Rate My Professor Barbara M Stone

Dr. Barbara M. Stone is a Senior Lecturer in the French Programme within the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of Otago. With a unique interdisciplinary foundation combining law and French literature, she obtained her LLB (Hons) in 1992 and BA (Hons) in French in 1993 from the University of Otago. She was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to undertake postgraduate research at the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her PhD in 2000. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled Justice in "Les Rougon-Macquart", offers an in-depth examination of the depiction of the legal system across Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume novel cycle Les Rougon-Macquart. Stone joined the University of Otago staff in 2001 and has since played a pivotal role in delivering French language and literature education. She coordinates and lectures in several key papers, such as FREN232 Intermediate French, which revises essential grammar including tenses, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns; FREN233 French for Professional Purposes, covering subjunctive mood and relative pronouns alongside cultural contexts; FREN333 Advanced French 1; and FREN334 Advanced French 2, consolidating advanced grammar and skills primarily in French.

Stone's academic interests center on the detective fiction of Georges Simenon, representations of the legal system in nineteenth-century French novels, Émile Zola's reception in New Zealand, themes of law and education in Zola's novels, and adaptations of francophone literature for the screen. She has authored several scholarly publications highlighting these areas. These include 'Francophobia in the Antipodes: France's grab for the New Hebrides and the Dreyfus Affair in New Zealand newspapers' in the Journal of New Zealand Studies (2022); 'Confronting the Zola conundrum: New Zealand newspapers respond to the death of Émile Zola' in Excavatio (2021); 'Émile Zola gets New Zealand booksellers into trouble' in the Bulletin of the Émile Zola Society (2021); the chapter 'Serving up clues to Maigret: Food in the crime fiction of Georges Simenon' in Blood on the Table: Essays on Food in International Crime Fiction (2018); and 'Tránsito y transición: Zola, Galdós y la Ley' in Países en Tránsito: Estudios de Literatura Comparada (2016). Stone has published articles on law in Zola's works and education therein, and she is available to supervise postgraduate dissertations on screen adaptations of francophone literary works.