Centre for Visual Cultures Events

When: 13th April 9am-8pm | 14th April 9am-1pm

Where: Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DN

Organisers: Prof. James S Williams, Prof. Stephi Hemelryk Donald, Dr Kaya Davies Hayon

Sponsor: Society for French Studies

Places are limited, so please send your RSVP by March 15th 2026 to: centreforvisualcultures@royalholloway.ac.uk

Based on a fait divers, Alice Diop’s Saint Omer (2022) tells the story of a French novelist of Senegalese heritage who attends the trial of a Senegalese woman accused of infanticide after leaving her 15 month old daughter on a beach to drown in the northern French town of Saint-Omer. The film has been consistently praised – ‘mysterious, tragic and intimately unnerving’ (The Guardian, 2 Feb 2023) – and is the subject of ongoing critical and academic debate.

The seminar is a multi-disciplinary event with contributions from scholars of French film and theatre studies, classical drama, postcolonial and migration studies, Senegalese culture and politics, and legal history. Our speakers explore how the film’s fictional representation of a real-life trial subverts the conventions of the procedural drama and brings the themes of maternal violence, race and racism in contemporary France, West African sorcery and maraboutage, migration and exile, justice and ethics, performance and theatricality, into dialogue with one another. 

We will discuss how the film examines legacies of colonial harm, how the Medea myth is deployed in the film to open up questions of the French judicial system and maternal crime, death and performance in European traditions of theatre, and how Diop’s vision foregrounds violence, migration and gender in European coding of innocence and guilt. The event will include screenings of Saint Omer and a specially commissioned film for the event, as well as an evening performance.

Full Programme below:

DAY ONE 13th April

9am: Arrivals / Coffee

9.30: Introductions: James S Williams, RHUL, Kaya Davies Hayon OU, Stephi Hemelryk Donald RHUL.

Panels: Each paper is a max. 10-minute presentation, followed by a max. 8-minute discussant response by fellow panellist, (based on previously circulated extended abstract to all panellists only c.2000 words). 5 min response. The Panel Chair will offer a 3-5minute panel summary at the end of all three presentations, followed by questions from the floor to all. Panel Chairs tbc.

 

10-11.30 Panel 1: Space, Body and Identity in Saint Omer

Sophie Niang (King’s College London): Liminal identities and diasporic homemaking in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer

Melissa Oliver-Powell (University of York): Unseeing Medea: Troubled Vision and Architectures of Justice in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer

Kaya Davies Hayon (Open University): Reproductive and Creative Labour in Alice Diop's Saint Omer

 

11.30-12 BREAK

 

12-1.30 Panel 2: Sorcery and the Law in France and French culture

Joseph Harris (RHUL): In camera: scandal, secrecy, and publicity in Saint Omer and Pierre Corneille’s Médée

Nicholas Harrison (King’s College London): Vraisemblance and judgement in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer

William G Pooley (University of Bristol): Witchcraft: From Saint-Saëns to Saint-Omer, 1890-2016

 

1.30-2.30 LUNCH

 

2.30-4.00 Panel 3: Race, Violence and the Archive in Saint Omer

Astou Fall Gueye (University of Pittsburgh): Beyond Maraboutage: Maternal Mentalités, Migratory Trauma, and the Unseen Archive in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer

Emma Cox (RHUL): Maternity, Loyalty, and Remorse: Gendered and Racialised Constructions of Shamima Begum’s Citizenship Deprivation in UK Hansard, 2019-2024

James S Williams (RHUL): Honouring the Archive, Resisting the Sublime: Race, Class, and Violence in Alice Diop’s Saint Omer

 

4.00-4.30 BREAK

 

4.30-6.00 Panel 4: Saint Omer Intertexts 

David Bullen (RHUL) The Subject of Medea: In Search of New Intertexts for an Ancient Migrant -Witch-Goddess 

Anna Bendrat (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin): Between the Sea and the Dead: Medea, Exile, and Relational Rupture in Opheliamachine

Stephi Hemelryk Donald (RHUL / University of Crete): The Drowned Child: Saint Omer (2022) and The Murderess (Φόνισσα, 1903)

 

6–6.30 WINE / SOFT DRINKS BREAK

 

6.30 Medea – Multilingual Storytelling: Performance and Female Image-Voice

6.40-7.00 Me/Dea – new film by Giannis Mathioudakis (FORTH, University of Crete)

7.00-7.30 Live reading by Rosie Hilal, Susana Milan-Caballero, and Anthony Taylor, a multilingual extract in translation from Euripides, Seneca and Corneille. Dramaturgy: Hilal.

7.30-8.00 Audience discussion led by Rosie Hilal, Giannis Matsioudakis, David Bullen, Stephi Hemelryk Donald (Chair), Susana Milan-Caballero (RHUL)

 

DAY TWO 14th April

10-11.30 Open Lecture, Tony Warner, Black History Walks (https://blackhistorywalks.co.uk/): Black Film, Education and Distribution (with Q&A)

 

11.45–1.00 Postgraduate Workshop — Intertextuality, Gender and Film

(for all University of London / Visiting postgraduates in French and Francophone Studies / Film Studies / Theatre Studies / English)

The workshop will facilitate an open discussion on the work and interests of participants, focussing on how the intertextual approach of Day One might influence or register with their own scholarship.

Led by Stephi Hemelryk Donald and Kaya Davies Hayon.

Places are limited, so registration in advance is essential. To register, please contact centreforvisualcultures@royalholloway.ac.uk by March 29th 2026.

 

END OF EVENT

When: Wednesday 18 March 2026, 6:30pm

Where: Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DN

Screening of Money, Freedom, A History of the CFA Franc plus Q&A

This event is organised by Black History Walks as part of 60 Years Since 1965 the first ever Race Relations Act, and 20 years of the African Odysseys film seriess in collaboration with the Centre for Visual Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London.

For further details and registration, please go to:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/financial-slavery-the-cfa-in-africa-plus-qa-african-odysseys-tickets-1892486822029?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

 

When: Wednesday 11 March 2026, 6:30pm

Where: Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DN

A review of French colonial behaviour toward 'independent' African nations linked to films/books which tell these suppressed stories

This event is organised by Black History Walks as part of 60 years since 1965 the first ever Race Relations Act, and 20 years of the African Odysseys film series in collaboration with the Centre for Visual Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London.

For further details and registration, please go to: 
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/6-african-leaders-removed-by-the-french-impact-and-legacy-tickets-1844870349879?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

 

In March 2023, photographer Simon Roberts visited Royal Holloway to provide a workshop for UG and PG students in order to develop their creative practice. Chiara Bordignon here details the events of this successful and thought-provoking event.