Becoming a Woman Project

On Thursday, October 9, 2025, a special project called Becoming a Woman, envisioned by Dr. Michèle Bacholle, a CSU Professor in French and Women’s Studies at Eastern, will launch.  Becoming a Woman encompasses a series of special events that will be held throughout the months of October and November.

Dr. Bacholle is a world-renowned researcher in French literature, and a specialist of Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux. Regarded as one of France’s most important 20^th century authors, Ernaux’s body of work examines and uncovers the lives, decisions, and experiences of ordinary women.  Inspired by the questions and discourse generated by Ernaux and her founding of the Annie Ernaux International Studies journal, Bacholle has embarked on an ambitious project to bring a conversation about what it means to be or become a woman to Eastern.  The Becoming a Woman project is intended to spur dialogue on campus and within the wider community about the layers of womanhood – what it feels like to be a woman, how are women represented, what challenges do women face, what sense of community or ‘sisterhood’ exists, and more. 

Events included in the Becoming a Woman project include an art exhibition, feature film screenings, the creation and viewing of testimonials by Eastern women followed by a discussion panel, and a theatrical reading of an adaptation of one of Ernaux’s most well-known texts, Happening.  Details for each event are below.

Art exhibition – Becoming a Woman: Reflections Around Annie Ernaux Exhibition at the Art Gallery in the Fine Arts Instructional Center (FAIC) is on view from October 9 until November 28, 2025.  For this special exhibition, Julia Wintner, the Art Gallery Director, brings together contemporary artists whose works resonate with Ernaux’s themes of gender identity, women’s rights, and the expectations society places on women.  An opening reception for the exhibition is scheduled for Thursday, October 9, 2025, from 4 to 6 pm.  Dr. Michèle Bacholle and Dr. Cheryl Wilson, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Eastern, will deliver remarks.  Light refreshments served.

Feature film screenings – On Wednesday, October 15 at 4 pm a screening of Four Daughters will take place in Webb Hall 110.  Four Daughters (2023) is an award-winning documentary film by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania about the lives of a mother and her four daughters, two of whom were radicalized and left to join Daesh (Islamic) fighters.  The film offers a powerful narrative about womanhood and the place and options available to women in a conservative patriarchal society.  Following the film screening, Dr. Nicole Krassas, Professor of Political Science at Eastern, will lead a Q & A discussion.  Four Daughters is an Arabic-language film with English subtitles.

A second film, Girlhood (2014), written and directed by notable French director Céline Sciamma, will be shown on Wednesday, November 5 at 4 pm in Webb Hall 110.  Girlhood is a coming-of-age story centered on a black teenage girl living in a "banlieue” outside of Paris.  Girlhood is an award-winning French-language film with English subtitles.  A discussion, led by Dr. Michèle Bacholle, will immediately follow the film screening.   

Each of the Becoming a Woman film screenings are made possible with a JEDI grant. 

Documentary and panel discussion – Michèle Bacholle was interested in capturing the voices and perspectives of women at Eastern and partnered with Brian Day, Professor of Directing and Film at Eastern, to create a documentary film, Voices of Women at Eastern.  Starting in the Spring of 2025, women across campus shared their thoughts, through self-recorded testimonials, about what it means to be a woman.  Brian Day then wove together those varied and diverse perspectives into one cohesive film called the Voices of Women at Eastern.  This special documentary film will premiere on campus on Thursday, October 23 at 4:45 pm in the Student Center Theater.  A panel discussion will immediately follow the screening.  The distinguished panelists include Dr. Cara Bergstrom-Lynch, Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of Women’s and Gender Studies program; Dr. Fatma Pakdil, Professor of Business Administration; Dr. Theresa Severance, Professor of Sociology and Criminology; Dr. Kemesha A Wilmot, Dean of Students; Shaheera Khan, an Eastern alumna; and Emily Jones, Student Ambassador for the Intercultural Center. 

Visiting artist – On Monday, October 27, in collaboration with Afarin Rahmanifar, Professor of Art and Art History and Julia Winter, Director of the Art Gallery at Eastern, Blanche Şerban, a local artist, visits Eastern for a talk, The Practice of Painting.  Şerban is the creator of The Abortionist’s Studio, a painting commissioned to represent the events that unfold in Annie Ernaux’s Happening, a seminal text of the Nobel Laureate.  Şerban’s illustrated talk begins at 4 pm in the Art Gallery of the FAIC. A question-and-answer session will immediately follow.  This guest lecture is free and open to the public.

Theatrical reading – Annie Ernaux’s Happening (2000) is an intimate narrative of the events and emotions of a French college student seeking an illegal abortion in the early 1960s.  Michèle Bacholle adapted this influential text into a performance reading, and serves as co-director with Zoe Calhoun, a senior at Eastern double majoring in Theatre and Performance Media, and Communication and the director of No Exit (October 30, 7 pm).  Calhoun and Bacholle purposefully decided on minimal stage and set design for this special production so that the words of the protagonist, as read by a carousel of Eastern students, take center stage.  This one-time performance is scheduled for Friday, November 14, 7:00-9:00 pm in the Studio Theatre of the FAIC at Eastern.  The performance is free and open to the public.

In addition to these events, the J. Eugene Smith Library will feature the literary works of Annie Ernaux and other influential, international women writers from October 9 – November 28, 2025.  This literary display is located on second floor of the library.