Marie-Hélène Chabut is Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Her research focuses on eighteenth-century French literature, especially on Diderot and women novelists. She is the author of Denis Diderot: Extravagance et génialité (1998) as well as numerous essays and articles on female novelists, most notably Isabelle de Charrière. She is presently working on a study of the construction and representation of alternative models of masculinity in works by French women novelists of the Enlightenment.
At Lehigh she teaches courses on French literature and culture, and on women writers. A strong advocate of dialogue and mutual respect between people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, she has participated in the creation and implementation of such Lehigh programs as Global Citizenship and Global Studies. She has worked at making Islamic cultures and Arabic more visible at Lehigh by developing our program in Arabic language and by bringing speakers and a Fulbright scholar from Egypt to campus.