Dr Wendy Michallat

BA (Hons), MA, PhD

School of Languages, Arts and Societies

Senior Lecturer

Deputy for Learning and Teaching

Liaison for USIC and DLL

w.michallat@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2879

Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr Wendy Michallat
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA

Profile: I was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Educated in the comprehensive school system, I was a first generation university student. After my first degree in French Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick and a period working in publishing and as a trainee solicitor in London and Brighton, I studied for a Masters in Twentieth Century French Literature at the University of Nottingham. My dissertation was on the AIDS novels of Herve Guibert. I then went on to complete a doctoral thesis on French cartoons and, in particular, how the content and audience of Pilote, France's most famous 'bande dessinee' periodical, evolved in step with the youth driven political and cultural revolution of the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Research interests: My research interests and publications are wide-ranging. Focusing primarily on twentieth century France, I have published on many different subjects, including: women's football in the inter-war; children's literature and conflict; university women in inter-war and wartime Paris; Sylvia Beach and the book-women of the Paris inter-war; cartoon art and youth culture. The Madeleine Blaess Project centred on the diary of former French Department lecturer Madeleine Blaess, who, as a student was trapped in Paris during the Nazi occupation. The diary project opened new avenues of research around life-writing testimonies of the wartime everyday and, more recently, new work on British working class women and the study of French in the inter-war for which I am preparing a monograph for publication with Liverpool University Press. A significant part of this work is the promotion of French language and culture by the teacher-authors of the inter-war British schoolgirl novel and storybooks. The follow-up volume to the Madeleine Blaess diary translation which comprises Madeleine's Phoney War letters home is in preparation with an expected publication date of 2026. More about Madeleine Blaess, the letters and the diary and a link to the film I made with James Parsons can be found on the project webpages.

I welcome expressions of interest for PhD supervision in all the areas described above and, additionally, in new areas of interest which also cover the British and French inter-war. These include: feminism and spiritisme (the boom in interest in spiritualism and the occult as a panacea for grief post WW1 and its links to feminism); British women gardeners and their contribution to the environmental recovery of the devastated territories of the Western Front.

Teaching activities: I have taught modules on French cartoon art; life-writing; the Nazi Occupation of France; France and the cultural and economic revival of the 'trente glorieuses'. Planned new undergraduate teaching will continue incorporate my established and new research (as described in Research Activities). I am particularly committed to voicing the experience of working class and LGBT+ women and men in my teaching.

Professional activities and memberships

External Examiner at University of York International College
Editorial Board of Journal of European Comic Art
Editorial Board of French Cultural Studies
Former Executive member of the Society for French Studies 2004-2012
Former Executive member of Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France

School Roles

TBC for 2025-26

Publications

Books

Forthcoming:

With White Rose University Press: The Phoney War Letters of Madeleine Blaess
With Liverpool University Press: Living a Life of Books: British working class women and Language Learning in the Inter-War.

Published:

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. (2025). Why No War in French Comics? The Trente Glorieuses and Redrawing of the Second Thirty Years War. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 29(2), 215–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2025.2488614
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17409292.2025.2488614
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.