Dr Wendy Michallat

BA (Hons), MA, PhD

School of Languages and Cultures

Senior Lecturer

Deputy for Learning and Teaching

Liaison for USIC and DLL

SLC Wendy Michallat
Profile picture of SLC Wendy Michallat
w.michallat@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2879

Full contact details

Dr Wendy Michallat
School of Languages and Cultures
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
91̽»¨
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 91̽»¨ in 2000.  My primary teaching focus is cultural history and popular culture and over my time at 91̽»¨ 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: 

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) . 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) . French Cultural Studies, 34 (1). pp. 34-48. ISSN 0957-1558
  • Michallat W (2021) . Journal of European Studies, 51(1), 47-58.  
  • Michallat WT (2017) Writing a Scholarly Occupation: Student Women Diarists (1940-1944). Essays in French Literature and Culture, 54.  
  • Michallat WT (2017) . French Cultural Studies, 28(2), 173-185.  
  • 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) . 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) . The Modern Language Review, 103(4), 1136-1136. 
  • Michallat W (2007) . Journal of European Studies, 37(3), 313-331. 
  • Michallat W (2007) . French Cultural Studies, 18(3), 259-276. 
  • Michallat W (2007) . Modern & Contemporary France, 15(3), 277-292. 
  • Michallat W & Tinker C (2007) . Modern & Contemporary France, 15(3), 255-259. 
  • Michallat W (2006) . Modern & Contemporary France, 14(3), 305-316. 
  • Michallat W (2005) . 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.  
  • Michallat W (2011) , 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.