Professor Martin Hurcombe
B.A. (Hons.), Ph.D.(Bristol), PGCE
Expertise
Specialist of early twentieth century French culture, history and politics with an interest in sport history, history of journalism and the relationship between war and culture.
Current positions
Professor of French Studies
Department of French
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
My current research focuses on the history of sport and sports writing (particularly print journalism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries). I am the co-editor of Sport and the Pursuit of War and Peace from the Nineteenth Century to the Present with Philip Dine. I am currently writing a book provisionally titled French Cycling and Print Journalism: The Making of a Sport Culture which investigates the history of French cycling via its textual representation, particularly in sports journalism, biography and auto-biography. I am also co-investigator on the British Academy-funded project 'Gender Injustice in Action Sports'.
I am also expert in understanding the relationship between representations of conflict and politics in early twentieth-century France. I am the author of Novelists in Conflict: Ideology and the Absurd in the French Combat Novel of the Great War and France and the Spanish Civil War: Cultural Representations of the War next Door, 1936-1945. With Martyn Cornick and Angela Kershaw, I have recently written French Political Travel Writing in the Inter-War Years: Radical Departures. I am also interested in the relationship between political commitment and utopianism and the memory of the First World War in twentieth-century French culture. I am one of the editors of the Journal of War and Culture Studies. In addition to this, I also have an interest in French crime fiction, particularly the novels of Sébastien Japrisot.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Exploring Bristol-Toulouse Research Synergies in the Arts
Principal Investigator
Description
Two themes were identified for further development: small nations (identity, language and politics) and African Studies. We will also explore further exchanges between academics at both institutions at all stages…Managing organisational unit
Department of FrenchDates
20/05/2024 to 31/07/2028
Fostering Gender Equality in Cycling Media
Principal Investigator
Description
The project draws upon research by Hurcombe and Spotswood into the representation of gender in a range of media concerned with the promotion of cycling. This has demonstrated that despite…Managing organisational unit
Department of FrenchDates
19/02/2024 to 30/06/2024
Gender Injustice in Action Sports
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
The project ‘Fostering Gender Equality and Diversity in Mountain Biking’ will co-create a national policy framework for increasing women’s participation in mountain biking in England. It is a strategic partnership…Managing organisational unit
School of Management - Business SchoolDates
01/05/2023 to 31/07/2024
Gender injustice in action sports: The role, potential and limitations of transformative marketing and media for women’s mountain biking
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
Mountain biking, like other ‘action leisure’, remains male-dominated. Existing research emphasises that this is reinforced through narrow representation in media and marketing. However, parts of the uniquely market-mediated mountain biking…Managing organisational unit
School of Management - Business SchoolDates
02/05/2022 to 02/12/2023
Georges Canguilhem, from Pacifism to Resistance. An Alternative History of the Twentieth-Century French Intellectual
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of FrenchDates
01/10/2021 to 30/09/2024
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Recent publications
07/01/2025Bringing Marathon to Paris
Sport in Paris
New Directions in War and Culture Studies
New Directions in War and Culture Studies
At the Bicycle Races
Journal of Sport History
The emergence of new mountain biking media practices
Sport In Society
Introduction
Sport and the Pursuit of War and Peace from the Nineteenth Century to the Present
Thesis
Forming the modern mind : a reappraisal of the French combat novel of World War One.
Supervisors
Award date
01/01/2000
Teaching
My consultation hours (in person, TB2 term time 2022-23) are Monday 11-12 and Thursday 11-12. My office is 1.66, 19 Woodland Road.
