Mr James Agar
Senior Lecturer
SELCS
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
- Joined UCL
- 1st Sep 1999
Research summary
James Agar is interested in modern and contemporary fiction; cultural discourses of AIDS, especially in the work of Hervé Guibert; cultural theory, especially the work of Foucault; cultural studies; gender studies, especially gay studies and queer theory; comparative literature, especially French and Hispanic writing; medical humanities, especially literature and medicine;contemporary gay/queer cinema.
James has supervised numerous PhD candidates in the field of queer studies and French, and the links and overlaps between these two areas.James was for many years the SELCS Programme Tutor for interdepartmental ELCS modules; from January - July 2018 he was Acting Programme Director of the MA in Gender, Society and Representation.
Teaching summary
James has recently taught two cross-cultural and comparative ELCS modules: one on the short story of modernism and another on theories of modernity and practices of modernism; he has also recently taught a final year French option on post-WWII literary autobiography (Genet, Beauvoir, Barthes, Ernaux, Guibert, Louis). James currently teaches: an interdepartmental, final year option on representations of HIV/AIDS; seminars on the first year 'Reading French Texts' module; a second year module on literary theory (focusing on Foucault and Barthes), and; a final year French department module on AIDS discourses and literary representations of HIV/AIDS in France. He also contributes teaching to the core courses of MA programmes in: Language, Culture and History; Comparative Literature, and; Gender, Society and Representation.
Education
- University of Manchester
- Other higher degree, Master of Arts | 1994
- University College London
- First Degree, Bachelor of Arts | 1993
Biography
James was an undergraduate student in French and Spanish at UCL and did graduate work in the Universities of Manchester and London. Prior to his current post at UCL, James was previously Lecturer in French at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is a keen home gardener and a cricket fan.