Mercedes Baillargeon

Mercédès Baillargeon

Associate Professor

Pronouns
She / her; elle / elle
College
Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
World Languages and Cultures Department
Phone
978-934-4035
Office
O'Leary Library, Room 525
Email
Mercedes_Baillargeon@uml.edu

Expertise

20th and 21st century French literature; Québec studies; Gender and sexuality

Research Interests

20th and 21st century French and Francophone studies; First-person narrative and autofiction; Women's literature; Gender and sexuality studies; Critical and literary theory; Post/decolonial studies; Cinema and media studies; Reception studies; Québec studies.

Education

  • Ph.D. Romance Languages and Literature (2014), University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
  • M.A. Études littéraires (2009), concentration en études féministes, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • B.A. Études littéraires (2007), concentration en études féministes, Université du Québec à Montréal

Biosketch

Mercédès Baillargeon’s, Ph.D., research focuses on two main areas; she is interested in contemporary women's writing, feminism, gender and sexuality studies, and the intersection of public and private. She is also interested in Québec cinema, especially its relationship to national and personal identity. She teaches courses related to gender and sexuality, nationalism, identity, and ethnicity, Francophone North America and Québec literature, politics and film, youth and counterculture as well as all-level of French language.

She is the author of “Le Personnel est politique: médias, esthétique et politique de l'autofiction chez Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume et Nelly Arcan” (Purdue UP, 2019). She is co-editor (with Karine Bertrand, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada) of a special issue of the journal "Contemporary French Civilization" on the topic of the transnationalism of Québec cinema and (new) media (2019) as well as a special issue of the journal "Nouvelles Vues: revue sur les pratiques, les théories et et l'histoire du cinéma au Québec” on intercultural encounters in Québec cinema (2022). She is also co-editor of a collection of essays on third-wave feminism in Québec entitled “Remous, ressacs et dérivations autour de la troisième vague féministe” (Éditions du Remue-ménage, 2011). Her work has appeared in the journals “Québec Studies,” “Women in French,” “Rocky Mountain Review,” and “Nouvelles Vues: Revue sur les pratiques, les théories et l’histoire du cinéma au Québec,” among others, as well as in several edited books.

She has co-organized several conferences, including “Everyday Heroes and Heroines: Micro and Macro-Resistances in Post-2001 Feature Films,” with Florian Grandena (U of Ottawa) and Karine Bertrand (Queen’s U) in 2022, the virtual conference “Representation and Reception of French and Francophone Women Writers in the Media (19th-21st c.),” with Maria Beliaeva Solomon (UMD) and Elsa Courant (CNRS) in 2021, and “Feminisme(s) en mouvement / Feminism(s) in motion,” with Les Déferlantes in 2008. In fall 2023, she organized a day-long film studies symposium on the topic “Trauma, Cinema, Memory, Affect,” at UMass Lowell. She also organized the virtual speaker series, “The Future of French and Francophone Studies,” during AY 2020-2021.

She is also leading the initiative to establish the Greater Lowell Franco-American Digital Archives, in collaboration with the Center for Lowell History. This project’s objective is to collect, preserve, and make accessible a diverse array of documents, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, oral histories, and other resources that illuminate the rich history and cultural contributions of Franco-Americans in this region. Additionally, she has been involved with the Franco-American community of Lowell to help create visibility and awareness around Lowell’s rich Franco-American history and culture, and has been engaged in creating closer ties between students and the Francophone community in the area. Learn more about the Franco-American collections at the Center for Lowell History.

She is currently the faculty mentor for the Emerging Scholars program from the American Association for Québec Studies (ACQS), and is an active member of the research group EPIC (Esthétique et politique de l’image cinématographique). She also serves on the editorial board for the journals “Québec Studie”s and “Voix et images.”

Baillargeon has been awarded a visiting fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Université de Strasbourg for 2025, where she will be affiliated with the Centre d’études sur les représentations: Idées, esthétique, littérature (CERIEL), where she will work on her new book project, “Women’s Writing and Self-Disclosure in France and the United States, 1995-2015.”

Baillargeon also serves as co-director of the Lowell Film Festival for Future Filmmakers, alongside Dan Frank from Endicott College. This student film festival showcases short films from students worldwide. The inaugural edition, held in April 2024 at the Richard and Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center in downtown Lowell, featured 27 films from five countries and attracted 150 attendees over two days. For more information, please visit the Lowell Film Festival website.

A native of Montréal, Canada, Baillargeon came to the United States to complete her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining UMass Lowell, she was associate professor in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland from 2014 to 2022.

She joined the Department of World Languages and Cultures in September 2022.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Recipient of the 2024 Department Teaching Excellence Award, Department of World Languages and Cultures, UMass Lowell, Lowell, MA.
  • Jonathan Auerbach Cinema and Media Studies Research Award (2021-22) School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Spring 2021 (one course release in Spring 2022).
  • Research & Scholarship Award (2015-2016), Graduate School, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, (on research leave spring 2017)
  • Start-up Research Fund from Frank W. Klingberg Fund for the Enhancement of the College of Arts and Sciences (2009-2011), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Selected Publications

  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2024) “Impossible Queerness in Three Transnational Films by Xavier Dolan,” Quebec Cinema in the 21st Century, eds. Michael Gott and Thibaut Schilt, Liverpool University Press, pp. 229-48.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2023) “Accepter le doute : écrire dans le contexte universitaire néolibéral,” Échecs et vomissements. Réflexions sur l’insuccès comme mode de vie et philosophie, eds. Florian Grandena and Eric Mathieu, Éditions Somme Toute, pp. 79-87.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2023) “Deuil, communauté et connexion dans le cinéma de Denis Côté,” Antihumanisme(s). Formes, réflexions et représentations, ed. Carlos Tello, Hermann, pp. 61-76.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2022) “De La Haine au désœuvrement : contre-culture, résistance et politique du refus dans La Ferme des humains d’Onur Karaman (2013),” Nouvelles Vues: Revue sur les pratiques, les théories et l’histoire du cinéma au Québec, no. 22, 2022. Available online from Nouovelle Vues.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2022). “Putting Us Back in Our Place: #Metoo, Women and the Literary/Cultural Establishment,” Taking Up Space: Woman at Work in Contemporary France, eds. Siham Bouamer and Sonja Stojanovic, University of Wales Press, pp. 355-83.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2019). “Joy, Melancholy, and The Promise of Happiness in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (2014),” ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan, ed. Andrée Lafontaine, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 177-190.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2019). Le personnel est politique. Médias, esthétique et politique de l’autofiction chez Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume et Nelly Arcan. Purdue University Press, 206 pages. 
  • Mercédès Baillargeon et Karine Bertrand (co-eds). (2019). “The Transnationalism of Québec Cinema and (New) Media,” Special issue of the journal Contemporary French Civilization, vol. 44, nos. 2-3.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2018). “Zones de tension : (Dé)construction et subversion des genres dans Les Chiennes savantes de Virginie Despentes,” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, vol. 72, no.1, pp. 59-76.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2017). “Médias, hypersexualisation et mise en scène de soi: le pari dangereux de Nelly Arcan,” Québec Studies, no. 63, pp. 9-18.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2015). “Victime ou martyre? Scandale, paranoïa et tragédie dans L’Inceste et Quitter la ville de Christine Angot,” Women In French Studies, no. 23, pp. 85-103.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2014). “Romantic Disillusionment, (Dis)Identification and the Sublimation of National Identity in Québec’s ‘New Wave’: Heartbeats by Xavier Dolan and Night #1 by Anne Émond,” Québec Studies, no. 56, pp. 171-191.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2012). “Postféminisme/posthumanisme chez Nelly Arcan. La remise en question de l’origine et la mise en scène du cyborg dans À Ciel ouvert,” Loin des yeux près du corps, ed. Thérèse St-Gelais, Remue-ménage and Galerie de l’UQAM, pp. 81-6.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon (ed.). (2011). Remous, ressacs et dérivations autour de la troisième vague féministe, with Les Déferlantes, Remue-ménage, 228 pages.
  • Mercédès Baillargeon. (2007). “Entre le péril et l'affirmation de soi: un jeu dangereux. L'abject dans Baise-moi de Virginie Despentes,” Postures, no. 9, pp. 37-47.

Selected Presentations

  • “Going global and globalization in the Québec New Wave,” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) 25rd Biennial Conference, Washington DC, 8-12 Nov. 2023.
  • “Antihéros et antisocialité dans le cinéma fictionnel de Denis Côté,” Everyday Heroes and Heroines: Micro and Macro-Resistances in Post-2001 Feature Films,” Department of Film and Media, Queen’s University (Kingston, ON), 22-23 Oct. 2022.
  • “De La Haine au désoeuvrement : contre-culture, résistance et politique du refus dans La Ferme des humains d’Onur Karaman (2013),” Congrès du Conseil international d’études francophones (CIÉF), Trento, Italy, 20-26 June 2022.
  • “Deuil, communauté et connexion dans le cinéma de Denis Côté,” Antihumanisme(s). Formes, réflexions et représentations (littérature et cinéma), Université de Paris, 25-26 Nov. 2021
  • “The Personal is Political: Autofiction And/As Engagement,” Autofiction: Theory, Practices, Cultures – A Comparative Perspective, Wolfson College, Oxford, UK, 19-20 Oct. 2019.
  • “The Transnationalism of Québec Cinema and (New) Media: Collective Writing and Contemporary Problems,” Contemporary French Civilization(s) Conference, Tucson, AZ, 29-31 Aug. 2019.
  • “Joy, Melancholy, and Queerness in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (2014),” American Council for Québec Studies (ACQS) 21st Biennial Conference, New Orleans, LA, 1-4 Nov. 2018.
  • “Cinéma indé et esthétique de l’ennui dans le renouveau du cinéma québécois,” Canadian Re-Generation(s), Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland (ACSI), Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Ireland, 26-28 Apr. 2018.
  • “L’autofiction expérimentale de Chloé Delaume: l’affect comme engagement,” Le Sens et les sens/Sense and the Senses, International Colloquium for 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 6-8 Apr. 2017.
  • “Missed Connections: Intimacy, Identity, and (Post)Nationalism in the Québec New Wave,” American Council for Québec Studies (ACQS) 20th Biennial Conference, Portland, ME, 3-6 Nov. 2016.
  • “Possible parjure? Vérité, mensonge et fiction dans l’œuvre de Chloé Delaume,” Overstepping the Boundaries/ Transgresser les limites: 21st-Century Women’s Writing in French, Contemporary Women’s Writing in French (CWWF) Conference, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, 28-29 Oct. 2016.
  • “Mourning, Community, and Connection in Denis Côté’s Cinema,” Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) 23rd Biennial Conference, Las Vegas, NV, 14-17 Oct. 2015.
  • “Love, Disability, and Identity in Contemporary Québécois Cinema: The Case of Gabrielle by Louise Archambault and Romeo Eleven by Ivan Grbovic,” 40 Years of Contemporary French Civilization, Baltimore, MD, 3-5 Sept. 2015.
  • “Le Québec est-il toujours déjà queer? (Post)Nationalisme dans le Québec contemporain,” American Council for Québec Studies (ACQS) 19th Biennial Conference, Queer Québec Colloquium, Montréal, 16-18 Oct. 2014.
  • “New Radicals: Postfeminism, Queer, and French Women Writers of the 2000s,” MLA Annual Conference, Panel: French and Francophone Feminism(s) 2014”, Chicago, IL, 9-12 Jan. 2014.
  • “La politique du tragique ou la nouvelle figure de l’écrivain,” The Art and Politics of Irony, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, McGill University, Montréal, Canada, 12-14 Apr. 2012.
  • “Postféminisme/Posthumanisme chez Nelly Arcan: le spectre de la monstruosité ou nouvelles identités cyborgiennes?” Femmes: théorie et création dans la francophonie, Institut de recherches et d’études féministes, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, 30 Sept.-3 Oct. 2010.

Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research

  • Lowell Cultural Council Grant (2024), for the Lowell Film Festival for Future Filmmakers, UMass Lowell, Lowell, MA.
  • Québec/United States University Grant (2022), Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie, Gouvernement du Québec.
  • ARHU Advancement Grant (2021), College of Arts and Humanities, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
  • Visiting Research Fellowship (2021), Centre for French-Canadian and Québec Studies, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, UK, (cancelled because of Covid). 
  • Québec/United States University Grant (2016), Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie, Gouvernement du Québec.
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship (2009-2013), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
  • Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s Scholarship (2008-2009), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
  • Bourse d’excellence Anita Caron en études féministes, Institut de recherches et d’études féministes (2006-2008), Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.

Research Currently in Progress

  • Missed Connections: (Post/Trans)Nationalism, Intimacy, and Identity in Contemporary Québec Cinema - book manuscript in preparation
  • Greater Lowell Franco-American Digital Archives, in collaboration with the Center for Lowell History and the Franco-American Digital Archives / Portail Franco-Américain