About Valerie Robillard

Valerie Robillard, PhD

I have worked in the field of education for many years, first as an English teacher in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at St Maarten’s College, Groningen, The Netherlands, and then, following the completion of my PhD,  as university lecturer in the Department of English Literature, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Groningen. I retired from the university in 2010. My teaching area focussed on 18th – 20th century English literature in the Bachelor’s and Masters’ programs; however, my research activities were and are based largely in the area of Word and Image Studies, more specifically, on the theoretical aspects of ekphrasis. I have lectured and published widely on this topic over the years, starting with my PhD dissertation, The Ekphrastic Moment in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams.

Below, you will see that I have followed the advice of wise Blog Experts to include some information on my research interests and professional activities to demonstrate that I know what I’m talking about.  So, at the risk of shameless self-promotion, I include here a brief idea of what I’ve been up to on the ekphrasis front.

But first, it might be nice to mention one or two more personal facts about myself: I play the cello, sing in a choir, love to hike (especially in the rain), treasure my family and am smitten with my four little grandsons.

Selection of Professional Activities

  • 1990 to present: Active member of IAWIS (International Association of Word and Image Studies) and the International Society for Intermedial Studies.
  • 1995-2010: University lecturer, Dept. of English, University of Groningen
  • 2008-2010: Visiting scholar and member of panel of experts for intermedial studies/interarts studies, Linnaeus University, Sweden.
  • November 2009: co-organizer of international symposium “Representing Gender in the Performing Arts”, University of Groningen.
  • March, 2009: Socrates lecturer at St. Andrews University, Scotland.
  • 2004-2007: guest lecturer at University of Dundee School of Art and Design, in connection with an interdisciplinary collaboration with Brigid Collins, artist and lecturer at Dundee.
  • February to April, 2009: Guest lecturer at Groningen Museum in connection with the J.W. Waterhouse exhibition.
  • 2000-2002: Instructor, Word and Image workshops in university-organized courses for teachers involved with cultural projects.
  • April, 1999: Erasmus scholar and lecturer in Word and Image Studies at Lund University department of Comparative Literature.
  • Created, developed, and organized successful interarts projects with Groningen schools (ages 12-16), in connection with Groningen art gallery.
  • November, 1995: Co-organized the interarts conference “The Painted Word”, Departments of English and Comparative Literature, University of Groningen.

Selection of Papers Delivered on Interarts Topics

  • March, 2011: “Illustration as ‘Visual Ekphrasis’”, symposium “Re-thinking Ekphrasis”, in honour of Hans Lund, Lund University, Sweden.
  • June, 2009: “ The Poet as Trickster: Spatial Maneuvers and the Verbal Artifact”, international symposium “”, University of Toronto.
  • October, 2007: “Beyond Illustration: Visual Ekphrasis and Intermediality”, International Conference on Intermediality sponsored by the Nordic Society for Interarts Studies at Linneaus University, Växjo, Sweden.
  • September 2007: Keynote Lecture,  “The Body as Template: Sonia Delaunay and the Fashion of Self-Erasure”, international conference on representing gender through the arts (University of Dundee).
  • October, 2006: Guest lecturer, Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge):  Ekphrasis and Teaching Methodologies.
  • May, 2006: “Sleight of Hand, Sleight of Word: Ekphrasis and Poetic Illusion”, international conference, Scottish Word and Image Group (SWIG), University of Dundee.
  • May, 2004: Keynote Lecture, ‘Nice … But Can You Eat It? A Pragmatic Approach to Teaching Word and Image Studies”, international conference Scottish Word and Image Group, University of Dundee.
  • Panel paper given at above SWIG conference in Dundee: “Steel Panegyrics: Architecture and the Limits of Ekphrasis”.
  • January, 2004: Guest lecturer, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, “Art Meets Poetry”.
  • June, 2002: Co-chaired panel and presented paper on teaching Word and Image at International Association of Word and Image Studies  (University of Hamburg)
  • March, 1999: “On Chasing Down the Greased Pig: The Hunter’s Guide to Conjectural Ekphrasis”, International Association of Word and Image Studies Conference, Scripps University, Claremont California

Selected Articles on Ekphrasis

  • Co-editor Pictures Into Words: Theoretical and Descriptive Approaches to Ekphrasis , Valerie Robillard and Els Jongeneel, eds (Amsterdam: VU University Press), 1998.
  • Forthcoming 2018: “In Pursuit of the Image: Enargeia versus the Ekphrastic Moment”, in  Making the Absent Present: Challenging Contemporary Concepts of Ekphrasis, Heidrun Fürhrer, editor (Aachen: Shakenverlag).
  • “Beyond Definition: A Pragmatic Approach to Intermediality”, in Media Borders, Multimodality, and Intermediality, Lars Ellestrom, editor (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 2010
  • Brigid Collins and Valerie Robillard: “Word, Image, and the Space Between: From Literary Theory to Creative Practice”, in Interior Tools, Interior Tactics: Debates in Interior Theory and Practice, J. Fleming, et al, eds, (Edinburgh: Libri Press), 2008. (Also available on Google Scholar).
  • “Still Chasing Down the Greased Pig: Cognition and the Problem of Ekphrasis” in Changing Borders: Contemporary Positions in Intermediality, Jens Arvidson, Mikael Askander,  Jørgen Bruhn, Heidrun Führer, eds (Lund: Intermedia Studies Press), 2007.
  • “Dismantling the Virgin: The Sacred Feminine in Modernist Poetry and Painting”, in Transferring Holiness: Representations of Holiness in English and American Literary Texts, Irene Visser and Helen Wilcox, eds (Groningen Studies in Cultural Change. Leuven: Peeters), 2006
  • “On the Virtue of Hindsight: William Carlos Williams and the Abstract Expressionsists”, in Cultural Functions of Intermedial Exploration, Erik Hedling and Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, eds. (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press), 2002.
  • “In Pursuit of Ekprhasis: An Intertextual Approach”, in Robillard and Jongeneel, Pictures Into Words: Theoretical and Descriptive Approaches to Ekphrasis (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1998), pp. 53-72.