Staff profile

I come from Liège, in the French speaking part of Belgium. As an undergraduate, I studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Liège. I spent one semester as an Erasmus student in Padua (Università degli Studi di Padova). I studied for a M.A. in French literature at the University of Liège, with a special focus on the nineteenth-century. Following this, I completed a teacher training degree at the same university and taught French in a Belgian secondary school for a year.

In 2011, I undertook a Ph.D. in French studies at Bangor University whilst working as a graduate teaching assistant. My research focused on the representation of a masculine malaise, sexual and gender ambiguities in narratives of the July Monarchy (1830-48) and scientific texts of that time.

In 2015, I started to work at the Centre for Foreign Language Study at Durham University as an Assistant Teaching Fellow in French. I have been teaching a variety of levels and students since then.

I have been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2015.

In 2019, I have launched the project Ballet workshops in French, which has been funded by the first DCAD collaborative grant.

With French colleagues from the CFLS and MLAC, I have promoted creative writing in language learning and teaching through a pedagogical toolbox on the online platform IFProfs, online workshops and masterclasses for learners and teachers of French, writing contests in French, conferences and meetings.

• Creative writing in language learning
• Gender identities
• Language learning and dancing
• Language teaching and literature
• Relations between science and literature
• Teaching heterogeneous groups

Authored book

• Crahay, G. (2022). The Hermaphrodite, the Effete and the Butch: Sexual and Gender Ambiguities in Nineteenth-Century French Narratives. Peter Lang

Chapter in book

• Crahay, G. (2020). French creative theatre in a course for beginners: The case of Finissez vos phrases! by Jean Tardieu. In A. B. Almeida, U. Bavendiek, & R. Biasini (Eds.), Literature in Language Learning: New Approaches (77-84). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2020.43.1098
• Crahay, G. (2018). ‘“Voyez les femmes les plus hommasses, ces viragines audacieuses”: La domestication de la femme masculine dans les traités savants de la première moitié du dix-neuvième siècle’. In S. (. Leroy (Ed.), Medicine and Maladies: Representing Affliction in Nineteenth-Century France (19-40). Brill Rodopi. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004368019

Journal Article

• Crahay, G. (in press). Théophile Gautier: Mademoiselle de Maupin. The Literary Encyclopedia,
• Crahay, G. (in press). Victor Hugo: Han d'Islande [Han of Iceland]. The Literary Encyclopedia,
• Crahay, G. (2024). The benefits and challenges of creative writing assessment in French: Un geste pour un autre by Jean Tardieu. Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 1, 5-20. https://doi.org/10.62512/etlhe.3
• Crahay, G. (2017). ‘Serenity’s Operative and Les Misérables’s Inspector Javert: The Masculinity of Scrupulous Civil Servants’. Slayage (Murfreesboro, Tenn.), 15(1),
• Crahay, G. (2016). ‘“Oh! non, je ne pourrai jamais te le dire… j’aime un homme!”: Hermaphrodite et l’esthétisation de l’homosexualité dans Mademoiselle de Maupin'. Nineteenth-century French studies, 45(1-2), 17-32. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncf.2016.0014
• Crahay, G. (2013). ‘Valorising Genitalia: Homosexuality and Hermaphroditism in French Scientific Writings in the Nineteenth Century