Duarte Benard da Costa

Peterhouse
  • PhD student
Duarte Benard da Costa

Contact

About

Research Topic: Intertextuality in Marcel Proust, Julia Kristeva and Paul Ricouer

Supervisor: Prof Ian James (Downing College)

Duarte is a third-year PhD student. He completed his MA in Comparative Literature at University College London in 2021 with a dissertation on John Ruskin and Marcel Proust, supervised by Dr Patrick Bray. His dissertation focused on the relation between idolatry and reading. He holds a Liberal Arts undergraduate degree from the University of Lisbon, during which he spent some time in Cambridge as an Erasmus Exchange Student reading English. He worked on spatiality, maps and literature in the works of Charles Dickens and Henry James for his final dissertation, supervised by Dr Daniel Tyler (Trinity Hall). 

Duarte has worked as an independent academic researcher and literary translator. One of his on-going projects is the first Portuguese translation of Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds. He has published critical writings and creative pieces in paper and online publications, including Forma de Vida (University of Lisbon), the newspaper Público, or the platform Comunidade Cultura e Arte.   

Scholarships/Prizes

  • FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (PT), Doctoral Research Scholar (2022-2025)
  • Greta Burkill Fund (2025)
  • MMLL PhD Research Fund (Michaelmas 2024)
  • Friends of Peterhouse Grant for Language Study (2022-24)
  • Bruckmann Fund Travel Grant (Easter, 2023)

Fellowships

  • The Society for French Studies – member
  • Portuguese Heraldry Institute (Corresponding Fellow, elected 2025)

Selected Papers and Invited Talks

  • “The Polyphonic Novel: Julia Kristeva’s Quest for Textual Revolution”, 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, University of North Carolina Greensboro, (26-29th March 2025)
  • “Reading Ruptures”, The Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France and Society for the Study of French History’s Graduate Day, University of Cambridge (1st March 2025)
  • “On Origins: Julia Kristeva”, All Souls College, Oxford French Graduate Research Seminar (28th May 2024)
  • “And this secret still keeps my tongue in chains: Intertextuality and Queerness in Proust”, University of Cambridge, Center for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), The (Im)possibilities of Queer Presentism Conference (26th April 2023)
  • "Proust against theory", University of Cambridge French Research Graduate Seminar (9th February 2023)
  • "Literary solitude: Displacement and communities in Marcel Proust", University of Cambridge French Graduate Conference  (12th  January 2023)
  • "Heráldica em Literatura: o caso de Marcel Proust", Portuguese Heraldry Institute ( 16th November, 2022)
  • "Quoting and Misquoting, in Reference to John Ruskin and Marcel Proust", UCL Quo Vadis: Arts and Humanities Research in the 21st Century Online Conference (23rd July 2021)

Publications 

  • “On Translating Proust and Failing”, in Christophe Gagne and Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde (eds.) Translation from French into English (Routledge), forthcoming in 2025. 
  • “Reler Proust/Reading Proust Twice” (Brotéria, vol. 196-2), February 2023 
  • "Hunter Dukes, signature" (Forma de Vida), June 15, 2022
  • "Cynthia Gamble, Voix Entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin" (Forma de Vida), February 9, 2022
  • “Heráldica e Literatura: Os Guermantes e os Cambremer in Marcel Proust” [Heraldry and Literature: Guermantes and Cambremer in Marcel Proust], in Armas e Troféus (Instituto Português de Heráldica, Lisbon: 2024) (forthcoming 2025) 

Other activities and roles 

  • Outreach Literature Program Curator for The Santander Foundation «Fora de Pé» 2025-2026
  • Co-organiser of the 2025 Cambridge French Graduate Conference (FGC)
  • Co-convenor of the Cambridge French Graduate Research Seminar (FGRS), with Maddison Sumner and Tobias Barnett (2023-2024)
  • Panel Chair for The Society for French Studies (https://www.sfs.ac.uk/) Postgraduate Conference 2024, King’s College London, on the topic of «Care and Deviations»
  • Participant in the 2023 Choix Prix Goncourt UK, Cambridge Delegation
  • Outreach Lecture on “Is Literature Dangerous? Marcel Proust and the risks of reading”, Peterhouse Outreach Programme for year 11s, (Michaelmas, 2023)

Research

His current research focuses on theories of intertextuality. Julia Kristeva, having coined this concept in the 1960s, is a foremost figure in this field, as is Paul Ricoeur whose theory of mimesis is relevant for a phenomenological understanding of the experience of reading and writing. He also researches novelist Marcel Proust both for his early theoretical writings on reading and for his novelist practice. Duarte’s thesis compares these authors in order to understand how intertextuality works.

Duarte encourages and welcomes contact from students wishing to carry out an undergraduate dissertation or from prospective students in topics relevant to the following research interests: the 19th and 20th Century Novel, intersections between literary genres; Intertextuality, Comparative Literature, 19th and 20th century French thought and literary theory (Baudelaire, Sainte-Beuve, Proust, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Paul Ricoeur), Lusophone and Francophone dialogues in literature and film (Agustina Bessa-Luís, Manoel d’Oliveira), the autobiographical and memorialist novel (e.g. François-Renée de Chateaubriand), the 19th-century novel in France and the UK (namely Balzac, Gérard de Nerval, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Anthony Trollope).

Teaching and supervision

Course Supervisor:

  • FR6 (https://www.mmll.cam.ac.uk/fr6)
  • FR12 (https://www.mmll.cam.ac.uk/fr12) 

Seminar Leader:

  • Critical Theory