Â鶹´«Ã½

I am a cultural geographer of modern and contemporary France working at the intersection of urban studies, visual culture and the environmental humanities. My research examines how cities imagine, aestheticise and contest processes of urban transformation, with a particular focus on infrastructure, ecology and the politics of urban futures.

My current work centres on Grand Paris as a major site through which to examine the cultural politics of mega-scale urbanism. I am interested in how "transition" is made visible and persuasive through literature, film, photography, public art, planning discourse and activist spatial practice, and in how alternative forms of urban belonging emerge in response. This work has been funded by small grants from the British Academy/Leverhulme scheme, as well as a Leadership Research Fellowship from the AHRC.

Alongside this work on Grand Paris, I develop translocal, practice-led research on urban ground, cultivation and ecological care through collaborations with community gardens and cultural organisations in the North East of England. I approach these as connected sites for thinking about how urban nature is made, storied, inhabited and politically claimed. This work has been funded by both North East Combined Authority and the ESRC-Impact Accelerator Account.

Originally from Ireland, I studied at Trinity College, Dublin, the Sorbonne and New York University before completing my PhD on urban travel writing at Trinity. Moving between languages, places and disciplines has shaped my commitment to research that is at once historically grounded, culturally specific and attentive to the material and imaginative forms through which urban life becomes meaningful.

Before coming to Â鶹´«Ã½ in 2018 and relocating to the North East, I worked at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Bangor University (2012–2018), Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick (2010–2012), the University of Stirling (2009–2010), Trinity College, Dublin (2004–2009), and the Institut du Monde Anglophone (Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle).

EDUCATION

2008 Ph.D, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (supervisor Prof. David H.T. Scott)

2002 Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (D.E.A. / M.Phil equivalent), Sorbonne Nouvelle Université Paris III, France (supervisor Prof. Philippe Hamon)

2001 B.A. Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (double first-class honours in French and History, dissertation in both disciplines)

ACADEMIC TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS

2017 F.H.E.A., Bangor University, Wales (Fellow of the Higher Education Academy / Advance HE).

2010 F.L.E. (Stage de perfectionnement en Français Langue Étrangère / Teaching French as a Foreign Language), Université de Laval, Québec. 

2005 T.E.F.L. (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), The Language Centre of Ireland, Dublin. 

My research asks how urban futures become visible and inhabitable. Across my work, I examine the cultural forms through which cities are imagined and remade: literature, photography, film, street art, public art, planning documents, creative practice and community-led forms of spatial knowledge.

I am currently developing two connected strands of work. The first, emerging from my AHRC-funded project Inventing Grand Paris, examines the visual and cultural politics of metropolitan transformation in the Paris region. This research analyses how infrastructure, regeneration and ecological transition participate in the remaking of Grand Paris, and how these processes are contested through counter-visual, activist and situated practices. It now informs my monograph project on the cultural politics of mega-scale urbanism.

The second strand, Grounding Cities, Growing Resonance, extends these concerns through collaborative and practice-led research on urban ecology, cultivation and care. Working with community and cultural partners, including The Comfrey Project in Gateshead, this research explores how gardens, brownfield sites and other forms of urban ground become spaces for ecological knowledge, migrant homemaking, cultural memory and more-than-human belonging. The collaborative publication develops this work through form, bringing together seasonal knowledge, multilingual cultural calendars, volunteer testimony, recipes, remedies, horticultural practice and creative responses to more-than-human life.

Taken together, this research contributes to debates in French Studies, cultural geography, visual culture and the environmental humanities by asking how cities under ecological pressure are storied, and how more just urban futures may become perceptible through cultural practice.

Activities

Alongside my research, I contribute to academic leadership and sector-facing activity. I was co-founder of in 2010 and remain an external member of its executive board. I sit on the editorial board of The Journal of European Popular Culture and served as editor of the (2011–2020). I have contributed to public and policy-facing conversations through work with organisations including the BBC and the British Academy, and have delivered invited keynote lectures at international conferences.

At Â鶹´«Ã½, I am active across interdisciplinary research networks and, since May 2025, serve as a lead of the Centre for Researching Cities (NUCoRE). Within NUCoRE, I advance arts and humanities approaches to understanding cities as complex and relational systems, and support challenge-led collaboration with external partners around just urban transitions. In this role, I am the organiser of the cross-sector, cross-disciplinary symposium Urban Ground.

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective research students interested in modern and contemporary French and Francophone studies, especially in the following areas:

Urban visual culture

Cultural politics of ecological transition

Grand Paris / mega-scale urbanism

Infrastructure and the urban imaginary

Urban ground, cultivation

Migrant homemaking

UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING

• I am module leader on the final-year UG course, Global France: Intercultural Encounters in French Literature and Film (FRE4020)
• I teach a unit on the second-year module, Paris: Aspects of History and Culture (FRE2009).
• I teach a unit on the banlieues on the final-year module, Social Justice in French Contexts (FRE4022)

DOCTORAL SUPERVISION

• Completed (November 2025). Along with Prof. Shirley Jordan (SML), I supervised Dr Sophie Ellis, a Northern Bridge postgraduate recipient. Sophie's work explores Hospitality in contemporary French and Francophone visual arts practices. Sophie graduated with 'No corrections' and been nominated for the university's dissertation prize.

• Along with my colleagues in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Profs. Simin Davoudi and Stephen Graham, I supervise Farhan Anshary, who is a NINE DTP recipient. Farhan's work explores Spatial Imaginaries of ‘City’ and ‘Non-City’ in the Jakarta City-Region.

EXTERNAL EXAMINING

I have acted as external examiner on University of London’s Institute of Paris’s (ULIP) MA in Urban History and Culture (2019-2022) and as external examiner for the UG programme for French at MIC, University of Limerick (2021–2025).

• Articles

  • Jein G. . French Studies 2024, 78(4), 623–643.
  • Jein G, Rorato L, Saunders A. . Journal of Contemporary European Studies 2017, 25(4), 405-411.
  • Jein G. . Irish Journal of French Studies 2012, 12(1), 83-111.

• Authored Book

  • Jein G. . London, UK: Anthem, 2016.

• Book Chapters

  • Jein G. . In: Liska Chan and Elizabeth Stapleton, ed. Transformational Participatory Urbanism: Making Do as a Spatial Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2026, pp.18-39.
  • Jein G. . In: Christoph Lindner; Gerard F. Sandoval, ed. Aesthetics of Gentrification: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp.221-246.
  • Jein G. . In: Anna-Louise Milne; Russell Williams, ed. Contemporary Fiction in French. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp.199-218.
  • Jein G. . In: John Flower, ed. 30-Second Paris: The 50 key elements that shaped the city, each explained in half a minute. London, UK: Ivy Press, 2018, pp.3.
  • Jein G. . In: Jordan S; Lindner C, ed. Cities Interrupted: Visual Culture and Urban Space. London: Bloomsbury, 2016, pp.87-104.
  • Jein G. . In: Charles Forsdick; Ludmilla Kostova; Corinne Fowler, ed. Travel and Ethics: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2014, pp.31-51.
  • Jein G. Dislocating Travel: New York as anti-domus in Simone de Beauvoir’s Amérique au jour le jour. In: Connon,D;Jein,G;Kerr,G, ed. Aesthetics of Dislocation in French and Francophone Literature and Art: Strategies of Representation. Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009, pp.33–52.

• Edited Books

  • Jein G, ed. . Gateshead: The Comfrey Project, 2025.
  • Connon D, Jein G, Kerr G, ed. Dislocation in French and Francophone Literature and Art: Strategies of Representation. Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.

• Exhibition

  • Devlin R, Flukiger M, Dickenson A, Edwards C, Jein G, Bakir V, McStay A. . 2017. Bangor University: White Box, Pontio, 1.

• Online Publication

  • Jein G. . Dublin: Sinéad Furlong-Clancy, 2015. Available at: .