Christina Kullberg promoted to Professor in French

2020-10-28

Modern Languages' Christina Kullberg has been promoted to Professor in French, in particular French literature, after a decision by the vice-chancellor. Christina Kullberg is a leading expert in French post-colonial and caribbean literature.

Christina Kullberg's research is about e.g. power, language and creation of identity in a Caribbean context. Her interest for these subjects arose when, as a student, she read an article by the Martinican author Patrick Chamoiseau. His authorship also became the subject for her doctoral theses, one at New York University – known for research about post-colonial  and Caribbean literature – and a monograph in French, that she defended at Uppsala University. The latter was also published as a book with the title ”The Poetics of Ethnography in Martinican Narratives”.

As a researcher, Kullberg has written about authors like Marysé Condé, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat and Frantz Fanon. She has studied the Négritude movement, which can be described as a French predecessor to the Black Power movement. And she has translated French theorists as Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Rancière. She has also translated Édouard Glissant to Swedish and introduced him in Sweden.

In later years, after having been promoted to Associate Professor, Christina Kullberg has done research on travel literature from the Caribbean, at the time of the French establishment there during the 17th century. These texts are part of an early modern history, from before the massive expansion of the sugar based economy and thus slavery. Her latest book was published earlier this autumn. ”Lire l’Histoire générale des Antilles de J.-B. Du Tertre” is about the Dominican missionary Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre's observations from the Antilles during the 17th century. The next book is on its way, and it is about the collected French travel literature from the Caribbean in the 17th century. It examines how travellers base their narratives on voices and knowledge from the indigenous population and from slaves.

A large part of Christina Kullberg's present work is about finalising ongoing projects, not least the program "World Literatures: Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics" where she is one of 25 researchers at 6 universities, and the coordinator for the part that is about vernaculars in world literature.

What awaits our new Professor next? ”Much has to be done to strengthen languages and literature in teaching, research and society at large. I want to continue working with that together with colleagues and students in Uppsala", says Christina Kullberg. ”At the same time it is impossible not to let the mind wander in these times. One thought right now is to spend some time as a guest resercher in the Caribbean or in the United States, but right now that seems to remain a thought."

Christina Kullberg's profile page

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Last modified: 2021-09-14
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