Two Inalco professors appointed members of the Institut Universitaire de France

By order of the Minister of Higher Education and Research dated May 4, 2023, 200 teacher-researchers, including 100 junior members and 100 senior members, have been appointed members of the Institut Universitaire de France with effect from October 1, 2023, for a period of 5 years.

Among them, two Inalco teacher-researchers have been awarded the fundamental chair:

Charlotte Marchina, Senior Lecturer, has been appointed as a Junior Member

Charlotte Marchina is an anthropologist, Senior Lecturer in Mongolian language and civilization. She teaches Mongolian grammar and civilization at Inalco, as well as the anthropology of shamanism and human-animal relations. Since 2008, she has regularly visited nomadic herders in Mongolia and Southern Siberia to study the relationships they forge with the animals they raise (horses, camels, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs) and with their environment. His research has led to the publication of several books: Proverbes et dictons de Mongolie, with Marc Alaux (Editions Géorama, 2018); Nomad's land. Éleveurs, animaux et paysage chez les peuples mongols (Editions Zones sensibles, 2019); and its English translation, published by Amsterdam University Press in 2021. As part of her delegation to the IUF, she will conduct a research project on the perception of climate change among nomadic herders in several regions of Mongolia.

Michael Lucken, University Professor, has been appointed Senior Member

Michael Lucken (b. 1969) has taught at Inalco since 1998, where he was appointed Professor in 2006. A historian and art historian, he specializes in contemporary Japan. Author of a dozen monographs, including Les Japonais et la guerre, 1937-1952 (Fayard, 2013) and Le Japon grec. Culture et possession (Gallimard, 2019), he has received several awards for his work, starting with the Grand Prix des Rendez-Vous de l'Histoire de Blois in 2019. He is currently conducting research on the American occupation of Japan after 1945.


Teacher-researchers appointed to the Institut Universitaire de France are placed in a delegated position.
They continue to carry out their activity in their home institution and are relieved of two-thirds of their teaching duties.


The Institut Universitaire de France is a group of teacher-researchers under the supervision of the Ministry in charge of higher education and research. Created in 1991, its mission is to foster the development of high-level university research and encourage interdisciplinarity, with the following objectives:

• Encouraging institutions and teacher-researchers to achieve excellence in research, with the positive consequences this can be expected to have on teaching, the training of young researchers and, more generally, the dissemination of knowledge.
• Contribute to the feminization of the research sector.
• Contribute to a balanced distribution of university research in the country, and thus to a policy of scientific meshing of the territory.