Biography

Dr Nina Rolland joined Northeastern University London in 2022 and is currently Associate Director of Global Experience Programmes and Assistant Professor of French. She oversees the academic student experience on Global Experience programmes (London Scholars, Global Scholars, Semester In) and is a key point of contact for students with academic questions and concerns.

Prior to joining NU London, Dr Rolland held research and teaching posts at various institutions: she was a Lecturer in French at the University of Reading and Queen Mary University of London, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Birmingham, a Teaching Fellow in French and Comparative Literature at the University of St Andrews, a Graduate Teaching Assistant in French at the University of Kent, and a Fulbright Teaching Assistant at Saint Bonaventure University. She also taught French and was a DELF examiner at the French institute of Düsseldorf.

Qualifications

PhD in Comparative Literature (University of Kent/Sorbonne Nouvelle University, 2016)
MA in Comparative Literature (Sorbonne University, 2010)
BA in French/Lettres Modernes (Sorbonne University, 2008)
BA in Philosophy (Paris X Nanterre University, 2016)
PGCHE/Fellow of the Higher Education (University of Kent, 2015)

Research

Dr Rolland’s research centres around literature, music, and cultural studies. Her doctoral thesis looked at the representation of female musicians in 19th-century French, British, and German novels. It examined how authors rely on the female body to incorporate musical references in fiction.

She was subsequently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Baudelaire Song Project, led by Professor Helen Abbott at the University of Birmingham, which collated all song settings of Baudelaire’s poetry.

Dr Rolland has published articles on the relations between music and literature, gender studies, hip hop cultures, and the digital humanities.

Selected publications

Nina Rolland, (2022) ‘Music and Gender Roles in George Sand’s Le Dernier Amour and Berlioz’s ‘Euphonia’’, Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature, eds. Peter Dayan and Rachael Durkin, pp. 39-47. ISBN 9780367237240

Nina Rolland, (2021) ‘Baudelaire et la musique: le cas Gabriel Fauré’, Comparatismes en Sorbonne, ‘Compositrices, compositeurs / écrivaines, écrivains – Regards croisés II’.

Nina Rolland, (2021) ‘When the poet becomes the muse: Baudelaire and female composers’, Journal of Romance Studies, 21:3, 351-374.

Nina Rolland, (2020) “Dans la rue et le bitume ne poussent que les fleurs du mal”: jouer et déjouer Charles Baudelaire et sa poésie dans le rap français’, Itinéraires, 20:3,

Nina Rolland, (2020) ‘Maitre Gims’, ‘La Fouine’, ‘BigFlo & Oli’, ‘Soprano’, biographical portraits for An Anthology of French and Francophone Singers from A-Z vol. 2 ed. by Michael Abecassis, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Nina Rolland and Edlira Mandis, (2015) ‘Variety Theatre and Theatre of Variations: Performance, Female Body and Music in Emile Zola’s Nana (1880), Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1894) and Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else (1924)’, in European Drama and Performance Studies – Consuming Female Performers (1850s-1950s), 5.2, (Paris: Classiques Garnier), 55-72.