‘Women professors and foreign languages: opportunity and marginality in interwar France’

In France, the history of women’s access to academic positions remains spotty, in part due to the virtual absence of single-sex institutions of higher learning. With the notable exception of Marie Curie, women only reached the ranks of professor in the inter-war period. In 1931, a law dissertation on ‘women’s intellection evolution’ counted six such women throughout universities in France, while noting a few more women in institutions such as the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes or at the École Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes. Among these pioneering women academics, a disproportionate number studied modern languages within a Faculty of Letters. This contribution examines the trajectories of four of these women, exploring the institutional and cultural factors that contributed to their visibility in their specialties and their marginalisation in historical accounts. In their respective fields, these women—Léonie Villard (English), Lilias Homburger (African linguistics), Geneviève Bianquis (German) and Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (Irish)—used their experiences of travel and interaction with foreign contexts to forge reputations in traditionally male environments. The article asks how the practice of foreign languages in specific disciplinary and institutional contexts opened new opportunities for women while potentially relegating them to the outskirts of more prestigious studies.