the literature, history and culture - in French and in Latin, in texts and in images - of Renaissance France, especially in relation to the classical world. I am particularly interested in themes of transgression and restraint. My recent work has focused on areas such as:

• attitudes in early modern Europe to alcohol, to vileness, to women and sexuality, and to theft;
• literary and artistic representations of the atrocities committed during the French religious wars;
• (as part of a wider research network) obscenity.

A recurrent motif in my work is birds, as light and inconsequential figures that can nevertheless carry some weighty themes. My current book-length project, Flights of Fancy: Avian Themes in Renaissance France, examines the relationship between ornithological knowledge and the imaginative representation of sixteenth-century birds and of what they can symbolise.

Selected publications

• Herdman, E., 10 Jul 2025, Women creating classics: a retrospective. Hauser, E. & Taylor, H. (eds.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 23-37

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Herdman, E. (Editor), Rayfield, L. (Editor) & Worth-Stylianou, V. (Editor), 17 Sept 2024, Cambridge: Legenda. 238 p. (Legenda (General series))

  Research output: Book/Report › Book

• Herdman, E., 3 Aug 2023, Ovid in French: reception by women from the Renaissance to the present. Taylor, H. & Cox, F. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 21-43 23 p. (Classical presences).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Open access
  Herdman, E., 1 Dec 2021, In: Romanic Review. 112, 3, p. 389-408

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Open access
  Herdman, E., 21 Dec 2020, In: Renaissance and Reformation. 43, 3, p. 9-40

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Open access
  Herdman, E., Dec 2017, In: Early Modern French Studies. 39, 2, p. 99-113

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Herdman, E., 19 Dec 2016, Montaigne in Transit: Essays in Honour of Ian Maclean. Kenny, N., Scholar, R. & Williams, W. (eds.). Cambridge: Legenda, p. 135-154 20 p. (Legenda (General series)).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Herdman, E., Jul 2013, In: Modern Language Review. 108, 3, p. 782-801

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Herdman, E., Feb 2013, In: Renaissance Studies. 27, 1, p. 114-132

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Herdman, E., 2011, In: French Studies. 65, 2, p. 212-224

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review