Joseph Hardwick

Dr Joe Hardwick serves as a Lecturer in French in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Queensland, part of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. He earned his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Queensland and completed his PhD there in 2002 with a thesis entitled Romans et theses: French "existentialist" fiction, literary history and literary modernism. His academic interests focus on French cinema, French “existentialist” literature, narrative theory, queer theory, and cultural studies. Specific areas of expertise include the homme fatal in French cinema by directors such as Claude Chabrol, François Ozon, Anne Fontaine, Alain Guiraudie, Eric Lartigeau, and Claire Denis; queer cinema and literature in French across the Francophone world; and the mobile protagonist in French cinema, encompassing wanderer characters and loiterly figures. Current research projects examine mobility, marginality, and identity in le jeune cinéma français; representations of gay and bisexual male characters in French cinematic love triangles; and the transition from secondary to university French language learning.

In his teaching role, Hardwick delivers courses on French language, cinema, literature, and cultural studies. His prolific publication record spans 35 works from 1992 to 2025, including 25 journal articles, 7 book chapters, and other outputs. Notable publications include the journal article "What we do in the shadows: the representation of cruising in three French films" (2024, Australian Journal of French Studies); "Undressed to kill: knowing, reading and connecting in Alain Guiraudie’s homme fatal thriller L’Inconnu du lac (2013)" (2022, French Screen Studies); book chapter "House of mirrors: narrative seduction and the power of fiction in François Ozon's Dans la maison (2012)" (2020); "Reframing the periphery: narrative authority and self-reflexivity in Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine" (2015, Australian Journal of French Studies); "Transports privés: Claire Denis's Vendredi soir and the mobile urban woman in French cinema" (2010, French Cultural Studies); and "The vague nouvelle and the Nouvelle Vague: The critical construction of le jeune cinéma français" (2008, Modern and Contemporary France). He has secured research funding such as the UQ Early Career Researcher grant in 2004 for Genre, Generation and Subjectivity in French and Australian "youth" Cinema and the UQ New Staff Research Start-Up Fund (2000-2002). Additionally, Hardwick has supervised doctoral and master's theses on French literature and cinema topics from 2007 to 2021 and contributed English subtitles to the film La Force de l'âge (The Prime of Life) (2025).