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Dr Sophie Heywood

Sophie Heywood portrait

Departmental Director of Postgraduate Research

Office

Miller 123

Building location

Miller building

Areas of interest

  • The history of children's literature and publishing
  • Children's books in translation
  • Children's culture in the Cold War and after 1968
  • Feminism
  • The cultural and religious history of modern France

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome enquiries concerning research supervision in any of my areas of research interest.

Current supervisions:

  • Salwa Alelyani: The Translation of Saudi Films in the Era of Saudi Vision 2030
  • Nouf Alsayed: The Arabic subtitling of His Dark Materials
  • Emma D. Page: A study of children’s literature in translation using data from Outside in World. Funded by the AHRC South West and Wales Doctoral Training Programme. Co-supervisor: Dr Catherine Butler (Cardiff)

Completed supervisions:

  • Assya Belahmar Louazani: The Women’s Hammam in Maghrebi Literature and film (2024).

Teaching

At Part 1 teach on the module FR1IF Ideas of Frenchness and run a section on children's literature for the module ML1TT 'Thinking Translation: History and Methods'.

At Part 2 I convene the module FR2CHF Children’s Books in France, and I teach translation for the core French language module.

At Part 3 I convene the module FR3M68/ HS3M68 May 68, and teach on the module FR3FWF Future Worlds in Film.

Research centres and groups

I am a co-director of the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP), along with colleagues in Italian, English Literature and Typography. We undertake research in book cultures and publishing with a distinctive global, multilingual and multidisciplinary focus. Information on our research projects, opportunities and seminars can be found at the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) site.

In partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation, I convene the CBCP x OIW webinar series Explorations in Translation for Children. Recordings of previous webinars are available on the CBCP Youtube channel.  

Research projects

In 2016, I was awarded a LE STUDIUM/ Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellowship, based at the University of Tours, to lead the research project 'The Children's '68', on the impact of the '68 years on cultures of childhood, working with scholars in countries including Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden. More information on the project and its outcomes can be found at: https://children68.hypotheses.org/

Between 2012-2015 I was part of a group of researchers from the Modern Languages and English Departments who secured funding from the Leverhulme Trust to undertake a three-year project to promote the preservation of, and access to, literary archives held worldwide. More information about the project.

Awards and honours

Research grants and awards

  • Junior Research Fellowship, Institute of Historical Research, October 2007-May 2008
  • Scholarship, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, October 2004-October 2007
  • Awarded the University of Reading Research Endowment Trust Fund 'Best Research Output Prize' 2012, Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, for the monograph on the comtesse de Ségur: http://www.reading.ac.uk/research/Highlights-News/risingstars/res-retf2012heywood.aspx
  • Co-investigator, Leverhulme International Network, Diasporic Literary Archives: Questions of Location, Ownership and Interpretation, 2012-15
  • Principal Investigator LE STUDIUM/ Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellowship, Université de Tours François-Rabelais, ‘The Children’s ‘68/ Le ’68 des enfants’ 2016-17

Publications

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