Emma Barbieux, M.A.

Dissertation project: “Ageing and Desire: Older Women in Contemporary Erotic Literature”

My dissertation explores how contemporary writers imagine desire, intimacy, and sexuality in later life. I focus on stories about older women, tracing how recent novels, short stories, and online erotica represent ageing bodies and intimaterenewals. These works challenge the idea that sexuality fades with age, instead presenting erotic life as a process that can evolve, intensify, or resurface in unexpected ways in later age. By combining literary analysis with approaches from reception theory, I study not only how these texts portray ageing bodies and intimacy but also how they invite readers to connect to them – for instance through empathy, discomfort, or identification. I am especially interested in how both print and digital forms of writing give visibility to experiences that are often silenced or marginalised, creating new spaces for reflection and conversation about ageing and sexuality.

Research Interests: 

• Aesthetic and affective theory
• Popular romance and erotic fiction
• Gender and feminist studies
• Life writing and autobiographical fiction
• Sexuality studies and contemporary culture 

CV: 

Since October 2025: Doctoral Researcher in the Research Training Group “Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures” (GRK 2806). Thesis Supervisors: PD. Dr. Karin Höpker, Prof. Dr. Anastasia Glawion

2024-2025: Team Assistant in the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, AK Weimar/Barsan – Tübingen University 

2021-2022: Peer Tutor at the Research and Writing Center – Tübingen University

2020-2023: M.A. English Literatures and Cultures – Tübingen University 

2017-2020: B.A. Modern Languages (English and German), Minor in Gender Studies – University of Louvain