Dr Wendy Michallat
BA (Hons), MA, PhD
School of Languages and Cultures
Senior Lecturer
Deputy for Learning and Teaching
Liaison for USIC and DLL
+44 114 222 2879
Full contact details
School of Languages and Cultures
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
-
I was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. After my first degree I worked in publishing, law and the financial services sector in London and Brighton before returning to university to do an MA in Twentieth Century French Literature and a PhD about the cultural history of the French comic strip.
I joined the University of Sheffield in 2000. My primary teaching focus is cultural history and popular culture and over my time at Sheffield I have taught a variety of subjects as diverse as women's football, life-writing, first-wave feminism and French and Francophone cartoon art. My teaching portfolio is broad and I continually look to develop it through my research which is similarly wide-ranging and innovative.
- Research interests
-
My current research project is centred on a diary written by former French Department lecturer Madeleine Blaess, who, as a student was trapped in Paris during the Nazi occupation. The translation of the diary has recently been published and a documentary film basesd on the diary has been produced. More information about Madeleine and about the Project (including access to the diary and the film '320 rue St Jacques: the Diary of Madeleine Blaess' can be found here: https://madeleineblaessproject.com/
I have published across a range of subject areas using previously unknown or overlooked archival material to inform highly original, exciting work. I have written on my discovery of a lesbian novel written under a pseudonym by Marie-Thérèse Eyquem, Vichy sports administrator, co-founder of the Mouvement démocratique féminin and Socialist politician. A second journal article covers the hand-written manuscripts of Hélène Brion's La Lutte feministe I discovered in a university archive in the United States. My most recent work focuses on the Phoney War letters and war diary written by Madeleine Blaess.
I have also published articles on women's sport, French cartoon art, philosophy and comic book satire, LGBT rights and women's life-writing.
My newest and current research project explores the links between spiritisme and French first-wave feminism in the belle époque and inter-war.
- Teaching activities
-
Undergraduate Teaching
- FRE107/8 French Studies
- FRE269/FRE270 : La Bande dessinée (French cartoon art)
- FRE293/294 : Realities and Falsehoods: The Occupation of France in Literature and Film.
- FRE375 and FRE376: France in the Fifties
- MDL201/301 - Cold War Visual Culture
- IPA1010 – LGBT Studies
Postgraduate Teaching
- MA French Studies
- MA European Gender Studies - Women's Sport/Feminist Publishing
- Professional activities and memberships
-
- Executive member of the Association of Modern & Contemporary France (Current)
- Executive member of the Society for French Studies 2004-2012
- External Examiner at University of Chichester
- University Representative on Board of Trustees for Archbishop Holgate School, Barnsley.
- Editorial Board of Journal of European Comic Art.
- Steering Committee European Centre for Gender Studies
Previous School Roles
- School Outreach and WP Coordinator (2015/16)
- School External Engagement Coordinator (2015/16)
- SLC Marketing and Admissions Committee (2015/16)
- Acting School PGR Coordinator ( S1, 2015):
- School Ethics Reviewer (2014- ongoing)
Previous French Section Roles
- Head of French Section
- Level One and Level Two Tutor
- HEAR coordinator
- PGT and PGR Coordinator (2011-2015)
- Director of Year Abroad, French Dept (2007-11)
- Publications
Books
- Michallat W (2018) 320 rue St Jacques: The Diary of Madeleine Blaess. White Rose University Press.
- Michallat W (2018) French Cartoon Art in the 1960s and 1970s: "Pilote hebdomadaire" and the Teenager "Bande Dessinée". Leuven: Leuven University Press.
- (2007) Lesbian Inscriptions in Francophone Society and Culture. Durham, England: Durham Modern Language Series, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University.
Journal articles
- Michallat W (2023) 'Ici et par toute la terre': Paris, British universities and the French study abroad in the inter-war. French Cultural Studies, 34 (1). pp. 34-48. ISSN 0957-1558
- Michallat W (2021) Sylvia Beach and women's scholarly communities under occupation : the diary of Madeleine Blaess. Journal of European Studies, 51(1), 47-58. View this article in WRRO
- Michallat WT (2017) Writing a Scholarly Occupation: Student Women Diarists (1940-1944). Essays in French Literature and Culture, 54. View this article in WRRO
- Michallat WT (2017) Mental distress under Occupation: The journal of Madeleine Blaess. French Cultural Studies, 28(2), 173-185. View this article in WRRO
- Dodd L & Michallat W (2017) Hidden Words, Hidden Worlds: Everyday Life and Narrative Sources (France 1939-1945). ESSAYS IN FRENCH LITERATURE AND CULTURE(54), 5-9.
- Michallat WT (2013) Hélène Brion and the missing manuscripts: La Lutte féministe. Journal of European Studies, 43(2), 101-118.
- Michallat WT (2012) 'Mon cher Papa, ma chere Maman': The drole de guerre of Madeleine Blaess. Essays in French Literature and Culture, 135-153.
- Michallat WT & Eyquem M-T (2009) Marie-Therese Eyquem: Feminism, Lesbianism and the Development of Women's Sport under Vichy. Essays in French Literature and Culture, 46, 161-181.
- Boyle C, Günther R & Michallat W (2008) Lesbian Inscriptions in Francophone Society and Culture. The Modern Language Review, 103(4), 1136-1136.
- Michallat W (2007) Modern life is still rubbish Houellebecq and the refiguring of `reactionary' retro. Journal of European Studies, 37(3), 313-331.
- Michallat W (2007) Terrain de lutte. French Cultural Studies, 18(3), 259-276.
- Michallat W (2007) Pilote‘hebdomadaire’ and the TeenagerBande Dessinéeof the 1950s and 1960s. Modern & Contemporary France, 15(3), 277-292.
- Michallat W & Tinker C (2007) Introduction. Modern & Contemporary France, 15(3), 255-259.
- Michallat W (2006) Marions-nous! Gay Rites: the Campaign for Gay Marriage in France. Modern & Contemporary France, 14(3), 305-316.
- Michallat W (2005) DROIT AU BUT: VIOLETTE MORRIS AND WOMEN'S FOOTBALL IN 'LES ANNEES FOLLES'. French Studies Bulletin, LIX(97), 13-17.
Chapters
- Michallat WT (2018) Madeleine Blaess: An Emotional History of a Long Liberation In Dodd L & Lees D (Ed.), Vichy France and Everyday Life: Confronting the Challenges of Wartime, 1939-1945 London: Bloomsbury. View this article in WRRO
- Michallat W (2011) French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée, The Cambridge History of French Literature (pp. 689-699). Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Michallat W (2005) Pilote: Pedagogy, Puberty and Parents, The Francophone Bande Dessinée (pp. 83-95). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi.