- Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College (from 2015 to 2016)
- Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and University Academic Fellow, All Souls College (from 2004 to 2015)
- Professor of French, Royal Holloway, University of London (from 1995 to 2004)
- Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and latterly Professor of French Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury (from 1974 to 1995)
- Lecturer in French, NUI (from 1973 to 1974)
- Undergraduate and Postgraduate, University of Kent at Canterbury (from 1966 to 1973)
- French literature and thought
- André Breton and Surrealism
- Modern and contemporary poetry
- Autobiography and related genres
- Everyday life
- Archival memory
- Everyday Life: Theories and Practices from Surrealism to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; paperback, 2009; French translation, 2013).
- French Autobiography: Devices and Desires. Rousseau to Perec (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
- Beckett: Molloy (London: Grant and Cutler, 1985).
- André Breton: A Bibliography (London: Grant and Cutler, 1972).
- Link to publications
- Visiting Professor, Collège de France and ENS-Ulm (March-April 2007)
- Pajus Distinguished Visitor in French Studies, UC Berkeley (August-December 2006)
- Visiting Lecturer, Institute of French Cultural Studies, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (2005)
- Chair, Committee of the Maison Française d’Oxford (from 2006 to 2015)
- President, Society for French Studies (from 2002 to 2004)
- Visiting Professor, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne (January-June 2002)
- Visiting Professor, Université Paris VII-Diderot (Oct 1994-February 1995)
- Member of French Sub-Panel for RAE 2001 and RAE 2008
- Editorial Board of French Studies (1999-2009), Contemporary French and Francophone Studies (from 2002), Oxford University Monographs in French Studies (2007-2015), Legenda Monograph Series, Roman 20-50 (from 2012), Modernités (Bordeaux) (from 2012), Revue de fiction littéraire contemporaine (from 2010)
- Regular Reviewer, Times Literary Supplement, from 1986
- Camargo Foundation Fellowship (September-December 2010).
- Leverhulme Research Award (2009).
