Michael L. Berkvam
Professor Emeritus of French
Honors College Faculty
West European Studies Faculty
Email: berkvam @indiana.edu
Research areas:
Post-1945 French literature, women’s writing, francophone literature, Postcolonial literature, literature and memory, World War II
Education:
- PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1973
- MA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1967
- BA, Saint Olaf College, 1964
Background:
After initially focusing my research on 18th century French literature and culture, I became increasingly involved in the study of France during and after World War II over the past two decades. I am particularly interested in cinematic and literary descriptions of France’s experience in the war. My teaching has been in the areas of women’s writings, French cinema, and French language literature produced outside of France.
Since my retirement in 2006, I have continued to teach, namely in the Hutton Honors College, where I have long been an affiliated faculty member, and in the Intensive Freshman Seminar program. I also continue to pursue studies on fiction writings in France about World Ward II, and I serve on the Hutton Honors College grant committees.
Selected awards:
- Indiana University Distinguished Teaching Award.
- Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, Indiana University Board of Trustees
- Distinguished Service Award, Campus Life Division, Indiana University
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
- Lilly Endowment Teaching Fellowship
Publication highlights:
Writing the Story of France in World War II: Literature and Memory, 1942-1958. University Press of the South, 2000.
Promoting the Colonization of Louisiana: Three Articles in Le Nouveau Mercure (1717-1718-1719 [working title]. The Center for Louisiana Studies. University of Louisiana-Lafayette (in press).
“France in World War II: Literature and Memory,” in Proceedings of the Western Society for French History (forthcoming).
