New Books Network
French Studies
British Studies November 9, 2020

The Bloody Flag

Mutiny in the Age of Atlantic Revolution

Niklas Frykman

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The 1790s were a decade of turmoil and strife across the West. With the French Revolution, a new era of wars began that invoked the language of equal rights. In …

Subscribe to

French Studies

on the NBN

RSS Spotify Stitcher Apple
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel November 9, 2020

The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought

A Longing for the Abyss

Betty Rojtman

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought: A Longing for the Abyss (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) analyses a cultural phenomenon that goes to the very roots of Western civilization: the …
French Studies October 27, 2020

Mobilizing Memory

The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939

Dónal Hassett

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Dónal Hassett’s Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939 (Oxford UP, 2019) is at once a history of colonialism and of the “Great …
Literary Studies October 26, 2020

Sex, Love, and Letters

Writing Simone de Beauvoir

Judith G. Coffin

Hosted by Julia Gossard
When Judith G. Coffin discovered a virtually unexplored treasure trove of letters to Simone de Beauvoir from Beauvoir's international readers, it inspired Coffin to explore the intimate bond between the …
European Studies October 13, 2020

Sex in an Old Regime City

Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789

Julie Hardwick

Hosted by Jennifer J. Davis
Young women and men sought out each other’s company in the workshops, cabarets, and streets of Old Regime Lyon, and evidence of these relationships lingers in documents and material objects …
Film September 16, 2020

Roland Barthes and Film

Myth, Eroticism and Poetics

Patrick Ffrench

Hosted by Bill Schaffer
Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics (Bloomsbury) is a book by Patrick Ffrench, Professor of French at Kings College. It is a comprehensively researched and finely argued book …
African Studies September 11, 2020

Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire

France in the Americas and Africa c. 1750-1802

Pernille Røge

Hosted by Grant Kleiser
In her new book, Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire: France in the Americas and Africa, c. 1750-1802 (Cambridge UP, 2020), Dr. Pernille Røge charts the confluence and reciprocal impacts …
European Studies September 4, 2020

Before Trans

Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France

Rachel Mesch

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
In Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press), Rachel Mesch reads the biographies and work of three writers who did not conform to the gender norms …
American Studies August 28, 2020

On the Spirit of Rights

Dan Edelstein

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
By the end of the eighteenth century, politicians in America and France were invoking the natural rights of man to wrest sovereignty away from kings and lay down universal basic …
Folklore August 25, 2020

Body and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century France

Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914

William G. Pooley

Hosted by Rachel Hopkin
The moorlands of Gascony are often considered one of the most dramatic examples of top-down rural modernization in nineteenth-century Europe. From an area of open moors, they were transformed in …
Caribbean Studies August 13, 2020

Reimagining Liberation

How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire

Annette Joseph-Gabriel

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
‘Where were the women?’ was the big question that led Annette Joseph-Gabriel to her new book, Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (University of Illinois …
European Studies August 11, 2020

Napoleon and de Gaulle

Heroes and History

Patrice Gueniffey

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
One of France’s most famous historians compares and contrasts the two most famous French exemplars of political and military leadership of the past two-hundred and fifty years to make the …
Caribbean Studies August 4, 2020

There is No More Haiti

Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince

Greg Beckett

Hosted by Lachlan Summers
In today’s episode, I talk with Dr. Greg Beckett, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Western University, about his richly grounded book There is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death …
Art July 31, 2020

Savage Tales

The Writings of Paul Gauguin

Linda Goddard

Hosted by Allison Leigh
In Savage Tales: The Writings of Paul Gauguin (Yale University Press, 2019), Linda Goddard investigates the role that Paul Gauguin’s writings played in his artistic practice and in his negotiation …
African American Studies July 29, 2020

Voices of the Enslaved

Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana

Sophie White

Hosted by Jerrad Pacatte
In her prize-winning study Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Colonial Louisiana (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina …
French Studies July 23, 2020

Archipelago of Justice

Law in France’s Early Modern Empire

Laurie M. Wood

Hosted by Julia M. Gossard
Historians have long treated the Atlantic and Indian Ocean routes of early modern French empire separately. But, early modern people understood France as a bi-oceanic empire, connected by vast but …
European Studies June 25, 2020

The Fall of France in the Second World War

History and Memory

Richard Carswell

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
This fascinating book by Richard Carswell looks at how the fall of France in the Second World War has been recorded by historians and remembered within French society. The Fall …
European Studies May 26, 2020

The Virtues of Violence

Democracy Against Disintegration in Modern France

Kevin Duong

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Kevin Duong, a political theorist in the Politics Department at the University of Virginia, has written a fascinating analysis of the way that violence has been used, in a sense …
French Studies May 18, 2020

The Cartographic Capital

Mapping Third Republic Paris

Kory E. Olson

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
When is the last time you looked at/consulted a paper map? Perhaps you have one hanging on a wall at home or work, framed or not. Or maybe you have …
French Studies May 11, 2020

Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism

The Outcome of Contemporary French Philosophy

Adrian Johnston

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
In the contemporary philosophical landscape, a variety of materialist ontologies have appeared, all wrestling with various political and philosophical questions in light of a post-God ontology. Entering into this discussion …