Michèle Bacholle, Ph.D.

Professor of French Studies

Michèle Bacholle’s first appointment was at Colby College, Maine, in 1998-99. In 1999 she came to Eastern where, as full professor of French Studies she teaches language and culture courses, as well as literature and cinema courses that are cross-listed with Women’s and Gender Studies and Film Studies. She also teaches in the First Year (LAC) Program. 

Her main lines of research are contemporary French and Francophone women writers and filmmakers (more specifically Annie Ernaux and Linda Lê, Céline Sciamma and Julia Ducournau), immigrant literature, multiculturalism in France, and the Algerian war of independence (mostly from the perspective of transmission and Memory Studies). Her latest book, Violence and Rebellion in Contemporary French Women’s Autofiction: We stand up and we split (Bloomsbury, 2026) examines the various forms of violence French women face (slut-shaming, sexual harassment, rape, femicides, ageism, racism, among others); it highlights agency and questions societal and cultural change.

Her previous book was on autobiographical narratives by suicide survivors Éric Fottorino, Delphine de Vigan, Philippe Grimbert, Zahia Rahmani, Olivier Charneux, and Chloé Delaume.

Besides academic books, she published Le #MeToo d’Antoinette, octogénaire (2023) and Un appelé dans la guerre d’Algérie (2016), phototextual testimonies that stem from her research on Annie Ernaux, i.e., the interaction of text and photographs that make Ernaux a “ph-auto-bio-grapher.”

In 2025, Dr. Bacholle co-founded the Annie Ernaux International Studies book series, whose first volume is scheduled for release in 2027. In 2024, she co-edited the issue Crossways Journal, “French and Francophone Film and Series Women Directors.”

She regularly writes reviews for the Creative Works section of The French Review and other journals, and regularly evaluates manuscripts (books and articles) for publishers and journals in the United States, Canada, and Europe (France, Spain, Poland, among others). She presents at international and national conferences.

She was the 2018 recipient of the Distinguished Professor award. In 2019 she became CSU Professor.