Michelle's DPhil project explores the representation of China in French literature from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, especially as it involves gender, identity, and power play. China is thought of as both a declining (but potentially rival) empire and a museum of beauty, cruelty, and exotic practices which occupied a unique place in the imagination of French literature in this period. To understand modes of control, transgression, and intercultural crossing in the French literary approach to China, gender and empire offer a vantage point to identify areas ranging from hackneyed Orientalism to intertextual dialogue and aesthetic experimentation. Key authors include Judith Gautier, Octave Mirbeau, Pierre Loti, Paul Claudel, Victor Segalen, George Soulié de Morant, and Chen Jitong.
Prior to her DPhil at Wadham College, she completed a two-year Master’s degree in Littératures : théorie, histoire at the École normale supérieure in Paris, an MSt in Modern Languages at Linacre College, Oxford, and a BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University.
Alongside academic work, she is a translator. Her translation of Madame Bovary into Traditional Chinese is forthcoming in 2026/2027.
She will take up an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, in August 2026.
Publication
'Between the Picturesque and the Political: Judith Gautier and Pierre Loti’s Play La Fille du Ciel', Dix-Neuf (17 December 2023), DOI: 10.1080/14787318.2023.2291594
Teaching
French Sole Seminar (Literary Theory), 2022-2024
Conference presentations
'Empires Redux: Forecasting the "Next Great War" through the Yellow Peril', DomiNation, 23rd Annual Conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes, Durham, 31 March-2 April
'Entre le pittoresque et le politique: La Fille du Ciel par Judith Gautier et Pierre Loti', Écrire l'autre: en Chine et en France (colloque), École normale supérieure (Ulm), 2-3 June 2023
'Between the Picturesque and the Political: Pierre Loti's Play La Fille du Ciel', Magic: Enchantment and Disenchantment, 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes, University of Oxford, 27-29 March 2023
'L’androgyne chinois: Bijou-de-ceinture ou le jeune homme qui porte robe, se poudre et se farde par George Soulié de Morant', Genre et Chine (journées d'étude), Université libre de Bruxelles / Musée royal de Mariemont, 10-11 June 2022
'Homosocial Relations in Victor Segalen's René Leys', Relation(s): Annual Graduate Conference (online), Princeton University Department of French and Italian, 29 April 2022
'Romancing the Chinese Empire: Gender in Victor Segalen and George Soulié de Morant', French Graduate Seminar, University of Oxford, 15 February 2022
Outreach
'French Melodrama and Chinese Politics', The French History Podcast (August 2023).
Translation Workshop (French), UNIQ Summer School, University of Oxford (July 2023)
French Sixth Form Masterclass video on Kiffe kiffe demain by Faïza Guène
Translations
?????????:?????(??:??, 2023)by Émilie Aubry and Frank Tétart, Le Dessous des cartes: Le retour de la guerre (Paris: Tallandier, 2022).
??????:????????,???????????(??:????, 2022)by Anne Vincent-Buffault, Histoire des larmes, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles (Paris: Payot, 1986).
?????????:????????????????(??:????,2020) by Arnaud Nanteuil et al., Manuel complet de l’artiste débutant : Dessin, pastel, aquarelle, acrylique, huile (Paris: MANGO, 2015).
?????????:??????????,???????????????????????????(??:????,2020) by Harriet Shawcross, Unspeakable: The Things We Cannot Say (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2019).
??????:?????????????(??:????,2018) by Delphine Minoui, Les Passeurs de livres de Daraya: une bibliothèque secrète en Syrie (Paris: Seuil, 2017).
?????:????,????????????(??:????,2018) by Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London (London: Chatto & Windus, 2016).