Background

David Platten was born in London, United Kingdom.

Education

David Platten was educated in Coventry and graduated in 1986 with First Class Honours from the University of Liverpool, where he took a Bachelor of Arts in French with Spanish. He also received a Doctor of Philosophy at Leeds University in 1994.

Career

In 1989 David Platten started to serve as a lecturer in French at the University of Leeds. In 2000 he became a senior lecturer, and in 2011, a professor of Modern French Studies. Platten also worked as a head of the French Department in 2005-2008 and as pro-dean of the Faculty of Arts in 2009-2014. He is currently a director of Recruitment and Deputy Unit of assessment leader (Research Excellence Framework) in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies. Additionally, he acted as a subject specialist consultant for the University of Swansea and served as chief educationalist for the Arts Fundraising and Philanthropy Consortium in 2013-2016.

In addition to his educational career, David Platten acted as a reader and reviewer for numerous publishers, including Routledge, Manchester University Press, the University of Wales Press and the Clarendon Press, and academic journals such as French Studies, The Modern Language Review, Modern and Contemporary France, and French Cultural Studies. As a writer, he wrote Michel Tournier and the Metaphor of Fiction. He is currently in the early stages of writing a monograph on humanized or cultured space, provisionally entitled Configurations: Space and Culture in Modern France.

Achievements

• David Platten is widely known as a writer and educator. He teaches at the University of Leeds for more than thirty years, and he worked his way up to a position as a professor. As a writer, Platten is best known for his book Michel Tournier and the Metaphor of Fiction.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Finding the Plot

    (The book addresses both the empirical question of which g...)

    2013
  • The Pleasures of Crime

    (This book explores both this intrinsic literary value of ...)

    2011
  • Michel Tournier and the Metaphor of Fiction

    (This book elucidates an aesthetic of Tournier's fiction t...)

    1999
  • Dijan: 37.2 le matin 1995

Views

Platten opposes the post-structuralist trend in modern literary criticism that is entrenched in the concept that texts can only be interpreted about themselves. Instead, he proposes a metaphoric reading of texts where works of fiction can be read for their commentaries on the real world.

Interests

• Music, comics, bicycle, guitar

• Sport & Clubs

  Coaching soccer

Connections

David Platten has a son, Max Platten.

Son:

Max Platten

References

• @daveplatten62 - Twitter