Name: Kate Kent

College: St John's

Email: kjk42@cam.ac.uk

Supervisor: Prof Martin Crowley

Research Topic: The translated dramatic works of Samuel Beckett and Marguerite Duras 1960-1969

About
Kate completed her undergraduate degree in French and Spanish at St. John’s College, Cambridge. During her BA (Hons), she specialised in nineteenth and twentieth century French and Spanish literature and also took a paper in Spanish American history.  In her third year she studied at Sorbonne Université (then known as Paris IV).  Kate’s undergraduate dissertation involved a comparative study of perceptions of women in metropolitan literature and art of the period 1910-1939, and examined urban environments and the female form. She graduated with first class honours in 1996.  Two decades later, Kate completed her PGCE and an MEd at Homerton College, Cambridge, followed by an MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures (ELAC) at Murray Edwards, Cambridge.  Her MPhil thesis focused on misogyny and bilingualism in the work of Samuel Beckett.

Research
Kate’s doctoral research is based within the fields of translation and adaptation studies, focusing both on Samuel Beckett’s self-translations in the context of his relationship with Barbara Bray and on Bray’s translations of Marguerite Duras’s dramatic works.   Kate is particularly interested in the cultural and theatrical milieux of 1960s Paris and London, and in the role of institutions such as the BBC’s Third Programme and Grove Press in promoting and disseminating translated dramatic work.

Scholarships/Prizes

Prize Scholarship awarded by St. John’s College for final MML Tripos Examinations (1996).

Teaching
Kate is a qualified teacher and completed her MEd (Research in Second Language Education) whilst teaching French in a Cambridgeshire secondary school.  She currently teaches basic and intermediate language classes with the Cambridge University Language Centre, and also runs a French Club for primary school children.

Conference papers
‘In Barbara Bray’s words: The translated dramatic works of Samuel Beckett and Marguerite Duras 1960-1969’; Cambridge French Graduate Research Seminar, Cambridge, UK (*January 2023).