Staff profile

I research contemporary women's writing, ecocriticism, historical fiction and postcolonial literature, with a special focus on how echoes of Empire reverberate in literary and cultural representations of the Anthrocene. I am currently working on a book project examining ecological and cultural memory in northern English writers, with a special focus on A. S. Byatt, Sarah Moss and Sarah Hall. Recent publications include an OA article on Sarah Moss, climate change, posthuman entanglements, and BrexLit (2025). This article is part of special issue I have co-edited for Contemporary Women's Writing on material feminisms in contemporary Anglophone fiction and poetry. I have also published extensively on A. S. Byatt's fiction and essays, for a variety of outlets: recent outputs include a chapter on the neo-Victorian Decadence and ekphrasis, and an article in The Journal of the Short Story in English (2022), which explores material feminism and national memory in Byatt's short stories. I have also written on Eleanor Catton, David Mitchell, Isabel Allende and Rose Tremain for journals including Partial Answers, Neo-Victorian Studies, MediAzioni.

I sit on the steering group of NPRG, the North-East Postcolonial Research Group, and, in May 2022, was the organiser of the symposium Abdulrazak Gurnah: Colonial Traces, Exile, and the 2021 Nobel Prize. I teach a second-year seminar module called Writing the Sea, which focuses on the sea as a key space of imperial memory, mobility, resource extraction, and the climate crisis. I also teach and supervise in the areas of postcolonial and world literatures, post-war fiction and the modern novel. Prior to joining Durham, in October 2021, I have taught at Newcastle University, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University. I obtained my PhD from the University of Kent in 2017, after writing a thesis on A. S. Byatt's fiction and intertextuality, and I completed my BA and MA at the University of Venice (Italy).

• Contemporary Women's Writing
• Cultural Memory and the Memory of Empire
• Historical Fiction
• Material Feminism
• Neo-Victorianism
• Postmodernism and Intertextuality
• Travel and Mobility Studies

• 2024: A. S. Byatt podcast: Appearance on the Iris Murdoch podcast to discuss the legacy, work and life of A. S. Byatt.
• 2022: British Landscapes and National Histories in Sarah Moss’s Fiction: Ghosts of the Motherland: Guest Lecture on neo-Victorianism, national identity and Brexit delivered at the University of Luxembourg.
• 2022: Postcolonial neo-Victorianism and expanding the 'canon': Podcast guest appearance, Victorian Legacies.
• 2019: Human Hubris, Environmental Potential: Ecocritical Writings by A. S. Byatt and Amitav Ghosh: Plenary Talk for: On Potentialities: ASYRAS Conference, University of Cantabria, Spain

Book review

• “Review: A.S. Byatt’s Art of Memory by Mara Cambiaghi (2020)”
  
  Franchi, B. (2021). “Review: A.S. Byatt’s Art of Memory by Mara Cambiaghi (2020)”. C21 Literature: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writings, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.3470
• Benjamin Poore (ed.), Neo-Victorian Villains: Adaptations and Transformations in Popular Culture
  
  Franchi, B. (2019). Benjamin Poore (ed.), Neo-Victorian Villains: Adaptations and Transformations in Popular Culture. Victoriographies, 9(1), 95-97. https://doi.org/10.3366/vic.2019.0331

Chapter in book

• A Matter of Stories: Transcorporeal Entanglements in ‘The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye’
  
  Franchi, B. (2023). A Matter of Stories: Transcorporeal Entanglements in ‘The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye’. In A. Cheira (Ed.), Wonder Tales in the Fiction of A. S. Byatt. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Explorers, Doctors and Butlers: Queer Masculinity and Empire in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone
  
  Franchi, B. (2018). Explorers, Doctors and Butlers: Queer Masculinity and Empire in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone. In B. Franchi & E. Mutlu (Eds.), Crossing Borders in Victorian Travel: Spaces, Nations and Empires (pp. 40-64). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Dangerous Mothers and their Children: Writing and Other Secrets in Possession and The Children’s Book
  
  Franchi, B. (2017). Dangerous Mothers and their Children: Writing and Other Secrets in Possession and The Children’s Book. In A. Parey & I. Roblin (Eds.), A. S. Byatt, Before and After Possession: Recent Critical Approaches (pp. 143-159). Presses Universitaires de Lorraine.
• Travelling Across Worlds and Texts in A. S. Byatt’s Sea Narratives
  
  Franchi, B. (2016). Travelling Across Worlds and Texts in A. S. Byatt’s Sea Narratives. In C. Mathieson (Ed.), Sea Narratives: Cultural Responses to the Sea, 1600-Present (pp. 195-216). Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58116-7_8
• Writing and Weaving the neo-Victorian Decadence: A. S. Byatt’s Golden Ekphrasis
  
  Franchi, B. (n.d.). Writing and Weaving the neo-Victorian Decadence: A. S. Byatt’s Golden Ekphrasis. In K. Boyiopoulos & J. Thorne (Eds.), Neo-Victorian Decadences [Contracted by publisher]. Brill/Rodopi.

Edited book

• Crossing Borders in Victorian Travel: Spaces, Nations and Empires
  
  Franchi, B., & Mutlu, E. (Eds.). (2018). Crossing Borders in Victorian Travel: Spaces, Nations and Empires. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Journal Article

• In the Borderlands of the Anthropocene: Eco-Nationalism and Sarah Moss's Climate Fictions
  
  Franchi, B. (2025). In the Borderlands of the Anthropocene: Eco-Nationalism and Sarah Moss’s Climate Fictions. Contemporary Women’s Writing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpaf011
• Introduction: Material Feminisms and Posthumanism in Contemporary Women’s Writing
  
  Franchi, B., & Walezak, E. (2025). Introduction: Material Feminisms and Posthumanism in Contemporary Women’s Writing. Contemporary Women’s Writing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpaf012
• Material and Geographical Intertextualities in Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice
  
  Franchi, B. (2021). Material and Geographical Intertextualities in Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice. Les Cahiers de la Nouvelle = Journal of the Short Story in English., 76, 121-141.
• States of Insecurity, Insecurities of State: Home, Masculinity and Empire in David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green
  
  Franchi, B. (2019). States of Insecurity, Insecurities of State: Home, Masculinity and Empire in David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green. MediAzioni, 25, 1-20.
• The Neo-Victorian Chinese Diaspora: Crossing Genders and Postcolonial Subversion in Pacific Gold Rush Novels
  
  Franchi, B. (2019). The Neo-Victorian Chinese Diaspora: Crossing Genders and Postcolonial Subversion in Pacific Gold Rush Novels. Neo-Victorian Studies, 11(2), 91-117. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2628471
• Written in the Stars? Women Travellers and Forgers of Destinies in Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries
  
  Franchi, B. (2018). Written in the Stars? Women Travellers and Forgers of Destinies in Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, 16(1), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1353/pan.2018.0007.