Alison James works on twentieth- and twenty-first-century French literature, with a particular focus on post–World War II experimental writing, representations of everyday life, chance and contingency in literature, and nonfiction narrative. What unites these interests is her enduring concern with literature’s varied modes of engagement with reality, and a fascination with the social and collective meanings of literary forms. James is the author of Constraining Chance: Georges Perec and the Oulipo (Northwestern University Press, 2009) and, most recently, The Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature (Oxford University Press, 2020).

To learn more about Alison James's research and publications, please see her profile page at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.