Ry Montgomery
- PhD student
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About
Research Topic:Screen Transitions: Framing Trans Citizenship in Contemporary French Cinema
Supervisor: Professor Emma Wilson
Ry’s doctoral research explores representations of trans experiences in the French cinema of the 2010s and 2020s. In their thesis, Ry situates films such as Petite fille (Sébastien Lifshitz, 2020) and Orlando, ma biographie politique (Paul B. Preciado, 2023) in relation to the universalist discourse of French neorepublicanism, offering new readings which foreground the technological affinities between cinema, biomedicine and surveillance. Ry’s thesis draws on the work of trans scholars, artists and activists working in France today, whose contributions remain largely overlooked in Anglophone scholarship on the topic.
Before starting their PhD, Ry completed their undergraduate degree with First-Class Honours in History and Modern Languages (French) at the University of Cambridge and graduated with Distinction from their MA in Urban History and Culture at the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP).
Writing and publications:
2025. “No Papers, Please: Refusal as Aesthetics in Vos Papiers (ID, Please, 2013).” In Media Res. https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/no-papers-please-refusal-aesthetics-vos-papiers-id-please-2013.
2024. “Soukaz in Space: Visuality, Protest and Appropriation in the Films of Lionel Soukaz.” Modern & Contemporary France, 33 (2), 133–151. doi:10.1080/09639489.2024.2386665.
Ry’s writing and translations have also appeared in French Studies Bulletin and TROU NOIR, alongside book reviews for French Studies, Modern & Contemporary France and the LSE Review of Books.
Selected Papers and Invited (*) Talks:
‘Against direction: (In)visibility and refusal in Bruce’s Vos papiers (2013).’ World Picture Conference, 2025.
* ‘Filming the fightback: Liberation and resistance in the cinema of Lionel Soukaz (1953–2025).’ Pride Event, Corpus Christi College, 2025.
* ‘‘On s’en fout de la loi’: representations of transmasculine pregnancy in contemporary French visual culture.’ Broadly Conceived Conference, 2024.
* ‘‘Mademoiselle parfaite’: transchild martyrdom in Sébastien Lifshitz’s Petite fille (2020).’ Childhood and Youth in Contemporary European Film, University of Nottingham, 2024.
‘‘On s’en fout de la loi’ : universalisme et transparentalité dans A Good Man de Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar (2020).’ Colloque ‘Les identités trans* et queer dans le monde francophone’, Mount Royal University, 2024.
‘Sous les pavés, ‘le Souk’ : reclaiming (re)public(an) space in the films of Lionel Soukaz.’ Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF) Conference, 2023.
‘‘Qu’est-ce qu’il y a entre les molécules?’: Seropositive visions of community in Lionel Soukaz’s Journal Annales.’ University of Cambridge French Graduate Conference, 2023.
Scholarships/Prizes:
ASMCF Postgraduate Paper Prize, 2024
Odette de Mourgues Fund, 2023
Runner-Up, Postgraduate Poster Competition, Society for French Studies (SFS) 63rd Annual Conference, 2022
MA (Partial) Scholarship, University of London Institute in Paris, 2021–2022
Research
Ry’s PhD project explores contemporary cinematic representations of trans* identities in the context of French republican universalism. Their corpus comprises an array of films spanning two decades from 2003 to 2023 and includes re-readings of Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy (2011) and Sébastien Lifshitz’s Petite fille (2020). Ry’s thesis draws on the work of trans* scholars, artists and activists working in France today, many of whose contributions remain routinely overlooked in Anglophone scholarship on trans* representation.
Ry is also engaged in ongoing research into the cinema of Lionel Soukaz.
Teaching and supervision
Ry co-convenes the undergraduate programme in Critical Theory and previously taught on the final-year paper CS7 (Cinema and the Political). They have also taught as part of the Cambridge Summer School on Reproduction (2023) and contribute to outreach programmes for Corpus Christi and Peterhouse.
Affiliations:
After serving as the Postgraduate Representative from 2023 to 2025, Ry is now an Ordinary Member of the Executive Committee of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF).
Ry has also worked for the Society for French Studies (SFS) in the creation of a digital archive to chart the growth of the Society, and of the discipline more widely, since its inaugural conference in 1960.
As an Invited Research Affiliate of University of London Institute in Paris, Ry co-convened a reading group on ‘The Nonhuman and The Production of Space’ with Leon Hughes (Trinity College Dublin), in 2024.