Rate My Professor Mary McCullough

Mary E. McCullough is Professor of French and French Program Director in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Samford University, where she has taught since 2001. She earned a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and M.A. and Ph.D. in French literature from Michigan State University. Prior to Samford, McCullough taught at Michigan State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Paris Nanterre University, and Baylor University. She grew up in Marseilles, France, attending French public schools until age 14 before completing high school at Black Forest Academy in Kandern, West Germany. McCullough teaches all levels of French language, Francophone literature and film, and Cultural Perspectives. Her research interests include literature by francophone North African women, French-language literature and film by the Maghrebian diaspora, and French narratives on World War II and its aftermath, particularly domesticity and representations of women. She has published articles on authors such as Maryse Condé, Yamina Benguigui, Azouz Begag, Assia Djebar, and Leila Sebbar, including “On Earthquakes, Orgasms, and Feminine Identity in Maïssa Bey’s Surtout ne te retourne pas” (2016), “No more silencing the past: first-generation immigrant women as bricoleuses de mémoire in Parle mon fils parle à ta mère and Fatima ou les Algériennes au square by Leïla Sebbar” (2003), and “Who’s Mocking Whom? Representing the ‘Beur’ Stereotype in Beni ou le Paradis privé” (2002). McCullough has presented papers at national conferences (SCMLA, SAMLA, MMLA, MIFLC) and international conferences (MLA, CIEF, ACTC, ALA, MESA).

McCullough has received key fellowships and honors, including a Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad award to Egypt in 2005 for a project on women and Islam, a Fulbright Scholar grant to Tunisia in 2007-2008 to research Tunisian film and teach American literature at El Manar University, and a 2014 DAAD/Goethe-Institut stipend to study German in Dresden. She served as professor-in-residence at Samford’s Daniel House in London in 2006 and 2015, teaching courses on immigrant communities and World War II monuments focusing on gender, memory, and space. She chaired Faculty Senate in 2018-2019, and served on the Diversity Committee and Academic Affairs Committee. Recently, she received a grant for research on the representation of women and worship in World War I narratives.